Back to Issue 10.

The Numbers Man

TJ Butler

On the second Tuesday in June, a small airplane flew low over the river that bisected Helena, West Virginia into six blocks of downtown and twelve blocks of uptown. A banner with a message printed in large, block lettering trailed the plane. 

Downtown traffic slowed at the noise. Drivers pressed against their seatbelts and gazed over the aging two-story brick storefronts. People running errands stepped from the shops onto the cracked sidewalks, five-and-dime merchandise still in their hands. Everyone cocked their heads toward the river. Uptown, people stood in doorways gaping, faces upturned and lunches forgotten. Dogs on sagging porches raised their heads, ears pricked at the unfamiliar droning from above. Helena was far from commercial airline's flight paths, and small planes had few reasons to stray this far into coal country. People craned their necks toward the sky and squinted into the bright blue to make out the banner's words, "The Numbers Man." 

Those who shielded their eyes at the wrong moment missed the apparent cloudburst that poured from the plane's underside. It trailed behind the plane for barely a breath. The plume fell, separating into tiny shapes as it descended. Helena's collective eyes, all gazing at the same phenomenon, settled on the drifting, cascading shapes. Was it a flock of miniature, wingless birds? A storm of buoyant hailstones? 

Thousands of ping pong balls, each with a black number, fell with a deafening clatter. They ricocheted on the asphalt, the old cars, the leaking rooftops, and on the citizens themselves. Few thought to take shelter. Instead, they froze, engrossed in the spectacle. Balls landed in shopping bags and baby carriages. They bounced into lowered car windows. Shops with doors open to the breeze flooded with balls, and they filled the spaces beneath shelves and racks. The balls covered sidewalks and rolled down the streets in a flash flood of white plastic. The gutters clogged, and the balls piled against car tires like snowdrifts. The citizens were dumbfounded by the cacophony. They scrambled to gather the balls at their feet, unsure of their significance but confident that secrets would be revealed. Someone let out a cry, and they knew The Numbers Man would be there soon.

Lottie Voss did not stand on her porch, starstruck during either grand display. Both times, she was getting ready for work, insulated by the hairdryer and the accompanying bustle that precedes a cocktail shift at the Fortune Hill Casino & Racetrack. 

***

Those too young to remember the last visit from The Numbers Man, almost a generation ago, were related to someone who did. Those who remembered it had not been to the event themselves, but they knew someone who had been. Few souls in town did not have a story about The Numbers Man that they could retell with confidence. Each one began with the person who was at the event; their barber's brother, their cousin's fiance, the third shift foreman who had the job two winters before the mine closed. The third shift foreman told his own story, and it was, in fact, the superintendent who was there. 

It was said that those who'd been there and received a ticket with a number, or maybe they selected a ticket from a deep bowl, or perhaps they heard a number read from a ticket and raised their arms with fierce intensity to claim it, received their true number at the event. Those people came away with answered prayers. 

The streetcar operator's wife, or was it his sister, had a healthy baby after two stillborns. Some said she already had the baby and it recovered from the measles without consequences. The coat-check girl at Lawson's Department Store, or was it the nurse at Dr. Sharp's office, won the Bingo jackpot at the Protestant Revival Church three weeks in a row. Others remembered her winning the superfecta on the ponies at the new track in Charleston. Helena's populace agreed that there were many truths to be told. When each retelling of the legend offered an incredible bounty, none questioned the lore and its variations. 

***

Seasons ago Lottie discovered the racetrack adjacent to the casino had an adoption center for greyhounds past their prime, on long-term losing streaks, or with permanent injuries. Her cheap apartment in a converted victorian did not allow pets, so she began stopping by occasionally before her shift. Instead of smoking and gossiping about one night stands and missing child support payments with the other waitresses, she preferred to visit the greyhounds. The years had been far kinder to her than to the other career waitresses her age, and she had little in common with most of them; she did not have a good-for-nothing ex-husband who left her holding the bag, a penchant for shopping or television shows, or nearly grown apples that had not fallen far from the tree.

The dog handlers knew Lottie, expected her to pull a baggie of diced hot dogs out of her purse and ask which dog was up for adoption that week. They did not share in her coddling, however. Greyhounds are working dogs, not pets, living tools used to fill or empty pockets in ninety-second bursts of hope or disappointment. The greyhounds always barked the kennel into a chaos when she entered. When they recognized her and quieted, they were eager to sniff her palm and gobble the meaty chunks she offered. 

