The
beggar sits, as he does every morning, a colorless rag of a sentinel leaning
against the smooth black marble wall. Joe does his best to avoid him most days,
ducking into a crowd before pushing through the gold-framed revolving doors to
the bank where he works. He hates to be callous, but doesn’t want to feed the
old man’s addictions – he always smells like a landfill doused with booze. His eyes
are like slits filled with liquid steel, his gaze as powerful as a laser
probing Joe’s conscience.
Joe
is in too good a mood this May morning. Even the air smells sweet today –
spring had begun several weeks ago, sullen and glum, but this morning’s warm,
bright sun caused an eruption of blooms and birdsong. He’s due to meet with Mr.
Brown in fifteen minutes, and Joe expects a promotion and a raise. His wife had
been unusually affectionate this morning, everything seems to be falling into
place in perfect synchronicity and harmony. No, Joe doesn’t want anyone to
spoil it.
He
walks behind three teens with spiked, multicolored hair, heavy chains on their
black leather coats and baggy jeans. The beggar holds up a dirty paper coffee
cup as they pass. The boy nearest the old man deftly lifts a heel as he passes
to knock the cup from his leathery hand. The three laugh and keep walking. The
old man’s hand is still raised, as if the cup and its contents aren’t strewn
across the sidewalk.
Joe
stops. Scattered people sidestep the coins, the cup skittering between their
shoes. He glances at his watch – Mr. Brown will be more conscious today of
Joe’s clock-in time. He exhales forcefully, his fingers readjust on the handle
of his briefcase. A tattered dollar flops like a fish away from the beggar, who
stares somewhere beyond, his eyes unmoving. Joe quickly sets his briefcase on
the dollar, retrieves the cup and picks up coins from the concrete. He tosses
them inside the cup. He reaches into his pocket, frowns at the fifty – his only
bill. Stooping before the beggar, he places the cup back in his
still-outstretched hand. With a rotten-roothed smile, the old man nods to Joe,
mumbling unintelligibly.
“Hey
– do me a favor.” Joe inserts the fifty dollar bill into the cup. “Go get
yourself cleaned up and get something to eat. Okay?”
The
old man turns his eyes to Joe. “Fortune will smile upon you.”
“Not
if I don’t get inside.” Joe gathers his briefcase, lets the revolving doors
whoosh him inside, before the inexplicable bubble of happiness welling within
him can lift him above the trees, into the sun-drenched sky.
***
After
dinner, Joe rubs his full belly as he sits on his sofa, thinking what a good
day it’s been. He nods off. His head snaps upright when the television plays the
theme for the lottery, and the announcer instructs the young blond to begin.
She moves to the first clear plastic bubble, where numbered balls spin and
churn within it.
He
pulls the stub from his pocket with a chuckle – the odds of winning are mathematically
astounding, the pot had climbed to three hundred eighty million as lottery
fever struck and millions more were lured to the ticket counter as the jackpot
grew.
“Did
you remember to buy a ticket?” June calls from the kitchen, and he waves the
white stub at her.
Her
face falls. “Just one?”
“It
only takes one,” he says, repeating what he’d said to the greedy ticket seller,
who apparently had grown used to others buying five or ten in hopes of
increasing their chances of winning the biggest jackpot in the history of the
lottery. Statistically impossible, either way, in Joe’s view – there was no way
to better your luck, and no way to win this one.
The
blond smiles as the first numbered ball pops to the top, and the announcer
reads the number – it matches his fourth on the stub. I’ll at least get another ticket out of this one.
The
second number is the same as his fifth. Whoa,
I think this’ll be good for a few hundred. I can fix a few of the dents in the
old bomb.
The
third number is a match for his third. Hey!
Maybe we can take that vacation we’ve been putting off. He smiles at his
wife.
The
fourth number matches his second. His jaw drops. He’s not sure what that means,
he’ll have to look it up on the Internet but he’s pretty sure it might be a
sizeable chunk of dough.
The
woman smiles, her lush strawberry lips glistening as the final number pops up
in what seems like slow motion: Forty-seven.
His age. The first number on his stub.
“I
don’t hear any whooping or hollering in there. Guess we’re not millionaires –
again,” June says with a laugh.
He
turns to her, his mouth agape. He holds the stub toward her.
She
tilts her head in question, her eyes flying from the ticket to the television
to his eyes. Something rumbles out of his belly, erupting from his mouth in a
loud HA! She’s beside him now, and
realizes what’s going on, and they’re both laughing like hyenas. Unused to the
after-dinner hysteria, the kids give them the usual what’s your problem look. Jimmy’s the first to see both Joe’s white
thumbs gripping the lottery stub, and actually show some emotion, more than
when Joe told him it was okay for him to get a tattoo when he turned fifteen,
so long as his grades were good. Sarcasm abandoned, Jimmy exclaims, “No way!”
June
and Joe nod without interruption to their hysterical laughter. Janey looks as
if she might dial 911 soon if someone doesn’t explain it all, and fast. Jimmy
does.
“We
won! We won the lottery!” He lets out a whoop loud enough to startle old Mrs.
Smith next door, and the kids clasp forearms, jumping and screaming.
The
group hugging ends, the laughter has died down to chuckles and hoots, and June
complains her stomach hurts from laughing so hard.
“I
still can’t believe it,” she says, then runs for the phone. “I have to call
Cheryl!”
Janey
and Jimmy sprint toward the computer, Janey slides into the chair just before
Jimmy. “Hey! I have to IM my friends!” he yells, pushing her.
“So
do I!” she yells back. “I got here first.” She takes out her cell phone and
dials, then continues clicking and typing.
“Hurry
up!” Jimmy says.
Joe’s
glad his family’s acting normal. As normal as they ever have.
