It was a gorgeous August day, low humidity and not a cloud in the sky.  JJ walked past the outdoor tables with their jolly red umbrellas and sat in the dim rear of the dining room, his back to the wall so he could see the entrance.  He was running on no sleep, his head teetering above a dense and sluggish slab of torso.  His head and body seemed barely connected, maybe joined with a spring, like a bobble head.  “A JJ bobble head,” he whispered and giggled.  The lady at the next table looked at him.

Lila came in and took off her sunglasses.  All that blonde hair, piled on top of her head by some female trick of bobby pins and clips.  Her neck and summer dress.  Then her legs.  JJ felt faint, his head lolling on the spring.

“I guess I’ll let you buy,” she said to him before even sitting down.

“Shit,” JJ said.  He felt in his pockets, touching only the lottery ticket.  “I forgot my wallet.”

“Funny.”

“No, really.”

Lila gave a little snort and a familiar half-smile as she sat down across from JJ.  “So what am I buying you for lunch?”

They ordered.  Kielbasa and eggs for him.  A spinach salad for her.  Lila said, “Y’know, six million really isn’t that much.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, if you’re not careful.”

“Am I really that helpless to you?  I mean, what the hell?”

“You’re impulsive and you know it.”

JJ thought of her in bed with that guy last night.  Who was it?  Did she give him the same mothering bullshit?  Was he a project of hers?  He looked out the front window, the street view like a far off TV showing a summery scene of sunshine and pedestrians, and tried to say nothing.  Then he said, “Do you remember that night when we swam naked in the ocean.  And we got out, we thought we were alone, and that creepy old drifter guy was standing there near our clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Was that who was in bed with you last night?”

“Nice, JJ.  Real nice.  I thought you wanted to talk about the lottery.”

“Do you even want to see the ticket?”

Lila sighed.  “No, JJ, I believe you.  You may hide from the truth. But you are not a liar.”

“Well, that’s something,” JJ said.

They ate and talked about what he could do with six million dollars.  Afterwards he said, “Let’s play the song game.  Name all the songs we know about money.  Maybe we’ll get some inspiration.”

Lila smiled.  “Can’t Buy Me Love,” she said.

“Can’t buy you love?  Or me?”

“You’re the one with the money.  So it can’t buy you love.”

“I was afraid of that,” he said.  “I was hoping you’d say Material Girl, where you’re the material girl and I’m the boy with the cold hard cash.”

The waitress put the check on the table and Lila picked it up.  “Not yet you aren’t.”  They both laughed and JJ decided he would just go to work like normal that night.  Carrying on seemed like the best thing to do, for now.

            “Hello.”

            “Lila, it’s JJ.”

            “Oh shit, not again.  It’s 4:00 AM.  JJ, you have to stop.”

            “It’s not like that.  Something happened to me.”

            “Have you been drinking?”

            “No.  Maybe just a little.”

            “Good bye, JJ.”

            “Wait!  I just found out I won the lottery.”

            Silence, then the rustling of sheets.  “What?”

            “I won the lottery.”
            “You don’t play the lottery.  I remember what you said.  Extra taxes for morons.”

            “It was a whim.”

            “JJ, I swear, if you’re messing with me.”

            “Lila.  6.2 million dollars.”

            Silence then the rustling again.  “What?”

            “I won 6.2 million dollars in the lottery,”  JJ said.  Then he heard a muffled male voice over the phone.  He could picture Lila’s bed, her pushed over to one side with the phone and…who?  “Who’s your friend?”

            “JJ, there’s no one here.”

            “It’s none of my business.  I just needed to tell someone.”

            “Wait.”  And JJ heard the voice again, a querying tone.  Like, who the hell’s calling at 4:00 AM on a Tuesday?  The hollow drag of a hand over the phone and Lila’s muffled response to her bedmate.

            JJ said, “Do you have permission to talk to me?”

“I’ll call you later,” Lila whispered and hung up.

JJ looked at the winning ticket.  He had the urge to put it in his pocket and run to someone.  He thought of Charlie Bucket winning the golden ticket and the shopkeeper telling him to run home, to run from all the creeps and shady adults.  He thought of Charlie running to his family in their little shack with the four grandparents sharing the one bed.  Grandpa Joe couldn’t get out of bed because he was too weak and hungry.  But now that he can go to the chocolate factory he’s doing a happy dance around the shack.  Deadbeat. 

JJ’s phone buzzed and he looked at the text message from Lila.  “lunch jakes noon.”

“OK,” JJ said.  “Ok.”  He went to find a pen to sign the back of his golden ticket.

“Did you hear, the winning ticket was bought right here, in town.”

            “Where’d you hear that,” JJ asked.

            “Facebook.”

