Lottery (12 page)

Record players are very old. No one uses them anymore. Manuel carries an iPod and Keith has tapes. I do not know what Gary has.

I wonder if it works. There is an outlet on the wall and I set the player on the floor and plug it in. Nothing happens. Wait. There is an on-off switch on the side, and I push. The turntable spins.

“Ha!” I laugh and jump because I scared myself. I go back into the bigger box. Gramp’s records. I take one out. The cardboard cover is stiff as I slide the black disk out. There is a picture of an orchestra on the front. A man playing the piano.
Vivaldi,
it says.
The Four Seasons
is written across the top.

I put the record on and place the needle like I remember Gramp doing.

It is music. His music.

It is wonderful music.

I sit and listen to the sounds until it is dark.

17

This is the hard part,” Keith says. He is talking to Gary. "It’s hard to know who to trust. How much do you know about those brothers of his, anyway?” He takes a long drag of his cigarette. Keith smokes Camels. The package is very cool and has the picture of a camel and a pyramid. I eat Hershey’s Kisses while Gary and Keith talk.

“John’s a lawyer and David has some kind of accounting business. The wives are a couple of gold diggers. That’s all Gram would say. I’ve only heard rumors through the grapevine. Nothing speci fic.” Gary does not smoke. He coughs and tells me to open my window. It is late fall and I am cold, but I open the window anyway. He told me to. He is number three on my list.

“Then we have to keep our eyes open and make sure they don’t try anything underhanded. I don’t trust lawyers farther than I can kick them in the ass.” Keith blows smoke up into the air.

Gary is searching through his pockets. I can tell he is looking for his bottle of Afrin.

“I can’t imagine they’d try anything overtly illegal. Besides, they have money of their own. Why would they try to get Perry’s?” he says.

“You’re fucking naive, Gary. Those kind, they never have enough money. I think we should get Per his own lawyer.”

“I think we should ask Perry. It’s up to him.” Gary turns to look at me. “Perry, what do you want to do?” he asks.

“Nothing. Eat my Kisses.” Then I remember. “Let’s go get my TV. I haven’t bought a TV yet.”

“Yeah, we’ll get your TV.” Keith squashes his cigarette out in my sink. I hope he will clean it up, but it looks like he won’t.

Gary and Keith are my best friends. Gary has been my friend the longest even though he is my boss. He knew my Gramp and Gram from when they had the boatyard and he knew me when I was younger. I do not remember ever not knowing Gary Holsted, but I remember when I first met Keith. I even remember the second time. Keith’s first day at Holsted’s.

“Perry, you remember Keith? You’ll be working together,” Gary said.

I was nervous because I was still not used to Holsted’s and the customers scared me.

“Of course he remembers. It was only yesterday. Come on, Per, help me unpack these boxes,” Keith said. He called me Per for short. Right from the very first. Just like we were good friends. I felt better right away, because he remembered my name and helped me unpack boxes. Keith and I have been best friends ever since.

Right now Keith paces in a circle. His feet thump on my floor. We have to stay in my apartment for privacy. That is so no one else can hear our secrets. Manny is by himself downstairs watching the store. He has asked me to call him Manny now. That is cool. He wants to be friends.

“When those brothers of yours call you, tell them you don’t need their help.” Keith puts another cigarette between his lips. I watch him hunt through his pockets.

“I don’t need their help,” I say.

“That’s right!” Keith bends down and uses my stove for a light.

“Hey, Keith, that is dangerous. You can blow your face up like that!” I sound just like Gram. She used to say you could lose an arm out of a car. She would make me roll up Yo’s passenger-side window so I could not wave my hand out in the air and make it fly around when Keith drove fast.

“That’s a good way to lose a finger,” she said whenever I used the blender.

Gram was very smart. She knew all the ways a person could get hurt and lose something. Gary lectures just like Gram used to while I eat my sandwich. He says I should invest the money for my future. Invest means you give other people your money. People worry a lot about the future. Gram told me to worry too, but I think the future is going to come whether you worry about it or not. If it does not come, then you are dead and you do not have to worry anymore. I think about my future, and I save, but I do not worry. I listen to Gary like I used to listen to Gram. He tells me what I can do with my money and asks me questions.