***

During her freshman year of high school, she bought a Sounds of the Sea disc at a yard sale for a quarter, eventually replacing it with an MP3. The ocean's natural melody in her headphones transported her to a deserted, rocky beach. It was easy to close her eyes and saturate herself with the experience. Soon, she invented a vivid looping vignette and returned to it often. The beach became a place she fit in, unlike the halls of Helena Senior High School. This eased her loneliness when she sat by herself at lunch reading, and when she did not get invited to study groups, parties, or on first dates. Her classmates gossiped about boys, makeup, and senior class football stars. They left their books in their lockers. Lottie read books while walking home, and cared more for the characters than lipsticks or the football stadium on Friday nights. In this way, she felt different and was soon closer to an imagined Atlantic coast than her classmates.

In the vignette fantasy, she is barefoot with her jeans rolled up. The surf crashes against the shore. Calling gulls fly low over the breakers and the dunes. The air is briney and pure, the sun gentle and warm. Clumps of delicate green seaweed dot the shore. She can feel shells and smooth stones beneath her feet in the coarse, pale sand. Seagrasses pepper the dunes. 

The wind blows salt spray and her long, fine hair into her face. A dog trots next to her, weaving in and out of the surf. She bends to pick up a piece of driftwood and flings it forward. A dog, a greyhound since discovering the adoption center, races after the stick. The dog forgets the stick for a moment. Ears forward, it bounds through a small flock of brown and white sandpipers hopping on the shore as the waves are sucked toward the sea. The flock takes flight. The dog retrieves the stick and trots toward her with its ears up, and tail held high, proud to have a job.

     She envisions the sky a deep blue or steel grey, depending on her mood. Soft, warm waves seem to lap and roll along the shore on blue days. She imagines wading out until she is weightless. On grey days, cold waves roar in her ear and pound a deep bass in her chest. The sea is too turbulent for wading. 

The sounds in her headphones and the sanctuary of her daydream were always a reliable escape. She often returned to the rocky shore and the dog with driftwood in its mouth. Listening to the sea became a homecoming, more vivid than a memory. She'd never seen the ocean, but if asked and she answered without thinking, she'd tell of a dog on a beach before she realized she'd never been there. 

***

The airplane brought possibilities and unusual hope to Helena, but none knew what to expect. Some said they should bring the gathered ping pong balls to the event. Others insisted they should add up the numbers on their collected balls and present The Numbers Man with sums to divine. A few said the balls were merely fanfare, a grand aerial ticker-tape parade, and they held little significance. They knew they would get a ticket, but to what end? Even amongst the old-timers with vague tales and memories, none knew if there was a lottery drawing, or, tickets be damned, a free-for-all with luck in abundance. It was a comfort to believe in abundance. They stilled their uncertainty at the mystery of tickets, balls, or another method entirely. Instead, they thought about receiving their rightful share. In this way, they were comforted and quite willing to part with their dollars. 

Gamblers wanted to tip the casino waitresses and talk about the event in equal proportion. Lottie was happy for both, gushing thanks at the bills, but ambivalent towards The Numbers Man. The gambler's faces, usually slack toward the slot's spinning wheels, became animated and jovial. Each believed they would be the one to convince her. They tipped her well, "Here's a little something so you can save up for your ticket." 

The gamblers speculated on buying tickets. When and where would they go on sale? Whatever price The Numbers Man asked was worth it. Some said they'd pay double, but none knew what that amounted to. A few whispered the words second mortgage. Others nodded, knowing they'd put up their house and land for a ticket. The old-timers stated that for those who bought a ticket to the event, The Numbers Man would send the money back like a boomerang. Or, he might grant pure luck, and the money and wishes would flow from their taps like water. None had a reason to dispute these theories. 

Lottie's face appeared to spring to life with interest every time someone explained what The Numbers Man offered. She stood over them as they sat at the slots, balancing a small, round cocktail tray on her hip, head tilted to the side in feigned attention. In her mind, she tossed driftwood to a greyhound, brushed her hair from her face in the wind, or padded over tiny shells on the warm sand. She inhaled cigarette smoke, served rail whiskey and watery draft beer, and nodded in agreement at how much everyone in Helena needed this. 

