Powerball

FICTION Powerball Bill Weinberg Esther and me had a big window right by our bed. One day the prettiest female cardinal you ever sawflew up to the window. I don't know whether she saw her reflection or whether the sunlight on the window made her think she was entering a whole new world but that cardinal keptflapping her wings and flying into our window. Once in a while we'd see a bright red male cardinal off in the distance. Me and Esther closed the curtains. We tried to scare the cardinal off. We raised the window and shouted at her. Nothing did any good. Every morning when the sun started shining, that cardinal would fly from the big spruce about threefeetfrom our house into our bedroom window. People are all the time wanting to know 'how it feels to be the lucky stiff that won the lottery.' That's how they ask it. Oh, they might substitute some cuss words for 'lucky stiff/ especially if they've been drinking, but other than that it's always the same. Sounds like an easy question, right? Wrong. I got to figure—are they talking about how I felt the night I found out me and Esther had the winning Powerball ticket? Or how I feel now that it's been two years since we won the six million bucks? Or how I felt the last day me and Esther were together? Anyways, it got to be a real tough question. Don't get me wrong. I ain't no dummy or nothing. I mean, I finished high school and all and there ain't nothing that goes wrong with a car I can't fix. Esther used to say that I was a pretty good hand to tell a story. If I got a story to tell, I go ahead and tell it. The more you tell most stories, the better they get. This thing with the lottery is different. I guess I should start by telling how I felt the night I figured out we'd won. That's the kind of thing you don't forget. Six million dollars? Get outta here. Me and Esther was lucky if we had $60 in our pockets. But I can't just jump in and start talking about all the details, when you don't have a clue about the big picture. It wouldn't make no sense. And that's what's been stumping me. I made up my mind the day I landed here to tell this story but I've been jammed over the big picture. 77 Then last nightI remembered this movie I'd seenon the Fox Channel about some guy that was knocked back in time to King Arthur's court, and was trying to get his bearings. I ain't going to tell that story but if you're interested, Bing Crosby plays the main character. Anyways, that got me thinking about time machines. And that gets me back to winning the lottery. It's a lot like getting in a time machine and going back six hundred years. Still, that's not quite right, because in a time machine you're the same but everybody around you is different. When you win the lottery, you're the same and everybody around you is the same, but everything in your life is different. I ain't said that very well, but this big picture stuff is the hard part. See, it ain't that I changed or even that Esther changed that much. It's that what me and Esther had together changed. Now multiply that by however many strangers me and Esther has come in contact with since I won that damn lottery and you got the big picture. Oh yeah, my name is James. If it was Joe or Jack or Freddie, it'd still be the same story. It was a Saturday and me and Howie had been out drinking at The Pink Pig. Howie was looped and I was feeling no pain myself so we stopped at that Supermart up by the branch bank to get a cup of coffee. We...