Next to liking Coconut Cream Pie, I love to travel. I told Lorrime I had two weeks’ vacation and $2,000 in my pottery-made-in-Mexico piggy bank.
Lorrime did not let me finish what I was saying, "Oh, you won't need that money Marioooooooooo. I am making this trip 'my' project."
"A project?"
"Yes, similar to the off-the-wall projects you asked me to participate in. Now it's my turn to join me in my hitchhiking project to San Antonio, Texas and South Padre Island."
"You want to hitchhike all the way to San Antonio and to South Padre Island?"
"Yes, Mariooo that's what I want, and don't back out on me"

I was shocked to say the least.
After coming out of my shocked state, I asked Lorrime if she knew how many miles of hitchhiking she was talking about. Before she answered my question, I said, “Lorrime, you are talking about hitchhiking for 10,000 miles!”
Her answer let me know she had planned her project well. She said, "Marioooooooooo San Antonio is 546 miles away and it will take us eight hours and twenty-seven minutes." She added, "South Padre, Island is 285.6 miles from San Antonio and it will take us five hours and twenty-two minutes to get there."
Anybody that figures things out to the ten’s and hundredth’s in mileage and time, has done their traveling homework.
The huge Budweiser clock in the El Paso’s I-10 Truck Stop’s Iron Skillet Restaurant wall showed it was 5:07 a.m. It was difficult to see the clock through the heavy cigarette smoke. The sound of silverware against breakfast plates, cup saucers and coffee cups, plus the constant chatter coming from all the truckers having breakfast cluttered my mind. The good thing about the place was the smell of cooked bacon and fresh brewed coffee. The clock on the wall did not point out what day it was, but it didn’t matter because I knew it was Thursday morning. Lorrime and I were hoping we would get a ride straight to San Antonio. I had pasted a small sign on the back of my backpack that read, “San Antonio, or Burst” (burst not bust) to let the truckers in the restaurant know we were hitching a ride to San Antonio.
My backpack carried items as toothbrushes, toothpaste, hand soap, suntan lotion, salt and pepper. Lorrime’s backpack was packed with the 36-hard-boiled eggs, two spoons, two forks, a can opener, a 16 oz., can of fruit cocktail and a case of soft drinks.
Our luck was not that good that morning because we were having a difficult time getting a ride to anywhere, much less to San Antonio. It was past nine in the morning and I was wondering if we were ever going to get past our starting point.
After several hours of waiting for a ride, our luck changed. A farmer approached our table and said he was willing to give us a ride as far as Fort Stockton. Lorrime and I jumped off our seats and accepted the farmers' offer.
When the farmer offered us the ride at the Truck Stop Restaurant, we thought he was driving an 18-wheeler. It turned out he was driving an old, broken-down, ‘57 Chevy truck, and to make matters worse, a huge, pig was on the back of the truck. The pig was as big and wide as the truck and weighed more than 700 pounds. The pig was a 5-year-old white sow with a distinctive black spot above his nose and curved blonde, eyelashes.
Lorrime cringed when she saw the old, shabby, ’57 Chevy truck, and I cringed at the smell coming from it, and worst yet, the thought we were not going to make it several blocks let alone to Fort Stockton! The farmer was a nice person and told us many farm stories. When Lorrime got the chance to put a couple of words in, she asked the farmer, “How come the pig is not facing away from the back of the truck instead? It seems the pig is uncomfortable the way he is facing?” The farmer said, "If I do that, the cab of the truck will fill with pig-poo. The way he is facing, the pig-poo will fall on the road and will help fertilize nature."
"Ooh, that makes sense," said Lorrime.
 

(Back)

 I, for one, was glad the pig was facing the way it was. The stink and foul smell was bad enough as it was! I was glad the farmer was not going to San Antonio. With the heavy load, he had in the back of the truck and going twenty miles per hour, it would take us a lifetime to get there. In addition, the foul smell from the pig would have killed us before we got to San Antonio.
It was in Van Horn where the ‘57 Chevy truck overheated. The smoke, white, heavy, and dense, surrounded us all around. From a distance away on I-10, we resembled a huge white cloud right smack in the middle-of-the-road. Lorrime and I got off the truck as soon as we saw the steam spew out from the front of the run-down truck. The farmer reassured us everything would be alright.
I couldn’t help noticing, as we stood on the side waiting for the smoke to clear, several faded letters on the side of the door, which said, at one time or other, “Bendita Farm,” or “Blessed Farm.” If the farm still exists and if there are more hogs in that farm as the one behind us, it sure needed a blessing.
