Winning the Lottery

But through all the distractions and interruptions, the disagreement between Marty and Louise continued with no sign of resolution. How to handle the money became such a bone of contention between the two of them that by the time the weekend was over, Marty was happy to go back to work.

Around 5:30 that evening, Bobby Womack's telephone rang. "Hey, Bobby," Louise's voice said, "when are you going to come see me again?"

Bobby laughed. "Now that you're rich, I wasn't sure you'd be interested in seeing me anymore."

Now he could hear the pout in her voice. "Aww, Bobby, you know I wouldn't do you that way."

"Well you sure did cut me off cold back in high school, Loulou," he responded.

"Yeah, but that was because you got caught holding pot and had to leave school. My Daddy would've killed me if he'd caught me talking to you after that happened."

Bobby just laughed.

"Anyway, Daddy's not around now, and neither is that stick-in-the-mud husband of mine," Louise went on in a wheedling voice, "so why don't you come over and scratch this itch I've got?"

"I don't know, Louise, I never fucked a millionaire before," he said.

"Well if you'll get your swinging dick over here, you just might get the chance," she said impatiently.

He laughed and hung up the phone.

As she waited for her lover, their conversation reminded Louise of their high school days. Bobby Womack had been her first, and she had fallen for him hook, line and sinker. But their relationship had been cut short when the school principal found marijuana in Bobby's locker. Although the allegations that he was dealing were never proved, the school board had more than enough reason to expel him. His family wound up moving out of town, and Louise had been harshly instructed by her father never to have anything more to do with Bobby, wherever he might be.

Her heart was broken, of course, but over time she gravitated to the quiet young man who seemed so thoughtful and understanding. Their relationship slowly blossomed and by graduation there was no question about what the future held for the two of them. Even when Marty had to drop out of community college because of his father's injury, Louise remained committed to him, and they had finally tied the knot when she got her Associate's degree.

And then, recalled Louise, one day Marty came home from work with word that an old classmate -- Bobby Womack -- had moved back to town and was now working at the same plant. Louise had said nothing at the time, but her heart had skipped a beat at the mention of his name. Later that year at the company picnic, she had made it a point to reconnect with her old boyfriend. It had been difficult for them to see one another until Bobby came up with the suggestion that Marty move to the second shift. Since then, Louise had been getting her itch scratched on a regular basis.

"God, I needed that!" Louise gasped two hours later as she rolled off of Bobby to lie beside him on the bed.

"What's the matter, Loulou, is your hubby not doing his duty?" Bobby teased.

"No he's not," she said vehemently, "and he's being a real pill about the lottery money too. He wants us to take the money over twenty-six years, not all at once. He's being such a pain."

Bobby rolled over to look at her shrewdly. "You know, LouLou, it doesn't have to be like that. I know a way you could have a whole bunch of that money all to yourself. You wouldn't even have to fool with Marty on how to spend it."

Louise turned to look at him expectantly. "Really? Let's hear it," she said.

Things seemed to have calmed down at the plant when Marty went back to work on Monday evening. A number of his friends came by to clap him on the back, and several expressed surprise that he hadn't quit his job immediately. Marty did his best to take it all in stride, but he did notice that there seemed to be a background conversation that died away every time he came into the area. He'd never sought to be the center of attention and he found that he didn't enjoy it now that he was in that position.

The next couple of days continued in a similar fashion. The only real difference Marty could see was that some of the glances he was getting were no longer smiling; a few of the men even stared at him with open resentment. "What's all that about?" Marty wondered. "I never did anything to them." Nevertheless, it made him uneasy.

Things seemed to be returning to normal on Friday night until the dinner break. Marty was eating with Terry when he saw the shift manager walking toward him, accompanied by a stranger in a suit and tie.

Marty looked up curiously when the manager approached him. "Sorry to interrupt your dinner, Marty, but this fellow said it was urgent that he speak to you."

The stranger stepped forward and asked, "Are you Martin Goodpasture?"

When Marty acknowledged the fact, the man thrust an envelope into Marty's hands and said, "You are served." As Marty stared at him in confusion, the fellow turned on his heel and walked away.

