Lottery (32 page)

When I see what she is doing, I feel fear at first. But I am like the Hulk. I become strong.

“No!” I shout. “Don’t,” I tell her. “Please?”

She holds a knife. She is holding a knife to her wrist. It presses into the skin and starts to make a cut. I move to her side, grab her arm, and pry the handle from her fingers. There is one small drip of blood that trickles down her arm. It is bright red. I lead her into the bathroom and put a Band-Aid over her wound. My hands shake as I smooth it over her skin.

“Don’t do this, Cherry. Keith would not want you to,” I say, and brush the hair off her neck. I smooth the tears off her cheek.

“I don’t want you to,” I tell her.

I do not know what else to say.

I lead her back into the bedroom, lie down next to her, and hold her in my arms until her eyes close and she falls asleep.

56

We get less sad even without the pills. We get less sad because
life goes on
, as Keith always said. As Gram said.

Cherry gets up on her own now without my help. She fixes us both oatmeal for breakfast and talks to me. She tells me she is pregnant. That she is having a baby.

“I’m having Keith’s baby,” she says.

She needs my help.

It is not too late for Keith. It is not too late for him to be a father. I want to be a father for Keith. I never even imagined that I would help Keith be a father.

Cherry wants me to know that she does not want to take advantage of me.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever love anybody again, Per. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do or where to go,” she says.

Cherry also wants me to know that she still loves Keith best even though he is dead. I say I understand, because I do. I love Keith best too. Sometimes friends have to take care of friend stuff. This is one of those times. I still hurt. I still feel guilty for liking Cherry. But I can do this one thing for Keith. This last thing for Keith.

I know he would be excited to be a father, but I am excited too. It is like a job I can do for him. A big favor. The biggest favor.

Cherry said she never had a boyfriend before Keith.

“I’m fat and ugly, Perry, really I am,” she says.

I definitely do not think she is fat or ugly. It is mean what people say. We talk about how mean people can be and how we are okay.

“People would stare at me when I ate. My aunt would tell me to lose weight. My cousins would call me fatty.”

“Kids at school would call me retard.” I do not like to tell anybody this, especially Cherry. I am afraid she will think it is true.

“I am not fat and you are not retarded. We are us!” she says, and gives me a kiss and a hug. That is so cool.

Cherry quit smoking, won’t watch horror movies anymore because she says it may bother the baby, and only eats vegetarian pizza. We order half Meat Eaters for me and half vegetarian for her. That’s what she calls me now, a Meat Eater.

We talk about names.

“We will call him Baby Keith,” I say. It will be another Keith.

“What if it’s a girl?” she asks.

“It won’t. I am positive. It will be Baby Keith.”

“Perry, it might not be.”

“Yes it will.” I am sure of this.

It will be Baby Keith,
I hear Gram say.

Gary helps us fix up the apartment. Cherry chooses the colors.

“Yellow,” she decides. “Like the sun, and blue like the sky.”

I am happy. I was afraid she would want the colors in her hair. I like her hair, but not on our walls. While Gary and I paint, Cherry stays on
Diamond Girl
so the smells will not make her sick and hurt the baby. We make the nursery in a corner of the bedroom. We order a crib from Sears, and when it comes, Sandy and Gary help us put it together.

“Starting over,” Gary says. “A new beginning. A new life.”

Our apartment looks cool. We have Gram’s couch, my TV, a coffee table from Kmart, and my TV trays. We bought a brand-new bed. I found sailboat bedspreads in the catalogue and ordered them for the store. I got an extra one for us.

We sold all the spreads that I ordered in one week. Gary just laughs. He tells me to order anything I want for Holsted’s.

Cherry is smart. She has us study the business news every night and shows me how to go online and find message groups from sailors.

“See here, Per? Sailors from all over the world go online and talk. They tell people smart enough to listen what they need. Those smart people are us.” She has me take notes. “We gotta read them all, Perry. We have to keep up. It’s a way to find out what new stuff boaters want. We have to be proactive.”
Proactive
is another word Cherry learned from the business news.
Proactive
means taking charge. She tells Gary that she is taking charge and making us a website so boaters can order from us anywhere direct.

We always stand at the window each night and watch. It is a habit now. We look out at the water, at the reflection of the lights and at
Diamond Girl.
I hold Cherry close. My arms fit around her stomach. It is getting bigger because of the baby.

Cherry will talk about Keith at these times and cry.

“I wish I had told him about the baby.” She says this over and over.

I do not say anything and the voices come.

He knew
, Gram says.
Tell her he knew.

I knew
, Keith says.
Tell her.

Tell her.

“Cherry, what do you mean?” I say, and take a deep slow breath.

Truth is many things. Sometimes truth is what we want or maybe what we have. It may be what we choose to believe. Sometimes it is something real. Something
echt.
Something genuine. Sometimes you know the truth when you speak it. I am slow, but I know this.

“He knew, Cherry. He knew you were having his baby,” I say.

I feel her sink. I feel her sag. It may be the truth or it may be a very good lie that turns into the truth. I do not know.

“How do you know this?” she asks. “How do you know?” she breathes into my chest.

The answer comes out of my heart and I know exactly what to say.

“He told me. He told me he could tell. He told me.” When I say this, I know it is true, and I believe it myself.

It is true. It is
echt.
It is genuine.

Cherry cries. Big gulping sobs. She cannot stand and I hold her up.

It is a good truth.

The best one.

I reach my arms around her tight and I do not let her go.