The farmer, unfazed by the events told us the truck always overheated at the same spot. The farmer poured water from several one-gallon milk containers he kept next to the pig on the back of the truck. Lorrime was standing a mile away from the truck. She said, "Oh, Mariooooooooo, is the truck going to explode?"
"No, Lorrime, it overheated."
"Did the hog in back of the truck have anything to do with it Mariooo?"
"Yeah, it might have. Don't worry Lorrime; the farmer knows what to do."
"Oooh, I don't know. Does that mean we have to start hitchhiking again?"
Before I answered, the farmer said, "Do you folks like corn on the cob?"
Within seconds, Lorrime answered, "Yes! We do!"
The farmer had cooled and refilled the radiator with water. After replacing the empty gallon containers, he opened a burlap sack lying next to them and took out three husks of corn. He proceeded to put them on top of the motor before closing the hood. He said, “We’ll have corn on the cob a couple of miles down the road.”
Lorrime and I looked at each other in amazement.
One to two miles later, the smell of cooked corn permeated the truck. The farmer stopped the ‘57 Chevy Truck, opened the hood and before he put the gas pedal to the floor, we were eating corn on the cob as we headed for Fort Stockton!
Lorrime peeling the husk off the corn asked me, “Marioooooo do you have butter in your backpack?”
“No! I did not think of that when I was packing.”
“Oh. I suppose you did not bring red chile powder either, huh?”
“Nooooooo!”
About thirty minutes later and after we had finished the corn, the farmer had said, after a long period of silence, “...Oh, Mathilda is my love, and my priceless possession! Even though she is big and fat, she is still the love of my life. Her short, beautiful white hair shines in the sun and bristles in the wind.”
Lorrime and I looked at each other thinking the farmer was referring to his wife, when in fact he was referring to the 5-year-old white sow he was carrying on the back of his truck.
We soon got into Fort Stockton, and were glad. In fact, the farmer was gracious enough to let us off at a Rest Stop where we freshened up and ate some of the hard-boiled eggs we had prepared for the trip. Lorrime said, "Mariooo, It was crazy idea hard-boiling three-dozen eggs for the trip."
Munching and cracking another egg I said, "They are good aren't they."
"Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would have been better Mariooo."

Our luck was getting better. At the rest stop, we met a heavyset, but amiable, 18-wheel truck driver named Big Bertha. She saw us thumbing a ride in front of the rest stop. Her rig came to a noisy, loud stop with its hydraulic brakes hissing and spewing compressed air letting us know the rig had come to a dead stop.
Lowering the passenger window she hollered, "Where are my good-buddies goin'?"
Her voice was heavy and raspy; I thought it was a man until I saw her long blond hair and her huge breasts. Lorrime and I responded in unison, "San Antonio."
"Hop in buddies," she said in her raspy voice.
Lorrime was having a difficult time climbing the rig. I pushed her bottom with the palms of my hand as if I was pushing a package to the front seat. After I got next to Lorrime she looked at me and said, "…Oh, Marioooooooo, that was horrible."
Big Bertha introduced herself and told us she was going as far as Austin. She offered to give us a ride and let us off at Junction City, or Segovia, if it was all right with us. We didn’t respond if it was all right or not, we jumped at the chance of getting a ride halfway to our destination. Big Bertha said the rig was hers, well, not hers yet, because she was still paying on it, but in a couple of years, it would be hers. Her rig was roomy and comfortable. Lorrime stared into empty space all the time Big Bertha talked about her 18-wheeler.
Big Bertha was keeping an eye on her driving and on the road. She said, "Yep, I'll be glad when I finish paying this rig."
"How many payments do you have left," I asked.
 

"Oh, shit, about thirty-six…, but time goes by fast and I'll be happy as cow dung when it’s over. I think I will be as happy as I was when I dumped my lazy-assed husband!"
"Are you single now?" Lorrime asked, acting as if the foul language coming from Big Bertha did not bother her.
"Oh, yeah, I am single; hot and ready to roll… for, maybe, two or three rounds with any man that smells heavy of sweat and cow manure."
"That sounds exciting," said Lorrime half believing what she had heard and half believing how she had answered.
Feeling uneasy, but also nervous, I decided to change the subject. I asked Big Bertha about the advantages and disadvantages of owning her own rig as opposed to working under contract for someone else.