Marty turned to Terry and asked, "What does that mean, 'you are served'?"

Terry shook his head in bewilderment, but the shift manager turned and gestured to the other men who had clustered around. "You fellows get on back to work now." Then, as the other workers reluctantly departed, he turned back to the two men seated at the table. "Marty, I think if you'll look at those papers you'll find that your wife is suing you for divorce. That's what happened when my wife dumped me."

"Divorce?" Marty gasped in shock. "That can't be right!"

Terry had taken the envelope from Marty's hands and was looking at the contents. "I'm no lawyer," he told his friend, "but I think he's right. It says this is a petition for divorce."

Marty looked at Terry in disbelief. "There's got to be a mistake." Then he turned to the shift manager. "I've got to go home and talk with Louise. I've got to straighten this out right now."

His manager looked at him sadly. "You go ahead, Marty. Just don't do anything crazy, y'hear?"

Marty's thoughts were in turmoil as he drove back home from the plant. They became even more agitated when he spotted Bobby Womack's red truck parked in his driveway. Marty pulled in behind the big red Dodge Ram and rushed to the front door of his house. To his consternation, his key wouldn't fit in the front door lock. After trying unsuccessfully several times, he began to pound on the door. "Louise! Louise, let me in!" he yelled, but there was no response.

Suddenly his cell phone rang and when he answered it he heard his wife's voice. "Marty, quit pounding on door. What are you tryin' to do -- disturb the neighbors?"

"There's something wrong with the lock, Louise, it won't open."

"It won't open," she said calmly, "because I had all the locks changed after you left for work."

"Why'd you do that, Louise?" Marty demanded.

"I know you got the papers at work, Marty. You know good and well that we're getting a divorce, and I don't want you comin' in the house any more."

"But it's my house," Marty shouted angrily. "I live here. You can't lock me out of my own house!"

"Well I can and I have," she shot back quickly, "and my lawyer says it's up to the court to decide who gets the house."

Marty began to curse as he paced back and forth. When he noticed the Ram truck again, he angrily demanded, "What's Bobby Womack doing here? I recognize that big-ass truck of his."

"Bobby came over here to give me some, uh, comfort in this stressful time," Louise said with a little giggle. "Besides, I needed his help to get the locks changed and to carry all your stuff out." Marty glanced around and for the first time noticed the black garbage bags sitting by the driveway.

Abruptly, Louise's voice took on a serious tone. "Anyway, all that's none of your business any more. So you just go away before I have to call the police on you for disturbin' the peace." Just before she disconnected the call, Marty thought he heard Bobby laughing in the background.

Marty tried to dial her back, but she refused to answer. In a rage, he snapped his cell phone closed and walked around to the garage. It was locked, but the side door was open and Marty slipped inside. Hidden away on a top shelf behind some boxes was his 9 mm pistol. He pulled it out and quickly checked to be sure it was still loaded. He tucked the automatic in his belt.

As he stalked to the front door, he noticed several of his neighbors peering through their windows at the commotion. He stopped and got control of myself. "What am I thinking?" he asked himself. "This ain't worth going to jail for." Ashamed at what he had been considering, he hurried over to the garbage bags and, after confirming that they contained his clothes and personal items, stowed them in the back of his truck. Then, angry and frustrated, he peeled rubber as he drove away.

He'd only driven a few blocks before he pulled over to the side of the road to think. "What am I gonna do now? I been locked out of my own house with nuthin but my clothes and I don't even have a place to sleep." Finally he pulled out his phone and made a call. "Mom, is it O.K. if I stay with y'all tonight? I'll explain when I get there."

His parents were both sitting at the kitchen table when Marty arrived. His Mother and Father liked Louise a lot, and Marty soon found himself getting the third degree. "What did you do to make her throw you out like that?" his mother demanded after he had finished his account of the evening.

"Mom, I didn't do anything. One day we were all lovey-dovey and the next day she locked me out. I think it's this damn lottery thing -- it's made her crazy or something."

It was clear that his parents had their doubts, but they let him alone so that he could go back to his old room and try to get some sleep.

