Summer/Fall 2016

 

by Jessica Simms

 

Stephanie says there’s a fortune telling booth at the Wood County Fair. Or, she says, more a tent, I guess, with those striped cloth flaps like the circus uses. Stephanie says there’s a woman there who reads lottery tickets. She’s telling Caleb this because she knows he’s got a thing for scratch-offs.

Caleb asks, What do you mean, reads them?

The numbers, Stephanie says. Like numerology and shit.

Caleb points out how that’s just random chance. What numbers get printed—that’s not something you control.

Neither is your birthday, Stephanie says. And anyway, you bought that ticket, from that store, for that amount—how’s that not fate?

Stephanie nods her head like somehow that proves her point and puts her foot up on the railing. It’s her back porch and she moves naturally in this space, her feet bare, her hair down, her cigarette balanced perfectly in its slot on the ashtray. The chairs are metal and unforgiving. The ashtray’s stolen from the wing place downstairs. Their kitchen opens into the same alley as Stephanie’s fire escape and it’s all Caleb smells out here, hot sauce and meat but mostly grease. The smell of all things fried.

This is not Caleb’s space. He taps his cigarette twice on the table, settling the tobacco like his dad showed him to do, flipping it up to his lips quick before anything inside has time to shift.

Stephanie says, We should go tonight.

Like a date?

If you want it to be.

Caleb says, Adam—

Went on one date with me, Stephanie says, and it was nine months ago. If he wanted to make a move he would’ve by now. Anyway, he’s working tonight.

Adam’s talked plenty about making a move. Around the apartment and out at the bar and anytime he sees something that reminds him of Stephanie, which is almost everything, based on past conversations. But the McPolicy is clear on fraternization and since he moved up to management, Adam apparently cares about shit like rules.

Stephanie asks, Would you mind grabbing me another beer?

Mine’s empty anyway, Caleb says and heads in toward the kitchen, and there’s the familiar pang of guilt, because this is the kind of thing Adam would be sore about. Not Caleb sleeping with Stephanie but that he knows which door’s the bathroom, where the coffee mugs are, that he’s rummaged through her fridge. Caleb rinses out their empties before he grabs the fresh cans from the fridge.

 

Caleb’s always organized his life. He’s got spreadsheets for beers drank, girls fucked, classes taken. Some of them he’s had going since before Excel, early drafts drawn on graph paper with crayons and, later, colored pencils. The annotated map with all the places he’s been—that’s a decade old, at least. The one that tracks his scratch-off tickets started as just a 2-column ledger: Cards played, winnings accrued. Over the years it’s Frankensteined into something more complex. The number of each card, the odds, how much it cost, the winning number if there was one. He’s got a good track record on eights. And he’s ahead on his lifetime: 63 dollars in the green, 174 total cards scratched. The loser cards he keeps in a manila folder with the metal clasps snapped off.

Ticket 19 is in there, the five-dollar King of Cash bought on his way to senior prom, with a fake ID so fresh he was surprised the ink didn’t smudge. And ticket 34 he bought after his interview at Marco’s Pizza, when he got hired on the spot and figured his luck was running high, though not ticket 45, the one he bought the day Marco’s fired him. That one was a 20 dollar winner.

Caleb takes comfort in numbers.

Stephanie’s the first girl he’s slept with who’s seen his spreadsheets, which sounds in his mind like the worst pick-up line in history—hey baby you wanna come back to my place and play with my Excel?—but then not like Caleb meant to show her. It was the day Adam got promoted to manager. Caleb came home from work to a dozen of his McCoworkers crowding the living room, smoking his weed, because to Adam roommates are something close to married, like what’s mine is yours, at least when it’s convenient. After Adam passed out and everybody else left, Stephanie wandered upstairs to Caleb’s room. She said she was too drunk to drive home. She was obviously hoping for something. Expectations made Caleb nervous so he’d just pointed at his computer screen and started talking about how to color-code a budget using conditional formatting. It was a fucked up nervous-ramble of a foreplay but somehow Stephanie ended up in Caleb’s bed that night, though she’d been gone come morning.

 

They swing by Caleb’s apartment on the way to the fairgrounds, he says to pick up his losing ticket folder but mostly because he needs to make sure Adam’s really at work. Not like the guy would go to a fair in the first place, but Caleb’s rarely not nervous. Back in the car, Caleb hands Stephanie the ticket envelope to carry. She takes this as an invitation to look inside. Caleb wishes she wouldn’t.

There’s some fucking old cards in here, Stephanie says. She flips through the creased-up cardboard like he used to do with his friends’ Magic cards, looking for the rares. She says, Are these older than me?

