The Lottery

                “God damn it Phil, how are we supposed to live on $325 a week”

                “Alice, I’m sorry I do the best I can”

                “Well Phil since tomorrow’s Saturday, I’m going to work with you.”

                Phil sold shoes at Bamberger’s in the meadow shores shopping center in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was good at what he did but he hated Saturday’s with a passion. ON Saturday, Phil’s wife Alice would go to work with him. She would sit in the shoe department and critique his every move.

                “Phil, there’s a customer, hurry up.”

                “Phil, how come you didn’t suggest an add on.”

                “Phil, make sure you bring her out a navy pair.”

                “Phil, you’re taking too long in the stockroom.”

                These verbal attacks continued all day long. It was amazing that Phil didn’t kill Alice. Oh, he had fantasies about strangling her, just to shut her up, but he never had the guts. Alice was unrelenting, not only in her critiquing of Phil’s job skills but every aspect of this life. She criticized his looks, his dress, his housekeeping and his cooking.  Phil did everything for her but she was never satisfied.

                It wasn’t always this bad. The year was 1947 and Phil Mostel was senior class president at Little Sisters of Jerusalem High School when he caught Alice Wienstiens’s eye. It wasn’t his dazzling good looks that attracted her to him because Phil didn’t have dazzling good looks. He was five feet eleven and one hundred and sixty five pounds.  However, twenty three of those pounds were devoted to Phil’s nose.  Saying that Phil had a large nose was an understatement.  In fact Phil was registered in the Guinness Book of Records as the only man ever to have a sneeze that registered on the Richter scale.  Despite his physical appearance, Alice was attracted to Phil because she thought he would be successful.  It was the way he talked. He was going to be successful. Phil dreamed of opening his own shoe store and retiring in Miami Beach by the time he was thirty.  Phil passed up college so he could learn the shoe business.  He got a job at Bamberger’s as a salesman.  He thought he was on his way. Phil wasn’t much more than a dreamer.  Year after year he would tell Alice that next year he was going to quit and open his own store.

                “I’ll call it Mostel’s shoe Gallery.  After a few years I’ll get a manager and we’ll retire to Miami Beach”

                As the years went by Alice began to realize that Phil was a dreamer and that he would never become anything.  She was terribly frustrated with her situation and she began to torture Phil with insults.  Phil’s dreams were his sole mechanism to maintain his self esteem and Alice was destroying him.  She began to pressure him about opening his own store.  Phil was not able to save much money over the years. He had eight thousand dollars in the Bamberger’s profit sharing plan. He also had million dollar life insurance policies on both him and Alice but they were only good if the unmentionable happened.

                “Alice, maybe next year I’ll open my own store.”

                “God damn it Phil, you’ve been saying the same thing for twenty years. Your nothing, you’re a loser, get out, get out and don’t come back.”

                Phil walked along the streets of Jersey City. The streets were quiet and lonely and Phil felt lonely but trapped.  No one understood him.

                “Maybe I am a loser.” Phil muttered to himself.

                “No no I’m not a loser; I just need a little luck.”

                Just at that moment Phil saw a sign in front of Rosenberg’s minimart.  The sign read “Do You Feel Lucky? Play Lotto and Become a Millionaire!!”  Phil got a funny feeling in his stomach he couldn’t resist.  He had to try his luck.  The brass cowbell which hung on the door rang loudly as he walked into the dimly lit minimart.  The clerk was sitting on a stool reading on of these porno magazines that are always kept behind the counter.  The old man was so caught up in his magazine that he didn’t even look up as the bell rang.  Phil walked up and laid a dollar on the counter however the old man still didn’t look up.

                “Do you think you could help me here?” Phil said.

                The old man looked up and said something that Phil couldn’t hear because the cowbell on the door rang simultaneously as he spoke.

                “Too much to ask for a lotto ticket tonight” Phil asked.

