The Lottery

Steve says, “My wife married the wrong man.” He says it matter-of-factly and chuckles. I take a long drink and wait for them to take their seats. “I’m no good at pleasing her anymore.” He winks at Alli when he says it and pulls the chair out for her.

Jane, his wife, says to my wife, Alli, “He really wanted it then. A charity case. I had to take him in. Like the way you take in a stray.” They are a good couple. They are friends. But this act is well rehearsed.

My wife married the right man, and I married the right woman. We became the wrong people later. But when we both caught ourselves becoming the wrong people, we didn’t turn back.

It is a Thursday night, and that means that all of us are out at O’Keefe’s. Alli and I were sitting at one table drinking gin before they got here, and then when Steve and Jane arrived, we moved our drinks to a bigger table.

Miriam is the waitress who chooses our table each week. Steve catches me looking at her.

Another round of gin and tonics arrives, the tangy scent of juniper mingling with the low hum of the bar conversations around us and the din of the glassware clinking at the bar. A low aroma of salted fries and burger grease seasoning the air. Miriam brings the drinks. She is a small exotic-looking thing. Dark featured, so that she blends into the shadows. Thin. Miriam holds the tray like a pelican, balancing with a grace that belies the chaos around her.

Miriam never reveals her relationship status, and every man in here thinks she’s taken a shine to him. That he might win her lottery. It’s artful how she subtly coaxes with her eyes and reassures with her lips. Never breathing a word to confirm or deny anything. Nurturing possibility. She makes a show of saying what gin variant each of us has and she places them in a circle around the table.

“Bombay Sapphire for you, Sam. Hendricks for you sir. Malfy Gin Rosa with a splash of grapefruit juice for the ladies.”

Alli takes a sip of her Malfy and says, “Well, Sam did pretty good for himself, if I can say so. He was a regular whore until I came along. Now, he’s mostly reformed.” Steve laughs because we knew each other then. We know the truth. Promiscuity came later.

I say, “You know that today is the Purim festival.” Steve is not Jewish, but he nods. He works trading bonds, but he is of the school where he pretends to know religions. Prestige is his religion. He’s not ashamed of it. He wears it on his sleeve. His wife, Jane, does know religions. She’s a librarian at St. Joseph’s Medical School. I’ve seen her at the gym. She goes during Jeopardy and mouths all the answers. That’s her way. She is a reader. The kind that likes reading, devouring religious texts, historical books, non-fiction, and all the classics – just taking in anything in print. She even reads short stories. She’s not an aspiring writer searching for some insight into craft, and she’s not a critic either. She never even talks about the books or explains them to you. But I know it from how she’s always got a new score on her coffee table. Right now it is, "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store." Who can forget that title? Jane is probably the only reader I know.

Jane says, “So, I suppose we all need to drink until we can’t tell the difference between cursed by Haman and blessed be Mordecai.” Jane is alluding to a Jewish drinking tradition. In the old days, for Purim, the parents had to get drunk. While this was going on, the kids would jump over a fire pit for hours, avoiding the flames. It was called mashvarta. Something to do with the luck of the Jewish people escaping slaughter. Celebrating how close you came. Remembering how close you are. To destruction. Like that old Jonathan Edwards sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” about a spider on a thread over the flames. Mashvarta. Oh, there are so many ways it can go wrong. Much like marriage.

None of the others know what Jane’s talking about, but Steve and Alli can drink to anything. All they needed was the word "drink." The dirty talk starts. “That’s what she said.” That kind of thing.

In Hebrew, ‘purim’ means ‘lots.’ It refers to the fact that Haman, the king’s advisor, cast lots for what day he would wage a war of genocide against the Jews. But before he could enact his plan, Haman became enraged and filled with hatred when he saw Queen Esther’s Jewish kinsman Mordecai at the king’s gate. Haman immediately ordered that a gallows be built to hang Mordecai on. It would be a fitting kick-off to his genocidal raids. In case you can’t tell, Haman was the bad guy.

However, there was a reversal because Queen Esther pleaded for Mordecai, and the King ordered Haman to be hanged instead, from the gallows he’d built. And he was. Which saved Esther’s people. That is the story of the holiday in a nutshell. The story of the day teaches us our chances, our fortunes, and our lots in life are all subject to reversal and restoration at any time–or sudden ruin. And each of us can be undone by the same schemes through which we seek to undo others. We Jews know this well.

“L'chayim,” I say. Hell. I can drink to that.

I order another round of gins. The place is filling up and we’re all started on feeling pretty nice.

Alli says, “Eat, drink, and be merry.” She’s always in the moment. Like when we met in school. I was preoccupied and she was present. She is always telling me to, "Read the room.” To her, everything is organic. She’s a scientist by trade. Believes in determinism. “You shouldn’t think about tomorrow. You’re here right now,” she’d say.

