Lucifer's Lottery

by Edward Lee

  Randal poured two coffees, but the brew looked like squid ink. “That pregnant hooker really pisses me off. One of these days I’ll find a decent one.”

  “Most of those girls are drug addicts,” Hudson affirmed. “When you solicit them for sex, you’re helping them remain in an environment of moral bankruptcy, degradation, and misery.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Randal sputtered.

  “If you give them money for drugs in exchange for action, it’s the same as if you’re buying the drugs yourself. It all goes to the same place, the same evil. Besides, hookers and johns offend God.”

  “Here we go with this shit again.” Randal grabbed a broom and whisked it around the store, half assed. “If there was a God, then there’d be no drug addiction, so then there’d be no girls offering to do you for money.”

  Hudson frowned. “I think God is about free will, Randal. It’s about the choice. Does one choose to do drugs or does one choose not to? Do they choose to consort with prostitutes or do they choose not to? God’s really got nothing to do with it.”

  “Whatever . . .” Randal swept some dust beneath the counter. “So, what? You came in here tonight just to try to con me into going to church?”

  “Well . . . I wanted to ask a favor.”

  “Fuck no, man. Get out of my store.” Randal hooted. “Relax! I’m kidding.” Then his eyes darted. “Damn, I forgot.” He opened the glass door on the rotisserie, then spat on the hot dogs.

  “What the hell!”

  Randal smirked. “Those fuckin’ things are a buck a pack wholesale. But if you spit on ’em every hour, they last longer. Only people who buy ’em are the bums and illegals. Big deal. Besides, the heat kills the germs.”

  Hudson didn’t know what to say.

  “So what’s this pain-in-the-ass favor?”

  Hudson didn’t like to lie but in this circumstance—A nude deaconess?—he could surmise no other option. “I found a hundred-dollar bill today in the street but, I don’t know—it feels funny.”

  “Funny?” Randal questioned. “As in fake?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. It’s, like, brand-new. But I’ve seen you check bills here with the funky pen . . .”

  “Anything for a friend.” Randal got it. “You want to make sure it’s not funny money before you try to spend it.”

  “Exactly.”

  Behind the counter, Randal produced a fat black pen whose body read SMARTCASH—COUNTERFEIT DETECTION MARKER. Hudson gave him one of the ultracrisp bills.

  “I get a 20 percent commission if it’s real, right?” Randal posed, holding the uncapped marker.

  Anything for a friend, my ass, Hudson realized. “Yeah, sure.”

  Randal rubbed the bill between his fingers. “Wow, that is new.” He grinned up. “You sure you’re not printing these up in your pad?”

  “With what? My oyster board?”

  Randal chuckled. “Or maybe in the church! That whacko Father Darren’s probably printing his own funny money and getting you to pass it!”

  “Hilarious.”

  Randal drew a quick notch on the bill, then gave the iodine-saturated ink time to dry.

  It’s fake, Hudson knew. It’s got to be fake. It’s just some scam I haven’t figured out yet. Six grand landing in his lap out of the blue like this? Too good to be true.

  Randal shrugged, deposited the bill in the register, and gave Hudson eighty dollars back. “It’s real.”

  “You’re kidding me . . .”

  “It’s as real as my coffee is bad.”

  “That’s real.”

  “I’m gonna spend my end on another hooker tonight, but not that ratchet-job knocked-up cow that just left. What’cha gonna spend the rest on?”

  Hudson wavered, suddenly hard-pressed to conceal his excitement. But this is avarice, isn’t it? He’d been given a very mysterious $6,000 via a very mysterious scenario. Nevertheless, the money was real, and the arcane note she’d left indicated that he could keep it under no obligation. “I’ll probably put it in the church plate.”

  Randal bristled. “Fuck that! Put it in my plate! That damn church gets all kinds of money!”

  “Tell you what, I’ll take us both out to dinner before I leave.”

  “Cool!”

  Two roughneck construction workers came in and each purchased a hot dog. Hudson cringed as they left.

  “I should’ve asked them how my spit tastes.” Randal honked laughter.

  “That’s pretty revolting, man.”

  The bell rung. “You wanna talk about revolting? Check this homeless scumbag out,” Randal said.

