Blind Luck

by Scott Carter

Neither of them said a word on the way to the beach. Dave worried about what he would do if his dad got kicked out of 29 Palson while Jack still replayed the music and the few minutes of dancing. Dave wheeled his dad to a spot by a bench on the boardwalk. The breeze coming off the water was colder than Dave had expected, so he pulled out two blankets from beneath the wheelchair and laid one over his dad’s legs, wrapping another around his shoulders. A series of waves formed small whitecaps at their tips as the water rushed into the beach.

  “This isn’t the cottage, but it’s a nice view,” Dave said, picking up a rock from the wet sand.

  “It smells like bird shit.” Jack erupted into the type of painful cough that only emphysema can bring on before raising his oxygen mask to his mouth with a palsied hand. Dave watched to make sure his breathing steadied before pitching the rock over the sand and into the water. Jack lowered the mask from his face.

  “How much did you lose?”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got a look on your face that only losing money can cause. How much?”

  “I didn’t lose money.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not, I actually made a lot of money.”

  “Then you’re a bloody fool for walking around with such a long face.”

  Dave picked up another rock the size of a baseball. “Have you ever owed a lot of money? So much that you’re like an indentured servant?”

  Jack looked around his wheelchair at the boardwalk. “There’s bird shit everywhere.”

  “Yeah, yeah, there is, Pop. But I’m asking you a question. Have you ever borrowed so much money that the people who lent it to you might as well own you?”

  “I’ve borrowed a lot of money in my time.”

  “Okay, well, I’m in a similar situation. How do I get back to even, how do I get out?”

  “You outplay them.”

  “What do you mean outplay them?”

  “Anyone who has leverage on you in life is playing you. Your greed, your needs, your love, your desperation. Play them instead.”

  Jack burst into another round of horrible coughs until Dave steadied the oxygen mask. Jack took a few deep breaths before lowering the mask sooner than his lungs wished.

  “The cottage never smelled like bird shit.”

  “I know.”

  Twenty-Six

  At home, alone with his thoughts, Dave had to admit that things were changing. He’d felt life’s rhythms altering for weeks, but instinct had told him to deny that a pattern was forming and to deny that Thorrin’s money was dangerous. But the silence wouldn’t allow him to deny it any longer. Without routine, Dave’s touchstones had disappeared. It wasn’t that he identified himself as an accountant, but somewhere in the routine of nine-to-five, the familiarity of voices and the cause and effect of daily work, he’d defined a comfortable reality. He couldn’t make sense of his new circumstances, and with the fall of his daily routine fell the workdays, bi-weekly paycheques, vacations, weekends, and the anticipation accompanying a Friday afternoon that used to make sense to him. Sometimes the routine frustrated him, but it always made him comfortable.

  The shower’s cold water jolted him as he stepped underneath the spray. He adjusted the hot water tap first, then the cold tap, but he couldn’t get the balance he wanted, so he settled for cool. All he wanted was to clean up, then go to sleep, but his mind wouldn’t relax. Thoughts scrambled frantically in an effort to make sense of the past few weeks. The truck crashing through the office storefront, Grayson’s smug smile, the limp bodies of his colleagues, a series of bizarre guesses, money and more money. His head ached. A squeezing sensation on both temples prompted a harsh gag. He bent his head down to begin a series of deep breaths through his nose to steady the heart, relax the nerves, and relieve the stress reactions.

  Part of him wanted to call Amy and ask her if she would leave the city with him.

  They could move to a small town, out west, or to any country she wanted as long as they disappeared. But he couldn’t abandon his dad. The man didn’t have anyone else left who cared about him, so escaping wasn’t an option.

  Hunger made Dave weak, but his stomach warned him not to eat. Things were escalating fast, and it was only a matter of time before he would be the one running from the dog. The thought of owing Thorrin the money for any stock he couldn’t predict also stopped him from sitting down. He paced the apartment while considering how to get out of the situation. Going to the police and claiming extortion was an option, but between the danger that he would be putting himself in with Thorrin and having to get a cop to believe the whole story, he knew it wasn’t a realistic option.

  He hunched down under his bed, removed the box where he kept his money and brought it into the living room. As he spread the stacks over the table, it surprised him to see just how many there were. Thinking about how he’d guessed a stranger’s name or picked the winning score of a football game left him numb. He remembered feeling like that when he’d thought about death as a kid. However, these choices he made were coming true. He knew it was beyond his control, and the reality of that helplessness left him uncomfortable.

  He wanted to believe that he’d survived the truck crashing into the office simply because it was possible, but every passing day made it more difficult to be sure. Since he’d met Thorrin, the questions had mounted in his head, and as he looked at the money in front of him, denying them was no longer an option. Nothing looked the same any more. His apartment looked dirty, the T.V. shows he used to love felt dated, and his reflection in the mirror appeared drained.

