"Hey, You Never Know"
"The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles." - Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"
The Greyhound trudged east.
"I bought this in Danville."
She waved a scratch off.
Cold, wet air pushed through vents.
The worn woman pulled her jacket over her shoulders and stared out the window. Up front, the obese driver appeared happy. Above his wheel, a small, powerful fan blew air across his bald head.
Cell phones burned.
The bus stopped at the Vince.
The worn woman bought more lotto, urinated in the restroom, and skimmed her phone. The driver knew the Helix would be clogged and needed to stretch.
Discount airlines circled above and teased the blinky skyline whose sheathed glass refracted a cheap filmy glare. Inside the bus, a young passager prayed for one of them to crash.
Forty minutes later, the bus still had not entered the tunnel.
The worn lady sat tiredly in her seat and ate a stale blueberry muffin. She fingered her scratch-off.
"The city offers us such promise," the worn lady tried to say out loud. "Someone said that somewhere."
Now her scratch-off was half bent, and her shabby nails tried hard not to peel the gold-opaque latex which hid the magic. "I've always loved lotto," the worn lady said. "So much promise."
The bus was under the heavy Hudson. There was no advertising on the tunnel walls.
"Are you both from New York?" the worn woman asked my partner.
"Yes."
"You look like you're from California.”
"No," my partner said.
"Those flat hats," she said. "They wear them there."
"Yes," I said.
"New Yorkers are the best," the worn woman said. "I'm coming back from Michigan. No good, no good."
She seemed drunk, but I knew that wasn’t it.
"You have family here?" my partner asked.
"Kinda," she said.
"Do you work out?" she asked my partner.
She told us she worked out when she was younger. She wished she had a picture to show us as proof. But now her "waistline" had “expanded.” She said she didn’t have the cash to keep up with her body. She told us that when she got nervous, she ate.
The bus emerged onto Manhattan Island. The river at our back.
Outside, the streets were dirty. Bums hunched over hydrants. Shacks outside bars were graffiti-strewn. Parking tickets flapped onto dried wipers.
The roofs were high in Times Square as we pulled into the Port Authority terminal.
"Plenty of lotto here," the worn woman said. “The best in the country.”
The bus driver applied the air brakes.
"You play Keno?" asked my partner.
"Whenever I can. Played a bunch when I was holed up in Paw Paw.”
We stepped off the bus into the wet pretzel air. The worn woman looked back at the grey and blue Greyhound 86430 and smiled.
“Love a new bus.”
The passengers seized their bags.
My mouth went dry as I looked over both shoulders. My partner sucked on his Juul.
I clutched the bag and walked towards 42nd.
A large hand clasped my shoulder as a handie-talkie squelched in the distance.
"Come with us," the cop said.
My partner bolted but was quickly taken down.
The worn woman paid little mind, clutched a quarter, and scratched.