“There are things you can buy called mutual funds that invest in a lot of different businesses and you earn dividends or interest. For example, what kind of businesses are you interested in?” he asks.

“Stores where you buy things for boats,” I tell him. “Like your store, Gary. I know a lot about your store.”

I get a really good idea.

"Can’t I invest in your store? How about I invest in your store?” I ask.

Gary shakes his head like our collie Reuben used to when he got wet. “No, Perry, I’m not looking for a partner. I mean, I’d like to expand. Who wouldn’t? But a partner? I don’t think so.”

Keith stands up and puts his cigarette out in his empty beer can. It sizzles. I hope he will not just throw it in my garbage can. It might not be out. It could start a fire.

“Why not?” he asks. “Why not let him invest in your store?”

“Jeez! I don’t know. I never thought about it. I don’t know if the business could support another person. We’re small. Things have been tough. The competition is getting tougher. I can’t afford to go under like George.” Gary sighs so loud his lips vibrate like a snore.

I know they are talking about Gramp. Keith walks back and forth in front of my couch. “No, Gary, think about it. It’s a good plan. He likes it here. This is a good place. You think those brothers of his and their wives are ever going to leave him alone now?”

They are talking about me now. I want to remind them that I am still here listening, but I do not. Gary’s head is slick and shiny. He used to have more hair. It was brown, the same color as mine. He takes it from the side and combs it up over the bald place, but it does not stay. He tells me his head is too hot for hair, but I think it is from him worrying. Worries just tumble in your head and can push hair out from the inside. This is what I believe. Keith stops to take a bite of his sandwich. This is unusual because he always talks with his mouth full.

Gary waves his hands around. “Look, I’ve known Perry ever since he was little. In fact, I’ve known the whole damn family even before the boatyard fiasco. You can’t tell me G.J. didn’t have a finger in that pie, for Pete’s sake! I’m sure his sneaky wife, Louise, did.” He is getting excited and has to use a spray bottle up his nose again. He is allergic to everything, especially excitement.

I do not think it is nice to call Louise sneaky. She does not like being called Mother and I am sure she would not like being called sneaky. Listening to Gary and Keith talk is interesting. I play auditor and say nothing.

“You should think about it seriously. I mean it. Look at all the improvements you could make. Maybe hook up with Carroll’s Boatyard. There’s a hell of an opportunity here, Gary. The Everett waterfront is going to take off soon. Look at what’s happened in Seattle. You need to be able to take advantage when the time comes.”

There is that word again.
Advantage.

Keith sits back down on my couch. It makes a squeak like a fart and I laugh.

It is good to talk about investments and it makes me think. I could be a businessman. I could be an investor in Holsted’s Marine Supply. Investor. That sounds so cool. I get up and walk around my apartment while Gary and Keith finish eating. I am excited. Way too excited to even bounce. I think about how much I like my apartment. I can look at the boats out my window. It does not have a yard, but that is okay because I definitely do not like mowing grass or pulling weeds. I would need a yard if I got a dog, unless I walked it every day, but then I could get a cat. Cats don’t need yards. Cats are cool. I worry that Gary does not want me as an investor.

“Gary, let me be an investor. Please—” I do not finish because Keith interrupts me.

“At least think about it, Gary, okay?” Keith asks.

“I’ll think about it.” Gary rolls his sandwich paper into a ball and throws it into my trash can in the kitchen. He makes a basket. As he goes out the door, he asks, “You guys coming?”

Keith said, “Nope, we got a TV to buy. We’ll be in later.” Then he asks me, “You ready to go?”

I jump up on the end of my toes. “Sure!” I say.

I put on my jacket and we go downstairs to Yo.

When we get to Everett Mall, we have to park at the far end of the lot. All the handicapped spaces are taken. This pisses Keith off.