***

Lottie heard that a vast banner reading, "The Numbers Man," appeared in an empty storefront window next to the True Value Hardware on Market Street. The event's date was hand-lettered in green on a sheet of white paper taped inside the glass. A tall, thin man in wire-rimmed spectacles, thinning pale grey hair, and a black suit stood in the open doorway. He nodded and spoke a few words to someone passing by. They let out a holler. The clerk came out of the True Value, saw the banner and the man, and took her turn at hollering. A line formed at the Market Street storefront that afternoon. The speculation and tall tales of buying a ticket were put to rest. However, there was much rumination as to whether the man in the black suit worked for The Numbers Man, or whether he was The Numbers Man himself. None dared to ask.

The gamblers continued to bet on the dogs and pull the slot arm. Lottie served drinks and emptied ashtrays. She learned who had already bought their ticket in the pay-what-you-wish structure, and who was on their way to Market Street as soon as their machine showed the triple sevens.

***

     Lottie listened to the ocean and the gulls in her headphones. She visited the greyhounds. She kept envelopes of cash in a closeted shoebox, adding tips a little faster now that everyone knew The Numbers Man was coming. She learned about what the gamblers wanted: money, new cars and houses, miracle cures, instructions for various something-for-nothing schemes, and assorted ways to return lost and soured love to a lonely heart. 

     She could not relate to feeling entitled to those things or asking for them because a man with a big reputation was coming to town. There was nobody to answer her prayers or give her the moon, so she was not disappointed by the ordinary things she earned. Helena did not encourage its citizens to chase dreams beyond the county line, so she buried her real wants deep in her belly. She could not share the idea of a future sprinkled with coal dust when she fantasized about salt and sand instead. She forced herself to be satisfied with attainable things and settled into contentment. It was not so bad to set aside a little every month and opt for the luxury of buying books online instead of checking them out from the monthly library van's dated, paltry selection which catered to seniors and housewives. 

***

The Numbers Man was four days away. 

None would say how much they paid for their ticket from the thin man in the black suit. Allusions to the sum became status symbols. There was little money in Helena for keeping up with the Joneses. However, those who spent the most knew their rewards would outweigh those who spent the least. The most significant benefits would come to those who'd hung their lives in the balance, maybe paying six months of grocery and insulin dollars for a ticket, or emptying a savings account when the mortgage was due. Those brave, confident risk-takers, everyone was sure, would garner the best rewards. They agreed that there is little profit in safety. Soon, even the church folks who never spent a dime in the casino gave over to temptation and left themselves broke and hopeful. All risk and carelessness would be forgiven as they took their seats at the event. The anxieties of their deflated bank accounts would be worth it. 

***

"Hey there, Mason. Who's up for adoption this week? I brought some jerky." Lottie strode past the handler who was hosing out a small cinder block and chain-link enclosure. She knew small talk was vital so she could continue visiting the greyhounds during non-adoption hours. Mason pointed toward the end of the row. She read the card, "Jane Says Go, unverified record, Florida." The letters TBPD were written across the bottom of the card in red marker. Lottie squatted in front of the enclosure, held out a bit of jerky, and called to the dog. The dog was brindle with mottled black, chestnut, and caramel spots, svelte in the waist with muscled shoulders and a narrow, elegant head and snout. 

Mason approached, clearing his smoker's throat. "She's new, just come up from Florida. Sure is a shame."

"What's a shame?" Lottie asked without looking up. Jane Says Go was sniffing at the jerky. Lottie held it through the fencing and Jane Says Go took it without urgency. She leaned her head away to chew and swallow, then pressed her nose through the chain-link. The dog gazed at Lottie, eye to eye. Lottie gazed back. Jane moved her eyebrows and tilted her head, eyes wide, looking directly into Lottie's eyes. Lottie stared. She held the gaze and felt a connection. Jane whined, tilting her head to the other side. Her brows raised again. Lottie's heart filled.

Mason coughed a smoker's cough. "You see the TBPD on the card there? Trainer at the track in Florida must've started bringing her home on the weekends. She got too comfortable and stopped wanting to run. She was up for adoption in Florida for too long, and we're her last chance." 

