1-I think the machine is broken

1

I Think the Machine is Broken.

A common misconception about overweight people is that their increased girth protects them from attacks to their mid-section.  That their fat would create a soft pillow that would absorb a hard blow without it being able to do any damage.

Leonard Devereux had come to understand this assumption was completely false in the last couple of hours.

Now, his beaten ribs cried out for the protection of a hard layer of muscle between them and the blows that had pounded into them earlier.  They felt like saw dust now inside Leo’s torso.  This made it hard for him to keep up with the brisk pace at which the traitor, his capture, moved.

The traitor’s Sig Suar automatic pistol pressed against Leo’s back every time his pace slowed from the pain.  “Keep it moving!”

They crossed the hotel’s parking lot towards the dock and beach that adjoined it.  It was a beautiful day in Traverse City, Michigan and Leo wished he could stop and enjoy it.  Instead, he had taken on Russian commandos and traitors-to-the-state, alongside his wife and true love, Josephine.  His only satisfaction had come from the fact that his sacrifice would insure her safety.

Docked was a long and sleek looking speed boat.  A man had just hopped out and was about to tie the line off when he saw Leonard and the traitor coming down the dock.

“Sorry folks, I’ll be back for more tours after lunch and you can- Jesus!” The man began to explain then saw Leo’s condition.

Leo was a shadow of his former self.  Normal Leo stood six feet, three inches, with broad shoulders.  He had an affinity for goofy T-Shirts and a cabby hat, but under that, he had plenty of fat, not obese, but definitely overweight.  He was thirty-two and had short brown hair with a dusting of early grey and intense brown eyes.  Normally he had a spirit to him that let everyone around him know he loved being alive.

That was what he was normally like.

Now, he limped, nearly dragging his right leg because of the damage to his rib cage.  His left eye had a nasty cut over it and was bleeding down the side of his face.  The right eye was in no better condition, swelling almost shut and throbbing a deep purple that made him look like a parody of Stallone at the end of a Rocky movie.  His hat was missing in action, leaving his hair tussled and pointing in all different directions. His T-Shirt, once depicting a picture of The Dread Pirate Roberts from the movie The Princess Bride and the words ‘As you Wish’ on it, was tattered and torn and covered in blood that obscured the obscure movie reference.  Where the skin showed through cuts could be seen all over his body, and a large piece of glass protruded from his bicep.

This awful sight had stunned the boat owner and turned his normally friendly face into one of fear and confusion.  “What the hell is going on?”

“Run!” Leo screamed, but he was too late.  The traitor raised the gun and fired one shot, the tour guide grabbed his chest a fell backwards to the dock.

“No!  God Dammit!” Leo yelled at the slight but had no strength left to fight back.

The traitor shoved him off the dock and into the speed boat like dirty laundry down the stairs.  “Shut your damn mouth!”

The traitor pulled the tour guide’s keys out of his pocket.  Sirens could be heard in the distance and Leo thought that seemed weird.  Why would they be coming so fast?

The traitor jumped into the boat and jammed the key into the ignition and tried to start the boat, desperate to get away.

Leo’s mind wandered through the pain.  It was a fog that clouded the path that had led him here.  He tried to think of when this all started…

The man in the lobby?

No that had not been the catalyst, even though it was the obvious choice.  The catalyst had been further back.  It had been the thing that had made the Devereux’s take this vacation.  The event that had changed their lives.

When their luck had changed.

****

When their luck changed… A couple of weeks prior to the beating.

“Not it.”  Josephine said with a smile as she drove Leonard and herself home from the movies.

Leo frowned.  “I already called not it, when we were walking to the car in the parking lot.”

The ‘not it’ game was one of the many sacred games of intellect that the two played with each other. The person who lost would have to take the dogs out upon arrival at home.  The idea behind the game was that whoever said ‘not it’ first, won.  The truth was that the game was more about convincing the other person that you won, rather then actually saying it first.

“It didn’t count.”  Jo said, her smile framed by her bright, blonde, chin-length hair.

“The hell it doesn’t!” Leo said sullenly.

Jo’s brown eyes danced mischievously behind her light framed glasses.  “The rules of the game are, you have to call not it in the car on the way home.  We were not in the car when you called it.”

Leo scowled at her.  “This is what I get for marrying a Paralegal.”

Jo smirked.  “This is what you get for marrying someone smarter than you.”

Leonard sighed, realizing he had no choice but to accept his fate.  “Alright, fine.  I give.  Just stop at the gas station.  I want to grab a soda and check my ticket.”

Jo pulled into the local gas station and the two got out and walked in.  Josephine Devereux was roughly five-five.  She was hippy and stocky with soft features and a button nose that Leo had found irresistible.

“Where are you going?” Leo asked with a melodramatically raised eyebrow.

She didn’t even look back.  “I need cigarettes, and I need to make sure if you win you don’t run off with my half.”

They entered the gas station and Jo headed back toward the coolers for the pop.  “What do you want?”

“Mello Yellow, of course.”  Leo answered as he pulled his Ohio Mega Millions ticket from his wallet.

Leo watched her as she went.  They had not had the best time of things lately, Leo had lost his cook job and was a week away from being penniless with very few job opportunities.  Leo had been a high school dropout and had not gotten his G.E.D until he was twenty six.  He never went to college and never wanted to because of his absolute hatred of school in general.

His hate had cost him, however.  It had made him very undesirable in the work place.  Restaurants were just about the only ones who would take him and that was no career.  He still hadn’t figured out how he had convinced the perfect Josephine to marry him.

Nonetheless, she had.

She grabbed the soda and turned to smile at him.  A big smile ear to ear.  The action never failed to free Leonard of the depression that crippled his youth and sometimes attempted to return in his middle age. He smiled back and ran his lottery ticket through the small bar code reading machine that would tell him, as usual, sorry not a winning ticket, please play again.

He bought a ticket every week.  He did not believe he would win but he had taken to telling his wife he was going to win the lottery for her.  Obsessed with never lying to the love of his life, he had realized he had to at least play.

The thing made a digital clapping noise and a computerized voice said the word ‘winner’ twice in a row.

This had happened before, it usually meant he had won some small amount.  Usually between a dollar and fifteen had been the highest he had ever won.

The screen suddenly read the word ‘Jackpot’.

Leo stared for some time at the screen, very confused.  The word went away and he ran his ticket again.

Again the clapping and the hollowed voice.  Again, the word ‘Jackpot’.

The world began to melt away.  Hope began to well inside of him but he quickly silenced it.  This was not possible.  People did not actually win the lottery.

He looked up at the clerk who stood behind the register, a twenty something kid with weird plugs in his ears that made his lobes look six times bigger than they were.

Leo briefly wondered why anyone would want to look so much like an elephant.

“You okay, sir?” the kid asked.

“Babe, is everything alright?” Jo asked.

Leo realized he had been staring at the lottery machine for a couple of minutes more than it took to look crazy.

“I think your machine is broken,” Leo said to the clerk.

The clerk frowned at the prospect of more work.  “Why?”

He put the ticket through the machine again.

The clapping, the voice, the word jackpot.

This time Jo watched and her eyebrows shot up.  “Yeah, your machine is definitely broken.”

The clerk walked to the machine and checked the device.  “It seems to be working, why do you think it’s broken?”

“It says ‘Jackpot’ every time I run it.”  Leo replied.

“Huh,” The clerk said, just as confused.  “It’s never done that before.  Let me see the ticket.”

Leo handed him the ticket.  He ran it through the machine then watched a little display and his eyes went wide.  “Bro… you just won fifty million dollars.”

TO BE CONTINUED…