June
is wiping tears from her eyes, pacing, halting long enough to exclaim, “I can’t
believe it! Well, of course when I asked Joe if he’d bought tickets and he said
he’d only gotten one – you know how he is – ‘it only takes one,’ he said –
well, I could have killed him! But I saw his face after they announced the
numbers, and went wild! We all went wild! The kids are so excited, and I just
can’t even think straight. Can you imagine? Three hundred eighty million
reasons not to go to work tomorrow.” A burst of hiccuping laughs escaped her.
Joe
whirls to look at her. He hadn’t thought about work. There is a lot to think
about, suddenly, a lot to decide.
“Honey,”
he says nervously, but she chatters on.
“HONEY!”
His forceful tone catches her attention.
“Listen,”
she tells her friend, “I’ll call you later, all right? Bye.”
She
turns to him. “What is it, Joe?”
Janey
and Jimmy are still bickering. It seems cartoonish. Everything seems just a
little too surreal.
“Listen
up!” His voice strained, his family turns to him, annoyed at the interruption.
“We all need to calm down.”
They
turn away, and chatter erupts again. June dials the phone, the kids resume
arguing.
“June
– before you call anyone else, don’t you think we should at least call the
lottery officials and verify the number?”
Her
dialing finger freezes. “Verify it? Didn’t you check it already?”
“Just
the one time. We need to be sure. It would be pretty embarrassing if these
really aren’t the winning numbers.”
June’s
mouth drops open, her eyes wide. She turns to the kids. Janey’s rolling her
eyes, Jimmy’s shaking his head. “I knew it was too good to be true,” he says.
June
looks at Joe, speaks to him as if he were a naughty child. “Yes, you’d better
call. I can’t believe you didn’t double-check, Joe. That’s not like you.”
He
lifts the receiver. “Well, I hardly had a chance, June. Everyone went so crazy
so fast.”
“I’ve
already called three people,” she says. “I HOPE I don’t have to call and tell
them it’s a mistake.” Her arms are crossed, her face looks hurt, angry,
ashamed. “God, just think of how many people each of THEM has already called.”
If
he’s blown this, he’ll have to hear about it forever. June can stretch an
everyday argument out for weeks; if he’s mistaken about this, the freeze out
could last well into next year.
Joe
holds up a finger asking her to wait, then dials the number printed on the back
of the ticket. Part of him hopes he is wrong – all that money! He’d just
settled in to the prospect of being empty-nesters in a few years. Janey would
be leaving for college in the fall, Jimmy would follow the year after next. He
and June could spend time together like they used to. They could reacquaint
themselves with abandoned hobbies. He’d been looking forward to life slowing
down.
The
recorded voice is a woman whose very businesslike tone repeats the night’s
winning numbers. Joe winces and hangs up.
June
looks sick to her stomach. “Well?”
He
looks at her – his wife of twenty-one years. She tried hard to stay in shape,
keep up with the fashion trends; she tried hard to transcend being average, but
succeeded only in making herself moreso. Janey and Jimmy could have been
anyone’s kids – baggy pants, spiked hairdos, piercings in places Joe couldn’t
fathom and hated to think about. The three of them wait, lean toward him
slightly, their expectancy all-consuming. He wishes he could stretch his arms
around them, hold them in this moment. It’s the first real conversation they’ve
had as a family in weeks.
“That’s
it. We got it.” He doesn’t care that his voice conveys defeat rather than
victory.
June’s
eyes widen and sparkle, as if in anticipation of diamonds. “It’s ours? We won?”
Joe jerks his eyes wide open and attempts a smile. “Big
time,” he says in a hush, to contrast the squeals he knows will follow. He is
the eye of the storm, the calm in the center of the swirling hurricane of
phones and emails, the arguing and joyful whooping. He’s never felt so
invisible.
From working
twenty-four years at the bank, Joe knows money is a strange beast and has to be
handled properly. Like a wild animal, it feeds on its surroundings if given
proper care from the start. If too much is taken from it, it starves, dwindling
fast. If fed regularly, it will grow, bringing prosperity to its keepers. But
its appetite is never satisfied, and Joe knows a few colleagues who’ve been
consumed by money, who became slaves to it, rather than taming it. Like an
addiction, they needed more and more and more.
At the
beginning of their marriage, Joe and June had set a careful budget. His
position at the bank was lower management, and she was executive assistant to a
middle manager at a local manufacturing company. Money had always been tight,
had to be kept on a short leash to fulfill their goals of moving from their
first small apartment to a home, to saving for college for their kids. Now they
were riding a tidal wave of money, a tsunami, and leaving those worries far
behind.
***
The six
fifteen alarm crackled. Someone must have accidentally hit the radio knob,
knocking it off his station’s setting.
June’s
hand nudges at his back. “Old habits die hard, huh? Turn that off and go back
to sleep.”
Joe lifts
his head from beneath the pillow, his hand instinctively reaches for the alarm.
The morning had dawned dark. Clouds randomly spit large drops.
He sits up
to drain the sleepiness from his head.
June
groans. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going
to work. I can’t just quit, no notice.” He stares out the window, wishing he
could shed the feeling of foreboding that’s nested in his chest.
“Why not?
I did.” She stretches luxuriously.
Joe wants
to tell her he’d be too anxious staying home, his day unstructured, with
nothing to do but think. “I gotta go in.” He moves quietly through the room,
readying himself.
The sky
seems to have cracked open like an egg with an endless watery yoke. Joe’s
umbrella breaks on the way into the bank. A small crowd waits inside – the
local newspaper reporter and a photographer, and an extra security person is on
duty. Word must have gotten around about their luck.
This isn’t so bad, he
thinks. I can handle this.
Mr. Brown
walks over and shakes his hand. The photographer’s camera flashes.
“Joe! I
didn’t expect to see you here today.” His smile is wide and forced.
He glances
at the staring faces of onlookers. “Sure, Mr. Brown – you know I wouldn’t just
quit on the spot.”
Mr.
