Unlucky Numbers
By Jonathan Sowers
Copyright 2016 Jonathan Sowers
A circular opening about five feet wide appeared in the wall, winking open like a bright eye in the dark. Dull light spilled from the round corridor as a gray-haired man emerged. I think I would have recognized him without knowing who he was. He reset the clock radio by my sleeping body and walked back down the glowing hall. The opening disappeared.
I worked in a small call center for a telemarketing company called Future Health. The same portal appeared there that same night. The man walked through the silent office to a file cabinet. He pulled a key from his pocket and twisted it in the lock of the bottom drawer. He leafed through the pages and replaced one of them with a page of his own.
Later this unknown figure entered an empty commuter train and walked down the aisle, slapping stickers of the number seven everywhere. Then he vanished through another glowing aperture.
At least that’s how I imagined it. That’s how he made me pick the numbers. Nine and forty-five for the time my alarm went off. Seven for the stickers I saw on my commute. Twelve for the number of sales I made. And twenty-three. He knew I’d pick twenty-three as the Gigaball.
###
My stomach felt like it was full of fishing line. I sucked in a deep breath and blew the air out as I waited for the train. My alarm had gone off late and my boss was waiting to scoop out my guts. “Better not think about it,” I thought, and instead pictured the places I would go in Scions of Gammalot. It was a multiplayer role playing game set in a vast fantasy world. I was close to 48th level and if I planned out my evening right I could unlock my flying unicorn. I had been stuck at level 47 for weeks. If I could convince my guild-mates to raid Soth Flodan that would push me over the top.
On the train there were stickers everywhere, just a number seven in black and white. I continued to contemplate my plan for Soth Flodan with such concentration that I nearly missed my stop. I muttered, “Excuse me,” as I pushed past bodies and scraped through the closing doors.
I entered the Future Health employee lounge. It was more like an alcove for coffee and water-cooler storage. I filled a Styrofoam cup with black coffee under the glare of Brandon, the sales manager. “Sorry I’m late,” I said with a sheepish grin.
“That’s the second time this month. I’m going to talk to Joe about this,” Brandon said.
“Sorry Brandon, it won’t happen again.”
“Just get to work,” he said. “Remember, ABC, always be calling.”
I approached the file cabinet, pulled open a drawer, and withdrew a stack of dot-matrix-printed phone numbers. “All Star” by Smash Mouth rattled across the office as I sat down at my desk with my lead sheet and coffee. I hated that song. Joe was the company owner and it was his idea that we listen to music all day to support a rocking attitude. We never got to meet Joe. My fingers dialed the first number on my call sheet using the old touch tone phone.
“Hello?” said the phone absently.
“Speak to Mrs. Gernsback, please,” I said.
“This is Mrs. Gernsback.”
A part of me recoiled but another part knew just what to do. I started reading from the script like I’m Casey Kasem introducing this week’s number one song. “Mrs. Gernsback, I’m Frank and I’m calling to tell you about a limited-time offer on a health supplement that will melt away extra pounds. Our product OxyFUN is taking the nutritional market by storm and I want you to benefit from this revolution in healthy living. We’re offering an incredible special for the holidays. Can I sign you up for my trial offer?”
“Well, how much does it cost?” Mrs. Gernsback said.
“For our holiday special, we’re offering a limited number of customers a $100 three-month supply of OxyFUN. This miracle pill will give you the energy you need to get out there. Sound good?” I said.
“Well it sounds interesting I guess, but I have to ask my husband,” she said.
“This is a limited offer, Mrs. Gernsback. I stand behind this product 100%. I would hate for you to miss out on its benefits. Here’s what I’ll do for you. I’ll give you the three months starter package for just $90. Would you like to pay by credit card or COD?”
I could feel Brandon hovering over me at this point, gauging my ability to close the sale. He would love an excuse to swoop in and steal it from me. He had been in a slump lately.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Gernsback said.
