Lottery (16 page)

They are boring, so I decide to leave and go into the other room. No one notices, or if they do, they say nothing. Animal Planet is not on, so I take a shower, put on my pajamas, and get into bed. The room is strange. The sounds are strange. I am uncomfortable and want to go home.

My dreams are real. Like movies.

I dream about the dog I want to get. He runs after a stick I throw. His fur is long and soft.

He runs and pants. I throw it again and he brings it back. The stick is smooth and brown in my hand. It gets longer, forms an end, turns gray, and changes into a winch handle. I turn it. I am turning. Around and around. I dream about sailing
Diamond Girl
by myself. The wind is fierce. It blows my hair. My cheeks puff out. I am holding a line between my fingers and pulling. The wind pushes in my face. I look up into a blue sky, into the sun, and I feel happy.

I am happy. I wake up. And it is morning.

23

I wonder if John has oatmeal in his kitchen. I decide to ask him when I hear him moving around. He sounds grumpy and talks to me through his bedroom door.

“What! What do you want, Perry?”

“Do you have oatmeal, John? I eat oatmeal for breakfast. Can I have some breakfast?” I am embarrassed to ask, but I did not get dinner and I do not want to starve to death. People can die when they do not eat enough food.

“I don’t know, Perry. Look for yourself! I don’t have time to talk to you right now. I have to leave. Fix yourself some eggs or something. Watch TV in the family room. Stay out of the living room. Let Gigi out in the backyard to do her stuff, but make sure she comes right back inside. Wipe her feet with a towel so she doesn’t get the carpet dirty. CeCe and I have to go. We’ll be back this afternoon.”

After they leave, I am lonely and bored. I wish Keith would come over. Ten minutes later, I hear banging at the front of the house. I do not know what I should do. It is not nice to answer other people’s doors. There is a lot of pounding.

“Hey, Per!” When I recognize Keith’s voice, I am happy and open the door. I am still in my pajamas and have to grab Gigi by the neck so she doesn’t run out the front. She is growling so hard, drips come out of her mouth in long strings. I check her again for white froth.

“Drop the little fucker and I’ll kick it across the room!”

“It’s a her! No!” I hug Gigi tight to my chest. She reaches around and nips me hard in the arm and I drop her. She is smart enough to run into the other room.

“How did you get here? This is like magic, Keith! I was just thinking that I wish you were here, and you appeared. That is so cool,” I say.

“Sorry, Per, I had a few beers last night or I would have been here sooner.” Keith has to drink alone on
Diamond Girl
before he comes to visit me. He tells me what happened. It was like a spy movie and very fun to hear.

“I didn’t see your note until this morning. I found John’s address in the blue book by your phone.
No problemo.
” Keith walks into the living room and looks around. “I waited until I saw your brother and his wife getting into their car in the driveway. I counted to fifty, then drove around the block and parked Yo down the road behind some bushes. I ran the rest of the way down the street. I couldn’t find his fucking bell, so I banged on the door. You ready to go?”

He is all sweaty from running. I do not think Keith should run. He could drop dead of a heart attack. People die of heart attacks.

“Yeah, I’m ready to go,” I say. “Just let me put on my clothes. I’m still in my pajamas.”

“No need to tell me that, Per. I got eyes.” And he points to his brows with his middle finger and laughs at me.

The middle finger means the F-word and
No problemo
is Spanish. Keith can talk foreign just like Manny. That is so cool. Spanish is like English only you cannot understand what people are saying. Keith does not wipe his feet and tracks mud all over the white living room carpet.

“Hey, Keith, you got mud all over your boots. John will get mad.” I hope he takes them off, but he just sits on the white sofa, picks the dirt clumps stuck to his soles, and flicks them off onto the glass coffee table.

“So this is where that brother of yours lives.” He stands up. “Holsted was worried when you didn’t come home. Of course, I knew the
son of a bitch
would come back. Holsted is so naive.”

Keith is smart. He is even smarter when he has not been drinking.

“Do you want some breakfast? I can make eggs,” I offer. I am hungry and hope we can eat before we leave.

“Sure,” he says, then adds, “Wait. No. I’ll make the eggs and you get dressed. Make sure you pack up everything you want to take home.” On his way to the kitchen, Keith opens the glass cupboard over the bar. He starts pulling out bottles.

“Courvoisier. Ahhhh. Cognac. That’s a good one.” He talks to himself. “I’ll take this one and hmmm . . . Oh yeah! That’s another good one.” Then to me, “Hurry up, Per! We don’t have all day.”

I put on my underwear, pull on my jeans, and button my shirt. My hair sticks out. I have to wet it to make it lie down.

“Hey, Keith, I need a haircut today,” I yell. When I walk into the kitchen, I smell something burning. The kitchen is empty. Smoke is pouring from a frying pan on the stove. There are four eggs burned hard to the bottom of a pan. I dump them into the disposal and get another pan. I am cooking four more eggs when Keith comes back into the kitchen.

