Watching John Travolta

“When you win the lottery, you end up doing a lot of stupid things,” I said to the girl at the bar. She’d asked me why I was driving a hearse, and quite simply, that was the reason I was.

“You won the lottery?” she asked, now a little too interested in me. Just seconds ago, she was creeped out by the fact I pulled up in a 1996 Lincoln Hearse. The hearse owned by the Raymer Funeral Home in Huntersville, North Carolina. The same funeral home that helped out when a certain NASCAR driver, known by most as The Intimidator was laid to rest back in 2001. For many, the second worst thing that happened to America that year.

I looked over at Rodney, the barkeep. He was used to running interference when my dumb mouth mentioned that I won the lottery. Yep, I won the Power Ball drawing on March 23, 2012. A cool $290 million. Took the cash and pocketed over $100 million that day I drove up to Raleigh.

And the first thing I did was buy that silly hearse on E-bay. Paid $1.5 million for it. Stupid? Hell yes it was. But fucking-A it was a great conversation starter. And God knows I needed help starting them.

“Listen, little lady,” Rodney said. “He won it, alright. But he paid 1.5 million bucks for that stupid hearse out there. How much money do you think he’s got left? Hell, he lives here most of the time.”

She looked at me, then looked around the bar. A bar that she’d been coming to since she was 17 years old, according to Rodney when he told me exactly seven minutes prior to her coming over to me.

“So, he’s a deadbeat?” she whispered to Rodney.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I spoke up.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” she sneered.

“Oh, the horror,” I mockingly said as I pretended to take the dagger out of my chest. “Lucky for me, you don’t have a rusty screwdriver.”

“Huh?” she said.

“Inside joke, lady. Hey, Rodney, buy that girl a drink!”

“You going to pay your tab tonight, Randy? You didn’t last night…” he said to me, in a matter-of-fact voice that I think our friendly young blonde took for anger. At least the laugh she had after those words made it seem so.

“Of course I will. Here’s my Discover Card!”

I handed him my card. It expired in 2011, but I kept it around for just these types of situations. I thought about one day writing a book for lottery winners. An “Idiots for …” kind of deal. Then my girlfriend at the time burst my publishing bubble when she said “But, only a few people win each year. Not much of a market?”

Typical of her. And of me, I’d have to say. Hair-brained Randy.

I wandered over to the jukebox. Rodney months ago stocked it with albums I wanted to listen to. Hell, I spent so much money here that the customers the music selection drove away were nowhere near the cash he got from my dumb ass sitting on a stool watching re-runs of Frisky Dingo and Welcome Back Kotter.

I clicked on A-14: Johnny Thunders’ “Hurt Me” from the album also called “Hurt Me.”

Not this damn song again, the blonde said.

“For that, you get it three times!” I yelled, pushing A-14 two more times to complete my transaction at the jukebox.

“Why do you play that damn song so often?” she asked.

“Because it reminds me of a simpler time. Not necessarily a better time, but a simpler time,” I said.

“You’re weird,” she said, snickering to her just arrived out of the bathroom friend. Her friend was Rhonda. She had big 1980s New Jersey hair, but an attitude straight out of Valley Girl. She confounded me over the weeks. Every guy in this place, yours truly included, wanted to sleep with her. But no one every succeeded. It was baffling. To everyone.

And here she was, in the bar on a Thursday at 1 p.m. Hanging out with this blonde girl. It seemed too perfect. And based upon my experiences, was.

Rhonda came over to me and sat at the stool next to mine.

“Randy, why the fuck are you sitting on that God damn barstool at 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday? This is freaking Kinston, North Carolina. You have tens of millions of dollars in the bank, yet here you are. Alone and defeated.”

“Just defeated!” I pontificated.

“Ok, you’re not alone. Rodney’s here.”

“And you two lovely works of God’s master plan.”

“Fuck off.”

“You know, that’s what the last girl said to me too. And precisely why I sit here with Rodney and watch John Travolta every day. It’s so much easier.”