The four numbers on the tax return check turned into three numbers in cash after the liquor store took their cut.
Neebo didn’t have a bank account, so he was stuck letting Johnny Camaro take seventeen percent.
He counted the money a second time, glumly, wondering how he could have so much money in his hand and still be depressed.
“Guess I should just play the lottery,” he said out loud, kind of at Johnny, who was already ringing up a bottle of gin for one of the DTE guys in the hi viz vests, kind of to himself.
DeAnnle said “Play triple 5’s sugar, them is overdue.”
Neebo looked over at her.
“I never play the numbers, I wouldn’t know where to start, what’s due, what’s overdue, what’s…I dunno. I was thinking more like the Powerball, one of them multimillion thingies.”
DeAnnle shook her head, adjusted her knit hat, snapped her fingers like she was calling a cat.
“You go see Alligator Man, give him 5 dollars, he got a book. Incan, or some kinda tribe, culture, I don’t know, but…”
“Dude with the single string guitar?”
“Yeah, Alligator Man, donchoo know him?”
“Kinda. Not really.”
“He’ll sell you a book. He got them in his backpack. Got the numbers that will correspond to your birthday and the day of the week.”
DeAnnle dug in a knit bag that didn’t match her red hat, rustled around and pulled out
a dog eared hunk of stapled papers that looked like a chapbook of numerical poetry, or maybe like a calculator exploded on an old address book.
“Alligator Man got a system. He borrowed it from the Peruvians or the Mexicans or somebody. Somebody with a Sun god. Whatever, once I bought this book I started hitting.”
Neebo looked at DeAnnle, then away from her at the flavored vodkas behind the counter, then back to her.
“So the book paid for itself, right?”
“You know it did. Five dollars, shit, I won 22 hunnerd since then.”
Neebo looked at the floor. Alligator Man always kind of depressed him, playing these blues songs-Neebo thought they were blues- kind of struggling to find the frets with his left hand, strumming the single string with his right.
Neebo usually threw him a dollar without stopping to talk. Bummed him a lighter once.
“I’ll go get a book,” he said, then he paused
“How come Alligator Man never gets more strings for that guitar. Seems kinda weird.”
DeAnnle shrugged her shoulders, aggressively, a wordless how the fuck should I know?
When Neebo turned to leave, DeAnnle said “You know what’s weird, sugar?”
Neebo turned, started to say What, but DeAnnle was already continuing.
“Alligator Man used his number system to predict the exact day Corey Knox and Jiffy Lube Marcus died.”
Neebo’s head fought with whether that was the creepiest thing he ever heard, or just complete bullshit.
He left Cascade Party Store, Liquor Frech Sanwiches Lotto, and walked down John R. When he saw Alligator Man in the distance, he crossed the street, shoving his cold hands into his pockets.
***
Author’s Note:
It was difficult for me to call a liquor store a liquor store, because in Detroit they’re party stores, which many of you know by now. But I’ve had over 100 new free subscribers from all over the globe in the last week, and I didn’t want to cause confusion. I think I redeemed my Detroitness at the end.
I still marvel that they’re NOT party stores everywhere.
Living on the Eastside we have a party store on every corner, lots of Deannes even an alligator man or two. Your works really connect with me.