Brown’s smile is frozen, even as he moves away. The small crowd tightens around
Joe. A few customers say congratulations, the reporter wants to do an
interview. The photographer jockeys for
a good angle from which to shoot and bumps into old Mrs. Hardanger; she
responds with an indignant ooh! Mr. Brown scowls. The crowd grows person by
person as others come in to congratulate Joe.
A few
customers grumble about not being able to get to the counter. After about a
half hour, Mr. Brown motions Joe to his office.
“Joe,” he
says, closing the door and motioning him to sit, “I appreciate your coming in
today. But I think it best if you leave.”
He grips
the leather arms of the chair. He’s always admired these chairs but could never
afford anything like it. Until now. “Leave? But I can’t just…”
His tone
is placating, but his patience is evidently thinning. “You’re obviously not
going to get any work done. Your presence is a disruption.”
“Oh, I
see. Yes, you’re probably right. Sorry, I hadn’t considered that. I guess I
didn’t expect word to spread so quickly.”
Mr.
Brown’s smile tightens, his posture tenses, like a dog readying to bark.
Joe
stands. “Well. I do have some errands to run. Shall I… come back later?”
Mr. Brown
stands and opens the door. Joe knows his tactic of getting rid of unwanted
customers – usher them out the door with a friendly demeanor. “Not necessary,
Joe. We’ll take care of things.”
A laugh
erupts from Joe’s mouth. A few heads in the lobby turn toward the open doorway.
Mr. Brown
frowns.
“Sorry. It
just occurred to me that you’re firing me. But it doesn’t really matter now,
does it?” Cameras flash again as he pats the sleeve of Mr. Brown’s designer
suit, then goes to clear out his desk.
He calls
June to tell her he’s on his way home.
“Let’s go
make it official,” he tells her, but takes his time saying his goodbyes. He
won’t be coming back; it’s a little disorienting. His life is already shifting
in unimaginable ways.
As he
rushes through his front door, June is finishing her coffee at the dining room
table, still in her bathrobe. Joe doesn’t hurry her; he knows yesterday was a
lot to digest at once. He’s still a little shaken, too. There’s no going back
now – only forward.
She takes
a shower, then stares into her closet. “I hate these clothes. I can’t wait to
get rid of them.”
“Get rid
of them?” He sits on the bed.
She holds
out a hangered shirt and lets it fall to the carpet. “Of course. I need a new
wardrobe to fit our new lifestyle.”
“Our new
lifestyle?” Joe’s accountant brain sees dollar signs multiplying.
She rolls
her eyes. “’Course, silly. Everything’s going to be different now.”
A tiny
voice screeches at him from the far reaches of his brain. “Let’s get going,
honey. Before someone else claims it.” He doesn’t know why he said that. All of
a sudden, the thought of sharing that ridiculous amount of money is unsavory.
June wheels toward him, looks at Joe as if he were Freddy Kruger.
Her voice
chokes with fear. “They couldn’t, could they?”
Joe laughs
anxiously. “I was just kidding. Let’s get going though.”
***
Joe can’t
remember what day it is. The days flow one into the next, indistinguishable
from the last.
“You’ll
never guess who called.” June is slicing
meatloaf, made as a special concession to Joe, who is tired of pizza, Chinese,
Mexican, Thai takeout, restaurant food.
“Who?” Joe
relaxes when June says it was an old college friend. He tunes her out as he
savors the chunky meat – he knows he’ll have to go to the diner for his next
serving of a home-cooked meal. Anyway, he’s tired of the new parade of aunts,
uncles, cousins, third cousins Joe hadn’t seen since fourth grade, who called
in the past few weeks to say hello. Some feigned surprise – no, we had no idea! – but most followed
their congratulations and small talk with an invitation to visit. Joe and June
had never been so popular. They quickly learned to make excuses for such
invitations, after accepting only three.
Joe’s Aunt
May and Uncle Fred had profusely apologized for their run-down house, said Fred
had been laid off and times had been hard. Their priorities had shifted. How
could Joe not offer them a hundred grand to get them back on their feet?
Then June’s
cousin Carter called, after eleven years of silence, wanting to know how she’d
been. June invited Carter to dinner. He nervously fingered his knife and fork
as he described his gambling debts. How
bad is it? June asked. Bad enough
they’ll break my legs if I don’t even up soon. Joe and June exchanged
glances. How much to even up? Joe
asked. He felt like he used to at ten, spinning the wheel of the game Life.
Sometimes you landed on a bad patch along the way and drew a bad card. Joe was
suddenly the real-life banker, doling out “get out of jail free” cards, forking
over the hundred thousand dollar bills as if they were Washingtons.
But the
real kicker was Joe’s grade school buddy, Charlie. Joe and Charlie had been
blood brothers, even slicing their index fingers, mingling their blood as they
swore lifelong friendship in fourth grade. Joe and Charlie’s paths diverged
widely after college, and Charlie was lost to the world until four years ago.
Joe happened to find him on the Internet and rekindled their friendship long
enough to somewhat reaquaint themselves. Then Charlie disappeared again. He
didn’t answer Joe’s emails. Joe was confused, disappointed, but he chalked it
up to adulthood. The saying You can’t go
home again must apply to old friendships, too.
When an
email arrived a week after the lottery, Joe was happy to hear from his old
friend. Life had become insane, and Charlie was like a shining beacon of
clarity in the fog. But the beacon dimmed when Charlie’s next email described
an incredible financial venture that Joe ‘couldn’t afford’ to miss out on. Joe
gave a sardonic laugh as he read that one, shook his head, a tear in his eye,
as he clicked ‘delete.’
Jimmy and
Janie now had loads of friends and were invited to endless parties. Joe hardly
saw them these days.
People
that had never seemed needy had needs they never realized until now. Aching,
heartbreaking needs; lifelong wishes for the unattainable that, with Joe and
June’s help, was now within grasp of greedy fingers.
“Do we
have to move somewhere no one knows us?” Joe had just hung up on another old
friend after the talk turned to money. He longed for a rousing conversation
about football without a bet being involved – a bet that inevitably would
become a loan if the other person lost. He missed having neighbors over for
barbecues and not having to hear endless comparisons of the now-steep slope
dividing the Morgan finances from the rest of them.
