|
My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Vacuum sucker thing
>> Off Kona
Sonya Chan sighed, pulled the black silk robe tighter around her, took a sip of wine that glowed golden as it swirled in the bright moonlight. As she began to speak, Cruz MacKenzie big-gulped his wine, not wanting to hear what he must hear for his story.
"Daren was nearly broke, as usual, after he put gas in the boat and bought a six-pack and a couple 7-Eleven burritos for us. So I bought his Lotto ticket and mine. I was always telling him, take better care of your money, and threatening not to help him any more. I can't help it, I'm Chinese. It's the way I was raised, to care about money. You know the way I am. But I loved him. I really did, Cruz."
Cruz's heart winced.
Sonya took a deep breath that didn't sound at all past-tense. "I have to remember to do that, I get so stressed out, I forget to breathe and like start holding my breath and ..." She took another deep breath. It returned transformed as a soft moan.
"That's what he always did, every Thursday after he got off the boat. And then he'd go over to the yacht club and watch the drawing on TV. You know, where that little vacuum sucker thing picks up a bunch of ping pong balls with numbers on them."
On that fateful night, as usual, the State of Hawaii's official little vacuum sucker thing picked up eight balls, one at a time, from a vat of thousands. This time, against stratospheric odds, it sucked up eight balls in this order: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.
"And just like that, Daren was a millionaire. Two-millionaire. If I hadn't bought that ticket for him, he wouldn't have ..." Sonya looked away, focusing on nothing that Cruz could see. Grief is bad enough. But now Sonya, maybe for the first time in her life, was also feeling the burden of guilt.
"... Daren would still be ..." She stood abruptly and walked to the railing, staring off into the night, her robe fluttering like whimsy in the unsure advance of a new breeze.
"Existentially, you can't say what might have happened." Cruz tried to sound helpful. "He might have gone for that swim anyway."
"Where the hell do you get these words from? Existentially?... As in exist, right?... If I hadn't bought that ticket, he'd still be ... existing."
Probably, Daren Guy would be here, existing with her, alive and with all his extremities intact. Instead, he'd won two million dollars and gone for that swim. Sonya sobbed suddenly. Existentially, Cruz wasn't cut out to be a counselor.
She turned and moonlight reflected like tinsel from the wake of a tear on her cheek. "Just hold me, Cruz."
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com