Winner

FAIR GAME  

 

I've been feeling punk for weeks, been hanging around the pool hall, the bus station, just passing the days away. The wants ads offer nothing I can or want to do but still, I search thru my neighbor's newspapers when he puts them in his yellow bin for re-cycling.

 

Today I decide not to walk past the barber shop, open the door, hear the chime ring and give Tony a smile and a pat on his back. 'Give me a trim, Tony,' I say. 'In fact, shave off this scrawny beard I've been trying to grow. It remind's me of my wife's rose bushes. They grow so damn slow it's fall before a single flower blooms. Millie is frustrated and swears every year she's gonna pull them all out in September-but she won't. Tony criticizes me. 'You're awfully hard on her, George.' As he covers my face with a steaming hot towel, I grimace, grip the chairs arms and when the heat eases, so do my fingers.

 

Relaxed, my eyes closed, I try to ask about Clayton but Tony tells me to shut up while he shaves my chin. He shrugs, sighs and asks me how long I've been out of work. Barely moving my lips, I tell him, 'One month,' and he tells me Clayton, his #2 barber, has joined the unemployed line. I really can't afford the cost of my hair trim but am too embarrassed to tell Tony to skip it. His being owner of the shop, I don't tip him.

 

'Millie, I'm home. Of course there's no answer. She must be in the back yard fiddling with her unproductive rose bushes. 'Millie,' I call again. This time she answers. 'I heard you the first time, Georgie.' Oh, how she riles me. For fifteen years I've been telling her not to call me Georgie. As a kid, I remember well being sung to, 'Georgie, Georgie, Puddin' pie, kissed the girls and made them cry.' And I hated it. 'One of these days, Millie, one of these days,' and I never finish the sentence.

 

'Georgie,' she says,' Selma next door told me the high school is sponsoring a fair next week and all profits go to them for after school activities. It's going to be inside and around their track and in both gyms. Can we go? It doesn't cost anything. I want to enter my seven layer chocolate frosted cake in their baking contest. I have it all thought out, coconut heavy on the top and almond slivers around the sides. Can I? Can I? I have all the stuff except the coconut.' 'Sure, Millie. Will you bake a three layer one for just us?'

 

Alex, our next door neighbor, sees me talking to Millie and asks me if I want the Sunday newspapers before they are recycled. 'Sure, and when I'm thru I'll put them in my yellow bin.' The paper is heavier than usual. Want ads offer me one  possibility. 'Experienced house painters wanted for new small development nearing completion. Contact Jim. 265-3232.' It's evening but I call anyhow. Jim is there. We talk and I impress him enough to ask me to stop by 8 a.m. Monday. It's the first nibble I've had in a whole month and am excited and nervous at the same time. Ten men and one woman are hired. Fortunately, I am one of them. The pay isn't great but it is better than zilch and the project is only a mile from our daughter's junior high school. Millie calls when I come in the house, 'George, did you get the job?' I am very aware that she didn't call me 'Georgie,' today and I swoop her up in my arms and give her a big smoochy kiss.

 

When I put her down, I realize I had not noticed the wonderful odor of the two cakes cooling on the kitchen counter. She gives me the chocolate mixing spoon to lick and I feel like a child for a moment or two. Together we carefully take Millie's magnificent seven layer cake to school. Mentally, I am sure Millie's cake is going to be the highest, best looking cake there and she will win the $20 cash prize.

 

All kinds of attractions are around the track. In the middle is a ferris wheel, not a very big one, but big enough for me to buy two fifty cent tickets and take my wife around the world. I, we, feel rejuvenated what with me having a job and Millie's cake winning the prize, we are pretty near delirious. There are booths for mind readers, prophesy makers, hand tricks. Millie and I walk past them and wonder how people can spend their money on such nonsense. Sugar candy and toffy are for sale. A teen is eating a tasty looking caramel apple on a stick. He talks to the man next to him, points to me, and I am offered the chance of a lifetime if I buy a few raffle tickets. I buy one for five bucks, sign my name and phone number on the receipt for ticket 704. I double check what I put down and burst out laughing. On my receipt it actually says, 'Georgie Glass.' 'Millie, look at this,' I show her and we both laugh. The
smile comes off her face when she sees the $5 cost.We dawdle, watch a man make long skinny balloons into giraffes, round fat ones into bears. Somebody donated hundreds of balloons and the blower may need a donation himself if he doesn't rest a while. 'Millie, let's go home. I have to be on the new job at 7:30 tomorrow. We hold hands and walk home happy as a hummingbird at a honeysuckle vine.

 

At nine, the harsh phone wakes me. Tilly hasn't come to bed yet. I hear her scream and start to run down the stairs, bump into her as she is running to me. 'George, George, Georgie Pie, that was Mr. Garland on the phone, Principle of Carlin's Jr. High. You won, Georgie. We won the raffle for $500.!' 

 

'Millie,' I say, we haven't been to church in a long time. Let's go Sunday. I want to thank somebody for our blessings and god is the right one.'
Sunday the rain is coming down so hard all morning, I suggest we wait
 for Noah to come by. Millie has a large umbrella and a raincoat. I have Millie. 

 

At the door to the church I find a newly minted quarter, go inside and thank god for that too.