{"id":2694,"date":"2026-08-13T06:47:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/?p=2694"},"modified":"2026-08-13T06:47:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:47:36","slug":"the-winning-ticket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/the-winning-ticket\/","title":{"rendered":"The Winning Ticket"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span>That son of a bitch brought it on himself. I swear to God he did. I even told Judge\u00a0 Naugle I wasn\u2019t in the least bit sorry for what I\u2019d done. And if she thought for one second\u00a0 I\u2019d be spending my time in jail feeling bad about what had happened, she\u2019d be dead wrong.\u00a0 In fact, I told her I was gonna enjoy having a week off work, cause my nephew, Wayne\u00a0 Junior, who works up there as a guard, told me the place is fully air-conditioned, and that\u00a0 I was looking forward to sleeping like a spoiled rich kid at the Ritz. Judge Naugle gave\u00a0 me an extra two days for that last comment for being what she called flippant and\u00a0 disrespectful, whatever that means.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>For the last twenty-five years, I\u2019ve driven a dump truck for the Department of\u00a0 Transport. Now I know that driving a truck aint working down a coal mine, but still, that\u00a0 amount of time behind the wheel\u2019ll do a real number on you. A quarter century of too\u00a0 much sitting, too much smoking, and too much fast food and crappy coffee will definitely\u00a0 change a man, and not in a good way. Whenever I look at myself in the mirror, I hardly\u00a0 recognize the guy staring back at me. When I got out of the Army, I was in real good\u00a0 shape. I had a head of hair as thick as a beaver pelt and a reputation for doing a mean half sashay and the kind of do-si-do that set some single women on fire and sent the dance\u00a0 floor up in flames. Now I\u2019m just a three-time divorcee with a comb-over, a beer belly, a\u00a0 full set of dentures, and a wicked case of sciatica that makes my ass-cheeks numb and my\u00a0right foot fall asleep by mid-morning most days. And I know this next piece has got\u00a0 nothing to do with why I\u2019m so crazy-angry, but the last woman I danced with was my\u00a0 sister, and that was at Aunt Louise\u2019s funeral. But I don\u2019t want to talk about that right now\u00a0 on account of how the whole thing ended up. I\u2019m still embarrassed about it, so I\u2019m gonna\u00a0 get back to telling you how I ended up in jail.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Lloyd Nesbit and I had worked together for over two decades, thick as thieves, best of\u00a0 friends. And sometimes, especially during June, July, and August, and even September\u00a0 these last few years, it gets so hot down here it feels like we\u2019re just filling in the potholes\u00a0 on the highway to Hades. So, on most Friday afternoons after we get off work, we\u2019d stop\u00a0 at the 7-Eleven, both put in a couple of bucks, and buy a few cheap chances at what folks\u00a0 around here like to call the redneck American dream. After that, we\u2019d head over to Big\u00a0 Richard\u2019s and flush away the taste of all that hot oil and crushed rock with a few cold beers\u00a0 and spend the rest of the evening looking at women, talking about football, and how\u00a0 someday, when one of our tickets hit, we\u2019d both quit our jobs and buy swimming pools.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I think it was two Saturdays ago, Colleen from the depot called me up and asked me\u00a0 what I\u2019m gonna do with all my money. So I say to Colleen, what money are you talking about? She says your lottery money. Then she tells me Lloyd Nesbit\u2019s been seen spending\u00a0 all kinds of crazy cash down at Mega-Mart and telling everyone he\u2019d won it playing the\u00a0 lotto last night. So, I hang up with Colleen, and straight away call Lloyd and ask him just\u00a0 what in the holy-heck\u2019s going on. And you-know what he told me? He said he had won\u00a0 the lotto, but the winning numbers were on one of the tickets he\u2019d bought with his own\u00a0 money. Can you believe that? After all those years of thinking we were a team and talking\u00a0 about what we were gonna do with our prize money if one of our tickets ever hit\u2014then\u00a0 one of them does\u2014and all of a sudden he don\u2019t wanna share the winnings. It made me so\u00a0 mad, I just about shit in my shorts.
