Harry Beats the Odds

Harry fingered the money in his pocket: one hundred and twenty dollars, his final unemployment benefit. If this didn’t work out, he’d have to do something desperate.

The line in front of the mall’s lottery window stretched a city block but he had nothing better to do with his afternoon. There were three and a half million dollars in the jackpot. Harry needed that money.

He still couldn’t believe he’d paid four hundred dollars for a worthless set of real estate tapes. The guy made it sound like all anyone had to do was listen to those tapes, do what they said and get instantly rich. He didn’t mention passing a State exam first, or that it required near genius IQ.

Those tapes had sold like…well, like lottery tickets, except they cost four hundred each. The guy had walked away with – Harry figured it out – around twenty thousand dollars.

That was when Harry decided to make some tapes of his own, about worm farms.

“You buy some rabbits and grow your worms in the pellets, sell the bunnies, feed the world nutritious worms!”

But articles were printed saying that Bucky’s Burgers used worms instead of ground beef and people quit buying Bucky’s Burgers. There went his worm business and the tapes along with it.

Now he had furry little rabbits all over his garage and dozens of useless worms. He’d put up a sign on his front lawn, I HAVE WORMS! But not one fisher stopped to buy any.

He was afraid to look in his garage now. Every time he did there was a new crop of rabbits and it wasn’t anywhere near Easter. He couldn’t afford this.

He had to win! He closed his eyes and tried to picture himself with the winning ticket. Harry believed in Visualization. That was one seminar that had been worth the money. You close your eyes and picture whatever it is you want and you’ll get it. He pictured himself very clearly, and was just about to visualize winning when someone pushed him and shouted, “Hey, buddy, move along.” He stumbled forward and closed his eyes again.

“Ain’t no use praying,” said a fellow passing by. “Your chances of winning are slim to none.”

Harry glared and said, “Well, they’re better than yours.”

The fellow laughed and walked away. Two ladies in front of him stared at Harry. Finally one of them said, “He’s right, you know. We have more chance of getting hit by lightning than of winning the three and a half million”

“If you feel that way, why don’t you give it up and go shopping?”

The women shrugged. “Like you said, if we don’t buy a ticket, we have no chance. This way, we’ll have one in oh a few billion.”

“Besides,” added the other, “it’s a fun way to spend the day, don’t you think?”

Harry didn’t. He didn’t like their pessimism, either. Positive thinking was important. He’d learned that in the visualization seminar. “I’m going to win,” he said, closing his eyes.

This wasn’t going to be like that Fresh Way thing last spring. He’d lost all his friends because of Fresh Way. He shouldn’t have lied to them, he supposed, but who would’ve come if he had admitted that he wanted them to sell cleaning products?

Funny how everything had seemed different that weekend at the Hilton. He had felt certain that Fresh Way would be his salvation. In the heat of the moment, he’d leapt to his feet, along with a couple thousand other Fresh Way converts, waved his arms and shouted, “I’m a winner with Fresh Way! You’re a winner with Fresh Way! Everyone’s a winner with Fresh Way!” But in fact he had only lost with Fresh Way. It had been a difficult year.

The guy behind was pushing on him again. “Look, fella, either move along or get out of line.”

Harry peeked through partially open eyes and stepped forward.

“You’ve already let two people cut in front of you,” the guy said. “Maybe you don’t care, but the rest of us do.”

Sure enough, the young couple in front of him hadn’t been there before. “You two should go to the end of the line,” said Harry, “just like we had to do.”

They ignored him. “You are very rude young people.” They snickered and looked at each other, but didn’t acknowledge Harry. Harry turned to the fellow behind him, “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” he asked.

“You blaming me?”

“No, but you should have said something.”

The fellow turned his attention toward the ceiling. Harry looked up but saw nothing except an enormous skylight with some pigeons around the edges. He sighed, thinking of his own birds, wondering how they were.

He’d never left them for this many hours before. At a thousand bucks each, he couldn’t afford for anything bad to happen to those birds. That bird deal was one that, if it had worked out, would’ve put him on Easy Street by now. Don Patton, who didn’t need the money had gotten fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of baby birds, but Harry’s hadn’t even laid an egg. Not one!

It wasn’t fair! The whole thing had been Harry’s idea. If Patton was any kind of friend, he’d have given Harry a cut.

“They’ll probably lay next year,” Patton said.

There was also the possibility that Harry’s birds were both males or both females. “It’s real hard to tell,” admitted the salesman.

“You should’ve told me that before I bought two useless birds!” Harry had yelled.

Another couple tried to join the one in front of him but this time Harry was watching. “Oh no you don’t! You go to the end of the line!” The couple squeezed in front of their friends, who pushed back against Harry to make room.

