Chapter 5

[Saturday, June 21st, 1986]

I awoke to the sounds of our next-door neighbors pulling their truck out of the driveway. It was a big Ford F-350 diesel with dual rear wheels and he had a camping trailer hooked up to the rear bumper. His wife was loudly playing spotter for him, and apparently she was making absolutely sure that they took out their mailbox as they pulled out. Much cursing and blame throwing was involved.

They were both assholes about it if you asked me. With the windows open it wasn’t something I could ignore and just sleep through. I got up to start my day. Only 7:00 am and It already looked like it was going to be a hot day, so I grabbed some embarrassingly short basketball shorts and a Journey t-shirt and headed down to hit the shower. Hopefully, I could do some shopping later today.

This seemed like a good morning for breakfast at Bon Appétit. I left Mom a note on the board and headed out. I grabbed a copy of the paper on my way to my seat, Carol met me there before I had settled in completely. I said, “Good Morning Carol, thanks for the coffee.” and asked, “Can I get two eggs over easy, with hashbrowns, wheat toast, and sausage please.” She said, “Comin’ right up.” and headed back behind the counter.

I quickly saw that the winning numbers for last night’s Lotto drawing were: 6, 13, 14, 30, 34, 43 and there was one winning ticket, purchased right here, in my hometown. Well, the key item in my plan worked. I could start making progress on the bigger plans now. I also needed to follow up on a few minor things. Like I wonder how many people win 5 out of 6 statewide on a normal week. What kind of deviation was considered normal from those numbers?

I’ll bet I can get those answers while I’m cashing in my small ticket. And the most important thing, don’t forget to call Kim tonight. I smiled at that thought and continued smiling as I noticed Carol heading my way with breakfast. The sausage patty was spectacular, much better than the bacon. I fully enjoyed my meal, and would probably be doing this from time to time. I got up and paid for it, leaving a nice tip, then I headed out.

I pulled into Cumberland Farms and talked with the cashier. No, they did not pay out the 5 of 6 winning tickets right from the store. Any winnings over $500 had to be handled by the Lottery Headquarters, and they were of course closed on the weekends. I asked him if he knew where I could find out about the number of winners for each number of correct picks.

He told me that he could print out a current one from the machine, and he could even go back a few weeks and do the same, but if I was looking for a lot of historical data I would need to see someone at the lotto HQ for something like that.

I asked him to look into the last few weeks like he mentioned and he printed them out for me. I thanked him for all of the help.

The numbers for this week’s drawing for 5 of 6 was a total of 5 people, which came to $2169. Last week it was 10 winners who each got $1132. The prior week there were only two 5 of 6 winners and they each shared $5382. That is a lot of deviation in prize sizes and a much smaller pool of winners than I hoped.

Let’s say I were to buy an extra 5 out of 6 every week. If I was the one doing the cashing in it would very quickly bring on unwanted attention from the lottery officials, and probably the law too. If I found people to quietly share with, that might be something to consider.

Probably more hassle than it’s worth considering the level of deception involved. Maybe if the number of winners was really low, but how would I sell the idea to the “helpers”?

Something much more likely to be worth doing might be focusing on the 4 of 6 winning tickets. For the last 3 weeks that I had data on, 200 winners of $60, 252 winners of $56, 267 winners of $48. For prizes at that level, I bet they aren’t even checking ID.

I doubt an extra 10 small-time winners a week would be noticed. But when you add it up, that’s $500/week, $26,000 a year, If I remember it right, that was a decent annual salary for this timeframe.

I would only need to do something like that for a few months, and maybe just as a fill-in for other projects I might also be doing. I would want to do some traveling around the state so I would spread out my buying/cashing and not draw attention to any specific area, but that could easily be done. Hell, Massachusetts, and New York both had similar lotteries too. Lots of possibilities there.

Well, it was not something I had to decide on right now. That would be a Friday afternoon or evening deal at the earliest, effectively a week away. My watch showed me it wasn’t even 9:00 am yet. I had to get out a map and see where Lotto HQ was. I decided to go to the house and see if anyone was up.

As I walked into the kitchen I found Marybeth working on a bowl of cereal in her pajamas. Raisin Bran seemed to be the winner of this morning’s breakfast battle. I said “Good morning” and received a “Good Morning” in return, followed by a “Where were you at?”. I replied that I was just out running some errands. I asked her what she was doing today.

She and Tom would be going out somewhere, where depended on a few other couples they were going to be meeting up with. Hopeville Pond was a front runner, but something else might make more sense. I told her to have a good time and headed back up to my room.

I grabbed my little black book and reminded myself of Kim’s number. Then I pulled out the first winning lotto ticket and placed it into a book on my nightstand for safekeeping. I didn’t want to get them mixed up later when I was cashing the small one in.

If this went badly I could always undo it, but maybe Kim would be interested in hanging out this morning. After coming down the attic stairs, I passed Marybeth as she was heading up to the second floor to get ready for her day. Well, the 2nd-floor bathroom would be tied up for a while.

