And I Ask You, 'Is It Fate?'

He sits slouched in the trash corner of the Twelve O'clock B train again. He, a man, a poor man, a beggar, wrapped in jagged, dirt stained rags partially hidden under a multicolored, patched corduroy jacket short of the two bottom buttons, hides his blue destitute eyes and ruffled gray hair and mane behind a grimy blue barrette and yesterdays funny pages.

The fact that he is devoid of any official form of education leaves his proficiency in literacy limited. His ail stained deep breaths ricochet off of the news paper and back to his unfortunate nostrils.

His name: Ernie the Liquor Store Drunken Bum, or LSD. As his well-crafted epithet implies, he often spends a good portion of his evenings begging in front of the Ail, Beer and Keg store, frequently referred to as the ABC store or more commonly The Tips. He is usually drunk or high and is a nuisance to the people. During the day our friend, Ernie, rides the Twelve O'clock B train into town in order to plead for alms on Sunset Avenue, a long-stretched collection of blocks that harbores dozens of restaurants, small shops, and several departments stores. It remains a busy street, and is absolutely wonderful for business according to Ernie.

They call it the Twelve O'clock B train because it stops at Forman Plaza, the very core of Sunset Avenue, every day at Twelve O'clock on the dot, and everyday old Ernie slithers off the train and staggers onto the pavement proudly holding his beggar's cup in one hand and his funny pages in the other. The poor indigent never had very much to value. After he lost his job and his wife left him, he hadn't much to live for. He does however possess something that he has held onto dearly for most of his adult life; his shoes, brown, leather eccos, a gentlemen's dress shoe, with lightweight and flexible soles for maximum shock absorption and all day comfort and support. The eccos, the last pair of shoes he buys before the fire and the loss of his job, remain with him for over two decades. Those shoes have been with him through thick and thin and seen him through terrible hardship. He feels they know what's best for him. From time to time he keeps the paper money he rounds up inside his shoes where it will be the safest.

He sees a woman sitting in a window seat admiring his shoes from a distance with a snarl of disgust at how hideous the things look. He says to her, "My shoes is my best friend. They talk to me; and they got soul! Eh eh eh!" He laughs with his raspy, fifty something year-old voice. The well dressed, young woman turns away in repulsion "You get it' Soul' And it got feelings on the insides too! And it wears lace. And it can heal!

My shoes is smart." He bends his head forward on the accented terms but his play on words are to no avail; the woman ignores him as the train comes to a stop at Forman's Plaza. The man's shoes are hardly shoes more a pair of mere foot shelters that can no longer cover his toes or his ankles. However, they mean more to him than his wife ever did, for they are lucky shoes.

Ernie extricates himself from the Twelve O'clock B and wastes his leftover change from last night on a lottery ticket, a pack of cigarettes and some spearmint gum, this is habitual. Upon walking out of the drug store he fills out the ticket and shoves all five pieced of gum into his mouth, disposes of the wrappers onto the city pavement, puts the ticket into his shoe, and leans back to light his cigarette all in a matter of seconds.

Many people pass his cup offset by his proof of spending his money on cigarettes. The Mangum brothers, two rich, white, college preps pass him everyday. They also ride the Twelve O'clock B. Today they tell him that he is lazy and should get a job. The tell him that he makes the entire plaza look dirty. They tell him they will never share a dime with him. He fakes genuine tears, and the two heartless men walk away apathetically.

Moments later, Larry, the seventy year-old, blind mendicant asks our friend, Ernie for a quarter in order to buy himself some coffee. Ernie bitterly denies him, saying, "Look, grandpa, I'm trying to make my own living here." Larry canes away sadly and Ernie remains slouched upon the drug store wall indifferently.

Days later Ernie finds out that he has won the lottery. He has won 5.7 million dollars.

A man with a gun holds up the Twelve O'clock B when it stops at the plaza, and mass pandemonium ensues. During the rumble, Ernie loses the shoe in which he left the ticket. He comes back to the train in desperate search of his ticket, his answer to all his problems, his key to a better life, but he cannot find the ticket there. He searches the back; he searches the front; he searches all over the plaza by day and the liquor store by night, yet finds nothing.

"It must have been stolen," he figures sadly. And surely enough the lottery prize is claimed the following day. Ernie reads the paper allowed as he rides the Twelve O'clock that morning. "Harry Louis and Jeffrey Mangum claim the 5.7 million dollar prize! Those bastards stole my money!"

The Mangum brothers.

They pass by Ernie that morning. Ernie approaches them and explains his story and accuses them of stealing his shoe. They laugh at him and cause a scene. "Didn't we tell you to get a job'" Ernie becomes the laughing stock of the town.

"They'll share with me if it's the last thing they do," he hisses.

Ernie knows where they live.

He breaks into their apartment with a pocket knife and stabs the both of them. Ten minutes later he realizes his actions are going to be fruitless. He is immediately found out and arrested while in a drunken stupor in front of The Tips.

His state appointed attorney convinces him to plead guilty and he was put on death row. He sits in his cell bedecked in an orange jump suit. He falls to his knees, and his wrinkled face sheds genuine tears. He slowly begins to lose his sense and prays to his lost "sole."

Weeks later his ecstatic state appointed attorney returns to Ernie's cell to inform him that he got parole, only to find Ernie dangling from the ceiling of the cell wearing the one shoe. They bury him with the shoe, and the world continues to spin.

Larry, the blind beggar, later enters the Twelve O'clock and comes upon the ecco slouched in the trash corner. He feels the paper within it and asks the nearby, well dressed woman what it reads, and she tells him.

He eventually claims half of the cash prize.

See, the Mangum brother's justly played chance with the lottery and were not guilty of the crime Ernie suspected they'd committed.

So, I ask you, is it fate?

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