Lucifer's Lottery Read Free Page A

drifted across his mind when he entered the bar:
    A whore is a deep ditch
. . .
    It was a line from Proverbs, one of many that warned men of the power of lust. Hudson had studied the Bible with great zeal—and he still did—but what would seem strange about that? He’d graduated from Catholic U. with a master’s in theology, and within a month would be entering the seminary. No, what might seem strange, instead, was
his
presence in this bar, a place known to be a
whore
bar, or at least that’s what he’d heard.
    His first name was the same as his last—Hudson—something he’d never understood of his parents, who’d both seemed distant or distracted since the time his memories commenced. He didn’t get it. They were dead now.
They’ll never get to see me ordained, and I’ll never get to ask them why they named me Hudson
.
    Six tiny cracks could be seen in the long bar mirror, but why would Hudson count them?
Obsessive-compulsive?
he wondered. How could he really ever know? His contemplations itched at him. He
knew
why he was here, and was slightly discomfited by the patrons. The bar was simply called LOUNGE ; that’s what the tacky neon said outside, and aside from its notoriety as an establishment that condonedprostitution, his friend Randal had warned that the place catered essentially to “white trash.”
    So
. . .
what does that make me?
    His reflection in the mirror looked like that of a bus bum. Unkempt, hair in need of cutting, eyes open wider than they should be as if used to looking for something that wasn’t there.
    When he glanced down the long, dark room, he counted only six customers—three men, three women—then he noticed they were all smoking. Tendrils of smoke hung motionless in the establishment’s open space, like slivers of ghosts. Hudson didn’t smoke. He’d never even tried because he recalled a childhood sermon: “Your body is a gift 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?”