How old do you think I am? Caleb asks. Stephanie laughs instead of answering. Caleb’s just invested enough to be offended and not want to show it. He’s more nervous about her pawing through them, afraid she’ll lose one under the seat, out the window, somewhere irretrievable, and while he’s steering his whale of a car around a sharp left he tells her, The oldest one in there’s from ’97. I was 16 when I got it.

Is that the first one you scratched? she asks.

Caleb shakes his head, says, My first one was a winner. Ten bucks on a dollar card in ’94.

Don’t you have to be an adult to buy this shit?

My grandma put them in birthday cards.

Caleb can’t tell if Stephanie’s answering silence is actually impressed or just a little bored. There’s a print-out of the spreadsheet in the envelope just to make sure, keep track, and that’s what Stephanie pulls out now. Caleb’s life by the numbers on display on the spreadsheet, the density of scratch tickets increasing, a few per year until he’s 18 and then a solid upward streak, tickets bought with change out of desperation, or bought on a whim with the next pack of smokes between bars on a drunken Saturday. He wonders if it matters to the fortune teller if the card wins. If she gets good luck from a winning card, bad from a losing, though that’d be fucked up. It’s the losers who need good news.

They stop at the convenience store just outside the fairgrounds. Caleb buys a can of Arizona and a two-dollar Lucky Devil, a recurring entry since they came out last fall. Winning tickets 164 and 170, loser 173. He always seems to pick it when he’s about to do something stupid.

Two dollars? Stephanie says, scoffing. She gives the clerk the slot number for Big Reel Bucks, a 20 dollar card. It’s fish themed. Adam would like it.

Caleb says, Look at you, big spender.

If you’re gonna do it, do it big, right? Stephanie says, with a wink at the clerk who doesn’t care to be in on the joke. Caleb offers to pay for it. Stephanie won’t let him. She says, It won’t count for shit with the prophecy if you paid for it. Messes up the vibes.

Caleb says, Fortune telling, not prophecy.

What’s the difference?

And the truth is he’s not quite sure.

 

There’s a special place in Caleb’s heart for multiples of five. They’re predictable. Clean. He likes that so much order can come out of a prime. Now those are messy numbers, primes. Things are hard to work with when you can’t divide them by their parts.

He’s done well on multiples of five where scratch-offs are concerned. Ticket 25 bought the day before he left for college—a winner—and ticket 100 bought on his 21st birthday, which by all reports was a hell of a party, though his own memories are sketchy. But then, the data set’s flawed. He rarely buys lottery tickets when he’s in a bad place, just if he needs the nostalgia, the memory of birthday cards with a ticket tucked inside like a prize, how his fingers always smelled like the penny he used to scratch them, the little curls of silver paint that lingered on the coffee table and got ground into his jeans. When he’s bad off, losing hurts him more than winning ever helps. It’s a risk he’s learned not to take.

Today, ticket 175, is at worst another lovely memory. It’s easier to take a risk when you’re holding on to more than you’re betting.

 

 

Space is one resource Bowling Green has in abundance. The map they get at the entrance shows the fairground’s sprawl of tents and booths. The dirt walkways are crowded, thousands of people with their corndogs and deep fried Oreos, gawking at the vendors. Caleb buys two shaken lemonades and an order of curly fries with cheese from a booth next to an airbrush station, the shirts on display out front a tableaux of Confederate flags and NASCAR stars. Caleb had been hoping for something slightly less cliché.

There’s chainsaw wood sculpting next to the fortune teller booth, Stephanie says, perusing the schedule in the map. She says, And the main pig show’s tonight. We should check it out. You’d be amazed how huge those fuckers get.

Caleb says, I’m not sure we should stay that long.

You’re not still worried about Adam, Stephanie replies. It sounds more like an order than a question. She drinks her lemonade, biting the straw at the tip so each sip makes a thin whine. It’s a habit she has, one of those quirks that can go cute or nervewracking depending on Caleb’s mood.

Caleb says, If someone sees us together and tells him—

Then fucking what? Stephanie asks, I work with him, you live with him. That’s it. We’re not doing anything wrong.

Caleb pulls out his cigarettes. He knows Stephanie will give him shit if he makes them stop to find a flat surface. He taps the smoke twice on his palm instead. Settles the tobacco. Flips it to his lips. He takes a drag and blows his smoke up toward the sky where it can mingle with the grease and diesel fumes. The hot summer air shimmers. Either they’re close to the animal tents or the whole fair just smells like fertilizer.

Caleb says, If Adam weren’t your manager he’d be dating you.

Stephanie says, And I don’t have a say in that?

