JACKPOT

       Wally had never been a lucky guy. He supposed it just ran in the family.

His father, a fecund and strapping man, was hit by a taxi a week before his wedding day and spent the next five years crushing bugs with his wheelchair until he was struck by lightning one night in September. In short, that put an end to the Fairbanks genepool.

After that, when Wally turned twelve, his mother dipped into her savings to rent a traveling zoo for his birthday party. Less than an hour after the circus arrived one of the mules escaped from his pen and trampled his brother into a pancake. The party was ditched before the cake could be cut, and Mrs. Fairbanks later received a note from the Nebraskan Veterinary Foundation that the unruly animal who murdered her child had been euthanized and turned into ash. As if that would bring some solace.

And last year, when things were finally starting to turn around, Wally got a drunken call from his boss woefully informing him the company was going under. HR ran diagnostics and concluded that cutting the fifteen most under-preforming employees was Brite Inc.’s only chance of surviving the 2008 recession. Wally, to his dismay but not his surprise, found out he was number fifteen.

But he was still optimistic, to the best of his ability. In part because he assumed that so much misfortune could only dissipate after years of inundation, but also because he received an email inviting him onto Big Buckaroos on October 30th. He sent in a casting video three weeks prior, recorded on an iPod Touch with minimal editing and sent into cyberspace without a second thought. In all honesty, Wally admitted, he had completely forgotten about his submission, and had only done it because his mother told him they were looking for smalltown superstars-- John Doe nobodies with a forgettable face and a Nilla Wafer name. Apparently Big Buckaroos received a shipload of complaints from their previous season, angry viewers dialing in about their contempt regarding the show’s exclusive selection process, all of their contestants already having a little notch carved out for them in Hollywood. So, to contest that, the Buck Man himself sent out a nationwide call asking for hay strands instead of the needle.

And Wally just happened to be the most vanilla-looking man in the great state of Nebraska.

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He arrived thirty minutes ahead of schedule. Two Hollywood waifs took him backstage to quite literally powder his nose, packing his pores with concealer to ensure an oyster-shell complexion for the cameras. All the while he fiddled with his handkerchief, too encumbered by the jarring revelation this was the first time he was in close proximity to beautiful women in over a year to even speak.

“Ready for the big screen, Mr. Fairbanks?” The one with the southern drawl asked. Her false eyelashes were like two sea urchins hanging onto her lids.

“Yeah, erm… super excited. Totally not nervous or anything.” He lied.

“Aw, that’s cute,” She chuckled coquettishly. “But no need to lie to me, sweetie. I can tell you’re nervous-- you’re sweatin’ like a dog. But don’t worry.” She smoothed his hair back. “You’re gonna do fine.”

And how right that woman was. The moment Wally stepped on stage, he transformed into a savant-like caricature, pulling tidbits of trivia buried deep in his brain out onto the sunny atria of his psyche. Coated in dust, he unboxed these morsels one by one, suddenly remembering the Bay of Pigs invasion and the name of a poet he hadn’t read since high school. His tubby hand was a mallet on the buzzer, ringing it in with flashbulb speed to try and keep up with his treasure-chested brain.

“1291!” Wally shouted. “The end of the Crusades.”

Ding!

“Zadig or Destiny!” He cried, “...was the 1747 novel of French philosopher Voltaire.”

Ding!

“The Dawes plan happened in 1924. Between the U.S., France, and Germany.”

Ding!

“Buddy Holly is the singer of ‘True Love Ways!’”

Ding!

“Newton’s First Law states that an object in motion will remain in motion, and an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by outside forces.”

The dollar count below Wally’s chicken scratch name continued to soar by the minute, big incandescent lights pouring down on him in a disco fever of crimson, lemon, and lime. The Buck Man began to shuffle his cue cards, half-moon face glinting with nervous perspiration, staring with shock and twisted admiration at the wild success of such an unassuming contestant. When the final question was answered (by Wally, of course) he stared at the camera with star-struck bemusement.

“Well, folks!” Mr. Buckaroo loosened his necktie, completely abandoning his cue cards. “It looks like we have a rather… obvious winner.” He gestured to Wally. “This young man right here is the first contestant in Big B’s history to get every single question in every single round! Everyone give him a hand!”