“OK Mrs. Gernsback, you’re a shrewd negotiator,” I said. “We’re really excited to add you to the OxyFUN team and I’m going to sign you up at a deeply reduced rate of just $80. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get back into healthy living and we’re not getting any younger, are we Mrs. Gernsback.”
“I’ll get my credit card,” she said.
I pumped my fist in the air and a part of me died inside. “Good job,” Brandon said.
She read me the card numbers and I hung up the phone. I walked to the big dry erase board by Brandon’s desk and wrote a one by name. I rang the bell hanging on the wall. “First sale of the day,” Brandon announced in his wooden, cheery voice.
“Looks like I’m in for a lucky day,” I thought.
You have to expect hang-ups and yelled curses here. Everybody hates you. You even hate yourself a little. Maybe more than a little. I developed a very thick skin over the course of a couple years. Today I was on a roll. I rang the bell seven more times before our lunch break.
I sat at my desk and ate a California burrito. After lunch, I got made more sales. Twelve sales off of cold calls was a personal best. I sighed and put my lead sheets away, grabbed my shoulder bag and clocked out as Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” belted out of the cheap boombox.
We always got out of the office earlier than the other working people because Joe didn’t want us to be full-time. So we often went out for drinks. We were a bunch of weirdos, misfits, and ex-cons. This was one of the only jobs where you could just walk in off the street, start working, and collect a paycheck, no questions asked.
We went to the Starry Heath, an Irish bar with a few regulars getting day-drunk. The bartender recognized us. Kevin offered to buy the first round. He ordered a pitcher of beer, something cheap. “When I was in Ireland, I learned about their drinking customs,” Kevin said. He was a former used car dealer and he sounded like it.
“Oh yeah,” Martin said. “Like what?” Martin had prior experience in a call center in prison so in a way he was the old-timer of the group.
“Well someone says they’ve got this round, then it’s the next person’s job to get the next one,” Kevin said. “You take turns. And if anybody else offers to buy you a drink, you say, ‘No thanks I’m in a round with these blokes.’ It’s like a drinking game.”
“Man, you ain’t never been to Ireland,” Emily said. Emily was just working until her trust fund came due. She had a few blotchy, homemade anarchy tattoos from her summers jumping trains as a punk hobo.
“I went backpacking there when I was a kid, supposedly my great, great grandmother fled the country during the potato famine,” Kevin countered.
“Well luck of the Irish to you,” Melinda said, taking a deep swallow of beer. Melinda had recently gotten out of a halfway house. I don’t know how she ended up in that place and she didn’t talk about it.
“Have you ever traveled, Frank?” Kevin said.
“No,” I said. I drank some of the beer. I struggled for a moment to think of a place I’d like to visit. “I’ve heard Portland is nice.”
“Portland is amazing,” Melinda said. “The whole Pacific Northwest is great but Portland is my favorite. My favorite bookstore is there. They say it can get very dreary in the winter but I like cloudy days.”
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sp; “Never been there,” said Martin.
“I’ve been to Seattle,” Kevin said. “I went golfing in the shadow of Mt. Rainier. Beautiful area.”
“You’ve been everywhere,” said Martin.
“I’d like to visit another planet someday,” I said. I immediately felt flushed. The others laughed. “Space tourism could become a thing,” I said.
“I’d like to visit the Moon,” Melinda said.
“I’d like to visit Uranus,” Martin said. We all laughed at that.
“My round,” I said, gesturing to bartender. He brought us another pitcher as I put money down on the bar.
We joked around a while longer and went our separate ways. I got on the train eager for some time in Scions of Gammalot. Then I went to the liquor store, grabbed a six-pack of Nuclear Winter Wonderland, my favorite lager, and got in line. As I was waiting I noticed the big sign for the lottery by the register. “GigaBall jackpot $253 million.”
“Jesus that’s a lot of money,” I thought. Coming off my banner sales day I felt pretty lucky so I bought a ticket. I filled out the bubbles, got my ticket, and returned with my beer to my apartment.