  Things had changed, and it was hard to live without wondering why everyone he worked with had died. He gathered up the money before returning it to the box. The compulsion to admit how he felt led him to the phone. He didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts for another second. The double beat of his dial tone reminded him he had messages. The first message was a hang-up. Two weeks before, he would have pressed star-sixty-nine immediately, but he erased the message without hesitation. The voice of message number two was vaguely familiar if not exciting.

  “Mr. Bolden, this is Phil Bryer again, please call me.”

  Again, he erased the message. Fucking vultures. Whether it was an insurance rep or a journalist, he hated them the same for calling him, only because he was the sole survivor or seeing him as some sort of gatekeeper to knowledge that might save money or make money. He was sure of their motives, and somehow they knew how to contact him. His thumb pressed the “erase” button just to be sure before keying in Amy’s number. After the first two rings, he considered hanging up for fear of waking her, and after the third and fourth, he feared she wasn’t home, until she answered on the fifth ring.

  “I’m sorry to wake you up, but I really need to speak with you.”

  “It’s okay, I wasn’t asleep, I was listening to music.”

  “Can I come over?”

  “Of course. What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve just been up thinking, and I’d feel better if I saw you.”

  “Then come over. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

  He couldn’t get there fast enough. Every moment felt out of sync.

  Visions of his colleagues’ broken bodies intensified, and the more he thought about that morning, the less he was sure about what he remembered. Was I in the bathroom for one minute or five before I heard the crash? Did I really have to go the bathroom, or did I just want to delay the start of work? These were the details that had saved his life, yet he wasn’t sure about any of them.

  He stepped into Amy’s place to find her sipping tea on the couch. In a tight-fitting T-shirt and track pants, she looked more like somebody going to the gym than somebody who was tucked away reading in bed. She got up from the couch and passed him a cup of mint tea before wrapping her arms around his chest.

  “Come here.” She pulled him close.

  “I’m sorry for doing this, but…”

  “Don’t be. Come sit down.”
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  His eyes were sore. He took a sip of tea as a show of thanks before rubbing at both sockets.

  “I want to tell you,” he started before pausing. His voice was unsteady. “I want to tell you that I miss the people I worked with. I’ve been trying to deal with it as part of life, and that worked at first, it was just how I felt, but in the last few weeks everything’s changed. I don’t know why I survived, and I can’t stop thinking about how great it would be to just go to bed one night, get up in the morning, go to work and have them all be there.”

  “Of course you do.” She reached for his hand, but he pulled away. The thoughts compelled him to be on his feet.

  “If there is something working in my favour, why did I survive? What’s the purpose of someone like me living and them dying? And why are all these fortunate things happening to me right after something so terrible?” He stopped pacing to drop his weight back onto the couch. “I don’t know what to think.”

  Amy eased his head and shoulders down into her lap. “Maybe you’re not supposed to think. Maybe you’re supposed to just let it happen.”

  “I thought I knew how to deal with this.”

  Her closest hand ran down his arm before stopping to massage his wrist. “Have you thought about what you want to do next?”

  “You mean with a job?”

  “Yeah. Do you still want to be an accountant?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t think I’m up for working in an office any more.”

  “Can’t say I blame you. I couldn’t stand being in an office.”

  She bent down and kissed him before he could get out his next word. The kiss surprised him. He wasn’t ready for the tingle that the warmth of her lips brought, but she kept kissing him, so he kissed back. Kissing her was easy. Their lips worked with each other until they lost time in the rhythm. Amy sat up to reposition herself so that she could lie beside him. With her hands stroking his hair and neck, it wasn’t long before his eyes shut, and he slipped into a deep sleep where the darkness shut out everything that stressed him.

  In the morning, Dave woke to the sound of whispering in his ear. It took a moment to make out the details, but he recognized the voice as Amy’s right away.

  “I have to go to work,” she said. “I’ll leave my keys on the front table.”

  “Work?”

  “Yeah, it’s Monday morning.”

  He cleared the sleep crust from his eyes. “I didn’t know you worked.”

  “How do you think I survive?”

  “I thought Grayson said he took care of you.”

  Raised eyebrows displayed her disappointment that Grayson had spoken of her like she was below him. “Well, he owns the place, so he I guess he is taking care of me.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “I manage a laundromat. And I’ve got to get going.”

  “Can I come?”

  “You want to come to a laundromat?”

  “I’d like to see where you work.”

  “Okay. Can you be ready in five minutes?”

  A clear sky greeted them as they stepped out of the apartment. The air was fresh more than cool, so Amy unzipped her jacket. “I can’t believe you didn’t get a ticket,” she said, pointing to his car. “People always get tickets here.”

  “Maybe they saw how pathetic I looked and took pity on me.”

  The self-deprecation received a glowing smile.

  “Or maybe I should bring you everywhere with me.”

  “I could handle that.”

  They turned the corner, and Dave noticed a large LAUNDROMAT sign hanging from two poles about fifteen feet above the sidewalk.

  With black type on white, despite its age, the sign really popped. Dave was wondering how much longer the rusty hinges connecting the signs would stop it from crashing down to the sidewalk when Amy spread her arms.

  “We’re here.”

  “Very cool.”