                The lottery machine spit out a ticket which Phil was sure was a guaranteed winner.  As the clerk laid the ticket on the counter, two men approached him and told him to empty the register.  They must have been the ones who followed Phil into the store.  Phil stood there in horror and disbelief.

“Get the hell out of here you stupid punks” yelled the old man.

He then reached for a baseball bat which he stored under the counter for such occasions. As he pulled the bat into view one of the robbers reached under his jacket and pulled out a gun.  A struggle ensued but was ended abruptly as the gun fired.  The robber let the gun fall to the floor as the clerk fell onto the counter and then to the floor.  The robbers seemed terrified by the event and lurched out of the store without taking any money and without picking up the murder weapon.  Phil was in a state of shock.  He picked up his bloody lotto ticket and he noticed the glimmer of the gun laying on the floor.  Phil reached for the gun and picked it up.  It still felt warm.  Phil had never held a gun before.  Then he realized that his fingerprints were all over the gun and he was alone in the store with a murdered man.  Phil began to panic.  He stuck the gun in his coat pocket and ran out of the store.  He went straight home to safety.  He may not have been comfortable there but at least he was safe.  When Phil got there Alice was asleep.  He took the gun out of his pocket and washed his fingerprints off it.  He proceeded to hide the gun in one of Alice’s old purses.  Phil was still shaking from what he saw.  He climbed into bed but he couldn’t sleep.  The events of that night echoed through his mind.  He couldn’t go to the police.  How would he explain the gun?  What if someone had seen him leave the store?  Phil tossed and turned all night.

The next morning Alice immediately cross examined him about his ware-a-bouts.  While she had kicked him out, she had no intention of him really leaving.

“Where the hell did you go last night” Alice asked.

“None of your business, I just walked around, bought a lotto ticket” Phil answered.

“A Lotto ticket, why the hell do you waste your money.”

Alice proceeded to criticize Phil for dreaming.  Phil never said anything about the murder which he witnessed or the gun which he brought home. 

That evening Alice sat down to read the newspaper when she noticed the store about the murder at Rosenberg’s minimart.

“Oye vey, what’s the world coming to” she sighed.

Then she noticed the previous night’s lotto numbers printed in the paper.

“Ok Mr. Smarty Pants go get your stupid lotto ticket and I’ll show you what a loser you are” Alice yelled.

Phil got the ticket out of the jacket pocket and handed it to Alice. She examined the ticket carefully then gasped. Oye vey. She reexamined the ticket. 

“No, this can’t be.”

All eight numbers matched and Phil and Alice had just become millionaires. Phil realized the possible conflict in the situation. The ticket had been purchased at Rosenberg’s minimart where a man had been murdered the night before. The ticket was also stained with the blood of the murdered man.  “What am I to do” Phil thought.  He couldn’t stop Alice from collecting the money and he couldn’t let anyone know that he was in the store when the man was killed because he still had the murder weapon.

“Alice let’s wait a while before we claim the prize” Phil suggested.

“We, you say we, this money is all mine for all the years I’ve suffered with you” snapped Alice.

Alice ran to the phone to call the claim number in the paper 777-IWON.

“Jersey state lottery” the man answered

“I won, I won a million dollars.” Yelled Alice

The man wrote down all of the pertinent information and told Alice that some state officials would be over shortly to verify her claim.  Phil was extremely nervous about the situation; however, he thought that maybe it would work out.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, I’ve got nothing to worry about” he thought.

“Alice, now we can retire to Miami Beach” Phil said.

“We? I told you, you’ll never see a penny of this money” Alice replied.

The doorbell rang and Alice let two men wearing suits and two policemen into the apartment.

“Please come in. Did you bring my money with you” Alice asked.

“May we see the ticket?”

Alice handed them the ticket and the four men huddled together to examine it.

“Mrs. Mostel, did you buy this ticket” asked one of the men.

“Yes, I bought it last night” replied Alice.