My studio apartment was the size of a closet. It was enough for me, though. I had a bed, a microwave, a bathroom, and a networked computer. I plopped down in my comfy chair, logged into the game, and started chewing on a chili dog.
Once in Gammalot, I immediately checked my auctions to find that I had sold nothing and got no gold for anything. I then entered guild chat and began requesting members to form a party to raid Soth Flodan. No one was interested. Undeterred, I redoubled my efforts by continually posting in the guild chat and private messaging prominent guild members who might back my cause. By the time I had finished my chili dogs and beer, I finally received a proper reply: “You have been kicked out of the guild.”
“Great, time to find a new guild,” I thought. Or maybe not. I closed out of the game and looked at my clock radio. I wanted some fresh air and I was out of beer. I walked out to a nearby bar. I sat down on a stool in Benji’s Office, the closest dive bar, and ordered another Nuclear Winter Wonderland. The bartender walked away and I looked around. There were only a handful of patrons. One was reading, one was talking on her phone, and one was watching the small television behind the bar. I looked at the screen and noticed that the local news was ending. Next up, the lottery numbers.
As the bartender brought my beer over I pulled out the lottery ticket I had bought earlier. “Fingers crossed,” I thought, even though I knew there was no chance of winning the big prize. I focused woozily on the television as a handsome anchorman started announcing the winning numbers. One by one painted ping-pong balls dropped down out of their popcorn chambers to display the magic numbers. “Nine, forty-five, seven, twelve,” he said, slowly reading the numbers off. “And our GigaBall number is twenty-three.”
I looked down at my ticket and then back at the screen. Those were my numbers, all of them, in order. “I won,” I said much more loudly than I had intended.
“No way,” the bartender said. “Let me see.”
I didn’t say anything and for a minute he just stared at me. “Never mind, how about I just settle up,” I said. I was starting to feel drunk, like I would be more comfortable in my bed where I could sort this out tomorrow.
I paid up and left the bar. On my way home I crossed a poorly lit pedestrian bridge over the I-5 highway. It seemed unnaturally long tonight and it stank. I stumbled along, keeping my eyes fixed on the far end, and trying to ignore the stench. The more I moved over the river of traffic below the more it smelled like acid eating through rotting meat. I retched. Then I heard a coarse gasping noise. It sounded like a big dog sniffing the air.
The lights dimmed and the odor grew even stronger as a nauseating fog moved in. I could barely make out the cars and trucks below. Even the ambient buzz of dozens of tires on the road was dampened. I tried not to move or breath. My heart was beating like a hammer. The hideous snort rang out again, louder this time.
A voice spoke nearby but I couldn’t see anyone. “I’ll draw them away. Go home quickly and don’t look back.”
Everything was quiet for a few moments. I held my breath, trying to be completely still but I was shaking. Then the fog gave way like water out of a bathtub, revealing pools of gray ooze all around me on the bridge. I ran the rest of the way home, weaving around, trying to move in a straight line. I got back to my apartment and passed out.
###
In the morning my head was pounding as I realized I had to go to work. I was probably very late. Brandon would chew me out or even fire me this time. I shook my head trying to recall the bizarre events of the night before and dug in my pockets for the lottery ticket. Sure enough, it had the winning numbers.
Thinking back on those things I’d seen on the bridge, my memory was hazy. Maybe I drank too much beer. Maybe I was losing my mind. My mom didn’t like talking about it, but it ran in my family. That’s what happened to my father. He was in a car accident when I was a baby and started talking about aliens after he came home. He did a bunch of damage to our apartment and upset my mom. The state put him in a mental institution. He died a years later but I was still a kid. I don’t remember him much.
Crazy or not, I had a winning lottery ticket. I fought to catch my breath. Was I hyperventilating? I glanced around nervously a few times. I was going to buy a house for myself, a house for my mom, a car, a boat, whatever I wanted. This would really change my life.