Lorrime looked at me with her mouth wide open when Big Bertha took out a paper pouch with an imprint of an Indian on the middle of it. Next, Big Bertha took a big wad of 'Red Man chewing tobacco' before answering my question.
"Yeah, it is not easy to own your rig, but once you have it paid, you rake in the bucks like crazy."
The wad of 'Red Man chewing tobacco' made a huge bulge on the right side of her mouth. She moved the huge lumpy wad of chewing tobacco from the right side of her mouth to the left. Big Bertha continued, "Riding a rig under contract has its advantages, but…," she grabbed an empty coke bottle and spit a heavy, syrupy-looking fluid into the bottle. She continued,"…at the end you never have shit to show for being under contract!"
Lorrime, looking flustered and hiding her uneasy feeling said, “That reminds me of buying a house as opposed to renting it."
"Yep…," Big Bertha grabbed the coke bottle, which was half-full by now with dark syrupy-looking fluid and spit in it again,"…you got it good-buddy."
Between chewing 'Red Man' chewing tobacco, listening to Rock n’ Roll Oldies but Goodies music, and talking to us, Big Bertha was busy answering calls on her CB radio. We found out her ‘handle’ (CB name) was also “Big Bertha.” Lorrime was lost when Big Bertha was telling us about her handle. Lorrime didn’t know the slightest iota of CB radio language. A call came in telling “Big Bertha” about a ‘Smoky’ two miles on her front door taking pictures. Lorrime, right away, grabbed my arm placing her body next to mine and whispered to me in her squeaky, timid-like voice, "Oh, no, Marioooooooooooo there are bears close to us. How can…"
I whispered back to her, "No, Lorrime. Big Bertha is talking to her CB buddies and they are letting her know there is a State Trooper two miles away in the direction we are going. And, no, if you were going to ask me how is it possible that a bear is taking pictures, that means the trooper has a radar gun aimed at oncoming traffic."
"Ooh, I am glad it is not a real bear."
"I don't know, Lorrime; I don't know which is worse, a real bear or a State Trooper."
Big Bertha overheard our conversation and added, "Yeah, right good-buddy, both will bite the shit out o' ya."
It was interesting listening to CB radio language. We were able to figure out what they were talking about sometimes, but the truth of it all, we didn’t know what in the world was going on. I asked her why her CB radio handle was also “Big Bertha?” She told us her friends had met to christen her 18-wheeler rig with her nickname “Big Bertha” and she decided to use that name as her CB radio handle as well.
Big Bertha was big and heavy in stature. Even though her hair looked similar to a Dolly Parton wig, her hair was real. Based on her tall and heavy stature, she could be considered the Paul Bunyan of the female truck drivers; she had a big heart as well. Big Bertha did not make an effort to hide the two tattoos she had on both her arms. In fact, she showed them without blinking an eye. The one on her right arm was a red heart with the inscription in rose-colored letters, which said, "MOM." On her left arm was a ‘skunk’ with the inscription “DAD.” I wanted to ask her, “Why a ‘SKUNK” but decided to leave that alone.
Time passed by and we were fast approaching Junction City. Big Bertha had been communicating with her 18-wheeler ‘buddies’ through the CB radio. She had been asking if anyone at her back door was headed for San Antonio. One of her buddies with the handle of ‘Gallivant’ told her he would be going to San Antonio after he stopped in Austin for two days.
"Well, did ya hear that? What do I tell Gallivant?"
"Oh, it's OK with us," said Lorrime with no hesitation whatsoever.
"Yea, Big Bertha, tell Gallivant we are all for it." I said sounding as if I were in charge.
"Break one-nine, break one-nine, how 'bout that Gallivant; Big Bertha."
"Ten-fo', ten-fo', Big Bertha; Gallivant."
"Ten-four, ten-four, both the Beaver and the Fox agree; break."
"Ten-fo', ten-fo', Big Bertha. Are they Bubble-gummers? Break."
"Ten-four, negative Gallivant; both are good buddies; break."
"Thar's a big ten-fo' Big Bertha. I have to put motion-lotion in my rig; I'll meet them at the panty-hose-junction at 10:30 in the morning. If they aren't there, I'll drink black water and wait for them for thirty minutes. After that, I'll think the good buddy's got a ride with someone else and I'll hit the big slab; copy?"
"Copy, Gallivant; that's a big ten-four."