  They stepped inside to see that the place was empty. Other than some scattered newspapers on the folding table and a couple of Bounce sheets on the floor, the space was clean. The machines looked like they had been around since he was a kid, and the beige walls and brown-tiled floors gave it a timeless feel.

  “There’s not much to it,” she said, gathering the newspapers. “But it gives me a lot of time to listen to music, and most of the people are really nice.” She took a key from her pocket, unlocked a cabinet and removed a stereo. She patted the top of it like it was a cat. “This is my best friend when I’m working.”

  “This would be a great place to work.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sure. You’re your own boss, you get a lot of time for music, you’re providing an essential service, and you get to talk to people.”

  She smiled. “People don’t normally get excited when I tell them I work at a laundromat.”

  “Then you’re telling the wrong people. Is there a variety store around here?”

  “Yeah, just down the street.”

  “Good, I want to buy a lotto ticket.”

  She turned, and her eyes sparkled as if he had just invited her to a Caribbean island. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Oh my god, you’re serious.” She hopped three times in place.

  “Why not? There’s definitely been some good things happening to me. What do we have to lose?”

  “You have everything to gain, but don’t involve me in this, or it won’t work.”

  The variety store smelled stale, as if nothing had been moved for years. The counter was relatively clean, but even the chocolate bar rack had a layer of dust. Dave looked at all the types of tickets laid out beneath the counter’s glass.

  “What should I get?”

  “Not the scratch ticket. Ask how much the weekly pot is.”

  He looked at her for a second like she should ask herself before turning to the owner, who was in his fifties, with a blotch on his bald head that looked burned or diseased. “Hi, what is the pot for the weekly lotto?”

  “Eight million,” he said in an Eastern European accent Dave placed as Ukrainian.

  “Get a weekly ticket,” Amy said so fast it came out as one word. “But wait until I leave, I don’t want to be around when you get it.”

  She left the store as fast as possible, and the clerk made eyes at Dave to indicate he thought she was crazy.

  “She’s just excited. And very superstitious.”

  The Ukrainian man laughed deeply and fully at her expense. Dave scribbled down a series of numbers before passing them to him.

  “Good luck,” the man said as he passed him the ticket.

  Dave held the ticket high. “Thank you.”

  “I mean with your lady friend.” The clerk burst into another full laugh that Dave knew was at his expense.

  He looked at the ticket and thought about how weird it was that a small square piece of paper could be worth eight million dollars. He waved it from shoulder to shoulder as he stepped out of the store so that Amy could see it was official.

  “I can’t believe you did it.”

  “Do you want to hold it?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  Dave smiled at the purity of her reaction. He folded the ticket once before placing it in his wallet. “How close are you with your brother?”

  “Grayson?”

  “Is there another one?”

  “No, it’s just the question came out of nowhere.”

  “He keeps showing up in my life, so I’d like to know how close you are.”

  “I’d say we’re close. At least as close as he is to anyone. He’s twelve years older, so it’s not like we grew up sharing secrets, and we don’t see each other a whole lot, but he’s a good big brother. Why?”

  “Because Grayson and this man he works for are taking this belief in me too far.”

  “How so?”

  “They won’t let me stop working with them.”

  “Why do you want to? You’re making money, aren’t you?�
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  “You’re not listening. They won’t let me stop. I refused to pick a stock, and they told me I’d owe them what they would have invested if I don’t. That’s two hundred thousand dollars, and they said they’d make sure they’d get their money.”

  “Grayson wouldn’t do that.”

  “Well, he did.”

  “Are you sure you’re not reading into what they said?”

  Dave stopped in front of the laundromat. “Look, I don’t want to be in this situation, especially not with your brother. Not when we’re starting what we’re starting here. They took me to see some form of extreme betting the other day. These guys were racing, and they let loose a dog to see which guy it would attack; I don’t want to be involved in this stuff. I need your help. I need you to go to Grayson, tell him that we’ve started a relationship, tell him he should let me out.”

  “Dogs?”

  Dave nodded. Amy didn’t respond as fast as he’d anticipated. He was hoping for an “Anything for you”, but her eyes warned that the request wasn’t that simple.

  “There’s got to be more to this. I know Grayson is a cutthroat businessman, but he wouldn’t be part of something like that. Someone must be making him do it.”

  “Will you talk to him?”

  “Yeah, I’ll talk to him.”

  “Do you think you can convince him to let me out of this?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Dave was sifting through Amy’s record collection when she returned from her bedroom.

  “Grayson agreed to talk about your relationship, but he wants you to be there. He said he doesn’t want to get caught in a triangle of misinformation.”

  “All I care about is that he agreed to meet.”

  Grayson met them at a dessert café. He already had a slice of cheesecake and a piece of maple fudge in front of him when they entered. He greeted Amy with a long hug and Dave with a quick handshake.

  “So…what did you want to see me about?”

  Amy wiped her hands across her thighs. “I want you to know…I want you to know that I’m seeing Dave.”

  “I know.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I knew something was up; you’re happy.”