A Winning Ticket (2 page)

The weight of the overwhelming burden was crushing him.

Suffocating him.

He had no idea what he would do if the worst happened and he was unable to figure some way out of this jam—some way to save the farm. Farming—living here—in the wide open Nebraska plains, with clean air and cobalt blue skies, was all he had ever known.

All he had ever loved.

He knew if he lost this lifestyle it would kill him. Maybe not physically, but emotionally, inside his soul where life really had meaning and counted for something, he would die. There were lots of people, some lying in hospital beds, some walking around like everyone else, who were physically alive, but inside they were as dead as dirt. Benjamin didn’t intend to ever live like that.

To make matters worse, he had no other marketable skills. He was shy, awkward, and uncomfortable in various types of social situations. Not exactly someone employers would jump at the chance to hire. Harrison, on the other hand, would be fine. He was charming, outgoing, and picked up new skills quickly. And although he had never married, the ladies loved him. He would move somewhere warm, get a good job, and finally start a family.

Benjamin would not be as fortunate. And he knew it.

He had decided, quite some time ago actually, that if the worst happened, he would take his grandfather’s .357 Magnum pistol he kept in the gun cabinet, put the barrel in his mouth, and blow his brains out before he moved to town and took a job shoveling fries and burgers at a fast-food restaurant. Of course, he had not mentioned this decision to Harrison.

The fact was, farming was his life—his very reason to exist. It was in his blood. Always had been. Without it he saw no use in going on.

The stress he was under must have been evident to his brother, because after taking a drink of milk and wiping his mouth with a paper napkin, Harrison said, “Don’t worry, Benjamin. We’ll figure something out.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could go to the bank and see if we can take a loan out on the farm. You know, just enough to get us through this upcoming season. Things will turn around next year, and we will pay the loan off and get the taxes paid up…then we’ll be back in business.”

“I don’t think so.” Benjamin shook his head.

“Why not?”

“First of all, if we take a loan out and we have another drought, we won’t be able to pay it off, and we will definitely lose the farm. Second, the bank will ask to see our financial records for the last few years. They take one look at those and we will get laughed right out of the loan office. No, that’s not an option. Absolutely not.”

“Sorry, just trying to help,” Harrison said as he put another spoonful of the deer stew in his mouth.

“I know you are. But I just don’t see a way out of this. I have to be realistic, Harrison. If something doesn’t change, we’ll lose the farm before we even have a chance to get the corn and soybeans to market this year.”

“Maybe we could sell off the hundred acres down by the county road. Remember that developer a couple years ago? He made us a very generous offer…maybe he’s still interested.”

“No, I don’t want to sell any of the land to a developer. Looking at all those tract homes everyday would drive me crazy…remind me of what a failure we were.”

The thought of selling even one acre of the farm that had been in the Zimmerman family for generations, made Benjamin’s stomach turn, but he would have gladly sold some of the land if it meant keeping the farm. But Benjamin had been withholding one important fact from his brother. The truth was that the land the developer wanted to purchase was no good for building houses on. In the winter it was fine, but during the spring and summer it turned into a veritable swamp. The amount of money it would take to drain the land properly and make it suitable for development would have made it a no-win scenario for the investors. Benjamin knew as soon as the developer ran a few tests on the soil, the truth would come out, and Harrison would learn how truly destitute their situation was. He was afraid that if Harrison found out the truth he might just throw his hands up and walk away for good.

Benjamin needed Harrison to stay on the farm with him.

“Fine. Have it your way,” Harrison said sharply.

Benjamin didn’t respond. He finished the last bite of stew in his bowl, cleared the table, and went into the kitchen to wash the dishes. After placing the leftover stew in the refrigerator, he walked into the living room where Harrison was stretched out in one of the two recliners that sat in front of the television. The chair on the left was Harrison’s, the one on the right was Benjamin’s. They had bought the matching set four years ago at the local furniture store—back when things were better financially and they could afford such luxuries.

Benjamin plopped down in his chair and extended the footrest. Harrison was dozing in front of an episode of
Wheel of Fortune
.

This was their standard routine. Get up before sunrise, work all day, have dinner together, watch some TV before going to bed, then wake up and start all over again the next day. The repetition was enough to drive some men to extreme boredom and others to the brink of insanity.

But it was the only life Benjamin had ever known—and he loved it.

And despite their differences, he loved his brother, too. Harrison was the only family Benjamin had left. Their mother and father had both been killed in a car accident when the brothers were in their early twenties. Benjamin and Harrison inherited the entire farm—and all the responsibility, too. Each one received fifty-percent of the land, buildings, and other furnishings. Their parents’ will had contained one interesting stipulation though. The farm could only be sold if both brothers agreed and sold all of their combined interests at once. Benjamin had often wondered if that stipulation were not present if Harrison would still be living on the farm with him. Perhaps he felt trapped. Harrison knew Benjamin would never agree to sell his share of the farm, so maybe that was the reason he had never even attempted to do anything else with his life.

Harrison could have had his choice of women in their small Nebraska farming community. He had dated several women off and on over the years, never getting serious with any of them. There was no secret why Benjamin had never married. He was so shy around women that he could hardly put a coherent sentence together while talking to them. The exact opposite of his brother, who could charm the pants off almost any woman…literally.

So they had remained on the farm since their parents’ death—twenty-two years ago this past September. Benjamin couldn’t imagine living in the old farmhouse alone. He didn’t always see eye-to-eye with Harrison, but they were a team and had been so ever since they were toddlers. No, he couldn’t imagine not having his brother around. Sure, sometimes they argued and pissed each other off, but didn’t everyone?

Of course.

Maybe Harrison was right. Maybe everything would work out. There had been tough times before, and they had always managed to come through on the other side stronger and, most importantly, together.