“Hey!” the guy behind Harry shouted, “You kids can’t do that.”

“Oh yeah, Pops? Looks like we did.”

Harry looked at the fellow behind him and nodded. Then they grabbed the boys and pulled them out of the line. The girls giggled and started walking away. “Come on,” they said, “let’s get out of here.” The boys hesitated, then shrugged and joined their girlfriends.
Harry liked the guy now that they had become partners. “Say,” he asked, “you ever thought of growing mushrooms?”

“Nope.”

“I hear there’s big bucks in mushrooms,” said Harry, who was eighth in line now.

The fellow raised his eyebrows. “Me, I don’t want nothin’ that means work. Give me the big winner today and I’ll die a happy man.”

“Well,” said Harry, “we can’t all win it.”

A woman in front of him turned around. “Just as likely to get hit by lightning. Know what your chances of that are?”

Harry glared at her. He didn’t need this.

The woman persisted, “One in millions.”

“Good,” said the old man. “I never did want to get hit by lightning, did you, son?”

Harry shook his head and tried to bring back positive thoughts, but the woman wouldn’t shut up.

“Which is ten times greater,” she said, “than your chances of winning the lottery.”

Harry was beginning to feel nervous. He turned to the fellow behind him. “I’ve been thinking about mushrooms,” he said, but the guy wasn’t listening.

They had reached the window. The women bought their tickets. Harry couldn’t believe they’d waited all this time for one lousy ticket each. “Good luck,” they said to Harry and the old man.

“Thanks. Good luck to you,” the old man replied. Harry wouldn’t say it. There could only be one big winner, and it had to be him.

Finally, it was his turn. He handed over the one hundred twenty dollars. As Harry’s tickets printed out the old man started acting impatient. “After all that, there’s not much use me trying,” he complained.

But Harry noticed that he did. He’d probably win with his measly ten bucks. Or maybe those women, who didn’t care one way or the other, would win with their one ticket each. The positive feeling was gone. He had been a fool!

There was no other way. He’d have to pull off a robbery. As he headed for the Circle-K, a drop of rain fell on his nose. The sky, like his mood, had darkened.

There was no one in the store, except the clerk. Harry walked up to the counter. Keeping his right hand in his jacket pocket, he shaped his fingers like a gun and pushed his pocket at the clerk. “Give me all your money,” he said.

Harry could tell the kid was feeling around under the counter. “Don’t press no alarms,” he warned, “or I’ll shoot.”

The kid stepped back. “We don’t keep very much money in here.” His fingers shook as he fumbled in the register.

A car drove up. “Hurry!” said Harry.

The kid took a handful of bills from under the change drawer and handed it to Harry. “That’s all there is,” he said. “Honest!”

Harry watched the people get out of the car. “Get down on the floor.”

The kid looked scared. “Don’t shoot me!”

“Shut up and lay still!” The people were coming up the walk. Harry shoved past them, jumped into his car and sped away.

Rain was pouring so hard he had to turn on the wipers. He looked at the wad of bills on his lap. It wasn’t nearly enough. He’d never been so depressed.

He watched TV until they announced the winning numbers, then started checking his tickets. He’d tossed seventy two of them into the trash, when he found what he’d been waiting for. He read the ticket again, rubbed his eyes and read it one final time. Then he started to dance around and to shout, “I’ve won! I’ve won! This is it! I’m rich!”

He was celebrating so loudly that he didn’t hear the doorbell. He didn’t see the squad cars in his driveway, but remained blissfully unaware of the officers until they bashed in his door, thrust half a dozen revolvers at his face, and shouted, “Freeze!” Harry clutched the winning ticket.

“Open your hands, flat against the wall!”

“Let me put something into my pocket!” he begged, but someone pushed him and the ticket fell to the floor. He tried to reach for it, but an officer shoved his wrists into a pair of handcuffs.

“You have the right to remain silent.”

Tears sprang to his eyes. “I did it, but…”

“If you give up your right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“…I was desperate!”

“You have the right to an attorney…”

“I can afford one!” He kicked at the winning ticket. “Please put that into my pocket,” he said.

An officer picked up the ticket and jammed it into Harry’s shirt pocket. “Go on,” he said, pushing Harry toward his shattered front door.

Rain was sheeting down. Harry bent forward to protect his ticket from getting soaked.

“Helluva storm,” the officer said, reaching to unlock the back door.

In that single, blinding instant, a bolt of lightning found poor Harry and nailed him to the pavement. As he went down, a thin piece of paper fluttered from his shirt pocket.

It was later announced that some lucky person held the winning lottery ticket. Unfortunately, the three and a half million dollar prize was never claimed.