“Speaking
of moving… ” June pulls out a real estate booklet, holds it out to him.
He winces.
“Nooo…”
June
thrusts the booklet toward Joe. “The realtor said we should live in a home more
befitting our social stature – that’s exactly what he said.”
“The
realtor,” Joe says, “wants a big fat commission. Come on, June – we can’t buy
into every sales pitch.”
Her bottom
lip gets pouty. “I’ve wanted to move for a long time. We could never afford it
before.”
“You never
said anything before. We always said we liked this house, the neighbors, the
quiet street.” He tilts his head toward her. “Don’t make me give up my home,
June.”
Two days
later, the realtor chauffers them from house to house. Joe has to admit he
likes some of them. And the realtor’s suggestion for his own game room, in
addition to a home entertainment room, is very appealing.
Joe and
June agree on a stately multi-level with in-ground pool, Jacuzzi, guest house
and ridiculously expansive lawn.
After
they’ve moved in, June looks sadly at their old SUV. “It looks pathetic parked
in front of this gorgeous home.”
He doesn’t
look up from his newspaper. “I’ll keep it in the garage.”
Her voice
is honey sweet. “The neighbors all have Mercedes, Lexuses, Beemers…“
“I don’t
care about the neighbors!” Joe stomps to the game room and shoots some pool to
calm down. He considers that his life is fodder for a bad sitcom, with no hope
of cancellation.
Janey
pokes her head in the door. “Dinner, Daddy!”
“Okay. In
a sec. I just have to hit that green ball into the corner pocket.” He’d been
working on this shot all day. He had nothing better to do.
Janey
leans on the side of the table. “Dad? I’ve been thinking.” She looks so cute,
Joe thinks, even with the multiple silver rings in her eyebrows, the corner of
her bottom lip.
“Don’t
lean on the table. It distracts the players, sweetie.”
She shoots
him that about-to-throw-up look that teenagers are prone to, bottom lip hanging
limp. “But you’re the only one playing.”
“Well,
I’ll have other guys in here to play sometime. You need to learn etiquette.”
She rolls
her eyes. “So anyway – I was thinking. Since we gave away so much money, bought
all this stuff – do we still have a lot left?”
He pokes
the stick at the ball. It rolls to the side and comes to a stop.“Yeah. Our pot
of gold won’t run out any time soon.”
She folds
her arms. “Shouldn’t we be helping our whole family, then? Not just the ones
that ask?”
Joe draws
the cue stick up, studies his daughter. At seventeen, she is wiser than all of
them. Certainly, she had more piercings.
“Dinner!”
June yells from the dining room.
Joe winks,
tilts his head toward the door, and walks arm in arm with his daughter to the
kitchen.
His wife
whisks the microwave meals to the counter top. “I have an appointment tomorrow,
so I’ll be gone a few hours.”
Joe’s
thinking they need a dog, to make this food disappear so it won’t be so
conspicuous sitting in the trash. “An appointment? With who?”
“A new
doctor.” She lines silverware on the counter next to the china.
His
muscles tense. “Doctor? Everything all right? You didn’t… “
She waves
him silent with her oven mitt. “It’s a plastic surgeon,” she says in a hushed
tone, as if the media are outside listening.
“Whaaaaat?”
Joe’s whine is old-neighborhood, and June pauses to glare at him.
Her mouth
becomes a tight line across her face. “I am going to have a discussion with
him, that’s all.”
Joe pokes
at the dubious-looking meatlike substance. The china plate does nothing to
enhance its appeal. “About what?”
She sits
at the far end of the long table. “About a few things I’ve thought about for a
long time… “
He
finishes for her. “But you could never afford before.”
She
intensifies her glare a notch by raising an eyebrow. Normally Joe would stop
there, knowing that, once the escalation process had begun, it was
irreversible, and June’s anger inescapable. Like a dinghy before a tsunami, Joe
would be caught up, tossed about and shattered.
He spears
a dubious-looking chunk of meat. “Baby, you don’t need plastic surgery. Why not
just make it a day at the spa? Take a few friends along.”
She
springs from her chair, goes to the kitchen pops open a plastic bag of premade
salad. “Oh, we’re doing that next week.”
For not
having jobs, their schedules are more full now than ever. Ballroom dancing
lessons, tennis lessons, art classes, endless meetings with their attorney,
their financial advisor – there are trust funds to establish, wills to plan,
paperwork that multiplies almost of its own volition. And the telephone rings
ceaselessly, as if calls are queued up. Joe longs for quiet, solitude – the
kind of zen that comes from fishing, kayaking, hiking on a deserted mountaintop.
June is
planning trips for every school break – she’s adamant that Jimmy and Janey not
disrupt their school work – and Joe hasn’t felt this stressed for a long time.
June’s vacations have little down time, the itineraries are packed for maximum
value.
He
consoles himself by saying, “At least we’ll be able to have an old-fashioned
Thanksgiving. We can even invite the entire family over our place, now that we
have all this room.”
June’s
face falls. “Oh. Well. I hadn’t really planned on cooking. Especially not for
all those people! I thought maybe we could go out this year.”
“Out? What
sort of Thanksgiving is that?” Families eating Thanksgiving meals in
restaurants always looked pathetic to him.
A sharp
tone invaded her voice. “Lots of people do it.”
“Oh, June.”
Joe cannot express his disappointment. He’s lost a lifeline to his old life, a
touchstone in this crazy new one.
Her eyes
light up. “We could invite the families, book a whole room. Eating out is the
only way to go for such a large gathering. There’s no cleanup that way.”
He shoves
the food across his plate with his fork. Nothing looks edible. “And no
football, or relaxing on the sofa.” He pretends not to feel June’s eyes
piercing his skin. “But Christmas – we’ll have Christmas like always, right?”