Steve says, “That’s funny. Isn’t today the Ides of March? You know that whole Julius Caesar business. That was another mutiny. A re-versal. That’s a strange coincidence, no?” We like to talk sophisticated at first before we get a good streak in us. Then we like to talk dirty. We’ve been going with them for a couple of months on Thursdays, ever since Steve moved back to the area.

Jane corrects Steve, saying, “No, well not until midnight anyway. Purim is the fourteenth day, and the Ides are the fifteenth day.” Jane is a cancer. She likes to be precise.

“Yes, professor. You are correct,” I say, tipping an imaginary hat to her. My wife doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t think I’m funny anymore. I don’t even get the benefit of the doubt on what is really a legal question if you believe the Talmud. Forget that I am a Harvard Man and teaching at Columbia—as far as Steve and Alli are concerned, I’m just a drunkard who is a little old-fashioned. Maybe that’s why I’ve been slipping over to Jane’s to talk when Steve’s out on business, selling fool’s gold to fools with too much money to know what to do with it and who would rather watch their money growing and shrinking over charts on screens all day, rather than spending time with actual people in the world who always are the same size, more or less, and who require attention to sustain them as much as food. Capitalizing on the debts and indentures of others. No, thank you.

Jane on the other hand. She is a commodity. A futures contract. I’d like to solve Jane. Such a puzzle. Like the free-rider problem. How can someone so principled and wise take up with such a Neanderthal? Truthfully, she can talk about anything—and I think about the position I would take to begin working her—as if with a legal theorem. Exposing her weaknesses. Refuting her flawed assumptions. Opening up her motives and piercing her paper-thin denials. Prying admissions out of her. I daydream of breaking her down, not so much logically, as emotionally. Pulling out a wildness inside her that is not constrained to order and safe, predictable routines. A passion. Undeniable and unrestrained. Antagonistic to hard, cold logic.

Anyway, the Purim argument is how we get started on the business of the lottery. We have another round of gins and Steve says, “I remember something about that now, someone at the office was saying how it’s the book of Esther, and she’s chosen for the King’s Harem by lottery. He called it ‘a Jewish version of Cinderella.’”

Alli says, “I think it was a different book. I would remember it.” Alli’s always been a know-it-all. Equally confident when wrong as when she’s right. She is an Aries. Headfirst. Lock horns. Leap before you look. All that. She is a potent cocktail of audacious certitude paired with world-class ignorance.

Jane puts it to rest, saying, “No. No, that is the one. The one that Esther saves the Jews. And it is not a lottery, it’s a beauty contest.”

I say, “As a point of interest, it’s the only book in the Bible that doesn’t mention God.” Jane agrees.

Steve says, “Well, here-here, then that’s the very best one! What do we need God for when we have good gin?”

I say, “It’s funny to think about. Imagine Steve, if any time we were angry with our wives we could just summon a line-up of beautiful women, and we could just pick whichever one caught our eye!”

My wife says, “I know which one you’d pick.” She turns her gaze to Miriam who happens to be chatting with Mackie.

“You’d be wrong,” I tell her.

“Oh, well, who’d you pick, then?”

This was the wrong thing to get into tonight. As so often happens, I have turned a kernel of scholarly interest and curiosity into an unwitting trap, like the fool that I am. I drain my drink and call for Miriam. She gets me another, but I’m the only one finished. Having bought a moment, I say, “Honey, what kind of question is that?”

“Well then who?”

“You, of course!” I lie with aplomb.

Steven slaps Jane on the thigh. “Is that a fact? If it were me, it would be a young Italian girl from the south. Any one will do. They are all fit and healthy and I wouldn’t understand a word they were saying!”

This falls under the category of things Steve heard somewhere and he’s passing off to get us started. After all, my wife is Italian and fit, but Steve doesn’t know or care that she’s Northern Italian. Truthfully, I don’t know how Alli puts up with this shit. That’s the irony of men like Steve, I think that even though they get everything wrong, they never know they’ve made a mistake, so their sense of superiority never takes the slightest hit—they just barrel through life totally unaware of their ignorance. Blissfully blind to their own blindness. Until it’s too late. Never bearing the weight of growing dread as the executioner’s guillotine is hoisted aloft, or the hangman’s noose slowly placed about your neck. What a blessing. Steve is a Haman. That's what he is.

I look over at Miriam. “I know it’s her. I’ll admit, she’s luscious. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed either,” Alli says. A tightness plays around her eyes, a testament to long-held grievances simmering beneath her composed exterior. I order another round. The eyes tighten even further.

