Spare me your change (a short story)

This one started as an exercise in finding a theme retroactively once a story has been completed, then reworking to leverage this organic idea. Leave a comment if you can tell me what the theme is.

Earnest never used to think twice about buying a lottery ticket. Every Thursday, that was him, trading a bit of small talk with Boris behind the register, playing the same numbers every time- 89 78 67 56 45- then curling up in front of the tellie at 7:00 on the dot—a bowl of hot chips on one side of him, Shirley on the other.

Boris is still around. But Earnest doesn’t chat anymore.

It’s not like Boris ever asked him about his trip to Europe or anything like that. Not once has the man asked whether he ever had to put barrel to skull of an unarmed civilian.

Never once, did old Borrie pick his brain on what it feels like to wash your body with that same trigger hand. But every time Earnest walks into the corner store and is hit in the face with that sugary smell of sweets, he’s sure this will be the day. This will be the day he has to explain the process of moving that bar of soap around your chest and belly until you’re more froth than man, scrubbing your skin till your hairs are on the verge of falling out, knowing all the while that no amount of cleaning will erase this new dirt that covers you. Knowing that it’s the very act of carrying on with routines like this, while so many of your buddies never even made it to a grave, that makes you so dirty in the first place. So, these days, he keeps his head down and just pays for his ticket.

Shirley isn’t around anymore either, but Earnest still plays the same numbers. Her numbers.

The digits themselves don’t hold any particular significance. Shirley just used to like the way they looked on a page. “Beautiful as a descending minor scale” she used to say. Earnest always scoffed at this, “don’t matter how it looks,” he’d tell her, “so long as those folks are happy to spare us some extra change!”

 Earnest doesn’t feel so light hearted when that old mantra pops into his head these days. It’s still too raw. Reminds him of how things used to be. Before he forgot how to move around in that old life of his.

Her voice still pops into his head all the time.

Picking up the dish brush—there she is, “don’t forget to use the drip tray.”

Reaching into the fridge—Shirley again, “Another beer? Earnest, we haven’t even reached Wednesday!”

Today is one of the better days though. Old Borrie is too distracted trying to get his radio to work to even look over at Earnest when he shuffles in through the doorway’s plastic strip curtains. The old todger has his head half turned. Oblivious to his spilling ear hair. His face: gormless as one of those Polish POWs.

Earnest shudders as he shakes the curtains off his shoulder. He hates the feeling of those things, absolutely hates it! Stained all yellow from Christ-knows-how-many other dirty customers. What a thought to imagine the horrors they’ve come into contact with over the years! Then again…if only the other customers knew what horrors cover his skin.

Boris must have noticed more than he let on though. He has a ticket printed off by the time Earnest reaches the counter. Earnest, holds out the fiver while Boris plays around with his rodlike aerial.

Static. “NOW TELL ME.” Static. “When is our Prime Minister going to take his head out of his arse and tell these refugees that they’re simply got to have to find somewhere else to live?”

 Boris leaves the radio behind to take the payment. Earnest notes the teary build up around the edge of Boris’s eyes as he stuffs the cash in the till. He lingers by the counter for a few seconds more, thinking he should say something. They used to trade the odd bit of advice back before Earnest left for Europe. He should probably ask what’s going on. Who else does the poor guy have to talk to? Lonely sod.

The aerial falls without warning, but it thrusts the signal into a clear patch. “—Ask them on no uncertain terms: If you weren’t born on our soil, then why in God’s name would we owe you a milligram of compassion?”

Boris glances up at him, all vulnerable and what not, looking like he’s about to unload whatever it is that’s weighing on his usually chirpy shoulders. Earnest draws in a breath. It seems he’s going to hear all about it whether he likes it or not.

Suddenly he feels his sneakers taking a step backwards. A fox-hole terror creeps up on him—from his pinky toe, right up to his arm pits—at the same time. What if this leads to more? What if the guy really appreciates having a shoulder to cry on? So much so that he decides to return the favour. Starts asking all those questions. Asks Earnest what happened to his hands.

“When are we going to elect a prime minister who—”

The two of them stare at each other, wordless while the radio host blubbers on.

“—who has the balls to look at all the damn “crimigrants” who are already here and tell them to jump in the damn ocean once and for all?”

Boris snaps his mouth shut and nods along to the radio as if he can’t remember the last time a talkback host made this much sense. Boris is first generation Slav. His parents literally brought him to this country in a potato bag. Earnest nods along as well and slides his dirty fingers over the lottery ticket.

7:00 rolls around and Earnest is ready. Bowl of hot chips on one side of him, Black TT-30 Pistol on the other. The TT-30 is affectionately known as the ‘Tokarev’ on the frontlines. To Earnest, it’s known as Shirley.

He dips his dirty fingers into the chip bowl as the pretty little thing on screen pulls out one ball after the other. 89. 78. A glib smile spreads across Earnest’s face as he picks up another chip. His fingers aren’t shaking like they used to do in the field. His thoughts stray back to Boris’s quivering lower lip. The next black and white ball has a 67, then a 56 comes right after it.

Here it goes, thinks Earnest with a snort. That cruel twist of the knife that the universe just loves to give ya.

Earnest blinks calmly as the last ball pops up between the doll on screen’s painted little fingers.

“Damn you were right Shirley, it does look good written down like that.” He swallows a lump. “It’s like a—”

Before “the old” Shirley’s familiar mantra has a chance to remind Earnest of how life used to be, of how he used to be, “the new” Shirley interrupts, with the aid of Earnest’s dirty fingers.  

Earnest’s head lies limp on the coach, the paisley wallpaper he and Shirley put up together days after they first moved in, drips red and pink. The lottery girl congratulates “any of you lucky winners out there,” and flaunts Earnest and Shirley’s numbers on screen.

Somewhere out there, in some other man’s living room Shirley finally gets to see her descending scale lit up in neon. Earnest is spared his change.