Big Bertha was elated we had decided to ride all the way to Austin with her. She explained to Lorrime and me that her friend Gallivant was going to wait for us at the 18-wheeler truck stop. He was going to fill up his fuel tanks and wait for us in the coffee shop drinking coffee. He will wait for us for thirty minutes. If we were not in time when he got there, or after thirty minutes, he would hit the road.
After the lengthy instructions Big Bertha said, “Ya’ll make good company.”
The soft and constant purr of the rig’s engines and the comfortable cab made it comfortable to fall asleep. Lorrime fell asleep listening to the Rock n’ Roll music coming from the rigs stereo speakers.
Before we knew it, we were in Austin. We said our good-byes and thanked Big Bertha sincerely from our hearts. All of us had tears on our eyes. Big Bertha reminded us, wiping a tear from her left eye; pretending a speck of dust was on it and said, "Don't forget good buddies, be on time to hitch with my buddy Gallivant. OK, you're on your own; happy threads and God bless."
(Back)

Lorrime was blowing her nose by this time and said, "Good-bye Bertha. Thank you for the ride. We love you."
I don't know why, but I was choked up as well, with tears in eyes I said, "Yes, Bertha, God bless and thank you."
This is the first time I had been in Austin. The place looked as a backdrop to the ways cities will look like in the year 3000. Highways and byways were everywhere going here and there and back and forth from all directions.
Big Bertha did not let us off anywhere close to downtown. She dropped us off on the off- ramp of I-35 and Cimarron Road, but our luck stayed with us. We saw a bus that showed a sign with the word, “Downtown.” It was great we were not lugging our luggage. We would have never made it to the bus stop since we had to run for two blocks to catch the bus.
Talking about luggage, Lorrime had planned this project well. We sent our luggage by Greyhound Bus. This was great because we did not have to be dragging luggage all over the place. The bad news was we had one set of clothes, 20 hard-boiled eggs left, and 80 miles to go!
Lorrime decided she did not want to hitchhike anymore and said, "Mrioooooooooo do you think it will be all right if we rent a car to go the rest of the way?"
"Sure, Lorrime, I'll go halver’s with you and split the cost."
"Ooh, Marioooooo thank you for agreeing with me. I know how much you would like to hitch a ride the rest of the way, but thank you."
I mumbled, "Yeah right!"
I was all for renting the car. Hitchhiking is great up to a certain point and time. After 1000 miles hitchhiking gets to be a drag and monotonous to say the least.
After Hertz delivered the rental car to where we were. The next step was to get a set of clothes to change the ones we had been wearing for what it felt a century. While we were waiting for the rental car to arrive, Lorrime rummaged through a phone book looking for Thrift Stores. I asked Lorrime, “Why a Thrift Store, why not J.C. Penny’s or some clothing store similar to that?” She said, "Mariooooo, it would not be right to be doing what we were doing and not buy used clothes in place of new ones."
I said, “What?”
“That’s part of my project Mariooo. I never complained when you suggested I should dress as a hobo for your off-the-wall 'Will Work for Food' project, did I?”
“No problem, no problem, I was wondering Lorrime.”
I thought about that one for a while and I decided it made horse sense.
Lorrime examined the car after it arrived. Equipped with CD player and air-conditioner the car would spoil us. That was too bad, though. I did not think of bringing my CD’s with us. It would have been neat listening to my Cajun and Country Western music driving the rest of the way to San Antonio.
After we were acquainted with the rental car, we headed for the Thrift Store. The Thrift store had real neat clothing and they looked cleaned and pressed. The store didn‘t smell of mildew, nor did it smell of old or stale clothing. In fact, it smells much as J.C. Penny’s would smell. A woman dressed with a colorful Hawaiian scarf covering the wrinkles on neck said with a southern accent drawl, "Maa I hep ya foulks?" We later found out she was the owner.
“Yes, ma’am, we are looking for clothing our size.” I said.
“Yaa, I cann sey ya’ll need aa desperaat channge and a baath too.”
She tried to sell me an almost new dark blue, three-piece, pinstriped, suit. She said it used to belong to a Senator who had died last week during a lengthy filibuster on the Senate floor.
The three-piece suit was worth the price tag it had but I was looking for some casual clothes. Lorrime came out with some looking Bermuda shorts and a, nifty looking, blouse. I wound up with a pair of Khaki shorts and matching shirt. You should have seen us; all I needed was a jungle hard-hat to look as if I were going on a safari in Africa instead of San Antonio. Lorrime needed one of those long rim white hats filled with spring, yellow flowers to pass for a person going to church instead of San Antonio.