\n\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019m ashamed to say I did not go to church on Sunday or turn up for work on Monday.\u00a0 Tuesday, it was in the paper just how much he\u2019d won. \u201cBiggest lotto win ever in Sullivan\u00a0 County\u201d. Just seeing it in print like that made me feel sick to my stomach, so I didn\u2019t go\u00a0 to work on Wednesday or Thursday either. I didn\u2019t even care if it was the week we were\u00a0 supposed to resurface all the roads around the courthouse and the police department. I was\u00a0 so pissed-off, I didn\u2019t think I could control myself if I accidentally-on-purpose bumped\u00a0 into old Lloyd.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Friday morning, I woke up feeling all funky and out of sorts with myself. During the\u00a0 night, I\u2019d had a dreadful dream that the Lord Jesus had abandoned me in my hour of need\u00a0 and let the Devil take control of my poor, sin-filled soul. So I figured the only way to stop\u00a0 feeling down in the dumps was to get back to work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I arrived at the depot around ten minutes to seven. There was no sign of Lloyd.\u00a0 Apparently, he\u2019d called-out sick, which, cause it was a Friday, means he\u2019d actually gone\u00a0 fishing. Anyhow, all the boys were there and asked me if I was doing alright and feeling\u00a0 okay and all that happy horse shit. Of course, I lied and told them I was fine and there was\u00a0 nothing to worry about. Supervisor O\u2019Keefe called me into his office and pretty much\u00a0 asked me the same thing if I was gonna be okay. Like everyone else in town, he\u2019d heard\u00a0 the news and said he could understand how a fella could get upset about a situation like\u00a0 that and need time to cool down so as they wouldn\u2019t go\u2019n do something dumb, something\u00a0 they might regret later. Then he asked me if I was fit to get behind the wheel, and I said,\u00a0 \u201cYes, sir, I am\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>My assignment that day was to be part of the crew re-surfacing the roads leading in\u00a0 and out of the Donald J. Trump sewage and wastewater treatment plant, right in between\u00a0 the Transfer Station and the Landfill. After I walked out of supervisor O\u2019Keefe\u2019s office, I\u00a0 picked up my keys from Lance over in the garage, got my truck loaded up with fourteen\u00a0 cubic yards of blacktop, and then headed out to the job site. But as I pulled up to the four-way stop sign at the intersection of County Road and McCulloch, instead of taking a left,\u00a0 like I shoulda-done, old Satan grabbed a hold of the steering wheel and made me turn\u00a0 right. I was powerless. Dark forces had seized control of me and made me drive that big\u00a0old dump truck full of smoldering-hot blacktop right over to the S. Daniels Mobile Home Park.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Lloyd had definitely gone fishing cause his F-150 was nowhere to be seen. So I parked\u00a0 in the street, climbed down out of the cab, and poked my head over the fence to see what\u00a0 I could see. And let me tell-ya, what met my eyes near gave me a heart attack. Bang smack\u00a0 in the middle of Lloyd\u2019s front yard was an \u2018Atlantis 5000\u2019 Mega-Mart\u2019s biggest, most\u00a0 luxurious above-ground inflatable swimming pool. The very same pool we\u2019d both recently\u00a0 talked about getting if one of our tickets ever hit. And right there, floating around in the\u00a0 middle of it at 7:45 in the AM was that fat, lazy wife of his, Monica. And you should have\u00a0 seen her, squeezed into a black and white swimsuit designed for a woman half her age and\u00a0 weight, and brought to mind that poor old Killer Whale they keep penned up in that fish tank down at Sea World.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>After I hauled myself back up into the cab\u2014madder than a snake try\u2019n to make love\u00a0 to a garden hose\u2014I slammed the door, put the rig into first gear, dropped the clutch, and\u00a0 mounted the curb. As I hit second, I smashed through the white vinyl fence around the\u00a0 Nesbits\u2019 yard like a cane knife cutting through cornbread. I didn\u2019t hear or feel a thing as I\u00a0 drove clean across Lloyd\u2019s garden gnome collection, cause I was too busy looking at\u00a0 Monica, thinking, she sure is fast for a fat woman, as she pulled herself out of the pool and\u00a0 ran screaming into the trailer. As I hit third, I gave the air horn a good, long blast and\u00a0 ploughed the front-end of the rig right into the sidewall of the pool. I felt like Moses parting\u00a0 the Red Sea. I\u2019ve got no idea why, and I\u2019ll ask the Lord for forgiveness next time I\u2019m in\u00a0 church, but as I slammed into that water-filled expression of greed and deceit I screamed \u201cLet my people go!\u201d<\/em> out the open window of the cab, then I jammed on the brakes, hit the\u00a0 tailgate-release-lever and emptied all twenty-eight tons of steaming hot blacktop right on\u00a0 top of what was left of Lloyds Atlantis 5000. After that, I killed the engine, lit a cigarette,\u00a0 turned up the radio, then sat back and relaxed. Molly Hatchet\u2019s \u2018Flirting with Disaster\u2019\u00a0 boomed through the speakers of the cab while the sounds of approaching sirens floated\u00a0 through the warm morning air. But like I said right at the beginning, that son of a bitch got\u00a0 what he deserved. Half of that five-thousand-dollar winning ticket should have been mine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0That son of a bitch brought it on himself. I swear to God he did. I even told Judge\u00a0 Naugle I wasn\u2019t in the least bit sorry for what I\u2019d done. And if she thought for one second\u00a0 I\u2019d be spending my time in jail feeling bad about what had happened, she\u2019d be dead wrong.\u00a0 … Continue reading The Winning Ticket<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6854],"tags":[],"issue":[6885],"class_list":["post-2694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","issue-6885"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 14:24:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2697,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions\/2697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2694"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}