I made myself comfortable at the kitchen table with the phone and dialed Kim’s number. After just a couple of rings, Mr. Murphy answered the phone, “Hello?”. I said, “Good morning Mr. Murphy, this is John Turner. I’m sorry if I’ve called at a bad time, but I was wondering if Kim might be free to talk for a few minutes.”

Mr. Murphy chuckled and said, “Hang on, and we’ll both find out.” I heard a slightly muffled “Kim, that boy you liked from the Pizza Place is on the phone.” followed by “DAAAD!!”. Soon after that Kim came on the line and said “John, I’m sorry about that. He thinks he’s funny.”

I smiled and said, “Good Morning Kim, is this a bad time?” She replied, “No, it’s fine. Good Morning to you too.” I told her, “I find myself in need of an expert guide, so I thought I would call and see if you might be available.” She chuckled, “Where are you going that you need a guide?”

I replied, “See, that’s why I need a guide. I have no idea where to go, besides I think there is a law that says a man can’t go clothes shopping without help from at least one woman.” She playfully came back with, “Oh, I see your problem. Yes, while it is not actually law yet, it will be soon. I’m glad you called, that could have been a horrible mistake.” Then she stated, “We should make a plan, can’t be too careful you know.”

I smiled and said, “Good. You seem to have my best interests at heart. I think I’ve chosen well. Any reason we can’t get to planning early?” She replied, “Let me check something really quick, just a second.” I heard her put the phone down and come back a minute later. “OK, I just confirmed that I’m free all day. Do you know where our house is?” I told her, “No, not really, what’s the address?”

She gave me the address, and some directions, and I told her I’d be there in about 30 minutes. I spent about 10 minutes making sure my car looked ok on the inside. Just taking out a little trash and wiping some dust off the interior surfaces. It only took me another 15 minutes to get there. Kim was sitting on her front porch when I drove up and headed my way as I came to a stop.

I would have gotten out and at least opened her door for her, but she left me no time for that. I just had time to lean over and unlock the door for her. This car didn’t have power locks or power windows. I was probably lucky it had power steering. As Kim sat down I said, “Hi there, thanks for helping me with this.”

She smiled and said hi back, then looked me over a bit and said, “I see I will have my work cut out for me.” I could tell she was being playful, and I took it as she intended. I was dressed in those skimpy basketball shorts and a t-shirt after all. I shrugged and said, “Well, at least you understand the scope of the problem.”

I pulled out of her circular driveway and headed back toward town. Then said, “You look lovely by the way.” She did, she was wearing a yellow sundress, or maybe it was white, but had so many yellow flowers on it that it looked yellow overall. Anyway, I thought she looked great in it.

She said, “Thank you, so talk to me about your wardrobe needs that we are trying to fix.” I answered, “Well to start with, I hate these shorts. I only wore them because today was going to be a hot one and I didn’t have any better. I’d prefer something more like Bermuda shorts, or perhaps something in between.”

I continued with, “While that is definitely on the todo list, we need to have a different kind of conversation for the rest I think. You, young lady, are sitting in the car with a winner of last night’s lottery drawing.” She looked at me with shock on her face.”No Shit?” she asked. “No shit,” I replied. Then I smiled and said, “Sadly the ticket in my pocket only has 5 out of 6 winning numbers on it.”

She slapped my arm and said, “Jerk, you and my Dad will get along just fine.” I laughed then told her, “I actually do have a winning ticket, I can’t cash it until Monday, but it should be good for a little over two grand. It only has 5 out of 6 correct numbers on it. I’ve got other plans for half of that money. Our budget for the actual shopping trip is approximately a thousand dollars. As for what I want to buy with it, that truly is what I needed your help for.”

She was sitting with that shocked look on her face again, so I said “Have you eaten? Would you like to sit somewhere and discuss things?” She kind of shook herself and said, “Congratulations on your win, yes actually I have eaten already, but I would like to sit somewhere we can talk more comfortably.”

I told her, “I’ve eaten too which is too bad, as a booth seems like the best option.” She replied, “Well, we could just have coffee or something.” I told her that sounded like a good idea. There was a Denny’s restaurant just a couple of blocks ahead that I went to. We got out of the car together and headed in.

As we walked in I told her, “FYI, when we are out together, I would prefer it if you would give me a chance to do the whole open a door for the lady thing sometimes, assuming that doesn’t offend you somehow.” She reached for my hand and held it then said, “That sounds nice. It doesn’t offend me at all.”

I got the door as we entered. There was a second set of doors, and this time she got it and waved me in gallantly. We both laughed as we approached the sign asking us to wait to be seated. We held hands again. After a minute a hostess asked if we preferred a table or a booth, we both said booth and she led us to it.

We sat down facing each other from opposite sides of the booth. A waitress approached with coffee in hand and we both flipped over the cups on the table and said “Yes please”. I told her that we were going to be a few minutes looking over the menu. She said that would be fine and she’d check on us again in a bit.