No Cry For Help

This all started with me, just a Marine wanting to go home to West Texas after 8 hard years in The United States Marine Corp. I was a combat field staff officer with the rank of Captain and was still only 27 years old but I felt a hell of a lot older with lots of years to give, so the Corp said. I had been wounded in Vietnam toward the last of the so called war and I just hadn’t been able to come back with a full stride, so the Corp gave me 6 months to get over it or get out. So I decided to go back home where I had been raised as a kid on my grandfather’s ranch near the little West Texas Town of Spring Creek. Then maybe I can decide just what I want to do with the rest of my life. IT ALL STARTED RIGHT HERE On the way home I stopped off in Vegas for a little R&R, only to experience once again that I still didn’t know how to shoot craps. So I lost some of my hard earned savings on those pretty green tables. Just as I was about to get my gear ready and head south, I stopped in at The Palace for one last look-see and maybe some newfound luck. With my last $50.00 of pocket money I bought five $10.00 tickets on the Quick Pick Lottery and sat down to a fresh rum and coke and a look at the girls. The giant screen began to announce the get ready drawing for the “Quick Pick” and the separate drawn numbers started appearing on the giant screen in a very fast order. I really wasn’t overly interested in the drawing until I took notice that my #1 ticket, although almost hidden in my little hot hand, was now showing four of the Quick Pick’s winning numbers with number five just now being posted. It was a seven and I was now looking at the winning ticket, #24897 and whatever the prize, it’s mine. The bells went off loudly and the screen began to flash. I turned cold and numb as I saw the dollar wheel kick in a special bonus prize for a total of FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. All I could think about was, What a Home Coming! Now since you don’t know me at all, I’m the quiet type. I don’t like to draw too much attention so I just sat there preparing to breathe and steady myself as I waited for all the hoop-la and confusion to settle back to what might be called normal in a place like this. The Ring Master, as he is called, kept screaming out, “Is there a winner in this rowdy bunch? If so, step up and get famous. Why don’t you buy the house a drink?” That’s just what I wasn’t going to do so I just sat tight and eventually got up and walked outside for some much needed fresh air. Let me be the first to tell you. If you ever win some big money on a ticket raffle in Vegas it’s not anything easy like just walking up to the counter and presenting your winning ticket and quietly fold up your money and walk out hoping no one is going to big-deal you or get next to you because you look lonely or something like that. If the Marine Corp had taught me anything, it was to recognize the enemy and always play it cool. “If you need to kill, shoot first and move on.” After about an hour I walked into the head cashier’s office and asked to see whoever was in charge of the Quick Pick Lottery. Needless to say, this great looking blonde secretary in about a seconds’ time perked up and said, “Do you have the winning ticket?” I answered back as best I could, “I am that person.” Almost before I could ask her what her name was, a door opened to the right of me, and the next voice I heard must have been that of the head cashier. “Would you like to step into my office?” So I did and to shorten this big payout event some, I spent the next several hours in what seemed to be too personal of a discussion about me, not to mention lots of paper signing and then an unexpected visit from the duty IRS Agent. Well after Nevada tax, etc., and enough money to support Uncle Sam’s needs for a few seconds, I ended up with something just over Three Million Three Hundred Ninety Eight Thousand Dollars. I took it in a certified cashiers check, folded up my copies of the great give-away and asked how I could exit this place unnoticed, because that’s what I wanted and had already signed off on being a Non-Recognized Statement Clause. I did not want any published notice of the fact I was the newest Quick Pick winner this great day in June of 1975. I went out to the parking lot feeling as if I was being followed and headed for my 1970 model second hand Ford Sedan.