Gasoline and Miracles

“This’ll be 6.59.”

Sorry dude, I only have six bucks...Can’t you use your spare tip change?

No problem. Here.

OK.

And he left.

Omar removed the last few pennies in the cigarette tray that was his tip jar. He looked at them one by one, felt their edges. He hated coins. They always made your fingers smell like metallic filth. Nevertheless, he dropped them one by one into the cash register.

5

10

20

21

22

23

24

25.

He had one penny left which he put in his jacket pocket. He decided which lottery ticket he wanted then put that away with the penny.

He gathered his few belongings, and trudged the five blocks home. He worked 5 in the morning till 1 at night seven days a week, and this walk was his vacation. A vacation from all the rudeness, all the looks. So many faces, so many of them hard. He needed this walk to remind him that life was real.

Alone. Unwanted. Him and his ticket. His lucky ticket.

He felt for the penny and the slip. He found them both and applied them vigorously, as he walked. He could feel himself losing control as he scratched number 2. Why was he like this?

It was so simple match one pair…just one pair. A fictionalized coin surfaced. Now one more…should it be number 1 or 3? No, 5 will do, he was the fifth child, he was born on the fifth of March. It must be. He hated himself for this addiction.

So for the thousandth time he scratched numbers 2 and 5…and once again he lost. He dropped the ticket next to the hundred others and turned towards his silent home, with the smell of soured pennies in his nostrils.