Jane Says Go sniffed Lottie's hand. She reached into her bag for another piece of jerky and fed it to Jane. "Can I open the door?" Lottie asked. 

"Might as well. She ain't got but four more days. Go ahead and pet her if you want." 

Lottie stood and opened the door. She let Jane sniff her palm again and ran her hand along the length of the dog. She seldom pet the greyhounds, but she was compelled to feel Jane's fur and muscle beneath her palm. 

"Thanks, Mason. I've gotta head to work now," Lottie said as she closed the door. She could not get attached to a dog her landlord would not allow her to have. She glanced at Mason. "What are the letters for?"

"To be put down." 

She did not make eye contact with him as she left the kennel. She tried to immerse herself in the coastal loop as she walked toward the casino, but Jane Says Go was more prominent than the ocean. The dog's brindle coat shone in the sun on the shore. She trotted after the driftwood like a companion, not a tool used to fill and empty wallets. 

***

Lottie could not stop thinking about Jane Says Go. The waitresses and the gamblers at the slots could not stop talking about The Numbers Man. Many mentioned their ticket's perceived value and what they believed they were entitled to because of it. People she'd known all her life held tickets, some of them substantial when they had hungry children at home and no business laying their cupboards bare. She did not have a long lost love, a grim medical condition, or a belief that the scales should tip in her favor unless she worked for it. There were no handouts in her world. She could not conceive of the idea that sacrificing the cash in her shoebox meant she would be granted wants she was unsure of. She could not even name a real thing to ask for. She could not adopt a dog. The only other thing she burned for, many hours east of Helena and just beyond the dunes, seemed so far from her grasp that it did not seem possible to ask for. 

***

Two decades ago, she made ambitious plans to visit the coast immediately following high school graduation, imagining she would drive to a parking lot that ended in dunes. Her reverie began with the dunes, skipping the drive from Appalachia to the coast. She would park against the dunes, pick her way through the seagrass, and find a dog on a deserted beach. The loop stopped at the dog trotting toward her with driftwood in its mouth. She could not play the scene out much farther, so she began it again and again. Colored with youthful invincibility, she believed she would not get back into her car and drive home to a failing town with a shuttered mine. The Atlantic's gusts would blow Helena's dust from her skin, and she would not wipe off the salt spray that landed on her cheeks. First, she had to leave Helena.

Helena was not as easy to leave as she envisioned. After graduation, there was no money for a road trip or college. The town valued laborers over academics, so she stuffed her disappointment into the place inside her that also held the sea. The Fortune Hill Casino was hiring high school graduates, but it did not offer vacation time for new employees. The idea that she could leave Helena and escape into a place like her ocean daydream became a one-of-these-days idea. 

During busy cocktail shifts that left her feeling broken, she imagined walking out of the casino, taking the eastbound interstate, and driving until she could smell the sea. She also pictured the drive to the coast on lonely evenings when the characters in her novels were better company than dates she rarely went on. Although the trip was the only thing she ever set her heart on, the reality of it seemed like winning a jackpot with unpronounceable zeros. Or something from The Numbers Man. 

***

Offerings from The Numbers Man seemed to be there for the taking for everyone but her. Why were Helena's laid-off mine workers, cashiers, waitresses, and gamblers more deserving of a fortune? How easy it would be to give in, to bring her shoebox of cash to the ticket booth, and sit through an event nobody in town could describe. Why not come away blessed with luck and money like everyone else? She put on her headphones and tried to smell the sea when her mind wandered in this direction. Other times, she imagined bending to stroke Jane Says Go's head as they stood on the shore. 

Sometimes, she pictured the unknown of The Numbers Man, then a life with a house of her own in Helena. This was a real thing she could ask for. She imagined endless bookshelves and a job that didn't leave her smelling of cigarettes with sore feet and an aching back. These thoughts left her regretful and wanting, and she always returned to the sea. 

***

The Numbers Man was two days away. Lottie did not have a ticket. She began to weigh the closeted box of envelopes against her wants. Her thoughts wound around desires, both essential and frivolous, and few seemed worth The Numbers Man's influence. Her focus on tangible wants in Helena was always broken by gulls sounding over the sea's roar, and the image of herself walking down a beach with Jane Says Go. 