“You can’t tell me there are this many crippled people at the mall! It’s the middle of the day, for Pete’s sake! Fuck! They should all be at work!”

“Crippled is like retarded, Keith. Don’t say that,” I tell him.

“Okay, then, gimps.”

“No. That’s not nice either. Say people who have trouble walking.”

Keith does not care about being nice and he grumbles so I can hardly understand him, “People who . . . trouble . . . walking.”

That’s okay.

Everett Mall has Christmas decorations up already and it isn’t even Halloween. At the entrance, there is a person dressed in red ringing a bell over a big pot hanging from a stand.

“Any change? Any spare change?” The man sings and his bell clangs.

“I have money,” I say, and stop to dig in my pocket. Keith grabs my shoulder and my money misses the black kettle and falls to the ground.

As Keith drags me inside through the big double doors, the man picks up the bills and calls out, “Bless you! Merry Christmas! Bless you, my son!”

“We don’t have time for that! Here’s the directory. Where you want to go first?” Keith asks. A directory is a mall map.

“To a TV place,” I say.

“There ya go, Per. Top Electronics. Second floor. Middle.”

“I smell cookies.” My stomach gurgles.

To get upstairs we have to pass the food court, where the cookie smell is coming from. We stop for hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies while we watch the Christmas display with trains being set up. Afterward we had to watch aerobics on the stage.

“Look at them puppies bounce.” Keith likes watching other people exercising, especially women. I have to push him along. We window-shop for a while, but when Keith stops talking and looks bored, I know it is time to get my TV.

The man at the TV store has a name tag that says
Patrick Perry.

"Hey, my name’s Perry L. Crandall. We have the same name,” I say.

“Welcome to Top Electronics. How can I help you?” He looks at Keith.

“My friend here needs a TV. You probably should be talking to him.” Keith rolls his eyes when he is annoyed.

Patrick shows us a small white television in the corner. “This is our least expensive model. It’s a good value.” He starts messing around with the dials.

I walk over to the big flat screens. “I need a bigger one. How about this?” I point to one hanging on the wall.

Patrick motions to another television. “These are probably more affordable for you.”

I can tell Keith is getting even more annoyed.

“I have plenty of money,” I say, and watch as Keith’s mouth puckers.

Patrick smiles and winks at Keith. “I’m sure you do,” he says.

“How about this one?” Keith walks over and touches the biggest plasma screen in the store.

Patrick looks confused. “It’s over a thousand.”

Keith points to me and says, “I see you haven’t met my friend Perry Crandall. You know Perry L. Crandall?
The
Perry L. Crandall?
The brand-new lottery winner? That
Perry L. Crandall?” Keith’s face ge ts closer to Patrick’s with each word and his finger jabs his chest right under his shiny black name tag.

“You want a stand with that?” Patrick talks to me directly.

For one thousand eight hundred eighty-three dollars and forty- five cents, I buy a twenty-seven-inch plasma TV. For three hundred dollars, I get a stand to put it on.

“We got a sale on stereos. You want a stereo? A DVD player?” Patrick looks like he is dizzy.

He sits down on a console when I say, “Sure!”

“You need a Tums?” I ask. But he says no.

I have to write three checks because I keep finding things to buy. Patrick says he will have his helpers take everything out to Yo when we are finished shopping.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Crandall. Thank you very much.” He shakes my hand hard. His palm is sweaty.

“Hey, Keith, I don’t have any music except for Gramp’s records.” I remember this when we walk past a music store. Sam’s Music and Movies. I have no idea what to buy, but Keith helps.

“You got to have the Doobie Brothers, and here, Per, some Eagles, the Beatles . . .” Keith collects an armful. “
Aha!
The Grateful Dead! Oh, and Jimmy Buffett!”

I walk over to the movie section and pick out ten right away. I have to go over to the register and set them down on the counter so I can go get more. The lady at the counter frowns and folds her arms.

“This is ridiculous. You’re going to have to put all these back! You’ve got over five hundred dollars worth of stuff here!” She glares at me and her glasses slide down her nose. “Don’t you look at prices? Can’t you add?”