Click
Click.
She flipped the switch, turning off the overhead light. A soft glow spread into the room from the light over the kitchen stove. She was grateful to have the power to decide to turn a light off. Or on. Whether she would pay the electric bill or the gas bill in any given month depended on the season of the year. August in Oklahoma? Electricity wins.
The room didn’t look so shabby in the dim light. The carpeting was as clean as she could get it, but it was old and worn and had weathered more than its share of alcoholic mishaps. The dead smell of refrigerated air in a trailer house closed 24/7 since the end of June reminded her of the walk-in at the Gas’n Go where she spent thirty-seven hours a week trying to pay the electric bill. As many hours as they’d give her so she didn’t get benefits. No sick leave. No health insurance. No promise of a job next week.
Still that was too many hours. She’d tried cleaning houses in her spare time. But she was always too tired or the car didn’t run or she just couldn’t stand the thought of cleaning one more toilet. She did enough of that at the Gas ‘n Go.
She held a small square of paper. An official bit of paper listing six numbers – 6, 23, 27, 42, 54, and 9. She wouldn’t look at it any more. She knew the numbers by heart.
She looked at her watch – 9:15. He got off at five. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where he was. The Eight Ball. Wednesday night before Friday payday and she knew he didn’t have much money left. But there would be women in there. Lonelier than she was. And he was still good looking, still charming, still little-boy-lost making the best of his bad situation at home. Meaning her.
Click.
The cheapo bic flared and she inhaled. Only three cigarettes left to get her through until she got to work in the morning.
She hadn’t had a drink in three months. Actually, two months, twenty-eight days, and God only knew how many hours. No booze in the house. That’s why he went to the Eight Ball. That’s what he said anyway. And yeah. It was probably true. But she knew she couldn’t let her sobriety depend on him quitting. She probably ought to hit a meeting.
“Hello, I’m Lisa. And I’m an alcoholic,” she said blowing a smoke ring. “No shit.”
Click.
She turned on the television. The weather forecast promised hot and dry for tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. “Please, Jesus, don’t let the A/C die.”
Forty-five years old and what did she have to show for it? What difference did it make anyway? Two kids somewhere. Grown up by now. Their father took them so many years ago they wouldn’t know her. He’d been right to take them. She’d probably have to locate them when she got to Step Nine. Him, too, for that matter. She hadn’t done Step Five yet. Nine was too far down the road to think about.
She could hear the clock in her bathroom. Click. Click. It was battery-powered. That it made any sound at all was a joke.
The clock in her grandmother’s bedroom was a proper clock. It chimed on the hour and the half-hour and maintained a steady tick tock. How many nights had she sung herself to sleep to that clock. She stubbed out the cigarette.
It didn’t seem that long ago. But sometimes it felt so long ago, they may have been someone else’s memories.
She missed them. All of them. Her fine, serious, hard-working father. He was a cowboy. A real cowboy. His hat sweat stained and misshapen from rain and snow and worse. All from work, not bought new looking like that. What did some singer know about hats like that? They might know about hard living, but what did they know about hard work?
She could still see him and her momma two-stepping around the VFW Hall.
She didn’t understand how she’d become who she was. They’d never had much, but it always seemed they’d had enough. They just knew how to make things come out right.
Click.
She muted the TV. The sports news and a rerun that wasn’t that funny the first time it aired came and went. She didn’t care about sitcoms with their nice houses and fine clothes and stupid problems. She was waiting for 9:59. She touched the ticket nestled in her pocket. Six numbers – 6, 23, 27, 42, 54, and 9.
The woman with the machines that spat out five white balls and one red ball appeared on the screen.
Click.
She turned the sound back on. The announcer said, “23.” She had that number, but one match paid exactly nothing unless it was the power ball number. That would be $4.00. Not even enough to buy a cappuccino at Starbucks.
The announcer said, “27.” She didn’t look at the ticket. It didn’t mean anything yet. Once she’d won $7.00 with three matching numbers and no power ball number.
Click.
The door knob turned and he came in. Walking pretty steadily.
“I’m going to take a shower then go to bed,” he said.
She glanced at the TV screen and saw the numbers 6 and 54. Four matching numbers. That was $100. She’d never won that much before. One more would be a million dollars even without the power ball.
She heard him start the shower.
No “sorry, I’m late.” Or “how was your day?”
A good thing he was taking a shower. Did he think she couldn’t smell the alcohol on him? And sex? Never mind the perfume. Perfume that probably cost enough to pay the damn gas bill so he could have a hot shower.
Click.
She turned on the light in the bedroom and took a blue velvet bag down from the top closet shelf. It was heavier than she remembered. She removed the Smith and Wesson Model 10 from its bag. It was worth four or five hundred dollars. The only thing she had worth anything. Her insurance. Not enough to pay the rent, but worth more than anything else she had.
Her father left it to her. Not a big gun, but big enough to do the job he’d always said.
She went back into the front room. The pistol grip fit her hand perfectly. She held it, cradled it against her bare arm like a baby, its metal silky smooth and cool.
White balls sat lined up on the TV screen – 23, 27, 6, 54, and 42. Five matches. The television woman moved to the machine filled with red balls.
“Lisa, turn that damn TV off and come to bed.”
Click.