Sid the Stooper

Sidney Short was a guy constantly looking for the big payoff.

Higher education, marriage to the girl next door, a house in the suburbs, a corporate career. All chump change.

Sid knew he was destined for the best or nothing. He collected rags-to-riches anecdotes the way someone else collects baseball cards. Plenty of evidence showed that hard work wasn't the way to get the big bucks, the fame, the girl he wanted.

When he was growing up, Sid’s home life was all or nothing, with nothing being the norm. His father left soon after his younger sister, Lucy, was born with spina bifida. His mother treated her kids like barriers to her own success. She was singing lounge act medleys with a pianist whose midday benders often kept him from making it to their gigs at the Roadhouse Inn. Sid’s mom thought she’d have been a star if taking care of kids hadn’t limited her choice of pianist and venue. Sid grew up focused on his own success, without any particular talent to get him there. When his mom died, Sid shared an apartment with Lucy.

Few people knew it, but Sid’s plan was to buy Lucy a car. That called for a big payoff.

Those who knew Sidney called him Sid the Stooper, a stooper being one of those guys who picks up the betting slips everyone throws out at the track after their nag loses. Among those thousands of dropped tickets, there's bound to be a winner that hit the ground by mistake.

Sid was a regular at the track. Every Saturday, he took about a third of what he was paid every Friday for stocking shelves at Family Dollar to bet on the ponies. His wasn’t much of a job, but he liked that he wasn’t on the hamster wheel of a career. He could walk away any minute. It was all or nothing, so nothing would have to do in the meantime.

Some Saturdays, one of his 40-to-1 miracle wagers would come in or he’d hit the daily double and have a couple hundred bucks to wave around. More often, he came home with nothing but pockets full of other bettors’ cast-off betting slips to check against race results.

When the Powerball went to $1.5 billion, Sid saw his destiny. Everybody had the same odds, but he was the guy meant to be a billionaire. In his gut, he knew this was his window.

"Spot me a twenty until Monday," he demanded of Cal Connor. Cal, the town barber, was about the only person who liked Sid, mostly because Sid could be so entertaining without trying to be. Cal was a friend to everyone, but had a soft spot for quirky people. A barber meets a lot of them.  

"I gave you a ten last week you still haven't paid back."

"This is for an important investment with a deadline," Sid said, completely serious.

"OK, OK. Cut me in on whatever profits you get out of it."

"No problem, Buddy. I'm about to make you rich."

Cal rolled his eyes as he reached for his wallet. The eyeroll was lost on Sid.

It only takes one ticket to win the Powerball, so Sid didn't see a point in spending all of the twenty on tickets. He needed only one ticket to win, and the number couldn’t be a random one created by the machine. If his number was destined, it had to be one he created. If it was a loser, it was because his moment had yet to arrive.

People who pick their own numbers usually use birthdates. Problem is that dates only go to 31, and usually contain a lot of zeros and single digits. Lottery balls go up to 69. So Sid used his Social Security number, dividing the digits into six numbers as high as 69. His destiny lay in various combinations of 1, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9.

  At the Quick and Go, he paid his $2 for the ticket plus an extra $1 for a Power Play multiplier for good measure. That left him seventeen bucks for dinner at Midland Café, a half block from Cal’s barber shop on Main Street. He stuck his ticket in the zipper pocket of the windbreaker he brought in case of rain, and headed to the café.

Later that evening, as the 10 p.m. news broadcast its upbeat closing story, Sid could barely wait for the Powerball drawing. He knocked a chair sideways getting to the coatrack by the door, where his ticket sat safe in a zippered pocket on his windbreaker.

“Easy, Sid,” Lucy said.

The jacket wasn’t there.

"Holy crap, someone stole my coat and ticket," he moaned. He mentally retraced his steps that day.

The coat. He carried it when he left the Quick and Go because it hadn’t rained.  He stopped to chat with Cal at the barber shop. Then he grabbed a cup of joe, a sandwich and lemon pie at the diner. The windbreaker was in the booth next to him. Next to him. It had to be there.