She permitted herself one dangerous thought: what would a small ticket hurt? She'd use only her tips from the night before, and buy a ticket the day of the event. In this way, Lottie Voss planned to see The Numbers Man.  

The permission became anxiety. What if it was a slow night? She considered what she heard about buying a ticket; rather than setting an amount before you got to the Market Street storefront, it was best to take everything you had. You'd tell the man in the black suit what you deserved and coveted, and let him help you name your price. When there was nothing in Helena she truly longed for, the thought of this method was an apprehension she could not still with the sounds of the ocean. The ticket and its cost became a small, nervous creature, flexing and growing beneath her sternum. 

***

The Numbers Man was one day away. 

She dreamed of Jane Says Go the night before. It was a blue sky day. They walked along the beach as the sun moved across the sky. Mason walked out of the surf with a leash that he clipped to Jane's collar. She could make out the letters TBPD on his tee-shirt. The tide buried her feet in the sand as he led Jane away. She could not follow them. 

She had the day off. She decided to buy a ticket with a sacrifice instead of skepticism. This was a snap decision she wanted to own. Three envelopes were three month's rent, a guarantee. She needed only to decide what she wanted to be guaranteed for herself at tomorrow's event. There were years of lonely wants, few friends, and fewer happy romances behind her. A man with the power to fill those holes was one day away. She did not want to let the opportunity pass, so she placed three thick envelopes in her purse after lunch. 

***

She wanted to see Jane Says Go before she bought her ticket. She had not come up with anything of value to ask for, but she still had time. The ticket booth was open until no one was left in line. She sat in her car at the kennel, weighing the gravity of her decision. She was in no hurry to part with her money for a grab bag of appetites that did not suit her, so she walked into the building. 

Mason was not in the kennel. She walked past the rows of sleek greyhounds until she came to the end. Angry black letters, TBPD, were scrawled on the back of  Jane's adoption card. Lottie reached into her purse for a piece of jerky and opened the door. She crouched and held her hand toward Jane. Jane leaped up from the worn, green plaid blanket she was lying on and bounded over to sniff Lottie's hand. She took the jerky, stretched out her front legs, and pressed her head low to the ground with hips high and tail wagging. She came up, raised her brows, and her eyes widened. She licked Lottie's hand, and Lottie laughed. They contemplated each other. 

"Good girl," Lottie whispered, stroking Jane's head. She paused to scratch behind an ear, and Jane narrowed her eyes to relaxed slits. She appeared to smile with the length of her black mouth and leaned into the strokes and scratches. 

"What do I want?" was humming inside Lottie like a live power line. She looked into Jane's tawny eyes, took in the brindle speckles as though seeing an animal called a dog for the first time. Lottie inhaled, almost a gasp. She stood up too fast, and her head felt light for a moment. She spun toward the entrance and pulled a leash from the wall. 

***

She led Jane Says Go into the grass. Jane sniffed and squatted. Lottie's heart was pounding. Her hands shook. "What do I want?" It was maddeningly simple, yet she'd agonized over the decision. She was willing to sacrifice for the wrong answer, ready to fit herself into a neat box with all of Helena. 

Lottie looked down at the greyhound. Half of the answer to her question was a dog named Jane Says Go. The other half was on a rocky beach, just beyond the dunes. She had a GPS, and envelopes of cash in her purse and her closet. 

Lottie stood in the grass with a sleek dog born to chase driftwood. Jane looked up at her, and Lottie rested her hand on the dog's head. She considered the Market Street storefront, and what it would mean to spend her rent money on a ticket. She considered the letters TBPD and what they would mean for Jane the following morning, many hours before The Numbers Man took the stage. The Numbers Man could not reverse the permanence of angry red letters on the back of an adoption card. She contemplated the desires The Numbers Man had fulfilled. None involved second chances. Lottie steered Jane toward the car and knew that for this, a second chance for both of them, she did not need to buy a ticket. 

about the writer

T.J. Butler lives on a sailboat with her husband and dog. She writes fiction and essays that are not all fun and games. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Pembroke, Levee, New Plains Review, Flash Fiction Online, Tahoma Literary Review, New South, and others. Her collection of short stories, "A Flame on the Ocean," is forthcoming from Adelaide Books. Find her at @aGalWithNoName and TJButlerAuthor.com.