bullocks

This is not done, but it does say: "bullocks" in the first sentence.


“’Bullocks!’ Is a word that English people say instead of ‘Fuck,’” Randal shouted after six shots of what might as well have been battery acid, “So fuck you, and fuck this!” He said and turned to leave the bar, but he didn’t see the stool that he’d knocked over a minute before and he fell. Randal hit the floor before he noticed what had happened; he didn’t have time to hear the laughter because he was already out cold.
It was a long time before he woke up on the cold, hard ground in the ally behind bar. Someone had been kind enough to toss him there on top of a broken beer bottle. The ally was spinning and it was hard for him to tell which smelled worse: the dumpster, or his own vomit. He stood, and for a moment was in doubt as to whether or not he could walk, but he got over his feet, and focused on the cracks in the pavement to steady his weight. How long it had been exactly since he’d hit the big one? He could not say. How much it turned out to be? He knew better than the names of his parents: thirty two million. He hadn’t bothered doing the typical things that a normal person does when one wins the lottery. It all started on a Tuesday.
Randal woke up in the basement of his parents house. He and his wife had separated two years ago and he was now paying her child support for their two children, Randal hadn’t visited them much since he was forced to start paying the child support, maybe he blamed them for his impoverished life; he couldn’t tell. The basement was one large room, no doors, and no bathroom (he had to use the one upstairs), and his bed was located next to the washer and dryer. He woke up that day because the dryer was on, and it was making a loud “BANG, BANG” sound. Earlier that morning, how early he could not know, his mother had put her work shoes into the dryer. Randal laid there listing to the rhythm of the banging singing a little song to himself “BANG, whats it like to die? BANG, is it a grand old time? BANG, BANG, where can I get a gun? BANG, oh lord…forgive me. BANG, BANG,” until one of the shoes hit the door of the dryer hard enough to open it and turn off. The rest of the day was almost a blur, he got up, went to work at the Fill and Go (a gas station next to the freeway), and that’s where it happened. After clocking in stealing a candy bar, and a coffee, he picked up a paper and saw the numbers. He checked. He checked the numbers again. He wanted to ask one of the costumers to take a look at them just in case, but was too afraid that they would either discover that he had lost his mind or they would discover that they were talking to a man holding thirty two million dollars, and who knows what they would do--money will make people do crazy things, and since then, money had made Randal feel a little bit crazy. But mostly he felt almost empty. It was as if he hadn’t stolen that ticket from the gas station tow day days before, it was really more like he had died on that Tuesday. To everyone that claimed to know him, in a way, he had. But Randal can’t be a ghost forever.
He walked. He walked straight to his car turned the ignition and waited for the familur sound of a squealing belt. He drove and he did not think, his mind was a blank slate, he was afraid to think; his hands were shaking.