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console model, and with the trade-in on the old one that would still
be how much? - $800 maybe, he'd have to check. Which was a lot of
money . And there'd be the doctor and hospital bills for the new baby,
and Marian was always complaining about the refrigerator, it's wear–
ing out, it isn't big enough, and the linoleum in the kitchen looks like
hell, and so on and so forth.
It
was starting to make him sick, think–
ing of all these things.
It
was starting to make him angry, that buzz
in his head, something beating in his forehead, maybe he should just
take the plunge and spend the money however he wanted. But then
Marian would be mad. She'd be seriously mad. And he was frightened
of her in one of those states especially now that she was pregnant
again and if she came at him with her nails or fists, or kicking, knee–
ing, he couldn't even protect himself, the last time he'd tried, he'd
slapped her twice, and Paulie had started bawling, and there was
hell to pay for a solid week. She really made him eat shit, the woman
knew how to do it. So he wanted to give her $500, let's say. And $500
for his parents. They could use it, they were maybe even expecting
it, he didn't want to disappoint them. So that was $1,000 right there:
leaving him $150 which was nothing. Which would hardly pay for a
night on the town. And there was the loan company. And there was
-what else?
Those sons of bitches, he thought suddenly- they'd given him
one of the little crap prizes instead of $1 million or $700,000 or even
$50,000. Or $10,000. And being given one of the little crap prizes
meant, what? -
he'd never get one of the big prizes now.
Some days he felt so queer, so numb, it wasn't even himself,
it was the way he'd felt at the National Guard camp where you just
wanted to get drunk or stoned or stay in the shower running the water
hot until it was all over and you could go back to real life. Other days,
though, he felt good: people were still congratulating him, acting as
if they envied him. He shrugged his shoulders, looked away, muttered
something about not being one of the big prize winners, but nobody
seemed to care. The point was he'd won, hadn't he. That was the
point.
He realized it was an asshole idea to divide the money up as
he'd planned . So one Friday evening after work he went to Sears like
it was Christmas Eve and bought a refrigerator for Marian, avocado
green , self-defrosting, and an eight-ounce bottle of Chanel No.5 for
Marian, and a red tricycle for Paulie, and he made a sizeable down