“How come there is blood on the ticket” the men questioned.

Without thinking Alice said “I must have cut myself.”

“May we see the cut” the men quickly responded.

“Why do you ask? No you may not.”

Alice looked around for Phil but all this time he had locked himself in the bathroom and was listening at the door.  Phil was sure they were on to something.

“Mrs. Mostel, we have a search warrant.  These two officers are going to search your apartment”

What the hell for” yelled Alice.

“Well Mrs. Mostel we have evidence that the person who bought this ticket murdered the clerk at Rosenberg’s minimart.”

As Phil walked into the room Alice pointed at him and yelled “It was my husband, he purchased the ticket.”

“Mrs. Mostel, you said that you bought the ticket.”

At that moment the two officers came back into the room.

“I think we found the murder weapon, it was in the old lady’s purse.”

Phil had to cover himself.

“How could you Alice? I told you not to buy that gun.”

Alice couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  The officers arrested her and took Phil down to the station for questioning.  Phil told the police that Alice was gone for several hours that night and she always took the gun with her for protection.

“I told her not to buy that gun from that hoodlum but she never listened to me.”

The officers confirmed that the gun was the murder weapon. They also confirmed that the lottery ticket had the murdered man’s blood on it.  While Phil didn’t feel good about what he did, he never changed his story.  The trial was relatively open and shut.  The police revealed that they had rigged the lottery because they knew that the person who bought the ticket was in the store at the time of the murder.  The jury returned a verdict of murder in the first degree and Alice was sentenced to die in the electric chair.  Immediately after the sentence was handed down, Phil’s life insurance company tried to cancel his policy of Alice: However, the courts ruled that the company couldn’t cancel the policy just as they couldn’t cancel the policy of someone who became terminally ill.  As Alice’s day of reckoning approached Phil made plans to view the execution, at the state’s request.  Phil thought that it seemed odd; however, he was told that it was common for family members to view their relative’s executions.  While Phil felt bad about what he had done, he relished the fact that he would soon be free of Alice and he could retire to Miami Beach with the money from Alice’s life insurance payoff.  As the procession entered the death chamber, Alice looked up at Phil.

                “Phil how could you do this” she moaned

                “Phil why you do this to me”

                As Alice was strapped into the chair, she kept repeating

                “Phil you’ll rot in hell”

                “Phil you’ll rot in hell”

                Phil closed his eyes but he could still hear Alice. The executioner pulled the switch and the lights flickered and Alice’s body shook violently.  Phil passed out from the sight and fell to the floor. As he laid there he heard “Phil you’ll rot in hell” how could this be?  Would Alice torment hem forever? Phil shuttered as he regained consciousness and opened his eyes.  He was back at home and in his own bed.  Phil still heard Alice.

                “Phil, Phil you’ll rot in hell, if you don’t get out of bed and bring the portable T.V. in here” Alice yelled.

                Phil arose to realize that he had been dreaming, in fact, he had dreamed the entire episode.  He never bought a lottery ticket, no one was ever murdered but worst of all Alice was still alive.

                “Phil bring the god damned T.V. in here” Alice Yelled.

                Alice was taking a bath and she didn’t want to Miss Jeopardy.  Phil took their small T.V. into the bathroom and turned it on.

                “Phil for once in your life do something right and change in to channel 10” Alice Yelled.

                Phil looked at Alice and realized that he couldn’t take it anymore.

                “Tell you what Alice, you do it.”

                Phil threw the T.V. into the bath tub. Sparks flew. The lights flickered. Alice shook violently.  Phil walked to the phone and told the operator that his wife must have knocked the T.V. into the tub while she was watching Jeopardy.

                Alice was pronounced dead and the cause was listed as accidental electrocution.  Phil received the one million dollar payoff from Alice’s life insurance policy.  Phil took the money and opened a show store.  He hired a manager and retired happily in Miami Beach.

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