First Tuesday, Peter Caroline

Leland Quarterly | Winter 2021

First Tuesday

Peter Caroline

Pops and crackles on God’s gray Earth herald men and their tires, balding in unison, leaning back and over pebbles in the gravel lot, and coughing dust hot behind them.

and I, in a low cinderblock building with a veil of sunlight spotlighting dirt and dust feather-falling to the linoleum, watch through a grime clouded storefront while the radio beside me and a fly far off somewhere, ducking behind rows of dusty snacks struggle to see who can drone the loudest

the bell above the door announces guests: farmers caked in clay nod toward loose cigarettes our hesitant exchange strung together by broken words in the other’s language.

and a gray-haired man that could be my father all knobbed joints and trembling fingers scrapes daily at a lotto ticket with a filthy coin that matches a lonely tooth gleaming in his face like watery eyes looking at something far off

he leaves even poorer and above the door, a stroke of orange at dusk paints the bell and I hit the jackpot every time