It’s after 11, he thought. The café closed three hours ago. He’d have to get his coat in the morning.

Distraught and distracted, he watched the drawing, noting that every number pulled could be one he had chosen.

He called Cal. He needed a backup plan to make sure someone didn’t get to his coat first and take the winning ticket.

“Cal, I know it’s the winner. They were all my numbers, but I can’t be sure which ones.”

“OK. Don’t get worked up. I’ll go check at the café before I open the shop tomorrow.”

Sleep never came to Sid. He tossed, turned and fretted until dawn, when his clock said the Midland Café should open soon. Sid pulled on his pants and shoes, and ran out the door to beat the breakfast crowd.

He ran left on 11th, then bolted the seven blocks down Main toward the diner. Across from the barber shop, frazzled and almost totally winded, he leaped off the curb to cross the street.

The town garbage truck wasn't moving fast, but it was unstoppable as man met bumper.

Cal, who was cleaning his shop, watched in horror as Sid crumpled into the street. He ran to his broken and bleeding friend.

Sid was struggling to talk.

"You got my ticket?"

The question took Cal by surprise.

"Yeah, buddy," Cal lied. He hadn’t checked at the café yet.

"It's the winner, isn't it?"

"Sure is. This is your big day."

"Knew it."

Cal stepped aside as the EMS crew arrived. But Sid was gone.

That afternoon, his haircut clients told stories about Sid, usually some odd or stupid thing Sid had done that they thought was funny.  Cal hung out the Closed sign early and headed down to the café for a burger and beer. As he opened the door, he remembered Sid’s ticket.

“Hi, Sarah. I’ll have a beer and a burger. You know how I like it.”

“That’s so sad about Sid, isn’t it?” Sarah said. Sarah saw Cal at her café every day and knew he was the only pal that Sid had.

“Yeah. He never did get a break. He wanted me to check on a jacket he thought he left here yesterday. Have you seen it?”

“Yeah. Here by the cash register.” She gave him the coat and took his order to the cook.

Cal scouted the tables for a cast-off newspaper, and found one in the last booth. The winning lottery numbers were listed on the bottom of Page 1A. Sarah brought his beer as he checked the pockets on Sid’s coat.

“1, 8, 11, 34, 49 with a Power Play number of 15,” he mouthed, comparing the winners to the numbers on Sid’s ticket.

Sid’s ticket held four of the winning numbers plus Power Play. Cal almost spit out his first sip of beer as he considered the payoff, thousands at least. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number on the back of the ticket. If the winner paid $1.5 billion, the runner-up had to be valuable, too.

“After taxes, you will receive $345,000 and change,” the lady at the lottery office said. “You can bring your ticket to our office tomorrow.”

“But it isn’t mine,” he mumbled, and hung up.

Cal wondered for a moment what he could do with that much money, but never considered keeping it for himself. He was the only friend of a guy nobody liked, and that takes a lot of character or naivete. Whichever it was didn’t matter to Cal. He needed to see Lucy and give her the ticket.

Lucy was wearing a yellow sundress she’d put on that morning before the police arrived with the tragic news. She sat red-eyed in her wheelchair next to Sid’s recliner, where Cal sat now with elbows on his knees as he held her hand. Strands of her long dark hair fell across her face as she gazed emptily into the parlor carpet.

She could see her world shifting and reshaping. Sid was gone, along with his bad judgment, crazy optimism, quirky habits and unrelenting love for her. Sid, whose final gamble would buy her security and mobility, a van equipped for a wheelchair.

Cal, trying to comfort her, realized that Sid had given all to win big.  Lucy’s independence was the prize.

Lucy fumbled with the Lotto ticket Cal gave her.

She dropped the ticket on the worn carpet. Stooping, Cal picked it up and gave it back to her.

“Hold onto that, young lady,” he said. “It came from a winner.”