The Winning Numbers

When my grandfather was alive, I would visit him every Sunday and Wednesday.

Mandy was just a little thing, but she enjoyed our visits too. Pop was fun. He played songs for her on his keyboard, and he let her play it too. And he was very animated as he told her funny stories.

He always put Jeopardy on at seven o’clock. He loved to hear me answering the questions, especially the “final Jeopardy.”

“You should go on that show,” he would say. “You could make a lot of money.”

Pop knew I had no money. I was a single mother from the day my daughter was born. I didn’t have a dime to my name before she was born, since I was working three jobs to pay my way through college. After she was born I had even less. He was always trying to give me money.

“Here, take this twenty.”

“No, Pop. You don’t have to do that.”

“Take it for you and the baby. Just take it. I’m sure there’s something you need.”

I would make him lunch and dinner while we were there, too. He loved when I cooked for him.

“Why does toasted cheese always taste better when you make it?” he would ask.

“Because it’s nice to be taken care of sometimes,” I would tell him.

Pop was blind for the last 15 years of his life. He still took care of himself just fine, though, and people who met him didn’t even realize that he couldn’t see. And he would always figure out ways to do tasks that seemed beyond the capability of a blind 75 year old man, like taking out his air conditioner or grouting a loose tile in the bathroom.

But there were some things he just couldn’t do alone, like going to the store. And since he couldn’t go to the store, he couldn’t “play the numbers.” So every Sunday and Wednesday he would give me some money (yes he was blind, but he always knew which bill in his pocket was the $5 and which was the $20) and I would play the “Pick 3” for him. I always left his house with little scraps of paper in my pocket with his numbers written down: 616, 327, 684…

He won fairly often, too.

Sometimes the numbers were birthdays or other important dates. Sometimes he was trying to use a system, and he would pick his numbers based on the number from the day before.

“Put in 817 for me. See yesterday was 726, so I’m gonna go one up on the 7, one down on the 2, and one up on the 6. We should do alright, as long as it’s not Yolanda Vega.”

Yolanda Vega was one of the women who announced the numbers on TV. Pop never liked her. “She picks terrible numbers,” he would say.

Well one day Pop called me, all excited. “Did you hit too?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“The numbers. I was wondering if you hit too, since we played your birthday, 427.”

“Oh, are you kiddin’? I didn’t play it.”

“You didn’t play it?”

“Nah, I don’t usually play. I usually just put yours in.”

Truth was, I had forgotten to put his numbers in. We had stayed with Pop later than usual the night before. Mandy was getting cranky, and I had just gone straight home and put her to bed.

“Which store did you get them from?”

“Baisley’s.” I lied. I lied to my grandfather. But how could I tell him that I didn’t put the numbers in? What else did my grandfather have to look forward to, besides my visits and playing the numbers?

“You’ll have to go back and see how much we won.”

So I drove to the bank to see how much money I had. $367.42. I wasn’t sure which bills had gone through and which were still pending, but it didn’t matter. I took out $350 and went to see my grandfather.

“Here it is, Pop. You hit for $350.”

“Yeah? $350?”

I called out each denomination as I handed him the bills, so he knew what they were. “Here’s a fifty, and another fifty, and a twenty…” He was grinning from ear to ear.

“So you didn’t play your birthday, huh?”

“Nope. Too bad… we could’ve both hit. That would have been fun.”

After I handed him all the money, he gave me a hundred back.

“Keep this for you and Amanda,” he said.

“No, Pop. You don’t have to do that. These are your winnings.”

“Well it was your birthday that hit. Here, take it. I’m sure there’s something you need. Go buy something for you and my great-granddaughter.”

“How about if I take the three of us out to lunch?”

I can’t remember if I bounced any checks that month. I probably did, but I really don’t remember. The only thing I do remember, now that 10 years have passed and my grandfather is gone, is that I made him happy that day. And that’s all that matters.