The Ticket

He brought his shaking, grimy hands up to his face to wipe away the hot spit and tears off his face. This was not the first time today that someone in a suit had spit on him but it hurts the same every time. His tears ran down his face to his five o’clock shadow and finally get sucked up by his top coat. He sniffles, wipes away the mucus with his sleeve and covers his head with his arms. Underneath all of his coats he is still freezing cold. People race by him throughout the day, muttering cruel names, treating him like filth, acting like he doesn’t exist, and occasionally tossing a few spare coins into his beaten up hat on the ground. He waits there all day looking as desperate as he can to get just a few dollars for food that night until he has to make the long trip back home to the alleyway he sits right beside all day long.

A fierce night wind stings like needles through his layers of thick jackets, so he has to hide behind the dumpster in his alley. He shakes ferociously and ducks his head under his arms. The cold is something he has to deal with every day, but this one wind is something special. It howls louder than any of the subways riding by underneath him, and when it hits him it feels like a linebacker. He feels like crying, but he knows that the tears would freeze right onto his cheeks as they fell. This is one of those nights when he wonders why he should go out the next day. He has been going out there for so long that he has forgotten why he continues to try to stay alive. Every day he’s just barely making it to the next day, and for what? He has absolutely nothing to fight for anymore, but he keeps fighting.


That is the cold night, with the fierce winds blowing, when the miracle happens for him. In one of those powerful bursts of wind comes a little piece of paper. It gets pulled past the dumpster and smacks the homeless man straight in the face. He quickly pulls it off and throws it to the ground without thinking of it at all. The wind begins to die down and the homeless man looks around him and sees the colorful piece of paper he has just thrown down next to him and notices something familiar about it. He picks it up and reads, “Scratch and win up to $10,000! 3 chances to win!” He uses his grubby fingernails to scratch off the set of three with doubt. Bell, Bell, Watermelon. He has lost before and he has gotten used to the feeling of pain that comes from losing, from hoping. He tries again and it comes up: Cherry, Cherry, Cherry. He looks to the bottom to see what he’s won and sees three cherries are worth $500. He jumps up and shouts in pure joy. Sure it’s only $500, but that’s the type of money that he is able to collect in a good month of begging. He truly believes that this is the type of thing that could change his life. The pain of the cold and his intense hunger seems to melt away with that little ticket but he knows that that is worthless until tomorrow when he is able to cash it in so he goes to sleep with a smile on his face.

The next morning he peels himself off the ground and his arm and side are rough from all of the rubble that he has had to sleep on. It takes him a moment to remember what happened to him the night before. He gets up, stretches out and then feels that piece of paper in his front pocket. He suddenly remembers what it is and jumps up, grabs his small, tattered pouch and finds his driver’s license and makes his way to the corner store with a quick spring in his step. Walking down the street, people give him the looks of distaste, but it doesn’t matter to him because he has 500 dollars in his pocket. He goes through the line grinning and planning out all of the things that he is going to do with his new found money. A new haircut and shave first, then some new clothes, then a nice meal at a nice restaurant. He continues counting off each thing he will do with the money as he gets closer to the register until he finally hands the cashier the ticket and she says, “Congratulations, sir” to him and hands him the money. No one has called him sir in a very long time, and all he can bring himself to do is smile and nod and walk out of the store.

He keeps true to his promise in his head and first goes to get himself a nice haircut and a shave for 25 dollars at a barber’s shop. This is the first time people have treated him like an actual human being in a long time, and it feels amazing. He is able to have actual conversations with other people and they actually listen to what he has to say. He has been alone so long that this one haircut is the most meaningful activity he has experienced in years. Next he moves down the strip to Macy’s and even just after the shave and haircut people have begun to give him different looks. No more scowls, no more people looking at him like he is just an animal, but now they look at him more like an equal.


He almost skips right into Macy’s out of excitement and delight to go find some new clothing. No longer will he have to wear these ripped up, stained jeans and coat. He goes into that store and spends $125 on a couple new button-down shirts, new khakis and a new pair of shoes. Right as he walks out of the store in those new clothes he throws his old clothing in the trash can. He doesn’t want to ever see those clothes again. “This is the best day of my life,” he thinks as he walks down the street. On his way down the street he notices the sun going down. He hasn’t even noticed the hours slipping away. He has to move quickly to make it to the restaurant before it closes. So he runs all down the street and gets there, past the place where he sleeps, and sees all the people that he normally sees every night, and none of them seem to recognize him. He doesn’t even really take notice of the people’s looks as he passes them by any more. He is just like anyone else walking down the street.

The meal that he has is both the most expensive and the most delicious food he has eaten in many months, no comparison to all of those 2 dollar 7-11hotdogs. He has spent a total of 300 dollars, through all of his food and his clothing and everything that he has bought this day. He feels that he has spent each dollar well because it has made him feel like a normal person on the street. At the end of the day he walks down the street and that smile he had on at the beginning of the day has tripled in size at least.


Down the street he moves until he gets to his alleyway that he calls home and he stops and looks down. The sudden realization of what he is shoots up his spine. He has 200 dollars left and that will be enough money for a few days of food. It will never get him off the street. Even if he could get a room for a couple days, after that he would have no choice but to come back to his alleyway. Just as he is thinking about what to do a car driving by hits a big puddle and shoots murky water all across his new clothing, ruining them. He sits down and leans against the cold, brick wall and begins to cry. He cries for several minutes with his head between his arms when he is brought back by someone throwing a few coins down by his feet. He looks up at the coins by his feet and is horrified. He can’t escape it. He will never be anything more than what he is right now no matter what he does. He sits frozen for several minutes not moving a muscle, looking at the 33 cents down by his feet.


Finally he gets up to make his last purchase with his money. He makes his way down the street to a pawn shop, just like all his other trips that he’s made today. The only difference is that this time there is no smile on his face. It has been replaced with a completely blank face. He pushes the door open calmly and walks up to the counter. The clerk looks at him with the hate that people had shown him every day before today. He orders a .22 revolver and hands the clerk the rest of his money and leaves before he can get any change.


The walk back to his home seems to take centuries compared to how fast the time went earlier that day. With each step he repeats to himself: “I am nothing. I am nothing.” He finally reaches the alleyway he calls his home and sits down behind that dumpster that had sheltered him from the cold wind not 24 hours ago. He brings the revolver up to the side of his head and repeats: “I am nothing,” and squeezes the trigger.