“Welcome to the first annual selective service lottery.”
Clamor in the room evaporated. The hush puddled around Josh’s feet and a chill stole up his spine. All eyes were riveted on the television. A clergyman stepped into the picture and offered a muffled convocation. The words were hard to understand, but his serious expression left no doubt as to the solemn nature of his message. With a minimum of ceremony, another self-important appearing man introduced as a congressman from New York stepped next to the tall cylinder filled with plastic capsules. He thrust his hand into the container and drew one out. Pulling it apart, he hesitated for an instant and then announced, “Number one is September fourteenth.”
Paralyzing stillness fell over the commuter lounge and on the television. Josh realized he had been holding his breath and gasped with everyone else when it became obvious that no one in the room had a birthday on September 14.
Josh felt light-headed and drifted through a haze of suspended animation. Relief and an odd sense of disappointment threaded through the gathering. The air was heavy, and the silence, oppressive. Just as the suspense began to suffocate him, commotion bubbled from a back corner of the room. Mildly thankful for the distraction, Josh turned to see two large, muscled men with a slender, dark-haired woman between them sitting on a tan vinyl couch. They laughed and grinned with arrogance as if they owned the room. Their antics were oil on the water of seriousness that filled the lounge.
It took several seconds for Josh to fit the aberration into the picture. Confusion dissolved into contempt. One of the men, the black one, was a varsity football player, but Josh didn’t recognize the other guy. They reminded him of the jocks that had lived on his floor in the dorm during freshman year. Full of swagger and disdain for anyone not as exalted as them, they roamed the halls with brash conceit. Josh loved football, but he had come to despise the Neanderthals that played it and the hero worship they flaunted. Needing to stem his irritation, he grunted and looked back to the television.
A few more numbers went by when the representative from Florida pulled open a capsule. “Number six,” he paused, “is September sixth.”
“That’s me! I win!”
Head and bodies swung toward the outburst. A skinny kid with spikey yellow hair jumped up and scanned the room with a look of triumph, arms raised. His fists hung in the air until the quiet overwhelmed him. The roomful of stares seemed to melt his arms, which dropped to his sides.
“You got that right, Connors!” boomed a voice to the kid’s side. A big, meaty hand clapped on him on the shoulder. “You won the most expensive prize that no one wants!”
The wooden bowl materialized from the middle of the crowd and bobbed toward the boy named Connors. The kid’s eyes were large and white as the polished alabaster eggs Josh’s mother kept on her knick-knack shelf.
A disembodied voice from the television sliced the air, “Date number seven is October twenty-sixth.”
In unison, everyone fell back under the spell of the lottery. Another date was drawn with no reaction from the room when a lanky young man stepped to the microphone. His crisp movements defied a vaguely disheveled appearance. “Number nine, November twenty-second, sir,” he barked.
“Aw, fuck!” groaned a voice off to Josh’s right.
“Hey, that’s my birthday, too!” A boy in front of him yelled, jumping up and whirling around.
While the group tried to fathom the concept of dual winners, Connors pushed the wooden bowl at his round-shouldered friend and announced loudly, “Here, you count out their winnings.”
After a quick rummage through the currency, his buddy shouted, “Wow! There’s $165 in here! That leaves, uh, wait,” the boy hesitated, looking at Connors, “How am I supposed to split up twenty-five dollars evenly?”
Connors looked annoyed. “Give ‘em each twenty, I don’t care.”
The chubby friend thumbed two stacks of bills and handed them toward the second place winners. One handful came to Josh, who turned and passed it behind him. Blood money, he thought.
More numbers found their victims. Groans mingled with shouts of sympathy and callous ridicule. Heads were cuffed, shoulders slapped and backs pounded. Bright red veins scored swollen eyes and agonized smiles tried hard not to quiver. Pity, thick and bitter, washed through Josh. This was Russian roulette, only the trigger got pulled twice. Your birthday in the right capsule put you in misery. A second bullet in the right chamber would put you out of it.
Over the somber drone of the television and through the collective tension, more racket filtered from the back of the room. Josh turned to see the two jocks pointing at a boy whose birth date had just been called. He looked like a small kid who had been told that a parent had died. Tears streaked his cheeks and his eyes were crimson. Watching him cry, the burly black guy hissed, “Pussy.”
The woman between the two men attempted an apologetic smile. For a quick moment, she looked at Josh. It was almost like she felt embarrassed in front of him and wanted the bullying to stop for his benefit. The connection dissolved when the two men suddenly stood and made a performance of stretching and yawning. The white guy reached a hand down to the woman and pulled her to her feet.