Marty spend a miserable weekend mostly sitting in his old room trying to sort out his emotions and figure out what had happened. In many ways he felt like he was back riding the old merry-go-round on his grammar school playground. One minute he'd feel angry and vindictive towards Louise; the next he was filled with loneliness for his wife and the happy marriage he'd once had. Elaborate plans for payback were followed by denial that any of this was happening. The only relief he was able to find was when he went over to the park to jog and do his calisthenics.

Saturday afternoon his cell phone rang and he answered it eagerly, hoping it was Louise calling to say it had all been a mistake. Instead, it was Terry inviting him to have dinner with them on Sunday. Marty was glad for the chance to get out from under the suspicious eyes of his mother, so he gratefully accepted.

Normally Marty would sleep late on the weekends, but now he found himself waking early, his mind still churning with the pain of Louise's actions and conflicting thoughts about how to respond. When it happened again on Sunday morning, Marty decided to go to church, hoping for some spiritual guidance.

The decision proved to be disastrous. As he sat in the pew, all he could think about were the families he saw sitting around him. They made him feel his own loss even more acutely than before, and he couldn't concentrate on the preacher's words.

But that wasn't the worst of it. After the service, Marty tried to slip away quickly to avoid having to speak to friends and acquaintances. But he got slowed down by the congregation milling about outside, and suddenly he saw Louise's parents, the Luttrells, headed for him.

"You got a lot of nerve comin' to a house of God after what you done to my daughter!" the old man said in a loud, angry voice.

Marty was stunned. "I didn't do anything to Louise, Mr. Luttrell," he said. "She's the one who kicked me out," he protested.

"Sure," her father shouted, "after she caught you foolin' around with some whore while she was off workin' at the retirement home!"

"Louise said that?" Marty asked in astonishment. "But it's not true -- I never touched another woman!"

A crowd had gathered around them, watching to see what would happen.

"My Louise said you'd deny it," the old man fumed. "Well, you can just collect your damn lottery money and go take up with any tramp you want now. But if I was a few years younger I'd teach you a lesson for sure," the old man swore, shaking his fist in Marty's face.

Mrs. Luttrell grabbed her husband's arm and pulled him away from Marty. With the man still cursing under his breath, the two of them stalked away as the crowd watched. Then people broke into small knots and began to talk in low voices about the scene they'd just witnessed, leaving Marty standing there angry and humiliated. In bewilderment he slunk off through the crowd back to his truck.

That evening, all Marty could talk about with Terry and his wife Sally was the morning's encounter. The outrage Marty felt at being falsely accused mingled with the anguish of Louise's betrayal was painful for them to hear.

As they listened, Terry and Sally exchanged concerned glances, and did their best to help Marty with expressions of sympathy and support. Finally they got him calmed down enough to eat dinner. Afterwards, Terry asked Marty what he planned to do next. "I don't know, Terry, I've never been through anything like this before," Marty admitted.

"Well, I know the first thing you better do Monday," Sally said. "You better get yourself a good lawyer. There's an awful lot at stake in this divorce, and you'd better be protected."

"Hell, I don't even know any lawyers," Marty said helplessly.

"My uncle is one," Terry said. "You can call him."

The prospect of having to go through a lengthy legal battle was a daunting thought, but Marty realized that his friends were right, so he took the phone number.

"What about the plant?" Terry wanted to know. "Are you going to go back to work on Monday?"

Marty nodded vehemently. "Oh yeah, for sure. With everything so up in the air, I need to keep my job, no matter what. I've still got bills to pay and I can't sponge off my folks forever. I'll be there Monday afternoon right on time."

When Marty drove up to the plant on Monday a little before the start of the shift, the familiar routine felt somewhat reassuring, but it didn't last long. The shift manager was waiting for Marty at the employee entrance and steered him to his office.

"Marty, I need to let you know something. Bobby Womack came in today and quit his job. He was telling everyone who would listen that he was gonna be livin' with your wife and doin' it on your lottery money. As you can imagine, that little bit of gossip burned through the plant like a wildfire through underbrush. Listen, if you want to take another vacation day, I'd sure understand."

