Scratch & Win
On the morning of his 37th birthday, Dr. John Tolliver woke to a familiar sound: the screeching yowl of Cleopatra, his orange tabby cat, who had all the patience of a caffeine-deprived barista on a Monday morning.
“Alright, alright,” John groaned, sitting up and rubbing his face. “You win.”
But Cleopatra didn’t win. Not yet. Instead of heading for the kitchen, John shuffled to the front door to grab the mail. Bills, coupons, a pizza menu, and—oh, birthday cards! Cleopatra followed, glaring at the unopened can of cat food sitting defiantly on the counter.
One card stood out, boldly proclaiming in glittery font: “Your Luck is About to Change!” Inside, his friend Max had written:
“Happy Birthday, genius! You’ve already saved lives; maybe now you’ll save yourself. (P.S. Feed your cat.) – Max”
Tucked inside was a lottery ticket. Gold foil. Shiny. Cleopatra, unimpressed, launched into another chorus of Feed Me Now in cat mezzo-soprano.
“Fine! Here!” John tossed her a catnip mouse. Cleopatra pounced, furiously batting it into submission.
With the siege temporarily abated, John sat at his desk and scratched the ticket. Three matching gold coins stared back at him. His heart skipped.
“Holy crap. I won!”
John sprang up, laughing. He grabbed the phone, still holding the ticket, and walked toward the window to get better reception. Cleopatra’s catnip mouse rolled under his foot like a betrayal.
One step. One misstep. And time slowed.
John flailed. The ticket floated lazily out of his hand, catching the sunlight like a miniature parachute. And then—
Crash.
John sailed through the high-rise window, glass shattering around him. The wind roared in his ears. The ticket fluttered gently behind him, mocking his trajectory.
On the street below, 22-year-old Elizabeth Layton was having the best day of her life. She stared at the diamond ring on her finger, her phone pressed to her ear.
“Cindy, guess what I’m doing August 21st!”
“What?”
“Getting marr—”
John landed on her like a human wrecking ball. Both were killed instantly.
The lottery ticket, meanwhile, danced gracefully upward, carried by a gust of wind that smelled faintly of pretzels and car exhaust.
Five blocks away, Edith Branson’s knees creaked like old floorboards as she shuffled toward the window. Her pantry was emptier than a politician’s promise, and her arthritis flared with every step.
“Lord, I trust you’ll provide,” she whispered, folding her hands. “But if you’ve got a coupon for milk, I’d sure appreciate it.”
As if on cue, the golden lottery ticket floated through the open window, landing at her feet like manna from heaven.
“Praise Jesus!” Edith gasped, leaning heavily on her walker to pick it up. The foil sparkled. Three matching symbols.
Edith clutched the ticket and shuffled toward the door, her heart racing. Milk. Bread. Maybe some chocolate.
At the crosswalk, she rehearsed her shopping list. She didn’t see the black SUV barreling toward her.
Jake Mulligan, one hand on the wheel, the other holding his phone, didn’t see her either. His brother’s voice was frantic in his ear.
“I killed them, Jake! I can’t go on like this!”
“Paul, calm down! We can fix this!”
But nothing could fix what happened next. The sickening thud of impact silenced both brothers’ voices. Edith’s body crumpled. The ticket fluttered out of her hand.
Jake slammed on the brakes, his breath catching in his throat.
“Paul, don’t do this,” he whispered, staring at the wreckage.
The jury never bought Jake's "sob story" about his brother and Jake Mulligan, was convicted of manslaughter. While serving his 8 year sentence, he was shanked to death, by a deranged fellow inmate, Michael "Bubba" Jervis. The man, whom Jake had never met, held him accountable for crimes that Jake's brother had committed. To his killer, the chance to kill Jake had felt like retribution. No one would have dared snitch on Bubba Jervis, though they all knew he'd done it. Bubba, instead served his 15 years in an unrelated case, was released, married his childhood sweetheart and died of congestive heart failure many years later at the age of 93.
Back to our story: When Jake’s SUV struck Edith Branson, the ticket took flight once again, fluttering toward a nearby park. Jeff Donavan, a 43 year old bicyclist, was enjoying his day off by rewarding himself with a bike ride through the park. When the glint of the gold foil caught Jeff’s eye, he was distracted and didn’t see the car door open in front of him until it was too late. He flew over the door of the Miata, landing squarely on his head. Luckily, he was wearing a helmet and was largely uninjured despite a fair amount of pain.