June
winces. “I booked a trip to Maui for winter break. The kids are so excited.”
“Maui?
Christmas in ninety degree heat? That’s not festive.” But then, he thinks,
Christmas will never be the same again anyway – it is Christmas every day, now.
She folds
her hands and looks at him like a school marm. “It’s time to break out of old
habits, Joe. We can’t keep doing the same old thing every year just because
that’s what we’ve always done.”
“It’s
called ‘tradition,’ June. It’s what families do, so their kids will learn
what’s important. Like values.”
“I got a
great deal on this trip – it’s a great lesson in value.” She looks so pleased
with herself, he doesn’t have the heart to tell her she missed his point.
The woman
sitting across the table from Joe resembles the woman he married in appearance,
he thinks, but not at all in any other way. June used to care about the same
things Joe cares about – they both liked simple things like taking walks
together, holding hands, talking in bed in the dark with their kids sleeping in
the next rooms. This woman he’s looking at is driven by demons, it seems.
Green-backed demons. Driven to see and do everything, everywhere – as much, and
as fast, as possible.
Joe sighs,
carries his coffee to the sink, washes the mug. He does most of the dirty
dishes lately; no one else takes pleasure in doing things by hand. The kitchen
is a place where Joe might run into one of his family during a TV break. Mostly
it’s a repository for dishes, and it’s getting more and more difficult to get
anyone to even load the dishwasher. June has developed an aversion to
housework, and had interviewed housekeepers, but confided to Joe she was afraid
such a person would steal from them. What’s
the big deal? We can just replace whatever they take, Joe told her. She’d
retorted, That’s not the point! It’s the
principle of the thing. Joe held his tongue, but wished he knew the recipe
for humble pie, so he could offer his entire family a slice to remind them what
they were like before they became so “privileged.”
As he puts
the clean mug in the cabinet, he frowns out the window. The evening sun throws
long shadows across the patio, the pool, the garishly green lawn that looks too
large to him. Why do they need such a large expanse of suburbia? It’s such a
waste of good land. Not like a farm that produces food, or a wilderness area
that welcomes deer, raccoons, turkeys. Barely a rabbit inhabits these exposed,
chemical-treated lawns. The only purpose their land serves, he thinks, is to
proclaim the opulence of the owners, boast their wealth in a neighborhood where
keeping up with the Joneses could be a fulltime occupation, one that June seems
up to the task for, but Joe, if he had any interest in the beginning, found it
had waned to the point where now, he could muster no interest at all. His life
feels more like a job each day, one he doesn’t even like – to monitor and care
for all that money.
Joe is
wary of his money; it almost has a palpable presence. He is afraid it will turn
on him – wealth is a demon who knew how to draw out the worst qualities of a
person, if that person didn’t know how to make that demon climb back into
Pandora’s box.
June is
not only letting the demon sleep where it wishes, she freely calls it out to
play. She dances with it, lets it stroke her hair, whisper in her ear. But Joe
can tell that whatever the demon whispers makes June more insecure, more needy
– and greedy. She is less satisfied now than she had ever been. After one taste
of anything new, she wants to saturate herself with it. And Joe is finding it
harder to reason with her about anything. Her obstinance had rubbed off on
Jimmy and Janey, who threaten to sick their lawyers on Joe if he stands in
their way of getting an ATV, remodeling their bedrooms with plasma TVs and Bose
sound systems, stacking their shelves with the latest high-tech toys. Janey
wants to install a webcam in her bedroom so the world can see what a rich girl
does in her spare time. Jimmy wants a sound-mixing studio to produce his band’s
music. Janey goes shopping at the mall nearly every weekend, then complains she
has nothing to wear, and her room is too small, when there are so many clothes
in her walk-in closet, it’s waist-high in sweaters, t-shirts and jeans.
“It’s
really pitiful when you’re overwhelmed by your own wardrobe,” Joe says to June.
“She’s
young, she likes to have a wide selection.”
“Too many
choices make for too many decisions. Is this the kind of lesson we want our
kids to come away with?”
Exasperation
drenches her reply. “Why does everything have to be about a lesson? Why does
there have to be a moral to every story? Why can’t we just have fun with this?”
“What
happens if our kids had to earn a living? If this all went away as suddenly as
it came?”
June
points her index finger at him. “It’s not going to go away.” She reminds him of
his mother, when he was about fourteen and had gotten into his Dad’s liquor
cabinet with a friend. The finger of blame was pointing out all Joe’s faults,
jabbing at him mercilessly as his head pounded, his stomach did flip-flops and
the room spun, but the finger was steadfast.
Now it’s
June pointing the finger of blame. But Joe knows it’s to avert the blame from
herself. Her moral compass has been de-magnetized, and spins as wildly as the
room had spun for fourteen-year-old drunken Joe. He’d grown up, stopped
drinking to excess. He wonders if June will find it within herself to right her
course.
He
steadies his voice. “Exactly, June. It’s not going to go away. And we have no
idea how to handle it. It’s tearing this family apart.”
“You sound
like some overdramatized reality show. This is a dream come true, Joe.” She
walks out of the room.
He rubs
his forehead. “It’s a nightmare.”
***
The wind
sends leaves tumbling through the yard that night. Long after June’s breath
slows from huffy, heavy sighs to steady breaths as she lie beside him, Joe
stares at the ceiling. The wind blows a restlessness through him. He pushes the
covers aside, walks to the window, watches the trees sway, strain against the
gusts. He imagines the leaves are hundred dollar bills, scattering across the
neighborhood, into town, where people who really need it will find it -- people whose bills outmatch their income,
people who work like dogs to get ahead but never are able.
That’s what I have to do, Joe thinks. We can’t hold onto
all this money for just ourselves. It isn’t right.
He
remembers Janey’s advice to give it away to the families and smiles, climbs
back into bed.
“One
million each,” he proposes to June the next morning.
“A measly
million! We could give them ten apiece and still have plenty left.”