57

It is late at night. Our lights are off. We are ready to go to sleep. Me on the couch and Cherry in the bed. The rain plops against the door like tiny knocks. I sniff because I need to use a Kleenex. We are both blurring our eyes watching
Diamond Girl
outside. Pretending Keith is there, tying her up in the rain.

“When will Keith be back?” Cherry will ask.

“Soon. He’s putting on another line. The wind’s blowing hard. If he doesn’t tighten her up, she may pull loose. See him there?”

“Where?” she will ask.

“Right there. See?” I will point. “He’s waving.” And we will wave back.

It is a game we play.

Tonight Cherry is silent. She does not wave at the pretend Keith. Instead her arm crawls around my waist, and she pulls me tight. I pat her hand and she hugs me even closer. Her other hand rubs my belly and moves down. My stomach clenches and drops like I am on a roller coaster ride.

My head is all mixed up with thinking. I am happy Cherry is with me, but I am sad Keith is not. My privates are getting hard and my nose is running. Cherry takes my hand and puts it on her boob. My head gets dizzy and I am spinning.

She takes both my hands and leads me walking backwards into the bedroom. Her steps are sure and even, mine are not. I jerk forward and she catches me. Her bare hand touches my privates. I am shaking and sweating. My feet stumble again and I am scared, but I am not so scared that I want her to stop.

I do not want her to stop. I cannot catch my breath. I hear it in my ears. I do not know exactly what will happen, but I can guess.

Keith and I talked about man things. He told me about privates and what they do. We sat in his cockpit while he drank beer and I drank Coke. He told me all about the hot Mexican babes he knew in San Antonio. When he got back from ’Nam.

“Hot, Per. Hot! Beautiful and smart. I should have married one while I was there. Whoa, Momma!” he said.

Gram would have washed both our mouths out with naphtha soap if she had heard us. I asked Keith questions.

“You put it where? But how do you know when to do it and what to do?” I asked him.

He told me all about it and then said, “All you have to do is let nature take its course.”

“Does nature feel good?” I asked.

“Yeah, Per,” he said, and closed his eyes. “Nature feels real good.”

I wish I had paid more attention. I wish I could remember everything he said, but there is nothing in my head but wind and waves.

She takes off my shirt.

She unbuttons my pants.

She pulls me down on top of her. Cherry is soft and moves against me. When she does this I find out it is true. Every bit of it.

All you have to do is let nature take its course.

And nature feels real good.

Just like Keith said. He was right.

It is fireworks. I am flying. It is better than flying.

I laugh. “Ha!” And then I cannot talk at all. I cannot breathe. I cannot think. I just am.

My thinking turns into black and I fall asleep.

When I wake up again the clock is flashing three-three-zero. Three-thirty in the morning. I have no clothes on and Cherry is naked. I watch her breathe. In and out. She is so beautiful. I do not say a word, but it is as if she hears me watch.

Her eyes open. She smiles.

And I know exactly what to do.

58

I have been rich for almost a year.

When my cousin-brothers found out about Keith they started calling even more, but I did not talk. I did not answer. I had to think by myself. And then I knew.

I knew what to do.

My words today are
share, shareholder, sharer,
and
shark.
Share means you give part of your things to other people and a shark has teeth and bites.

I dial David’s number first, then I dial John’s. “People should get what they want,” I tell them on the phone. I say it is time for another Family Meeting. I call the Family Meeting this time. It is my decision. I am like the Hulk. I have Power.

Both my cousin-brothers come to the apartment to pick me up. John’s hand is on my shoulder pushing me a little, as I walk down the stairs. One of his ragged nails catches on my jacket. I stretch up and push back.

Cherry is behind the counter at the register. I can see her through the plate glass window as we walk by. David gets into the front seat of a long black car and I sit in back with John.

Mike Dinelli is at the wheel and revs his engine.

It’s about time,
he says.
It’s about time.

BROOM! BROOM! The engine of the car sounds like
Diamond Girl.

We drive away in short spurts. I can hear gravel hit the side of the building. I see Gary running out of Holsted’s, but Mike goes fast out of the parking lot. I crane my neck around to see Gary through the back window. He is waving and yelling.

“Stop! Come back!
Stop!
”

Don’t worry, Gary, I think. I know what I am doing.

We drive to John’s office. It is in a tall building that stretches to the sky. It stretches to heaven. I look up to the top. I look up for Gram and Gramp. I look for Keith.

I have never seen John’s office. There are pictures on the wall with scribbles.

“What are those?” I ask. It looks like when I was little and could not color in the lines.

“Abstract art, Perry. They’re valuable. John is a collector,” David whispers.

I laugh. “Ha! I think they look like mistakes.”

We step into a room with a big brown table. When John sits down in one of the chairs, the leather makes a sound like a fart and I think of Keith. I think he would understand what I am doing.

I know he would.

I will give my family the lottery money. I do not need to wait. I do not need the next lottery check. I am a businessman. I have my salary from Holsted’s. I have my savings account.

I will sign papers so my family gets the rest of the money. I will not give them my Power. I do not need to. I am the Hulk and the Hulk is not fooled.

And another thing.

I will not tell them about my savings account. It is not their business.

I see John spread his hands on the table then curl the ends of his fingers under. I think he does this so no one will see that he bites his nails. That is what I used to do until Gram made me stop.

It is important for me to sign papers, Louise says. Important, John says. Very important, Mike says. Crucial, Elaine says. It is crucial. That means bigger than important. I sit at the table. My family surrounds me. They look like jackals. I know what jackals are because I watch Animal Planet. They all have pointy teeth. Just like the sharks, I think. Pointy teeth. You see this when they smile.

Louise’s head is covered. I cannot tell what color her hair is today.