It’s not right, is all I’m saying.

Stephanie grabs his hand and pulls him to a stop. She says, I know that’s what Adam tells you but it’s fucking McDonalds. Half the staff’s slept with a manager. If he really wanted it, he’d make it happen, but either he doesn’t really or he’s too chickenshit. Either way it’s his loss.

She snags a curly fry then starts to walk again, giving Caleb no choice but to follow.

There aren’t any customers at the fortune teller when they show up. A heavy-set woman is standing out front with a cigarette, an aging hippie in a wrap skirt, long hair in a bandana. When they say they want a reading she puts her smoke out on the sole of her sandal, standing on one leg as she does it with surprising grace. Inside the tent it’s dark and cramped. There’s no tarp down and the tent blocks out enough noise Caleb can hear the thirsty grass crunching under his soles. There’s two metal folding chairs on either side of a padded card table, the kind his grandma used to play bridge on, draped in wax-dotted red fabric. The fortune teller sits in the chair against the tent wall and gestures for Caleb to take the other seat. He realizes they never introduced themselves, a breach in etiquette on someone’s part but too late to correct it now. It seems to Caleb there should be some kind of ritual, candles lit, spirits invoked, but the woman just asks, Your cards aren’t scratched? And they’re the number kind? I can’t read a fucking cherry.

They say no, no fucking cherries. It’s 10 dollars a reading. This time, Stephanie lets him pay. Caleb pulls out a sticky penny he fished from his cupholder. The Lucky Devil is a simple card. Two winning numbers, ten chances to match them. Reveal a winning number, win the prize underneath; reveal a devil’s face, win twenty bucks instantly. He’s not sure what the fortune teller will make of that if it happens. She has him scratch the winning numbers—3 and 7; of course they’d be primes—and then takes the card. She tells him his life path speaks to rigid organization, something anyone who looks at him could probably figure out. His karmic lesson, apparently, is to lose the fear of living. His future numbers hint to broad travels and fresh romance. The 8 in his final outcome spot suggests a large sum of money may be coming to him in the future. It sounds like so much recycled bullshit to Caleb but Stephanie spends the whole reading giving him meaningful looks, like this is supposed to prove some point. When his reading’s over, Stephanie’s quick to switch him places. The fortune teller looks eager to begin. Anyone with half a brain could see that Stephanie’s more her mark.

 

For all his interest in numbers, Caleb knows nothing of numerology. That’s not the kind of meaning he wants to put to things. That kind of meaning raises more questions than it answers.

 

Stephanie scratches her winning numbers, reading as she goes: 4, 5, 1, 20, 8. Only one prime, but no order or logic. Nothing to latch onto. Caleb loses himself a moment in the numbers—almost a pattern to the first four, three factors and their product—and comes back to the scratchy velvet of the fortune teller’s voice saying, I see in your Heart’s Desire a wish to be the savoir. Uncontrolled, this can be dangerous.

The fortune teller is holding the card, the penny glinting in her grip, preparing to see Stephanie’s future. She doesn’t scratch the card straight across but starts somewhere in the middle. It’s how she scratches that catches his eye most. Not up and down swipes but tight circles, spiraling outward, at the end leaving nothing but the number uncovered, the prize below a mystery. And the order—Caleb always scratches in straight lines, sometimes up and down, sometimes across, but always staying true to the grid. This woman hops from here to there, skipping some squares, picking others, all the time telling Stephanie she’s coming into a lucky time. That her challenge is to secure healthy long-term relationships. She says, Problems will be easier to overcome but do not let this lure you into complacency. With diligence, this next year of your life can be a springboard into your future.

Stephanie turns to look at Caleb, her eyes hopeful, and he’s not sure what part of that he was supposed to find significant—probably the romance line, he’d imagine—but he smiles back like encouragement. Her reading’s taking longer than his did. The smell of farm animals is seeping into the tent with the hot air and Caleb’s head gets light, fuzzy, nausea churning in his stomach. He sips his lemoade to settle it. The ice cubes rattle. The fortune teller glares at the noise but tells Stephanie, This number, it says you are standing at a crossroads. One way leads to parenthood, happiness, success. The other—the other is dark. Pain and loss.

Stephanie asks, What should I do?

I can’t give all the answers, Girl, the woman answers, still scratching, saying, This speaks to aggression, determination, drive. Things you often lack, yes? Things you’ll need to reach your Heart’s Desire.

Is that how I get to the good path? Stephanie asks. She’s gnawing the skin around her thumbnail, all this bullshit the fortune teller’s spouting hitting her somewhere deep, a lucky blow. Caleb wonders what Stephanie sees when she hears the words Hearts Desire. He can’t tell if he wants it to be him.