A laugh
wants to escape him, but it can’t get past his overwhelming stunned feeling.
“Since when is one million dollars ‘measly’?”
“It’s an
insult.”
“It just
shows how out of whack our values have become.”
She waves
a hand in the air. “You want to insult the families? Go right ahead, offer them
a crummy million.”
All Joe
had wanted was to ease their burden, not put a greater burden on them. He knows
what too much money can do to a family. His kids barely speak to him now –
they’re too busy. June’s preoccupation with herself leaves no room for Joe, and
his attempts to approach her are met with a scowl. Joe, after a few too many
beers one night, suggested a plastic surgeon might remove the scowl, but it had
deepened then.
“All
right. Two million,” he compromises. “That’s more than enough to last them.”
Joe
invites them all for a cookout, and after burgers, while some are still working
the corn out their teeth, Joe makes a short speech while Janey and Jimmy hand
out envelopes.
“June and
I want you all to share in our good fortune. We wish you health and happiness.”
Joe’s
parents’ expectant smiles fall only slightly when they open their envelope.
June’s
father mutters, “Gee, can you afford it?” June looks smug as her mother shushes
him. Her brother Andy, who’d been laid off eight months earlier, and who’d been
helping himself to beer after beer, wipes a hand across his eye as he blubbers thank you. Joe’s sister kisses his
cheek. “You’re wonderful,” she says, and he wishes he’d given her more. Who was
he to decide how much was too much for them to handle? Linda is divorced with
three kids – she needs this money.
He winks
at her; he’ll check with her after a few months, to make sure she is all set.
At least
his parents look happy. Joe can’t remember the last time he’d seen them smile
at each other like this. Since they’d retired, all they did was bicker. Maybe
now, Joe thinks, they can travel, have fun together.
He sits
back in the reclining deck chair June had just bought, and for the first time
since they’d won the lottery, Joe feels life is good.
***
The sand
is blindingly bright in the afternoon sun. He sits in his beach chair, watches
the women in bikinis hit the volleyball, their breasts in endless play as well,
bouncing with each jump. Young, in great shape, he figures them for college
girls. For once, he’s glad June’s out shopping, especially when one of them, a
tawny blond, smiles invitingly, and asks him to join in. He feels drunk in
anticipation of his skin rubbing against theirs, being saturated with the
beauty surrounding him.
“Joe.”
June says. “Joe, wake up.”
Damn. He
opens one eye. June is wearing only a towel, with another wrapped around her
head.
“Having a
good dream?” She giggles.
His legs
are splayed on the bed, and his erection makes a tiny tent of the sheet. He
pulls his legs together, pulls the pillow over his head.
“Honey –
I’m leaving in a few minutes. The girls are picking me up.”
He yanks
the pillow off, leans up on an elbow. “Leaving? Where are you going?”
June
tsk’s. “I knew you’d forget. We’re flying to St. Lucia for the weekend,
remember? And the kids are staying with friends, so don’t worry about them.”
His brain
is still fogged, he wishes he could just slide back into that dream, into the
midst of nubile young ladies.
“Joe. Are
you listening at all?” She sounds far away already, but she’s only in the
walk-in closet.
“Yeah,
yeah.”
“Well
then?” She stands before him, her wet hair unstyled, hanging in its expensive
angled cut. She’d lost weight – or had liposuction – and dyed her hair to an
unnatural brassy blond. She is all hard angles, prominent features now. It
occurs to him that she is no longer the woman he married, not in any respect.
He squints
at her. “What?”
“I asked
you what you’re doing this weekend.”
“Oh. Uh –
fishing.” The idea smacks him like a well-landed cast and he latches onto it
like a hungry shad. It pulls him from his bed, fills him with glee. He kisses
June’s confused face goodbye – she’s as surprised as he is at his joyful mood.
His smile feels foreign to his face, as if he were awakening from a shock,
self-inflicted though it was.
He rushes
through his shower, calls old Tom at Pine Hill Outfitters to reserve a canoe.
“So how’re they running?”
“Shad so
big you need a crane to reel ‘em in!” Tom’s laugh crackles.
A key
grates in the lock.
Who would be coming in the back door?
“Listen,
Tom, gotta run. I’ll see you soon.”
Darlene
steps through the door and shuts it before she sees Joe standing in the kitchen
wearing only a towel. Her eyes probe him all over. To Joe’s horror, instead of
feeling embarrassment, he’s excited – visibly.
Darlene
smiles. “Good morning, Joe. What a nice – surprise.”
Her warmth
toward Joe nearly cost her her cleaning job a few weeks ago when June found them
chatting in the game room. Darlene had a habit of bending over from the waist
as she worked, and Joe often admired the view. Darlene caught him looking
almost as many times as June had, but her smile told him that his wife’s
warning of a sexual harassment suit were unfounded. She’ll try to take us for all we’re worth! June had warned him, but Joe figured that
wasn’t what Darlene wanted from him.
He feels
even stronger about that now, as Darlene steps toward him. He steps back.
She clucks
her tongue. “Have you been working out? You look really good.”
He tries
to suck in his belly but it still hangs over the towel. Maybe June was right,
Darlene is only interested in the money – how else to explain her blindness to
his bulges? This thought leaves him limp.
“Sorry,
Darlene. I didn’t know you were coming today. Excuse me while I go get
dressed.”
“No need
to dress on my account.” Her voice is husky, her eyes do the cha-cha over him
from head to toe.
Joe wishes
June were home to step in between them, wag her finger at the cleaning woman,
shoot her the all-too-familiar evil eye. He feels so exposed, in so many ways.
He doesn’t
want to hurt her feelings. “Excuse me. I have an appointment.”
She steps
toward him again, eyelids droopy in that come-hither way. “You could cancel.”
There is
no easy way out now. She’s escalated the stakes. If he lets this conversation
pass without repercussion, she could claim he was a willing participant.
There’s only one clear way to go.