“I found these in the office. There’s papers and shit all over the place.” Keith’s mouth drips just like Gigi’s. “Look at all these credit card bills! I’ve never seen such high limits. See? They’re all maxed out.
Past due
.
Last notice
.
Final bill
. . . for such a fancy house your brother seems to owe a shitload of money. What’s this? Hey, look here! He’s being sued! Misappropriation of funds. More bills. Alimony past due. Sweet Jesus! How does a guy like that get five wives?”

“It’s not nice to snoop.” I set two plates out and butter toast.

“What did you do with them last night?”

“We had a Family Meeting.”

“What about?”

“Stuff. Investments. Money. They want me to be responsible.”

“Interesting. Here’s a big one that defers payment. It says John expects to come into a pile of money soon.” Keith sits at the table and reads while he shovels eggs and toast into his mouth. He uses a corner of one paper for a napkin. “Did either of your brothers ask for a loan?”

“No. A loan is when you borrow money and have to pay it back. They did not ask for a loan. They all just wanted checks. They do not want to pay me back,” I say.

“It figures, the moneygrubbing creeps. When is John getting home?” Keith asks.

“He said this afternoon but I don’t know. Why?”

“Because I want to sit in his hot tub. I have a bad back.” He stands up and stretches.

“I’m not allowed.” I start to worry. We have made a huge mess in John’s house. Gigi is howling in the other room and there is a wet spot on the rug. I was supposed to let her out in the backyard to poop and pee. I forgot.

“Yeah? Well, they didn’t say anything about me.” Keith peels off his shirt and drops his pants.

His butt is big and white. I can see his crack and his privates.

He leaves his plate on the table, goes out onto the deck naked, and flips a switch that causes bubbles to spring up from the bottom of the tub. It is not nice to let people see your privates. I hope John’s neighbors are not looking over the fence. Keith groans when he steps into the water. “Ahhh!
Sweet Jesus!
That feels good!”

Sitting in the hot tub is a very big
Not Allowed.

My hands shake and my stomach is achy. I need Tums. My heart is pounding so loud I hear it in my ears. I pace back and forth from room to room. I forget about Gigi until I notice she did a poop on the carpet. I try to pick it up with a paper towel, but I drop one piece and it rolls under the sofa.

"Keith!” I do not want to be here when John and CeCe get home.

I hear Keith in the hot tub singing. “. . .
Sure do shine . . . glad I love ya . . . glad you’re mine . . .
Watch some TV, Per! I’ll be done in a minute,” he hollers.

“I am too upset to watch TV, Keith! We’ll get in trouble!” I look through the kitchen window and can see him floating on his back. He takes up the whole tub. He is splashing water on the deck. John will see that someone has been in the hot tub and think it was me.

“No you won’t.” He holds his nose with two fingers and slides under the surface.

“Don’t drown, Keith, okay?” I do not want to pull his big, fat, naked body out of the tub.

“Gigi! Oh, Gigi!” I call quietly. I hear her scratching and whining in the office. Long deep gouges line the bottom of the wood door. She must have gotten in there while Keith was snooping. Three piles of poop and two more pee spots are scattered over the carpet. I push the poop under the desk with a magazine and just leave the wet. My hands are trembling. Gigi bites my ankle, but I have my thick Nike socks and boat shoes on. I pick her up by the collar and throw her too hard into the bathroom. She hits the wall as I slam the door.

“Sorry!” I tell her, but she does not sound like she forgives me. Her growls and barks echo off the tile. When I come back to the deck Keith is slowly crawling out of the hot tub.

“Hot damn! That felt good.” He dries himself off with a kitchen dish towel and then folds it neatly, laying it back on the counter. I watch him slide his underwear up his wet legs and then I look away. It is not polite to watch naked people get dressed.

There are pieces of burnt egg in the sink, dishes all over the table, and crumbs on the floor. There is a giant yellow puddle bright like the sun on the white tile in the hall. Gigi must have peed there too. I open the cupboard below the sink, grab a garbage bag, run into the spare room, and stuff my clothes inside. THUD THUD THUD. My chest is pounding like it will explode.

“Keith!” I yell again. “We have to go!”

He is back in John’s office, sitting at the desk, reading more papers. His wet bare feet are propped up on the desk. Water drips from his wet hair and lands in speckles on the carpet underneath. He starts to put his feet down.

“Be careful. There’s poop under there!” I warn him.

Keith sits up so hard the chair bucks. I laugh. It is like bull riding.

“Shit, what’s all this?”

"Call it dog poop, Keith. It is not nice to use the S-word.”

“No, these other papers. It looks like notes.” He pages through a long yellow tablet.

“Stop snooping, Keith.”

“Look at this. . . .
Mutual funds. Financial services.
. . .
Guardianship
. . . I think they’re up to something. It looks like your family is researching how to invest a whole pile of money. They want to create a family trust, it says here.” He starts to rip a page off then stops, smooths it out, and lays the pad back on the desk. He picks up some other papers and stuffs them into his shirt.

“We have to go, Keith.” I am scared that John will come back and catch us snooping.