  A malodorous man who surely weighed 400 pounds squeezed through the door. He mumbled to himself, his lips like mini bratwursts on the huge, greasy face. A rim of long gray-black hair (with flecks of garbage in it) half circumscribed the bald, dirt-smudged head. Stained orange sweatpants clung to elephantine legs, and for a shirt he wore a reeking yellow raincoat. He seemed to jabber something like, “I am by a vent with a bone,” and, “Would somebody please cut off my head?”

  Jesus, Hudson thought. The poor bastard. Totally destitute and schizophrenic. It seemed there were more and more of these lost souls popping up all the time since the recession hit.

  Randal cut Hudson a snide grin. “So we’re all children of God, huh? Well if so, then God’s got a shitload of fucked-up kids.”

  “It doesn’t involve God at all,” Hudson answered, unfazed. “Humanity exists in error ever since Eve bit the apple. God gave us the brains and the wherewithal to help people like this guy, with medical technology and compassion. But we have to choose to have the grace to do it.” Hudson reached in his pocket.

  “Don’t you dare give that walking garbage can money,” Randal ordered. “The shit-smelling fucker rips me off all the time.” He rapped a baseball bat against the counter, and yelled at the man, “Get out of here! I’ve got you on tape ripping off Wing Dings and Yoo-hoos three nights in a row!”

  The man looked back, wobbling. His phlegmatic voice fluttered. “I wanna-wanna ha-ha-hot dog! It was Peter Lawford—Bobby watched the door . . .”

  Randal CLACKED! the bat again. “Take your crazy ass out of here! Otherwise I call the cops after I joggle that piss sponge you’ve got for a brain!”

  “Fucker,” the voice rattled back; then he hitched and released a trumpet blast of colonic gas.

  “Aw, Jesus! You’re a fuckin’ animal! How can somebody homeless weigh that much? You shoplift five thousand calories a day?”

  Hudson’s eyes teared from the sudden waft.

  “You’re a fucker!” the man warbled back.

  Randal waved the bat. “I’m killin’ ya if you don’t GET OUT!”

  The huge man shimmied in place, then leaned over, stuck his fingers down his throat, and—

  “No! Don’t!”

  —burped up what had to be a gallon of vomit. It hit the floor like a bucket of barley and vegetable soup.

  “Holy shit!” Randal came around the counter with the bat, but Hudson grabbed him.

  “Just let him go, man. He’s messed up, he can’t help it.”

  Randal fumed, but by now the man had already wobbled out of the store. He looked at the splatter of vomit on the floor and nearly keeled over.

  “Yeah, he can’t help it—shit.”

  “It’s called compassion, man,” Hudson said, gagging at the smell. “You really have a lot of ill will inside, Randal. He can’t help the way he is.”

  Randal wailed. “He just puked Niagara Falls on my floor!”

  “Compassion, Randal. Compassion.”

  “Fine, smart guy. Ready to walk it like you talk it?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Now you can have some compassion for me.” Randal threw Hudson a mop. “And help me clean this up.”

  Hudson laughed and said, “Sure.”

  (IV)

  That night Hudson was heckled by a stew of awful dreams. He heard a wind that sounded like screams. Words seemed to fly in the
air as if abstract birds: “DON’T BE A CRUMMY PERSON!” and “I AM BY A VENT WITH A BONE,” and “WALKS IN HERE WITH A BELLYFUL OF WHITE TRASH AND RIPS ME OFF?” and “I’M HERE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU’VE WON THE SENARY.”