“Actually,
Darlene, we don’t need you today. June will call to reschedule.” He indicates
the way out with his hand.
She roots
herself in place. “But I come every Friday morning.” Her tone implies his guilt
already.
“My wife
will call you next week. I really have to run.” He tries to appear friendly,
non-menacing, reasonable. He hopes she’ll respond in kind. Her frown tells him
otherwise.
Meanness
glitters in her eyes. “Do you mean I drove out here for nothing?”
“We’ll
compensate your expenses, all right? Just send us a bill.”
She grabs
her purse from the kitchen counter, her eyes hot as coals burning into him, but
she says nothing more as she stomps out.
Joe blows
out a long breath. “Damn!”
The phone
rings.
“Hi,
sweetie!” his mom says.
“Hi, Mom. You sound very… perky.” She
must still be on the money high.
“I am,
Joe. I’m relaxed and enjoying life for a change. In fact, next week I’m leaving
for a three-week cruise.”
“That’s
great, Mom. But don’t you mean ‘we’?”
Her voice
becomes softer, slower. “That’s what I need to talk to you about. I didn’t want
you to hear the news from anyone else.”
“News?
What news?”
“I hope
you’ll be happy for your father and me, dear.”
This
sounds promising. “What’s going on? You moving or something?”
“Yes! Both
of us. Only your father’s getting a house closer to the lake, and I’m going to
the retirement complex.”
“What? Two
places?” He can’t blame them for being extravagant for once.
“Yes,
dear. We’re getting a divorce.” She’s emphatic but elated.
Joe feels
abandoned. First he loses his own home, now his childhood home. “Are you
kidding?”
“No,
darling! It’s what we’ve both wanted for a long, long time. And now we can
afford it.”
His
stomach feels full of lead. “Because of me.”
“Yes.
You’re such a wonderful son.”
Joe makes
a noise that’s supposed to be a laugh, but resembles a wounded puppy.
“Are you
all right, dear?” Her voice is filled with concern.
He holds
the counter to steady himself. “Yes. Sure.”
“All
right. I have some errands to run. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay.”
He’s about to say goodbye, tell her he loves her, but she’s already hung up.
***
The water
is like liquid green quartz – sparkling in the sun, a beautiful clear green.
Joe can see every rock, minnow, discarded beer can. He’d packed a cooler
himself. All he wants to do is sit in this canoe on the river and wait for a
shad to take hold of his line while the river swirls past. The world could go
as crazy as it wanted on shore – he’s immune to it all out here.
Then his
cell phone rings. As soon as he presses the on button, June’s high voice
pitches question after question at him. What
happened? Did you fire Darlene? She’s implied that she’ll sue – do you have any
idea what a lawsuit will do? Didn’t I tell you this would happen!
Joe tries
to interject his answers but June apparently has no interest. It’s the same type
of lecture she imposes on the children – recounting the offenses, verbally
walking through a possible solution, how it would least impact their lives,
what could make it right.
He sets
the phone down, and soon her tiny voice becomes part of the background noise,
like the water’s rush, like the birdsong – more like the crows cawing – and
then he relaxes again. It will all wait until later. Right now, he has a fish
to catch, and the beer’s getting warm, and the sun is climbing the heavens.
Old Tom
sits on the porch as Joe returns the canoe. He looks like someone whose image
belongs on an old tintype photo in sepia tones. His suspender pants are likely
twenty years old, his craggy face smiling yet frowning in that way old folks do
sometimes. He whittles a piece of wood, and soon coaxes from it the folk-art
form of a blue jay.
“Catch
anything?”
Joe
smiles. “Not today.”
“Comin’
back tomorrow? Or giving up?”
“Oh, I’ll
be back. Fishing’s more than just catching one.”
“Yep,
that’s for sure. It’s why I’ve stayed in business so long.”
Joe can
understand that – Tom’s outfitting business is in a perfect place, nestled
between a river and a mountain, where he rents out equipment, supplies for both
land and water sports.
“I envy
you. You must really love your job.”
“Oh, yeah.
It’s been good to me and the Mrs.” Tom stops whittling then to look around him.
“But soon I’ll be selling it.”
“Why?”
“Time to
retire! The wife and I need time to ourselves in our golden years. What’s left
of ‘em.”
A hawk
cries far above, and Joe watches it catch an air current, float through the
sky. He loves it here, he realizes.
“I’ll buy
it. Whatever you’re asking, I’ll give you double. No – triple!”
Tom’s
shoulders heave in a silent laugh. “Now why’d you want to do that?”
“Because
this place is great. I would love to have a business like this.”
Tom levels
his slate eyes on him. “It’s long hours. Sometimes the customers are difficult.
Specially from the big cities. Think everything should be done for them.”
“Yeah, but
I bet they’re a lot happier when they leave. And just look at your office
space!” He laughs as he holds his arms wide.
The old
man narrows his eyes, as if assessing Joe, and Joe thinks he’s seen that
laserlike stare somewhere before. He gives Joe a slow smile that erupts in a
cackle. Joe lets out a whoop that echoes through the valley, makes the oak
leaves quiver to the top of the ridge, imprinting his spirit in the woods, the
river bed.
***
His truck
rattles along the highway, straining to give Joe the speed he’s demanding. As
he pulls into the circular driveway of his home, the house looks more than ever
like a hotel – absurdly large and impersonal. He bounds to the kitchen door.
“June.”
Her bags are parked in the hallway. Footsteps sound upstairs, pause at his
voice, tramp down the steps.
“Joe, I’ve
been trying to reach you.” June’s skin has the luster of a burning ember –
glowing red.
He touches
her arm. “Sweetie, what happened?”
Her hand
goes to her head. “A disaster, this whole weekend. One thing after the next.
First, we find the hotel is nonexistent – it looked so great on the Internet.
And we’d paid in advance for the entire weekend, so we lost all that money.
Thank God we found other rooms, not nearly as nice, though.”