The fortune teller says, I’m seeing the intrusion of the material world. Someone driven by greed, the illusion of safety—and, yes, change. You have an aversion, yes? But you must change to find the right path. You must not leave yourself open to the attack from the greedy men.

The reader scratches the number in the top right corner and sucks in a sharp breath. She brushes the silver curls away. They make it no further than the tablecloth. The final outcome, she says.

Stephanie asks, What’s wrong?

And it’s a ploy, it has to be. To bring Stephanie back to fix her fucked up karma or balance her chakras or whatever vaguely Eastern term is in Western vogue this week. Caleb takes the Han Solo approach to hokey religions. All that Jedi shit is Adam’s turf. These are just numbers. Simple. Easy.

The reader says, This speaks to violence. A collision of courage and freedom, money and power. These are forces larger than you can control. They will grind you into dust.

She seizes Stephanie’s wrist and the girl squeaks, shrinks back, and the reader says, Be wary of the times of change. The starts and ends of seasons. The dark hours before dawn and after dusk.

The reader loosens her grip, says, That is the end of it.

She holds out the card. Stephanie eyes it like it might bite, her knees shaking as she stands, face in her hands, and darts past Caleb out of the tent. The fortune teller looks at him. You may as well take it, she says, It’s a winner.

The cold curve of the fortune teller’s lips manages to send a chill up Caleb’s spine despite the heat.

 

There is one losing scratch card that’s not in Caleb’s envelope. Ticket 109. A prime—of course—and one of those tickets bought as a last reserve of hope. He was hungover and rife with failure, having slept through both his shift that morning—fired—and his theory of contemporary film class—failing—but he found a 5 dollar bill on the sidewalk as he was headed to visit Adam at work to snag some free McLunch. He took that found 5 and bought a pack of shitty cigarettes and a two-dollar scratch ticket promising a chance to win Cash for Life. Adam was about to go on lunch so Caleb waited on the curb by the dumpsters. He cracked his fresh pack and pulled out a smoke, tapping it twice on the curb, almost missing his mouth on the flip. He checked his phone. Six missed messages last night. All from his girlfriend at the time, or at least he thought that going in, but by the time he’d made it through all six messages—amusement turning to shame which faded quickly into dread—he realized she was his ex-girlfriend, though he still wasn’t quite sure what he’d done to earn it.

On the heels of this discovery, Caleb scratched the losing card.

Adam came out for his break to see Caleb tossing the ripped-up pieces of the scratch ticket into the air like some kind of depressing white trash confetti. Even as he tossed them he regretted it, the one moment of weakness that broke his system, not only a losing card destroyed but when he hadn’t even entered any of the information—without Adam, Caleb’s not sure how he would’ve made it through.

Stephanie would later tell him that was the first time she noticed him. She’d been in her second week, working the drive-thru window on a slow Wednesday. Without the context of his anxiety, all she saw was a man throwing himself a private party, confetti and everything, and it made her smile.

 

Caleb finds Stephanie at the fence around the chainsaw sculptor, chewing on her lemonade straw, watching the man work. There are tear streaks on her cheeks. Caleb pretends not to notice.

Stephanie says, Two paths. That’s what she told me. Happiness or death.

She just wanted to scare you, Caleb says.

Stephanie asks, Why?

The sculptor is teasing some shape out of a massive log. The outline is of a swooping bird of prey holding something in its talons, though that’s still lost in the wood. His blade darts in, coaxing details.

Caleb says, At least you won.

Stephanie’s stare is blank. Caleb says, The scratch card? One of your numbers matched.

She scrapes the silver from the prize with her fingernail. It’s good for fifty bucks but she’s not seeing that, just the supposed implications, whatever that number was supposed to mean for her, and Caleb says, Look, fortune telling, prophecy—there’s no difference. Neither one’s got power unless you give it.

She smiles at him. Slips her hand into his. Someone could see them like this, holding hands then with her head on his shoulder, like an honest to god couple. He forces himself not to look around, to seem at ease, to at least pretend. The sculptor steps back and Caleb sees it’s a trout in the raptor’s talons. It’s strangely artistic. He sees why Stephanie likes it.

You’ll probably tell me we should leave now, right? Stephanie says when the sawdust settles. Caleb thinks they should, probably, yes. His skull itches with the eyes that might be watching it, but there’s this pre-emptive disappointment in her voice that makes him angry at himself, enough he can shrug and put his arm over Stephanie’s shoulders and say, Well we’re here anyway. And I’ve never seen a pig show.

 

 

[Check out Jessica’s backporch wisdom here]