Soon, we got on the phone book again and started looking for a place to stay. Lorrime wanted to stay at the Hyatt Hotel located downtown Austin. After figuring out how much it was going to cost us she said, "Mariooooooooooo, let's go to the Hyatt Hotel." "Which one?"
"The one located downtown."
"Wow, Lorrime, it looks as it is going to be an expensive overnight stay."
"That's all right, we deserve it Mariooo."
It was not long before we got to the Hyatt-Regency at 208 Barton Spring Road. By all appearances, it was an exclusive-looking hotel. Lorrime approached the front counter and after waiting for fifteen minutes, the front desk attendant looked us in shock and dismay. We thought he was going to call the police. I think he thought we were going to hold up the place. Everyone around us dressed as if all were going to a Hollywood party. The attendant adjusting his bow tie and making gestures as if he was dusting off his tuxedo, stared at us for about five minutes shifting his eyes every other minute between Lorrime and me. In an extreme rude manner he said, "May I help you."
Lorrime answered right away, "Yes, we want a room for the night, please."
The attendant looked at us with astonishment and waited another five minutes; assessing the fact, we did not have luggage. The attendant could smell and think that not only did we smell like hogs, but also by all appearances, we had got off a railroad boxcar. He said with more than a rude manner, "We don't have rooms available now, tomorrow, next week or next month!"
Lorrime was going to argue the sign said, "VACANCY."
Before she said anything I said, "Lorrime, let's go."
"But Mariooooooooo it says…"
"Yes, I know, but I think they forgot to add to the sign 'NO MEXICANS ALLOWED."
"I don't understand Marioooooo. It doesn't say that."
"Lorrime, look around you. Do you see anyone dressed as we are?
"No."
"Do you think we smell good?"
Lorrime got close to me and taking a deep, big sniff said, "Ugggh, you smell like the farmers' hog."
"Lorrime, 'WE' smell like hogs. Besides that, we look as if we came out of a railroad boxcar. Let's go look for another place to stay."
"Oh, Mariooooooo, OK."
To her dismay, we wound up staying at the Holiday Inn on I-35 South. The Holiday Inn was a decent and nice-looking hotel. It was not as exclusive looking as the Hyatt-Regency was, but it was also not as expensive. We decided to stay in Austin over the weekend.
On Monday morning, we headed for San Antonio. I was glad, because, for one thing, it meant we would be getting our luggage. Lorrime and I were tired of going to the Laundromat to wash our two-sets of clothes we interchange every other day. By this time, we had 11 hard-boiled eggs left.
After arriving in San Antonio, picking our luggage from the Greyhound Bus Depot and finding a place to stay we headed for the Fiesta. The San Antonio’s annual Fiesta is an eleven-day event. There is nothing but partying and more partying for eleven days in a row. There are as many different festivals, night parades, day parades, flaming parades, concerts, and all kinds of different, tasty foods as there are stars in the sky. San Antonio’s annual Fiesta is a big affair that it is mind binding. Well, as if you were still craving for more festival on the ninth and tenth day of the Fiesta, there is NIOSA (Night in Old San Antonio); this one is the mother, the granddaddy of all the festivals.
After being partied-out, for a whole eleven days, we headed for South San Padre Island for more partying! South Padre Island offers a whole thirty-four miles of beaches and during Spring Break, 125,000 bikini-clad coeds and hungry male students looking for a date. South Padre Island is considered the Island resort in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though partying was the rule, Lorrime and I went there to relax seep in the sun, and go surfing. It brought me back memories of the times I spent in Waikiki Beach, but the seashore at Padre Island was not as clean and crispy looking as it was in Waikiki, Hawaii.
As soon as we got to South Padre Island, we hit the beach. We didn’t even change to our beachcomber outfit. Lorrime almost lost a lottery ticket she had bought in San Antonio. I had kidded her about it throughout the remainder of her project. She had made a big issue of wanting to play the lottery in San Antonio. The way she sounded about it, it seemed as if she was going to buy $1,000 worth of number chances. It turns out that after fighting the crowds, the traffic, the weather, and forgetting where we had parked the rented car, she bought a dollar’s worth of lottery tickets. To make matters more embarrassing, she tells the store clerk in a proud and loud voice, “Cash option please!”
“One dollars worth?” asked the store clerk.
“Yes, please one dollar worth.”
People who were buying knickknacks stopped what they were doing to look at her. I had no choice but to pretend I was not with her. After Lorrime paid for the ticket, the store clerk said, “Good luck lady!” In a way and tone of voice that meant, “Get out of my store, now!”