Benjamin prayed that would happen again this time.

As the credits began rolling for
Wheel of Fortune
, Harrison flipped the channel. A few minutes later, a sitcom came on, and Benjamin let his attention shift to the small wooden stand between the two recliners. Unlike Harrison, he didn’t care for sitcoms, so he took the time to pay bills and catch up on their accounts. He had taken on the responsibility right after their parents’ death. At times, he resented being responsible for all the finances—perhaps that was why he worried so often—but Harrison wanted nothing to do with managing the administrative aspects of the family business. It seemed lately that Harrison was doing as little as possible around the Zimmerman farm.

The stack of mail staring back at him was larger than usual, and he felt slightly ill. Too much stew? But he knew it wasn’t that. He’d been putting off paying the bills as long as possible, and some of them were now long overdue. Benjamin sighed heavily, got out the checkbook, and opened the first envelope.

He worked for an hour, pausing occasionally to look at the television when he heard the local weatherman break into the regular programming to give an update on the storm forecast. He was still predicting twelve to fourteen inches of new snow accumulation, along with thirty to fifty mile an hour wind gusts.

Benjamin placed the last check in the envelope that contained the electric bill and ran his tongue along the glue strip before sealing it. He wondered if the check would bounce like a rubber ball or if by the time it made it to the electric company he would have figured something out to keep the lights on.

Something.

He got up and walked toward the living room window. With the help of a dim porch light, he could see specks of white getting blown in all different directions. Their erratic, swirling movements reminded him of gnats swarming around this same porch light on a warm, July evening. Already, four inches of fresh powder covered the porch.

Harrison flipped the channel again, this time to his favorite crime drama.

Benjamin stared out the window for another minute, then grabbed a Louis L’Amour paperback and returned to the recliner. He preferred reading to watching television. He had always been that way, at least as far back as he could remember. He sank into the foam cushion and opened the novel to the first page.

By ten o’clock, Benjamin was fighting to keep his eyelids open when he heard the intro music for the Channel 6 News on the television. He forced his eyes open and readjusted in the recliner. He wanted to stay awake long enough to get an update on the storm before he went to bed.

The camera panned to the news desk where Melissa Black and John Jackson were sitting. Benjamin thought John was an idiot and could barely stand to watch him. Melissa was a different story though. He had admired her black hair and green eyes ever since she had first been hired at the station—five years and three months ago this last Saturday. But women like her were to be admired from a distance. He would never have the courage to approach her in person.

Harrison, who had been dozing off and on all night, perked up to watch.

As expected, coverage of the snowstorm dominated the top of the newscast. Melissa and John quickly threw to a field reporter who was wrapped tightly in a North Face coat and struggling to keep her balance in the wind gusts. Behind her was an intersection where a traffic accident had already occurred.

After a couple more reporters braved the elements on-screen, the focus shifted to the weatherman in the studio, Cap Henderson.

Benjamin wondered why weathermen always had stupid names.

Cap gave a rundown of the current area snow totals and an updated forecast. It was still looking like a severe winter storm, and it was supposed to continue through most of the day tomorrow. After Cap finished running through his satellite and radar images, the camera moved back to Melissa and John, who were getting ready to go to the first commercial break.

Benjamin got up from the recliner and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water before bed. As he was walking, he heard Melissa say, “Before we go to break, here are tonight’s winning Super Millions lottery numbers.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the familiar lottery graphic flash on the television. Five white balls, followed by one red, bounced across the screen.

He heard Harrison mutter drowsily, “Oh, I almost forgot. I picked up our ticket today at the gas station.”

Buying lottery tickets was Harrison’s idea, although they both went in on them together. Harrison bought a ticket on Wednesday, and Benjamin would pick one up on Saturday. They had been buying two lottery tickets a week for the past ten years or so. They had never won more than seven dollars off a single ticket. By Benjamin’s calculations, that meant they had spent more than two-thousand dollars on a pipe dream—money they desperately needed right now.

Benjamin grabbed a glass from the cupboard and turned on the faucet. He could hear the wind howling outside the kitchen window. The snow was continuing to fall with increasing fury. He filled the glass with water and walked back through the living room, toward the hallway that led to his bedroom. “Good night, Harr—”

“We won.” Benjamin heard his brother say in a monotone, unexcited voice.

“I wish. See you in the morning,” Benjamin replied as he continued down the hallway.

“No, I’m serious. We won.” Harrison still kept the cadence of his voice even. Not showing any excitement.

Something about this made Benjamin turn around and walk back into the living room. Harrison looked as though he was about to pass out. His eyes were glazed, and his face was as white as the snow now falling outside. He wasn’t joking around.

“We won,” he repeated again, now looking up from the television screen to meet Benjamin’s eyes. A slight smile began to slowly spread over his face.

Without saying a word, Benjamin grabbed the ticket from Harrison’s hand and looked at it, then at the television. Harrison had stopped the DVR, and the series of winning numbers were now frozen on the screen. The estimated jackpot was seventy million dollars.

Benjamin swallowed hard and again began to examine the ticket—just to make sure Harrison was not screwing around with him. He had seen something similar happen to some poor guy once on YouTube. His buddies had recorded the drawing and then bought a ticket with the matching numbers the next day. When the guy came home from work, they handed him the ticket and pressed
Play
on the recorded drawing. The guy never checked the date on the ticket, so when the matching numbers came up on the screen, he ran around the house screaming, thinking he had won the jackpot. Idiot.

It wasn’t a joke—everything about Harrison’s ticket was correct.

Next, he began to match each of the numbers on the screen to the ones on the ticket.

26…
Got it.

30…
Yep.

49…51…54…
All here.

Benjamin saved the Superball for last. He looked back at the television to the big red ball at the end of the sequence of numbers.