            JJ and Carl were in back of the bagel bakery looking across a scrubby lot at kids skateboarding in a little park.  It was dusk and the skateboarders were becoming shadows.  Their boards banged against the railings and concrete steps as the kids did their moves in that not-trying way of theirs.  They wore wool hats in the summer, left on from the winter, six months previous.  Carl smoked a cigarette and JJ sat on an overturned bucket. Inside, the oven was warming and the huge kettle getting close to a boil.  Almost time to bake 194 dozen bagels.

            “I bought a ticket,” JJ said to the sky.  The bright orange of a sunset was just visible over the trees beyond the park.  Like an explosion, right over there, JJ thought.

            “Dude, did you check it?”

            “No,” JJ said.  “When was the drawing?”

            “Dude, seriously?”

            “I never do the lottery.  It was a whim.”

            “Do you even still have the ticket?”

            “It’s on the fridge.”

            “The drawing was two days ago.”

            They heard a buzzer go off as the oven reached 550 degrees and they both sighed.  Carl flicked his cigarette away and they cast one more look at the darkening park with the rolling and clattering skateboards before heading into the steamy cave of a kitchen.  They donned aprons, soon to be soaked with sweat and kettle water infused with the cornmeal from 97 boards of bagels.  The cornmeal is sprinkled on the boards so the bagels don’t stick and it gives the bagels that awesome gritty bottom.  The bagels are dumped into the kettle for boiling along with the cornmeal that will turn the water into yellowish gruel over the next few hours.  The bagels are boiled, or polished as JJ imagines, in the water until they float and are fished out with a huge strainer on a stick.  They are dumped, steaming and floppy onto rows of four-inch wide planks and arranged, bottoms up, in lines of six.  Then they are put into a monster oven with five rotating shelves, each holding six dozen bagels.  Half way through the shelves are stopped and the bagels flipped by grasping the ends of the planks, one at a time, and deftly rotating them so the bagels land bottoms down for finishing.  This takes practice and needs to be done quickly.  Carl can do it all bare-handed but JJ, newer to bagel baking, uses two pairs of latex gloves.  The latex irritates his fingers, leaving a flaky rash behind.  But it’s better than the heat and he can move quicker.

            Carl said, “Dude, I’ll get started if you want to run home and check the ticket.”

            “You’re a good man,” JJ said.  “But let’s do this then we’ll go together.”

            “If you win, you’ll take care of me, right.  I got you this awesome job.

“And he has all this money he won in the lottery,” Lila said.  She sat on a bench with Zeke near the farmer’s market watching the springtime shoppers with their bags of asparagus and rhubarb.  Lila and Zeke were on a lunch date.  Zeke called it a “midday stroll” in his ironic way.  When Lila had asked if their “midday stroll” was really a date, Zeke said, “Too much pressure if we call it a date.  Besides, aren’t we above all that?”  Zeke’s real name was William.

Zeke asked, “Doesn’t it say in the Bible that money is the root of all evil?”

“It says a lot of things in the Bible.  Let’s not talk about the Bible.”  Lila watched a furtive little woman snatch some dried fruit from a box when the purveyor’s back was turned.  The woman was chewing as she moved on behind the stalls.

“Let’s just say that money can alter your perspective.  For the negative.”

“But he seems to be getting more positive,” Lila said.  “He bought this farm and he’s brought in these foresters from the college to help restore it to native forest.”

“Why are we even talking about this guy, what’s his name.”

“His name’s JJ and I’m sorry.  Let’s walk.”

They walked together from the farmer’s market and sat outside for coffee.  People walked by in work outfits and second-hand hipster duds.  There was a group of college kids in flip flops and shorts, laughing and window shopping.  Spring was finally here.  And then down the sidewalk came JJ carrying a shovel over his shoulder like a musket, the spade end up in the air.  It gleamed in the sun and Lila saw it was brand new.

“That’s the guy,” Lila said.  “That’s JJ.  With the shovel.”

JJ walked right up to their table.  “Can you believe, all that shit in the barn and there wasn’t a single shovel?”

“This is Zeke,” Lila said.  “Be polite now and acknowledge everyone.”

JJ seemed to notice Zeke for the first time.  “Well, hello William,” JJ said.

“Hello Jason.”

Lila asked, “Do you guys know each other?”

“Lila was telling me you’ve become a farmer,” Zeke said.

“Well, you can see I carry my own shovel.”

Lila said, “How do you two know each other?”

 “Oh, we go way back,” Zeke said.  Then to JJ, “Well you know what they say.  ‘No Farms, No Food’.  That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“I like to say, ‘No Farms, No Farmer’s Daughters’.”

“Funny.”  But Zeke was not smiling.  “Always so funny.”

“I know,” JJ said.  “Lila, you be nice to William now.  He’s very sensitive.”

When JJ walked away, Lila said, “What was that all about?”

Zeke paused, staring after JJ.  “We both dated this girl once, her dad was a farmer.  Back when I was known as William.”  They watched the shovel move away, bobbing and weaving above the other walkers, marking JJ’s progress up the crowded sidewalk.  “It didn’t end well.”