Lorrime almost lost that ticket in the beach at South Padre Island. I saw it floating as a dry leaf floats and gets sucked up by the surf. I picked it up and showed it to Lorrime.
“Oh, thank you Mariooo. I never win anyway.”
The ticket was damp but otherwise not damaged. She told me to put it on the car’s dashboard to dry.
The beach, the saltwater, the breeze and the sun soothed our aching bones, body and soul from all problems, and from all the partying, we did in San Antonio. After three whole days in South Padre Island, and a tan the color of coconut skin, we drove back to San Antonio, packed our luggage, checked out, returned the rental car, and headed for the airport.
Throughout the different steps of Lorrime’s project, I had been wondering how we were going back to our starting point. I couldn’t take any more hitchhiking and hard-boiled eggs! Every time I asked Lorrime, she would change the subject. It wasn’t until the first day in South Padre Island that I found out we were flying back! When she recovered the lottery ticket from the dashboard of the car, she said, “Good thing it wasn’t our flight tickets that got wet!”
Here we were at the San Antonio airport. We didn’t say much nor talked to each other; not that we were angry we were plum tired.
 

We were quiet waiting to board the airplane. I knew why she was quiet and she knew why I was quiet. It had been a great venture and we didn’t want to let it go. We didn’t want to see the great time we were having vanish from our life. The call of our flight number over the intercom snapped us out of our distant and far away thoughts running through our minds.
Soon we were aboard the airplane. After being hit several times in our heads by people arranging their luggage above their seats, we settled down in our appointed seats...still quiet and not saying anything. Lorrime picked up a magazine from the seat headrest compartment in front of her and started to leaf through it. The flight attendants started handing out soft drinks. When they approached Lorrime, she picked the lottery ticket from her blouse pocket and used it as a bookmark on the magazine she had been reading. The article had something to do with John Travolta. I had managed to peek in when she started reading. The article stated in part, “...John Travolta, reveals an intimate tender side and talks about the private rituals that keeps his marriage so strong—and hot…” I guess the article was interesting enough to use the lottery ticket she had bought and treasured, as a bookmark.
The flight back home was not long; it wasn’t short, but it wasn’t long. Lorrime had placed the “Redbook Magazine” back inside the seats magazine compartment. She dozed off while I looked at the clouds and the ground below. Before we both knew it, we were departing. I reminded Lorrime about her lottery ticket. I said, “Lorrime, you are forgetting your lottery ticket again.”
“Oh, Marioooooo that ticket has been a problem.”
“Why did you buy it?”
“I don’t know Mariooo. Maybe I thought my luck would change if I bought it in San Antonio.”
She retrieved it from the magazine, but this time in an I-don't-care way.
Before we knew it we were back home.
Three days later, I was relaxing, listening to Cajun music. I was kicking back and listening to Dewey Balfa, Marc Savoy and D. L. Menard’s “En Bas Du Chêne Vert” (Under A Green Oak Tree) CD when the phone rang. I reached out to see the caller ID to check who was calling. I was shocked to see Lorrime’s name on it. I started shaking and getting nervous thinking, Lorrime had another one of her crazy project ideas. I let it ring, and it seemed for an eternity, because I wasn’t sure if I should answer it. I didn’t feel going hitchhiking anymore, but I decided to answer it.
I answered, “Hello.” Lorrime started screaming and hollering. I could not make out what she was saying. I think she dropped the phone several times because I heard several thumps. As I was getting ready to hang up the phone, she said screaming, “Mariooooooooo. I won, I won, I won…!”
“Lorrime, what did you win…”
“I won Mariooooo. I won, I won, I won, and now I…”
“Lorrime, please calm down and tell me what you won, for goodness sakes.”
Oooh, Mariooooooooooooo, I won the lottery!”
I stood holding the phone next to my ear in silence. I was in shock and I didn’t feel my heartbeat at all. Before I recovered from the shocking surprise Lorrime continued, “Oh, I have contacted a lawyer an accountant and my bank, and, and, and... Don’t worry I have the ticket in a safe place.”
“Where is the lottery ticket Lorrime?”
Oh, Oh, Oh, I put it inside the secret compartment you found on my wall crucifix. I am getting ready to fly to Austin… Oh, oh, oh, here’s my taxi…”
She never gave me a chance to ask her if I could go with her.
I have not seen or heard from Lorrime since.
(Back)