The audience was roaring with envious eyes, clapping with enough force to take the skin off their palms. The host gestured Wally with a beckoning finger, to which he obliged with a few sheepish steps. Having his swampish sweat-stains and ill-fitting suit exposed on live T.V. was offsetting his ability to soak in the million dollars he had just won.

“How does it feel, boy?” The host asked with a southern guffaw, “To win six figures in under an hour?”

Wally let the stage lights blind him, retinas shrinking like ice cubes in the sun.

“Pretty good, Mr. Buckman.” He admitted. “It makes me feel like quite the lucky fellow.”

And what a lucky fellow he was.

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After signing mountains of government forms and trading in the cartoonish cardboard check for one he could fit in his pocket, Wally received his prize in cash. It came in bundles in a box, tight bricks of green neatly wrapped in rubber binding laboriously hauled from the postman one morning.

“What’s in here, bars of gold?” The man asked, panting.

Wally chuckled. “I guess you could say that.” He said.

“Well, sheesh! Have a nice day, mister.”

“You too.”

When the postman left, all Wally could do was stare at his winnings. At first, he put the green bundles on top of his dresser like a piece of furnishing, later scattering them around the house until each room had a hundred grand or maybe two. That way, even when Wally went to drop a load he could look up by the toilet paper shelf and be reminded of the one time in his life luck had been on his side. He put one in the freezer and the medicine cabinet, the broom closet and the laundry room--even under his bed. He didn’t intend on spending anytime soon, so he figured using the stacks as decoration was better than letting them rot inside his mattress.

Things stayed that way for weeks, until his sister finally paid her cable bill and got caught up on all the VCR recordings she had missed out on since Halloween.

“Wallace!” She cried over the phone. “You didn’t tell me you hit it big!”

“Oh, well…” Wally said coyly. “I guess I didn’t wanna gloat.”

“Naw, go ahead! You should be proud of yourself. You must’ve studied those questions for weeks!”

“Months, actually.” He lied, twisting the phone line on his finger. Carley wouldn’t believe him if he told her the answers struck like divine intervention. 

“Wowie, that’s fantastic! Did you tell Ma? Grandma? Any of the relatives?”

“No one but my tomato plant.”

“Well, blast it, you shy dog!” Carley hollered. “I’m gonna let ‘em all know. We can all come out and have a good old-fashioned celebration. Haven’t had the family together since Grandpa died in the gas station accident.”

“Um…” Wally swallowed nervously, a wad of saliva going down a painfully dry throat. “Maybe we, uh, shouldn't do that.”

“And why not?” His sister questioned brusquely. “It would do Grandma some good to get out of her house. She can’t even look at a Shell pump without crying. We can have a nice dinner, maybe you can spoil us for a night downtown---”

“Maybe I don’t want the family to know!” Wally shouted violently. Carley gasped on the other line.

“Nonsense!” She scolded. He felt her accosting glare through the hunk of plastic stuck to his ear. “Nonsense, you’re being selfish.”

“But--”

“We’re coming out tomorrow and that’s final. Be ready.”

There was a click and a dial tone, and Wally found himself standing alone in his kitchen listening to phone static. His eyes landed on the wad of cash nestled between his bread box and his microwave, and he suddenly felt a parental urge to gather every dollar bill and swaddle them up like a baby fresh out of the bath. He knew that once his family got a whiff of his new wealth they’d be clawing at him like vultures on a desert corpse, if only for a penny. It wasn’t so much for the chance to be spoiled, but rather the irrational idea that being around money that came from luck would somehow transfer over to their miserable lives. The entire Fairbanks bloodline was cursed, and Wally was the first one who’d broken the spell.

He knew had to do something, and fast.

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The next morning, he stole his elderly neighbor’s spade (sorry Mr. Albertson) and began to frantically search his backyard for a good place to stash his earnings. Wally looked like a hunting dog sniffing for truffles as he lowered his head to the ground, aquiline nose like a crooked arrow, imaginary tail sprung high in the air.

No, no, this won’t do… He muttered crossly. Tearing up the earth was like painting a big red X on the ground, and extirpating his herbal garden wasn’t even an option. He’d put too much time and effort into coaxing his rosemary bush to survive in the wake of the Lousianna’s first frost for it to be torn out by the roots and tossed in the trash.

Wally heard his landline ring from inside the house. No doubt it was Carley, but he bolted to the kitchen with Olympian speed and yanked the phone from its cradle on the seventh ring.

“Hello?!” He cried wildly.