Marty's head had sunk lower and lower as the shift manager talked, but finally he looked up with a determined expression on his face. "Thanks, but I guess I'll go on and do my job. People are gonna talk no matter what I do, so I guess I might as well face it now as later."

When he walked out on the plant floor, Terry came up to him and said quietly, "Hang in there, man." The rest of the workers seemed to avoid him as much as possible, but Marty could hear conversations going on in the background, accompanied by a few snickers. He found it difficult to concentrate on his work, and Terry stopped him from making a mistake at one point. By the time his shift was over, he had to force himself not to run out the door to his truck.

The next morning Marty drove into town to meet with his new lawyer, Terry's uncle. The attorney listened to Marty's account of what had happened and then examined the petition that had been served on him. When he had finished, he looked up at Marty.

"Since the two of you have no children, this is going to be pretty straightforward. Georgia is a community property state, which means basically that the two of you will split all your assets down the middle, and each of you will get half."

"Wait a minute," Marty exclaimed, "I was the one who bought the lottery ticket. Doesn't that count for something?"

"Sorry," the attorney said, "you brought the asset into the marriage so it is considered common property. That would be true if Louise had bought the ticket instead of you."

Marty wasn't happy about that, but then another worry arose in his mind. "What about the house? I've put a ton of work into fixing it up, remodeling and adding more space. Don't I get credit for that?"

The attorney shook his head. "Marty, the court doesn't want to spend its time trying to figure out who did what and how much it's worth. The law stipulates that both partners are equal, and both partners split the assets. So unless the two of you can work something else out, you'll probably wind up selling the place and dividing the proceeds."

"That just doesn't seem fair," Marty mumbled.

"Well, it may not be fair, but it's the law," the attorney said. "But look on the bright side: with what you've won in the lottery, you're going to walk away from this in a lot better financial shape than most people who get divorced."

"Let me think about it and I'll get back to you," Marty said, and headed for the door.

As he drove home, he kept thinking about everything that had happened. "A month ago my biggest concern was adjusting to working on the second shift," he thought ruefully. "Two weeks ago, all I had to worry about was how to spend a fortune. Now my wife has kicked me out of my house, she's telling lies behind my back, people are either laughing at me or cursing me, I've had to move in with my folks again and my life has turned to shit. Winning that damned lottery just made things worse, not better."

Over the next two weeks Marty became reclusive. He went to work every evening but kept to himself. During the day he spent most of his time doing chores around his parents' house to help them out. Not being able to work on his own house, he devoted the rest of the time to his daily workout routine. Throughout it all he kept thinking about what had happened, and he slowly he began to form a plan to get his life back.

The next time he saw Terry and Sally, Marty told them what he'd learned from the attorney and what he'd decided to do. Terry was shocked. "Are you sure you want to do that, man?"

"I've been doing a lot of thinking, Terry, and this is the right thing for me," Marty said with conviction.

"O.K., buddy, if that's what you want, I'll back you, but a lot of folks are going to think you're crazy," Terry said.

"Maybe they're right," Marty said with a wry smile.

The following Friday, Marty and his attorney went to a meeting at the office of Louise's lawyer to discuss the property settlement. Marty was not surprised to see Bobby Womack in attendance.

After everyone was seated, Louise's attorney began to discuss the equal division of family assets when Marty stopped him. "That's not the way I want to do it," he said firmly.

Before he could go on, his attorney spoke up. "I'd like to go on record that I have advised my client that what he is about to propose is not in his best interests, but he has decided to disregard my advice." The attorney sat back in his chair and folded his arms to indicate his annoyance.

Marty picked up a document prepared in advance and leaned forward. "Here's the deal, Louise. I'll give you the lottery ticket -- you can have all the money, the whole damned thing. All I want in exchange is to get my house back and for you to admit what you've done. It's all spelled out on this paper." He slid a copy across the table.

Louise started to protest, but Bobby grabbed her arm and began whispering urgently to her. Her attorney was clearly caught by surprise by Marty's proposal. After some confusion, he asked for a few minutes to confer with his client in private, and the three of them left the room.