A silver Corvette sat at a red light. Coleman popped a Pabst and stared. “What’s the deal with all those people in line? Did a Stones concert go on sale?”
“Shhhhh! I’m trying to listen.” Serge turned up the radio. “Lottery’s now projected to break another record by Saturday. I always monitor the lottery when it gets this high.”
“But you hate the lottery.” Coleman burped. “You said it preys on people least able to afford it.”
“Plus, my coffee gets cold waiting in line at the counter.” The light turned green, and Serge passed another daunting assemblage that extended into an alley. “But even if you don’t play the numbers, you have to follow the jackpots as a matter of survival down here.”
Another swig. “How so?”
“If you live in Florida, a major jackpot is like a hurricane about to make landfall,” said Serge. “Society looks no different than during the final hours of storm preparation. The lottery lines screw up all major infrastructure for basic needs, so frantic people fight through snarled intersections to stock up on water and food, get prescriptions filled, hit ATM machines, and keep their cars full of gas, because God knows if you can’t pay at the pump and have to go inside, you better be wearing comfortable shoes.”
“Never thought of it that way.”
“The closer you come to the official drawing of the Ping-Pong balls, the lower the state’s IQ.”
“But why all the fuss now?” asked Coleman.
“That stupid Powerball jackpot a couple years ago that broke a billion dollars. Since then, everyone’s had lottery fever. But the Powerball prizes are back down, and Florida’s are up, so we get all the commotion.”
“Lucky us,” said Coleman.
“But it’s also the perfect setting for our next episode,” said Serge.
Coleman looked down at a ripped spot on his shirt, where an employee name tag had been unceremoniously removed a half hour earlier. “At least we got our new jobs out of the way. Working at that supermarket was nerve-racking.”
“Getting fired after thirty minutes doesn’t count toward an episode,” said Serge.
“I think it does.”
“You don’t get to make the call,” said Serge. “You were the one drinking at the register and messing up the lottery tickets.”
“And you’re the one telling everybody in line not to buy them, then shoving the manager,” said Coleman.
“That was tough love,” said Serge. “I did another statistical analysis. Did you realize that among all the millions of people who played the lottery last week, there were no winners, yet seven others will be struck by lightning in their lifetimes?”
“For losing the lottery?” said Coleman. “That’s harsh.”
“No, that’s not what— . . . forget it.”
Coleman glanced down again. “Do you think they’re going to want their shirts back?”
“I’m taking a wild guess that ‘Get the hell out before I call the police’ means the shirts are our severance package.” Serge hit a blinker. “But it’s all for the best. I just came up with a much better idea for our next gig.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll find out when we get to the Party Store.”
“The Party Store?” said Coleman. “They have everything! . . .”
. . . An hour after their shopping spree, the silver Corvette sat at another typical South Florida strip mall anchored by a tattoo parlor and a Hungry Howie’s pizza place. Serge stood on the edge of the parking lot with a megaphone. “You’re fantastic! Just keep it up!”
“I’m having trouble breathing,” said Coleman. “And I’m getting really hot.”
“That means you’re doing it right,” Serge barked. “Now execute a camel foot and the pancake spin, then a big finish with the inverted butterfly.”
“Okay, here goes.”
“Whoa!” yelled Serge. “That’s way too fast!”
“What do I do?”
“Slow down!”
“I can’t!”
A heavy cardboard sign flew into the air and came down, bonking Coleman on the head. “Ow!”
Serge ran over and helped his fallen friend up into a sitting position. Then he removed the giant, furry costume head. “Coleman, speak to me.”
“This sucks.” He rubbed his forehead. “How come I’m the one who has to dress like a panda and twirl a sign for the Chinese lunch buffet?”
“Because I’m your manager,” said Serge. “Sign-spinning has become an increasingly competitive field. They now even hold conventions with their own version of the X Games. If I don’t teach you the newest technique, there’s no way you’ll survive out here . . .” He pointed across the highway at a gorilla executing a triple Lutz to promote international calling minutes.
“Can’t I just stand still and wave at cars?”
“No!” Serge grabbed the panda head. “Now put this back on. There’s much work to do. Many crowd-pleasing routines to learn: the swim, the flop, the gator, the reverse axle, the Heimlich maneuver, the DUI field test, the restless leg syndrome, the Czechoslovakian Dance of Death . . .”
“I’m just going to wave at cars.”
Serge seized him by the shoulders. “Get a grip on yourself!”
Coleman held out a paw. “I think it’s starting to rain.”
Serge looked up. “Crap, you’re right . . . Hurry! To the bus-stop shelter before your sign starts to smear!”
They dashed under the metal overhang and the sky cut loose, as it is known to do every afternoon in the Florida summer for fifteen minutes.
Coleman took a seat with the panda head in his lap. The bench had an advertisement for corrupt personal injury attorneys: No Pain? No Problem! Across the street, a gorilla glared at them from another bench advertising a credit repair service that just made it worse.
A fingernail scraped at a mustard spot on the panda’s chest. “Serge?”
“Yes, Ling Ling?”
“How come it rains every afternoon in the summer?”
“Temperature differential because land heats up faster than the sea as the sun climbs into the sky, creating a pressure drop and pulling air and moisture in from the ocean.” Serge chugged a giant cup of coffee and gave the gorilla across the street the bird; the gorilla beat its chest. “The rain effect is most pronounced in the summer.”
“Huh?”
“It’s above your need-to-know.” Serge reached in his pocket and began fiddling with a new cell phone. “But don’t worry. It stops as fast as it starts.”
“Rain makes me sticky inside this suit.”
“What are you complaining about? I’m pissed off at filling out official forms.”
“Forms? Where? When were you filling out forms?”
“Inside my head. Another flashback.” Serge pressed phone buttons. “I forgot that I’m really angry at all the forms we’re forced to complete. Name, address, emergency contact, page after page, checking off tiny boxes that you’re a U.S. citizen, don’t have artificial joints and understand the terms of agreement.”
“Who makes you fill them out?”
“Everyone with more money,” said Serge. “It’s the American Dream, version six-point-oh: Some dude finally makes it big, and the first day he drives up to his new mansion, ‘Excellent, now I get to make the others fill out forms.’”
“It’s just not right.”
Serge nodded with conviction. “I’ll be standing at that counter with the sliding-glass window where they hand you a clipboard, and I say, ‘I’ve been here before,’ and they say they have a new filing system, and I respond, ‘But my doctor referred me—he already has all this info. Can’t you share?’ They say, ‘That’s a different office,’ and I say, ‘It’s the same building, in fact it’s right next door. For heaven’s sake, you have state-of-the-art imaging machines that can produce cross sections of every organ practically down to the cellular level, and yet that wall behind you is a baffling barrier to my date of birth?”