I change the subject. “Have you ever noticed how there’s always some old woman who has been playing the lottery all her life and keeps playing it faithfully until the day she dies?”

“My Nana was like that,” Alli said. “Poor woman. She didn’t have a clue. The whole thing is fixed anyway.”

I think of my aunt. My Grandmother. Everyone getting a kick out of that blind faith. We were like that woman—if she showed up for a family celebration without the scratch-offs—and when asked if she’d won the lottery, she had said “Oh, don’t be silly—that lottery business is a big waste of time. A total scam. What a bunch of hooey.” I couldn’t pinpoint the moment when we went from being sure we’d win the lottery eventually, to privately believing the whole thing was a hoax. How had we done that to each other?

When Miriam brings the drinks over, I smile at her, as if to pile on. But now Jane is the one giving me a look. My wife says, “Don’t you think you better slow down?”

The two of us met at a bar. We are alcoholics if that’s what you want to call it. We drink at work. Not for any reason other than it is something we do. She wants us to get help. At least that’s what she says, but I haven’t seen her letting up any.

The way things are we haven’t been able to have kids, and we’re draining too much of our savings. She thought I was safe and wanted to settle down. Instead, we drink, because when we’re lit is the only time that I still want her or even want to be around her. She thinks it’s the alcohol that sours the seed. She doesn’t want to admit it could be on her end. I’m glad about the whole thing. I’m off the hook. And here she is telling me to slow down.

In defiance, I summon another round. The table's glasses are still half full, yet my resolve brims over. I’ve got some momentum going now. I also have Miriam bring a round of shooters. Good old Jameson. There’s no point holding back now.

“I’m interested in this,” Steve says. “Let’s say you could have a night off of marriage. You know, have any woman you want. Who would you go for?” Steve is smooth. I know he’s done this before.

“Let’s be realistic,” I tell Steve.

“What’s the good in being realistic?” Jane says. “I’d let you do it, Steve, personally. What do I care? It might be good for our sex life. God knows you can use some batting practice. Maybe even some instruction. Professional instruction, even. I’d have to send the poor girl a sympathy card afterward, but it’s a price I’d be willing to pay if you learned something in the process.”

“Are you two out of your fucking minds?” I ask.

“No, they’re just feeling good, that’s all. Aren’t you?” Alli asks. I’m surprised she hasn’t cut this off. Instead, she’s egging it on. That’s how Alli is sometimes. She can be a troublemaker. She likes to manipulate a situation, play along, and bring things right to the line. It’s only then that she knows what she wants to do anyway.

Steve reaches across the table and puts his hand over Alli’s hand. “I knew you’d understand,” he says. This gin has done the deciding.

Smiling at Jane, I wonder if they are both in on it or if it is just Steve. I remember something about not getting so ripped on Purim that you violate another commandment. I look around for the children leaping over the flames. Are they us?

Without so much as a word, we all stand up and get our coats. But we don’t need them. It is warm outside, and spring has come early. As we wait for our Uber XL by the curb, Jane finds a discarded lottery ticket lying smeared and scuffed by her feet. She looks at the numbers and says, “I like these numbers. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

Steve says, “Luck has nothing to do with it.” He gazes at Alli and says, “Chemistry is all it is. Hormones. I am too weak to resist them.”

Alli giggles and flicks her hair. “I agree, darling. I just get carried away sometimes. Not a thing I can do about it.” Jane stands a bit closer to me and slips her hand in mine.

It happens as naturally as a game of musical chairs. I am standing next to Jane. Steve is standing next to Alli. Steve and my wife take the seats in the back. As I watch my wife being led by another man into the far back row of the Ford Expedition SUV, I think of all the ways I have left her unled. The nights I left her alone. The choices she needed my opinion on. The IVF. The move to Connecticut. I swept it all under the rug. I regret it now. Though I didn’t then.

Sitting next to Jane, I wonder how many ways Steve has neglected her. I judge him. Heap contempt on his failings. Because Alli is so eager to be pleased. Not like my wife. That is what I tell myself to convince myself it is all right.

Jane puts her hand on my shoulder and whispers in my ear, “I don’t believe in luck, do you?” I laugh briefly, imagining Jane reading in a book how you should say that it must be fated, build a sense of inevitability. An aphrodisiac to pair with the tension. Seal the deal.

Pulling back to look Jane in the eyes, I say, “Oh, I don’t know” Still laughing, I whisper flatly, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world… what are the odds?” And she rests her hands in mine.

I look at my wife in the rearview mirror, as she puts her hand on Steven’s thigh. She looks up ruefully to meet my gaze.

Maybe I should have attended those meetings. Her eyes are not accusatory. Just done. And that is so much worse.