  He dreamed, first, of being body-rubbed by GAG and DO ME, both naked, of course, but just as the duo prepared to fellate him, they began to cackle like witches. Hudson’s eyes sprang open to see they now both had vampire fangs. Next, the dream showed him a Polanski-like tracking shot which soared about the nighted town amid an aural muttering that could only be described as black, and suddenly the point of view soared down onto a drab sidewalk and a fence and a trashily dressed woman climbing over that fence with a shovel in her hand, and as she did so she spat! in disgust, and now that Polanski dream-camera moves off; it’s picking up speed as it absurdly changes tenses; it seems to swerve, then dive, and caroms off to a strange smoking street tinted in weird light, which then opens to a football stadium–sized clearing sitting in the middle of a city crammed with leaning decrepit buildings, and this clearing is surrounded by a wall of pale white bricks the size of houses, and within this wall stands a drab statue hundreds of feet high, the largest statue Hudson has ever seen, and then the “camera” zooms in on the statue’s face, which looks like a great grimacing mask of mud, after which a squeaking noise is heard and visible however tinily along the top of the wall is a young man in a wheelchair and then—ZAP!—the point of view explodes to another grim and impossible place where hunched and vaguely unhuman workmen labor in silence as they build a house but very soon it becomes discernible that the workmen aren’t using bricks to build the house, they’re using human heads, and then, next, the camera shoots upward, rocketlike, and only plunges after an exceedingly long period until it fires through a stained-glass window and stops in the chancel of a church where six horned demons that look like skeletons covered with raw chicken skin cavort within a circle of brown ashes and stinking candles. A woman lies naked on the floor, her arms and legs lashed wide. One demon studies a scroll of yellowed paper while the other five amuse themselves by fondling the squirming woman. A lipless mouthful of pus sucks at the fur-rimmed flesh between the woman’s legs, two more sloppily suckle her bosom. The first looks up from the scroll and orders, “The Benumbment Spell has taken effect. The Inscriptions must begin.” But the entity’s voice sounds echoic and like gravel being poured from a dump truck. On command, each of the remaining things dip long, jointy fingers into what looks like a mortar. The fingers come away brown. “Anoint her,” speaks the primary demon. “Make her despoilment rich. It nourishes the Flux . . .” With their sullied fingertips, the demons begin to write on the woman’s luxuriant, nude body, and in the midst of the dream, Hudson’s psyche becomes active, and he wonders, What was that stuff in the cup? But the query is stifled when he sees exactly what the demons are inscribing: a multitude of sixes. “Good, good,” the first demon approves. “The anointing is sufficient.” The voice crackles and grinds. “We must discorporate shortly. Light the Subservience Ash.” Then it begins to intone words in some unknown language. Before the dream veers away, the woman’s face is finally revealed: Deaconess Wilson.

  That’s when Hudson woke up.

  What a pile of crap for a dream! his thoughts squalled. The recollections disgusted him. He dragged himself up, showered, then nearly howled when he looked at the clock.

  Six P.M.

  I slept the whole day away!

  He searched the cupboards for something to eat but found nothing—just a bottle of Vigo olive oil. Great . . . Then he stared at the kitchen table, noticing the envelope full of money and the handwritten notice that he’d won the “Senary.” At least that part wasn’t a dream.

  But what would he do with the cash? Save it? Or: I’ll put half in the bank and give the rest to the church or a homeless shelter.

  Would that make him a better person in God’s eyes? He wondered. Don’t be a crummy person, the evangelist’s words kept sideswiping him. But when he looked at the envelope again . . .

  Maybe it’s time to see what this Senary business is all about . . .

  Two winos shared the bus shelter with him, sleeping or passed out. A third man, who looked normal, must’ve been possessed by some syndrome like Tourette’s. He peered right at Hudson and spouted, “Fuck luck suck druck muck cluck nuck tuck BLUCK!”

  And a good day to you, too, Hudson thought. He dressed normally, in faded jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers. The shelter’s plastic windows shuddered when the bus pulled up.

  Hudson took the first seat, while the winos neglected to get on. Maybe they’re . . . dead, he considered, looking out the window at them. They remained sidled over in the shelter, drooling. The Tourette’s man went all the way to the back; then the bus jerked away.

  The Senary, Hudson contemplated. What the hell is it? He looked at the announcement, with the address and instructions.

  . . . CARRY ON TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS AFTER SUNDOWN WITHIN THE NEXT SIX DAYS . . .

  It had only been one day, and a glance to the horizon showed him he still had several hours before sundown. A copy of the Tampa Bay Times sat on his seat; Hudson picked it up, began to thumb through. One article enthused over the governor’s bid to build a “biomass” electric plant; the plant ran on natural gas derived from elephant grass and dog feces. Then Hudson spotted this:

  FEMALE PASTOR DISAPPEARS

  The article went on to disclose that Andrea Wilson, forty, a well-regarded deaconess at the Grace Unitarian Church of St. Petersburg, seemingly disappeared from her post several days ago. She gave no notice of resignation, nor notice of taking leave.

