Bobcat Bingo

The rain had been inching its way across the Ozarks for the past several hours, and the scattered drops on the front window were starting to coalesce. It would only be a matter of time before it started in earnest, and then the bum out front would surely find his way inside. Any excuse would do, but the rains this time of year were a relatively good one.

Ever since this new guy had showed up earlier in the week, I hadn’t seen old Charlie around the storefront. Charlie was the kind of bum you didn’t mind milling around. He was mostly quiet, kept to himself, even occasionally picked up garbage around the pumps, but this new fella, he gave me the creeps. The camouflage coat he wore was too big, his hands were always thrust deep in his coat pockets, and the unlaced black Army boots flopping loosely as he walked all made me doubt he had ever had any real soldiering before. I had complained to the manager three times this week already, customers kept telling me he had asked them for smokes on their way in, but apparently the corporate policy forbade targeting loiterers, as if the stiffs who made that policy ever had to actually see or deal with these people face to face.

The rain is picking up, damn it, he’ll be coming in before much longer.

A Subaru with MN plates pulls into pump three. I reach over and flip the pump switch on. Before the Subaru gets half a tank, the downpour has started. Baggy camo jacket finally comes in and shakes off the rain, a relieved look on his face like a pilot just turned off the seatbelt sign and he’s now free to move about the cabin. He starts making his way up and down the aisles, slowly considering all the items he won’t be buying.

The Subaru driver is just hanging up the nozzle when I look back. If he comes in, I’m going to ask him about the ice up in Minnesota. I’ve heard that they drive their cars on the lakes when they freeze in the winter. I always wondered if it was true. He finishes cleaning his windows and starts toward the front door.

“Are there free refills on these fountain drinks?” asks no-laces from the back wall.

“Only on the 64 ouncer,” I say as I point to a stack of comically giant, plastic souvenir cups next to the soda machine. The current edition was still showcasing some no-name luger from Missouri who had unexpectedly won gold in the latest Winter Olympics. Of course, he’s not no-name anymore, he’s got his face on a million comically giant, plastic souvenir gas station fountain beverage cups, so maybe I should be jealous instead of annoyed. The Olympics were three months ago, and I knew for a fact that there were still about a thousand more of those cups stashed in the employee breakroom in back. Maybe we’d sell out by Christmas.

MN plates was at the counter now.

“You guys got any good scratch-offs here?”

“Bobcat Bingo is pretty new, been selling lots of those,” I said. I’d been selling lots because of a strategic effort by the manager to keep riding me to sell them. He bought two, paid for his gas, and sprinted back through the rain to leave. Shit! I had forgotten to ask him about driving on the ice.

“Hey, if I leave and come back, can I bring this back for the free refills?” One of the over-sized cups was on the counter in front of me. The last thing I wanted to do was give this guy a reason to keep coming back in here.

“That’s how it works” I begrudgingly confessed. “Bring it back as many times as you want.”

He left it sitting on the counter as he went to peruse the savory bits on the rotating spindles of grease.

The front door smacked open and scared the Ozarks out of me. I hadn’t even noticed my Subaru driver coming back from his car.

“I won, man! Fucking Bobcat Bingo! You were right on!” He was shaking and bouncing around like he’d just drank a case of energy drinks.

“Seriously? Way to go” I said. “How much did you win?”

“$20,000 man!”

I choked. I had expected him to say a couple hundred, maybe a thousand. I’d sold a couple $1,000 winners in the two and half years working here.

“What do I do with it?” he asked. “Do you guys call someone or what?”

I had never sold that big of a winning lottery ticket, but as employees we were trained to instruct winners that only prizes under $600 could be paid in-person at a lotto seller.

“You’ve got to call the number on the back of the scratcher and make an appointment to get your winnings paid” I told him.

“Oh, right. Thanks.” He fumbled his cell out of his pocket and struggled to dial. Boy did he have the shakes bad. He headed back outside while he attempted to make contact with the Missouri Lottery Commission.

I glanced over to my shady soda patron, but he wasn’t smiling. He didn’t look surprised. He was definitely not sharing in this MN bloke’s good fortune. His gaze followed the Subaru driver, and he looked…determined. He followed the owner of the scratch-off out the front door. The Subaru driver was still on his phone, just on the sidewalk outside. The rain had let up a little, but he was staying under the cover of the canopy overhead. The camo jacket directly behind him looked left, then right, and pulled a loose chunk of wood from one of the firewood bundles stacked by the door. The blood surged up into my ears and the rain went suddenly quiet. If ever there was a time for heroics, it was now. All I was able to muster was “hey” before the stroke came down on poor Bobcat Bingo winner. The strike was aimed right at the cellphone at his ear, and he predictably crumpled as the blow hit him square in the temple. Now I’m really hoping this coward had never been a real soldier. He snatched up the scratch-off that had been dropped in the puddle at their feet, and he started running towards the back of the station.

I grabbed the cordless phone on the counter and dialed 911 as I ran to assess the poor bastard in a heap outside. The next several minutes were pretty foggy. I had a hell of a time making out what the 911 lady was saying with the blood still in my ears. I didn’t have any kind of first aid training so the best I could do was pull the Subaru driver back into the store out of the rain until the ambulance arrived. The EMTs showed up pretty damn quick, and they had him loaded into the ambulance by the time the sheriff arrived a few minutes later. I didn’t understand a lick of the doctor jargon they were spouting when they were checking him out, but I do remember hearing them say to each other that his cell phone was probably the thing that saved his head from being split wide open.

By the time the sheriff got around to asking me questions about what I’d seen, and everything I could remember about baggy camo jacket, the blood had retreated a bit, but I still couldn’t stop shivering; probably the adrenaline wearing off. All I could think was that if that low-life prick was intent on hiding in the woods back there, he really might get away with this. It was all state forest land for miles and miles, and it would take dogs to find him in there. They’d bring them too, dogs. And boots with laces.

I told the sheriff about when he had first showed up earlier in the week, how he never bought anything and how he kept pestering customers for smokes. I know the sheriff was just doing his job and taking as much information as he could, but the way he was writing everything I said down in this little black notebook made me feel guilty somehow. Something about it kept bothering me. You always see cops in movies keeping notes in these little black notepads, but something about the sheriff’s was different. His opened sideways and the movie ones always flipped open from the top. What an odd thing to be bothering me now. Once my statement was complete and the sheriff had what he needed, he headed out.

I seriously doubted they’d ever catch this guy. What a bum deal for that Subaru driver. I headed back toward the counter to try and resume whatever semblance of a regular workday was left to save, and then I saw it, that comically giant, plastic souvenir cup left on the counter. There was a glimmer of hope as I realized that that Olympic gold medalist Missouri luger may just save the day again. I bolted outside to catch the sheriff and told him about the cup that the camo jacket scratch-off thief had failed to pay for, but had undoubtedly left his fingerprints on. The sheriff got a big plastic bag from his vehicle and came back in to collect the cup. As he left, I smiled thinking that if his fingerprints were in the system, they would be waiting for him when he tried to go cash in that Bobcat Bingo winner.