“Hey there Wally, we just got off the toll road. We’ll be there in about twenty-five minutes. You better have a nice brunch reservation in the works for us.”

“Us? Who’s we? Twenty-five minutes?! I thought you were calling to say you’re on your way!”

“Naw, we left Dallas about two hours ago. Me, Grandma, Harlen, Biff, Tommy, and Iggy. All packed in the SUV. See ya soon, brother a’ mine!”

There was a monstrous click signaling the end of the call, and for the second time in twenty-four hours Wally stood in his kitchen in his underwear and tee, utterly stupefied. He almost hoped the Fairbanks family curse would bring bad luck in his favor--maybe pop his sister’s tire or make someone carsick. Wally didn’t wish his anyone ill, of course, but there wasn’t any harm in a teeny fender bender if it meant having more time to hide.

But perhaps the luck was working in their favor instead, hexing Wally with a series of all-greens and light traffic to turn their twenty-five-minute drive into fifteen. Maybe even ten. The thought sent a shiver down Wally’s spine; the extent of the Fairbanks curse was often impish and covert, making its presence in a series of small inconveniences (or in Carley’s case, conveniences) that snowballed into one massive mess of despair. Visions of empty roads spurred Wally to move faster, gathering unraveling stacks of bills in floundering arms and shoving them into any crevice he could find. He placed ten grand inside his TV speakers and another hundred under his stove. He shoved almost half a million dollars behind his refrigerator and unhinged all his frames to squeeze bills beneath the artwork. All this was done with little efficacy, mild confidence, and high levels of perspiration.

As he was stuffing the last crumpled bills in his toaster, the doorbell rang. Wally went pale almost instantly.

“Hellllloooo, little brother!” Carley chimed with open arms. She sauntered in like a queen with the royal guard behind her, the entire family shuffling into Wally’s cramped living room. He blushed with embarrassment from the smoke stains on the ceiling and chipped molding encrusting the walls, watching his sister and cousins and grandma scan over every inch of his bric-a-brac house. Nobody was blinking, and Wally just knew they were already searching for the money. Like they were playing i-Spy. Everyone had their eyeballs safety-pinned open and their mouths stretched into an indelible smile.

“I, uh, wasn’t expecting company so soon.” He admitted, scratching the back of his head. “If I’d know y’all would be here so early, I would’ve done some tidying up.”

Harlen was mindlessly opening a desk drawer. “No worries, cuz. Just happy to see you.”

Wally was getting frustrated. Biff was unabashedly searching the house for any signs of new purchases and his grandma was roaming the halls like a spectre, perhaps on the lookout for a safe. Even his sister had locked eyes on Wally’s wallet on the coffee table.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t really feel like it.” He stammered.

“How do you mean?” Tommy asked.
“Well, it’s… it’s just funny how everyone forgot about me until I hit the jackpot, y’know? I haven't spoken to any of you since grandpa’s wake two years ago and now I blink and you’re in my house.”

There was an instant of cryptic, nonverbal communication before someone let out a big phooey!

“We had to congratulate you in person, man.” Iggy placed a beefy hand on Wally’s shoulder, nearly crushing his bones with an iron grip. “Nothing good happens to the Fairbanks kids, don’t you know that? Hell, you should know more than anyone here.”

Biff and Grandma had returned from their rounds now, congregating in a semicircle with the rest of the vultures. Carley discreetly drew the curtains, nodding to her cousins, to Wally, all while keeping a billboard-ready smile.

“We figured now was as good a time as any to catch up.” She said robotically, as if reading from a script. “After all little bro, sharing a bit a of the wealth would mean a lot to us. Especially since we drove all the way out here.”

“But I… I never asked you to do that!” Wally’s teeth were chattering now, two sets of wind-up plastic dentures as a second brawny hand found its way to his other shoulder. Tommy was breathing into his right ear. “I never said I wanted to share!”

“Come on, hon, don’t be stingy.”  His grandma chided. “You got yourself some lucky money. And we could use some good luck.  Just a little. We’ve been cursed like this for years. It’s really the least you could do.”

There was a glint of silver from under her blouse. Wally tried to writhe free but knocked over a picture frame in the process and sent it crashing to the ground. The glass exploded into tiny star shards, the wood splintered into shreds. And there, underneath the print-out of Monet, was the tiny face of Benjamin Franklin poking out with green-stricken terror.