  It’s her, Hudson thought when he looked at the accompanying picture, the blonde hair conservatively pulled back, the strongly angled but attractive face, and the Roman collar.

  “She’s such a wonderful person,” quoted a woman who regularly attended the church. “She’s so inspiring, so full of faith. And she’s simply not the type of person to leave and not tell anyone where she went.”

  I know where she went yesterday, came Hudson’s dreadful thought. My apartment, to tell me I’ve won a contest called the Senary, and then strip nude and rub herself down with my olive oil . . .

  He wondered if he should call the police and tell them that he’d seen the missing woman, but . . . No. What on earth could I say?

  He squinted at the next, shorter article, which reported that a grave had been vandalized late last night at Carver Forest Memorial Cemetery, and the very instant Hudson read the information, he glanced out the window to discover that the bus was cruising by a long, overgrown cemetery. The sign at a fenced entrance read CARVER FOREST. Uncanny, he thought. The spotty article went on to reveal that the grave vandalized had been that of a four-month-old infant who’d been murdered last spring.

  Lord. What a world . . .

  Hudson closed the paper when he saw his stop nearing. Had he turned the page he would’ve seen a grimmer article about the discovery of a dead newborn baby found in a recycle bin last night. Hudson pulled the cord. “Thank you, driver,” he said, and the driver, in turn, frowned. The Tourette’s man railed from the back of the bus just as Hudson stepped off: “Fuck suck schmuck gruck huck puck duck buck zuck wuck six.” Then the doors flapped closed.

  Hudson turned as the bus pulled away. Did he say six? He squinted after the disappearing vehicle and saw the Tourette’s man give him the finger through the back window.

  He walked down Central, shirking at loud cars and motorcycles. He’d already memorized the street address (24651) because he didn’t want to be consulting his wallet in this neck of the woods. The area was mostly ghetto, small saltbox houses in various states of disrepair. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, he considered when he noticed stragglers obviously selling drugs only blocks deeper off the road. Burned-up yards fronted most of the little houses; piles of junk sat like tepees amid trashed cars. So much for urban renewal . . .

  He sensed more than saw a figure behind him.
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  “Yo!” came a girl’s voice.

  Hudson turned, not quite at ease. A black girl in tight knee jeans and a zebra-striped tube top boldly approached him. Her dark skin gleamed over robust curves.

  “How’s, uh, how’s it going?” Hudson bumbled.

  “Why’n’cha lemme put some sizzle in your swizzle, man, like I’ll lay some bigtown xtralicious super gobble game on you for, like, twenty-five bucks,” she said.

  “No, really, I—”

  “Bullshit, man.” She stood haughtily, hand on a cocked hip. “I knows a john when I see one, and you a john. Come on, pussy or mouth, I got both. You wanna fuck, I kin tell.”

  “No, really—”

  “Yeah, you white guys’re all cheap motherfuckers. Awright, twenty bucks for a blow.”

  Only now did Hudson fully realize how out of place he was. “I’m . . . not interested. I’m just trying to find an address.”

  The gleam of her white teeth matched that of her skin. “Shee-it. You lookin’ for the Larken House, I know. Lotta folks always lookin’ for it. 24651, right?”

  Hudson was astonished. “Well, yes.”

  “Folks been walkin’ by it since it happened.”

  “Since . . . what happened?”

  “Don’t’choo watch the news?” She adjusted her tube top. “Couple, three months ago, a brother named Larken, work construction, he cut off his ole lady’s head when he found out the baby she had a couple months ’fore that were from a other dude. Cut her head off in the house, then walk right down this street and stick it on the antenna of the dude’s car ’cos, see, he hadda old car that had one’a them old-fashioned antennas on it. Then Larken come back the house and cut the baby’s head off, and he microwave it. Some say he fuck the headless wife on the kitchen table, too, but I dunno. Then he hang hisself. Said he had his cock out when he step off the chair.” She looked at him. “Fucked-up house, man.”

  Hudson felt perplexed. “So that’s why people walk by it? Because it’s . . . infamous?”

  “Yeah, man. ’Cos, sometime, they say, you kin see Larken in there, hangin’ by his neck. Sometimes you hear the baby cryin’.”