28

Chapter 28

I took the bus in to work the next day. When I returned, Ethyl was pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of my house. She seemed to be in some quandary meriting a deep contemplation. I was not in the mood to engage her in conversation, but I followed her movement from the safe distance of my front porch while perusing the mail through the hazy filter of the sun and maybe a few too many egg salad sandwiches. After twenty or so passes, she stopped directly in front of my cracked sidewalk, made an almost military 90 degree kick-step and shuffled toward my porch.
"Brody. I need some advice," she said, her eyes slits of urgency and concern. "And I'm sorry about your cat."
"Water under the bridge. What do you need advice about, Ethyl?"
She moved in close and pulled something from her dress pocket. It was a ticket of some sort.
"I found this in a dumpster outside the mortuary last night. I think it's real."
Upon closer inspection, I was shocked to realize that my sweet little friend held a lottery ticket. It had been played and decidedly crumpled, the buyer obviously disappointed with the outcome. California lottery tickets pay off only 21.3% of the time, most of the pay-offs being $2.00 or less. This is a bit lower than the national average, at 22.7%, and is the perfect percentage to keep the duped masses interested while still turning a huge profit for the California Lottery Commission. But wait. Hold on a second. As I examined it more carefully, Ethyl's finger shot between me and the ticket, directing me to one set of boxes. "7, 7, 7" they read, in order, in a row, incredible.
"Ethyl, you have a..." I double-checked myself before continuing. "...you have a winning ticket here. And I mean 'WINNING ticket' in a very big way."
She pulled in closer.
"That's what I thought."
Again, we re-read the game instructions, which are not that complicated, just to be really sure this is the situation we were truly facing. It was. Ethyl turned around and sat down on my porch, hands on her knees, gazing out toward the city skyline.
"This calls for some sort of action on your part, Ethyl. You know this."
"Lord have mercy," was her only reply. I let her think it through. This would change everything.
A giant purple dog ambled down the street toward us, mildly stumbling from a case of heat exhaustion. Though you couldn't tell it by the blazing sun, it must have been about 7:45 already.