The car owner, a beautiful young woman named Jane Goodwin rushed to make sure Jeff was okay. He was not only okay, but coherent enough to ask out the pretty girl who he would later say "owed him a favor.”
When Jake flew over the Miata, a homeless man by the name of Bartholomew Jackson raced from across the street to help. A medic in the Vietnam war, he had dreams of being finally dubbed a hero and rushed out to help the man. In his haste to seize the moment, Bartholomew forgot to look both ways, and at the moment he stepped on the lottery ticket, he was struck by a taxi-cab and killed.
Jane Goodwin and Jeff Donavan were married a year later in a garden ceremony at her parents’ home in the Hamptons and the story of their meeting was a cocktail party favorite for many years to come.
The cab driver that struck Bartholomew Jackson, a turban wearing Afghani man named Falid Ahmijad, who had fought against the Soviets in his homeland before immigrating to America, would have been beside himself with grief over having struck the homeless man if he had been given time. However, when Falid emerged from his car and ran to the dead man’s body, he was accosted by two men, Tyrone Biggs, and Mike Hemingway, who had been playing baseball in the park but ran across the street to help. One yelled “terrorist” and both charged at him and attacked him with their bats. One struck him in the back of the head. Falid slumped to the ground and died from internal brain hemorrhage there in the middle of the street.
As Falid's body slumped to the ground, Tyrone saw the gold glint of the lottery ticket and bent down to pick it up. When he stood, a police officer by the name of Tom O’Grady who had seen the accident and beating from a donut shop a block away, shouted for the men to stop and drop the bats.
It was at this point that both Tyrone and Mike realized the gravity of their situation and fled in separate directions.
Tom O’Grady radioed for backup as he ran behind Tyrone, a black man. He chased Tyrone six blocks before finally cornering him in a closed off alley.
Tyrone found what he took for a way out and made a run for it but not before Tom O’Grady pulled his sidearm and fired two bullets, one of which struck Tyrone in his femoral artery. He was dead in a matter of minutes, lottery ticket still clutched in his hand.
Mike Hemingway was never identified and despite being Caucasian would be described on the evening news as “a young black man in his mid 20’s, still at large.”
Tom O’Grady radioed his location before bending over Tyrone’s body to search him for drugs and weapons. When he opened Tyrone’s hand and picked out the lottery ticket, the officer’s adrenaline rush and donut habit caught up with him. He clutched his chest, the golden ticket once again fluttered away. O'Grady's aorta cramped and shredded, killing him.
A gust of wind carried the lottery ticket up into the air over the tops of three buildings and then dropped into the back of a pickup truck traveling on Percy Avenue, two blocks southwest of the dead end alley. The truck traveled four miles before the scratch and win ticket blew out of the back and onto the pavement near a bus stop at 18th and Merrit Avenue.
It was at this point that sixty-eight year-old Gladys McKnight saw the ticket. She stepped off the bus after a double shift and, upon seeing a piece of what she assumed was garbage on the ground, reached down and picked it up. At first, she didn’t really look at what she had picked up, aiming instead for a garbage can in front of the 7- Eleven. Just before she reached the can, she looked down at the garbage in her hand and recognized what it was. “Glory be,” she whispered to herself when she walked past the garbage can, into the store and right to the front counter. “I won $50,” she announced to the young man behind the counter, Trevor Samuels, age 23.
Trevor smiled and congratulated her before turning and opening the drawer. He dropped the lottery ticket through a slot in the safe and reached in the drawer for two twenty dollar bills and two five dollar bills. He turned around to hand Gladys her winnings and came face to face with the barrel of a gun wielded by Javier Garcia who had walked up beside Gladys at the counter. “Empty the drawer, Cabron,” Javier commanded.
Gladys, angered by both the boy and the interruption, raised her purse and swung it at Javier who dodged the blow and raised his pistol and shot Gladys, point blank in the head before training the weapon, once again, on Trevor. “I said empty the drawer!”
Trevor stood dumbfounded for a moment before responding. He didn’t mean to hesitate, but seeing the old woman killed in front of him was a shock. He snapped into a rage. In a flash he jumped over the counter, lunging at Javier who pulled the trigger just as Trevor landed on him and drove him into the ground where Javier’s head struck the corner of a shelf. Trevor died from his gunshot wound before authorities arrived and Javier severed his spinal cord on the shelf and died on the way to the hospital.
The next morning, as the sun rose, Cleopatra, still hungry, sat by her empty bowl, staring at the door and yowling.
And the moral of the story?
If someone gives you a lottery ticket for your birthday, for the love of God, feed your cat before you take the time to scratch it.