Joe can’t
help himself. “Not as nice as the nonexistent ones?”
“The
pictures of the rooms we booked online. Don’t be a smartass. You’re in enough
trouble.”
“Listen,
honey – I have news.”
The
tension in her voice ratcheted several notches “Yes, I know. Darlene called me,
yelling at me about Friday. Said you were practically naked, and you were
flirting with her, and she hinted that you fired her because she turned you
down.”
“Turned me down? That’s ridiculous, she came on to me. You were right, honey, she’s just a gold digger.”
She folded
her arms. “It seems now she has a shovel.”
“Oh, write
her a check to make her go away.”
June’s
mouth gapes. “Are you kidding? I will not.”
“I’m not
going to court and have her silly accusations made public. Just tell her it’s a
bonus for her work, don’t even associate it with her threats. That way she
can’t say we were paying her off to keep quiet.”
“Even
though that’s what we’d be doing.” She looks at him as if he were a stranger.
“Since when did you become so devious, anyway?”
Weariness
envelops him. “I’m not devious, honey. I’m just tired of what our money does to
people.”
“Tell me
about it. I found out what great ‘friends’ I have on this trip. Cheryl is my
only real friend, the only one who cares about me, not my money. The others
wanted me to pay for everything – even when we went shopping!”
Joe looks
at her sadly. She turns away, talking faster. Joe knows it’s to keep him from
saying what June knows he has to say.
“And did I
tell you that Andy’s back with his girlfriend?”
He flips
through unopened mail. “Renee? I thought they split up a long time ago.”
“They did.
Right after he was fired, she said, adios, freeloader. Now she’s cozying up to
him, telling him how much she missed him.”
Joe speaks
softly. He really has missed June, is glad she’s home, glad they’re together
again. He doesn’t want anything to come between them. “That’s what I mean,
June. Money changes people.”
She looks
away. “Like me, right?” She glances at him. He’s about to put up a weak
argument but she cuts him off. “I know, you don’t have to say it. I saw my
reflection in the mirror of the hotel dining room, and I didn’t recognize
myself. And then I realized that I was thousands of miles away from you. This
is the first time I’ve ever traveled without you.” She looked at him, her eyes
sad. “I didn’t like it.”
He holds
out his arms but is afraid to touch her. Heat radiates from her body. “I didn’t
like it either.” He pats her hair, leans in for a quick kiss. “I missed you.
I’ve been missing you. I’m glad
you’re back.”
Her brown
eyes sparkle as they flit across his face. “I’ve gone a little crazy with the
money, I know.”
“It
doesn’t bring happiness. That’s why I want to get rid of it.”
Her eyes
widen in alarm. “Get rid of it?” She recoils from him.
“Most of
it, yeah.” He opens his arms wide, looks around. “This is not who we are. Or
who I want to be.” He tells her about buying old Tom’s business, but her eyes
are scanning the floor, as if looking for something lost.
“Are you
okay, honey?”
June turns
away from him. “Joe.. I have to tell you something.”
He steps
toward her but she cowers away. “What is it?”
“Something
happened this weekend. I… didn’t mean for anything to happen. We were just
dancing, we’d had too much to drink…” Her eyes dart to him, then away.
Joe
shrugs. “Who’s ‘we’?” He gives a little laugh, as if to soften what he knows
she’s about to say, as if it won’t crush him.
“He’s no
one. Someone I met. He knew I had money, I think. The bastard. Didn’t even say
goodbye before leaving in the morning.” She catches herself, as if she hadn’t
meant to share that much with him.
Joe feels
woozy. “You… spent the night with someone? Who was he?”
“I told
you – he’s no one. Just another gold digger, like Darlene!” Her eyes blaze at
him, as if their blame were equal.
Joe feels
his life is unraveling like a thick ball of yarn, June pulling the frayed end
away further with each blurted word – I’ve
never done anything like this before. It didn’t mean anything! He was just
after my money! I know that now. The string was unfurling, becoming longer
and longer, and June was becoming tinier and tinier – Joe could see her as if
through the wrong end of a telescope, so very far away he could barely hear
her. The scope was tightening, black edging further into the circular view,
until it was as small as a coin, valueless as a token, a worthless slug.
“No, no,
no,” Joe groans. A hand nudges his shoulder; he opens his eyes, surprised that
he’s laying on the sofa.
“Honey,
wake up.” June looks like her old self. She’s got rounded edges again, her hard
angles have disappeared.
He rubs
his groggy eyes.
She smiles
at him. “Did you get the lottery ticket? They’re about to announce it.”
“Lottery
ticket?” They’d already won, he wants to tell her, then realizes that they’re
in their old house, and he’s lying on the old sofa where he loves to nap on
Sunday afternoons.
He sits
up. “June!” She’s the old June, with panty lines showing and stray strands of
gray in her hair.
Her eyes
widen. “What’s the matter?”
He rubs
his head. “Nothing – sorry.”
“So did
you get a ticket?” she prompts.
The TV
news anchor cuts to the lottery drawing, the theme music plays.
Joe
reaches in his pocket, draws the ticket from his wallet, looks at June, who
relaxes, smiles at him. He jumps up from the sofa. He runs to the trash bin as
the announcer says: “Seventeen!”
June looks
alarmed. “What are you doing?”
His
fingers are poised to tear it in half when he sees the number seventeen, dead
center on the ticket. His fingers tense again. He hated having all that money.
It was like drowning in a sea of green, and all the hands grabbing at him
didn’t want to save him, they just wanted a piece of him for themselves.
June says
slowly, as if to a foreigner, or a child, “Honey! What are you doing?”
“June…”
“Forty-nine!”
the announcer says happily.
Joe
glances at the ticket. It’s the last number. His pulse quickens; or maybe time
has slowed down and his body is out of synch. He holds the ticket so he can see
the numbers better, moves closer to the television, away from the trash basket.
His arm
slides around June. He smiles at her. “We won.”
(2008)
