Lucifer's Lottery

from God, and any gift from God is a temple of God. When we inhale cigarette smoke into our bodies, it’s the same as throwing rocks through the stained-glass windows of this very church. Desecration . . .”

Hence, Hudson never lit up. He did drink a little, however, and not once did he consider that the same minister who’d given the smoking sermon had never added alcohol to his list of substances that desecrated one’s God-given body, nor that said minister had died years later of cirrhosis.

“I ain’t kiddin’ ya,” one redneck with a Fu Manchu affirmed to another redneck with a bald head. “I know it was the same ho’ who ripped me off a year or so ago. But she was so fucked up on Beans the bitch didn’t even remember me!”

“What’chew do?” asked the bald one.

“Jacked her out’s what I did—”

“Bullshit.”

“Think so?” Fu Manchu pulled out a blackjack, jiggled it, then put it back in his pocket. “Jacked her out right in the car, gave her a poke, and took her cash but ya know what? All the bitch had on her was six bucks . . .”

The bald one looked suspicious over his Black Velvet and Coke. “You didn’t jack no one out, man.”

“Buy me a drink if I prove it?”

The bald one laughed. “Sure, but you can’t prove it.”

Fu Manchu flipped open his cell phone. “I love these camera phones, man.” He showed the tiny screen to the bald one. “What? Ya think all that red stuff’s ketchup?”

The bald one slumped and ordered the guy a drink.

A real highbrow crew tonight, Hudson thought.

One of the women—a middle-aged blonde—had drifted over to the cigarette machine. Very tan, in a clinging maroon T-shirt and cutoff jeans. She’d knotted the T-shirt to reveal an abdomen whose most obvious trait was an accordion of stretch marks. Lots of eye shadow. Veiny hands. Too weathered, Hudson judged.

“Hi, honey,” she said in a Marlboro-rough voice and as she headed back to her stool, her hand slid along Hudson’s back. “Come on over, if ya want. I mean, you know what this place is all about, right?” But before Hudson could even dream up an answer she was already back in her seat.

Indeed, Hudson did know what the place was all about—that’s why he was here. Prostitution that was not quite the bottom of the barrel. He could afford little more. His conscience squirmed amid his blooming sin. Obviously she’d struck out with the other men in the bar.

Yeah, but the weathered ones know what to do . . .

“Another beer?” asked the barkeep. He was a ramshackle rube with a circular patch on his gas station shirt that read BARNEY.

“Yes, please.”

The keep leaned over, as if to relay a confidence. He had shaggy hair, and a pock on his cheek that looked like a bullet scar, and he was probably sixty. “Don’t worry, it’s all cool. I know you ain’t a cop.”

“What?” Hudson questioned, dismayed.

“I can tell at a glance, you ain’t got the look.” The keep grinned. “ ’N’fact, ya look more like a priest.”

Terrific, Hudson thought.

“And you been sittin’ here a while, right?”

“Yeah, an hour, hour and a half, I guess.”

“I figure you must know what the Lounge is all about—” He jerked his eyes down toward the old blonde. “Like she done said.”

Hudson’s chest felt tight. “I-uh-” One of several TVs showed a baseball game. “I’m just in to watch the game.”

“Sure, sure,” the keep chuckled. He pulled out another bottle of beer and set it down next to five empties. Hudson paid for each beer one at a time, for in establishments such as this, tabs were never run.

“I kinda look the other way, got no problem with what a gal feels she has to do for money—” Then the keep winked. “As long as there’s a cut for me. You wanna get some action in the bathroom, that’s cool. Just make sure you slide me a ten first, ya hear?”

“Uh, uh-sure,” Hudson blabbered.

“Ya been here a while now so I thought maybe ya didn’t know the deal.” The keep winked again. “But now ya do.”

“Um, thanks for filling me in . . .”

The keep leaned in closer to Hudson. “But as for Thelma over there—”

“Who?”

“The blonde.”

Hudson glanced over, and suddenly found that the woman’s burgeoning bosom possibly nullified her beat looks. “What about her?”

“She’s been around the block more times than the mailman, get it? Just some neighborly advice. She fucks like a champ but if you make any deals with her . . . wrap it—if ya catch my drift.”

Hudson flinched when a toothy grin floated just to the right side of his face. It was Fu Manchu. “Wrap it? Shit, man. Thelma’s cooch is toxic. She’s got stuff up there that can melt a triple-Trojan like one’a them Listerine breath strips.” He elbowed Hudson. “You do her? Put a scuba foot on your pecker.” He and the barkeep broke out in laughter.

Hudson couldn’t have been more uncomfortable. “Thanks, uh, thanks for the pointers, guys.”

Hudson gazed up at the TV. Tampa Bay led New York six to nothing, but the sound was down. He glanced aside, pretending to be looking for someone. Two more women—younger but nearly as weathered as Thelma—sat apart at the far end, one brunette with a ludicrous mullet and a shirt that read DO ME TILL I PUKE. The other, a rusty redhead, wore a T-shirt that claimed NO GAG REFLEX. Well, there they are, Hudson thought. So what am I doing? When am I going to make a move?

But Hudson hadn’t noticed the other man—he must’ve just come in. Young but somehow despondent, a false smile that looked on the verge of shattering. He was in a wheelchair. Those two prostitutes must know him, Hudson figured, for they both stood stooped, talking to the young man. Their grins could be described as vulturine. The man shook his head; then Hudson overheard him say, “I can’t anymore.” Then the redhead said, “Pay us twenty each to try. We’ll give ya lots of time.” But the man in the chair shook his head and wheeled away.

“Fuckin’ cripple,” the redhead whispered to her cohort.

Oh, what a bounty of goodwill in the world, Hudson thought, and then that’s when it occurred to him: he’d seen the man before, in church.

Another TV hung just above the brunette’s head, also silent: a dashing evangelist in a huge stadium. Hudson could read the closed-caption blocks as the revivalist’s mouth moved.

WHEN YOU STRIVE TO NOT SIN, WHEN YOU MAKE THAT EFFORT, GOD HOLDS YOU IN SPECIAL FAVOR. GOD PUTS HIS SHIELD OF PROTECTION OVER YOU. SO TO STAY IN GOD’S FAVOR, WE MUST ALWAYS STRIVE NOT TO SIN. WE MUST DO EVERYTHING WE POSSIBLY CAN TO RESIST THE TEMPTATIONS THAT LUCIFER THROWS BEFORE US . . .

Hudson’s eyes lowered—in shame. No shield of protection for me today, he thought to his beer.

Sin was everywhere. And he needed to know it before he could absolve it, just like Monsignor Halford had said . . .

I know I shouldn’t be here but I’m staying anyway, he realized. I’m here to pick up a hooker . . . and that’s what I’m going to do because I’m not strong enough to walk out . . .

He did good deeds. He felt he had true compassion. He gave to charities, he gave to the homeless—even though he was poor himself. Above all, he believed in God, and he could only pray that God’s mercy was as everlasting as the Bible claimed.