For some reason, I thought back to doing puzzles with my mom. I played a lot by myself. The kids in my neighborhood teased me about my father being in the loony bin. So I avoided them. Instead, I played board games with my mother. We put together puzzles. We played Parcheesi, Trouble, Checkers, card games. She taught me to play solitaire and she went to stay alone in the dark of her room at night.
As I entered high school, I was afraid to venture out into the world. I took the bus to school and I took the bus home. Sometimes I would wander the city streets at night. My mom was becoming more morose and even less inclined to spend time with me. I think the last straw was when I picked up a copy of Risk at a thrift store and suggested we play it. She took one look at the board and just shook her head.
That’s when I discovered I could play games by myself with a computer. I managed to get some cheap computer parts from classified ads and started computer gaming. Been into it ever since. In computerized worlds of imagination, I could do as I pleased; shape armies, uncover mysterious lore, and pursue heroic quests. It was better than playing against my mom. And she seemed spent. She worked hard but I knew that this was not how she wanted her life to play out. She managed to pay the bills and I managed to graduate school.
I didn’t know what to do then. She wanted me to join the army or something. I couldn’t bear the idea of that so I got a job. She kicked me out a few months after that, saying, “I've been struggling to keep a roof over our heads all these years and it’s not getting any easier. You’ve got a job now. Either start paying your way or get your own place.”
I got my own place and then she cashed out all her life savings and bought a house for herself. It wasn’t a very big house. I didn’t know if she would be able to afford it but it was hers. Every time I brought up my concerns, she snapped at me. “I’ve always wanted a little house like this one and that’s the end of it,” she said.
I learned not to question her decision.
Now everything would be different. I walked outside, the sun seemed to burn brighter and warmer and the sky seemed more deeply blue than ever before. I stood a moment, drank it in, and then pulled out the lottery ticket. It had an address for the state lottery office. I could take a train.
It was a blur after that. People coming out of the woodwork for a piece of the pie popped into my mind while I rode the train. I went into the state office waving my lottery ticket and they had me sit in a waiting room, alone with a clipboard full of forms and documents. Name, address, soci
al security number, next of kin, birth date, and every conceivable personal detail. The room grew colder.
“You’re going to want to take the annuity option,” a voice said nearby. “And it would be best if you remained anonymous.”
I looked around and saw no one. “Who’s there,” I said.
“Look you don’t need to do all this. I have a lawyer coming by in a few minutes who’s going to take care of it.”
The room seemed frigid now, unnaturally cold. I ignored it. After all, I was used to the temperatures in my office.
“Look, leave everything to the lawyer. I have another place you can go.”
“Where,” I said.
“This way.”
I turned toward the voice to see a short, circular hallway that hadn’t been there before. The walls were luminous but I couldn’t see any standard light sources. It curved away at a strange angle. I strained my eyes to see further down the way but I couldn’t tell where it went.
I stooped down and began walking. It felt like I was deep underground. There was a humming noise that grew louder with every step. My vision got cloudy, like the sound was fogging my eyes. I slowed my steps, confused. I felt like I was at a fork in the road and had to decide whether to turn left or right but the tunnel kept going straight.
“I must be forking,” I thought. That didn’t make sense but it felt accurate. I felt like television static, like my body was flying apart at the atomic level. I kept walking in a disembodied euphoria. Then the humming stopped and I came into a domed room.
The floor was translucent but I couldn’t see anything beneath it, like walking on one of those glass balconies in tall buildings but there was no city below. Overhead, an opalescent ceiling pulsed, filling the chamber with a throbbing light. In the center of the room was a pedestal topped by a flickering orb. I gazed at the thing and approached slowly. It looked like a huge, milky crystal with lightning trapped inside.
I tried to speak but my mouth just opened and shut like I was hypnotized. After what seemed like an hour I finally said, “What is this?”
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