Who doesn’t love an occasional game of chance? Who can’t find some enjoyment from a spin of the wheel or a roll of the dice? Well, I’m no different than anyone else. I have never been much of a gambler since money has always been a scarcity in my line of work. Hell, it had been quite awhile since I’ve put my money on the line. But, the occasional thrill of gambling can be a sensation equivalent to…dare I say it…sex. Why do you think so many senior citizens go by the busload to gamble down in Atlantic City or Las Vegas. It brings back the feeling of the good ol’ days when they would get their brains fucked out on a nightly basis.

I was taking a dump a few days ago behind the local Acme, when low and behold there was a ten dollar bill lying right within eye shot. I leapt forward with a dingle berry still hanging from my ass to grab this payload of incredible luck. Not only was I completely stoked by this amazing discovery, I was completely amazed by the fact I was able to shit standing up. It was fucking awesome. You should try it sometime.

I pulled up my pants and took a closer look at the bill. It was undoubtedly real, but was covered in what appeared to be blood, feces, or some sort of smelly bodily fluid. The thought of my fingers touching AIDS and Hepatitis C laced money sketched me out only for a second, until the thrill of finding free money took back over again. Now, the only thing I had to do was figure out how I was going to spend this money.

After much thought, I came to the conclusion that the only logical thing to do with free money was to blow it. I hadn’t gambled in awhile, so my decision was made…it was time to go play the lottery. I wandered on down to Johnny G.’s convenience store to buy me a scratch off ticket. Johnny himself was working the counter and for some reason, was always receptive to my presence. “Hey Frankie!” he said in his grease ball, heavy Italian accent.

“What’s up Johnny boy?” I responded back, almost mimicking his tone. “I just came into a little bit of money and I’m looking to pick up one of those $10 scratch offs right there.” I reached into my pocket and placed the dirty ten-dollar bill onto the counter. Johnny G. looked at the money but didn’t pick it up to complete the transaction.

“Where the fuck did you find that?

“I found it while I was taking a shit.”

“Sure as hell looks that way”, he responded as he reached under the counter. When he came back up, he was holding plastic bag and rubber gloves. Johnny put the money into the bag and tossed the gloves into the trash. “I’ll let the bastards at the bank deal with that shitty money”, he said as he was laughing.

He grabbed me one of the ten dollar tickets and threw it on the counter for me to play. Number by number I scratched until the entire ticket was exposed. When I looked below, I had realized that I had two matching number 33’s. Directly underneath was a printed “$500”. Holy shit, I had just won five-hundred dollars! I handed the ticket to Johnny and he confirmed my win. The register popped open and he handed twenty-five twenty dollar bills.

I was happier than a pig in shit. I passed a few of my homeless friends on the way over to the liquor store and bragged about my big win. They laughed and congratulated me, then made my way over to the state store. I bought the biggest bottle of scotch I could afford and drank myself completely into oblivion that night.

When I came to, I was lying in the middle of the side walk and felt strangely nauseous. This was an odd occurrence for me seeing as I don’t really get hangovers. Not only did I spend the entire evening throwing up and pissing out my ass, but those bastards I told about my lottery win robbed me blind while I slept. Now I was sick, completely out of money, and I had to go to the hospital. I had realized this because I began to shit blood. Even an uneducated bum knows that bloody stool is bad news.

Turns out that I had a good old fashioned case of Toxoplasmosis from that shitty ass ten dollar bill I found. I was hospitalized for two weeks, but since I had no money to pay the bill, I had to escape out the window and take off running. It took me weeks of panhandling until I was able to get my finances back to a manageable level. I learned a very important lesson from this whole situation, fuck the lottery!

Regardless of how bad we smell, how much we drink and do drugs, or how little money we have, somehow street people still manage to fall in love with one another. It even surprises me how many street couples there are. I personally stick to prostitutes for a few reasons. Other than the ease of being a loner, you actually have a better chance of avoiding the HIV with prostitutes than you do with the homeless, at least in my area that is. So many homeless females are addicted to heroin and crystal meth that the needle swapping alone has turned my neighborhood into a bath house of virus carriers. And don’t even get me started on homeless girl’s hygiene…it nothing short of unbearable. Still, somehow these girls manage to be picked up by the boatload. And not even just for quick casual sex, but for actual long term relationships.

One night, I headed down to the Crystal Meth district for a night of good old fashion fun. Believe me, I had no intention of getting tweeked that night, but there is nothing more entertaining than getting drunk and watching about thirty bums smoke crank until their brains have melted to mush. It was like watching an insane episode of Jerry Springer, but it all unfolded right in front of your eyes. There were arguments, mind bending conversations, vandalism, and the occasional fist fight or stabbing.

I sat chatting with a few guys as we shared a bottle of booze, watching the fracas go on a few yards to our left. Man and woman alike were hitting their glass pipes like mosquitoes sucking their life blood out of their hosts. Most of them were laughing and talking so fast, it was nearly impossible to make any sense of what was coming out of their mouths. Others were tripping balls as they had imaginary conversations with people who existed to no one else but those who were seeing them. The,n there those who just sat in a corner nervously twitching and staring off into space. Either way, much was going on and it was quite the conversation starter.

In between laughs, me and my fellow bums heard a commotion towards a flaming barrel a few yards away. It seemed that two tweekers, a man and a woman, were having an amphetamine fueled argument that was gaining the attention of everyone. No could understand what they were arguing about, but words were really flying. A lot of “fucks” could be heard, even a couple “cunts” and “dickheads”. This was really shaping up to be an intense little confrontation.

These two definitely did not let us down. By this point, they had everyone’s attention. All sorts of cheers and cat calls got these two really red in the face. They continued to yell and cause a scene, which intensified with every second that went by. Then, out of nowhere, the meth man wound up his right hand and punched his girlfriend right in the face. Her loose teeth spilled all over the ground and she went down like a girl on prom night.

I’m extremely liberal with a lot of things in life, but beating up on chicks is not one of them. Call me old fashioned, but kicking the shit out of a defenseless female is not something I find entertaining. I had to be chivalrous and stand up for this lady in distress. Without any hesitation, I jumped out of my seat and headed towards the guy, ready to rumble.

“Hey fuckface!”, I yelled at the tweeker douche bag. “What makes you think you can just kick her ass in front of us, and we won’t do anything about it?” As I said this, the shuffle of feet could be heard as all my fellow bums backed away, leaving me completed unaided. This wasn’t going to stop me from giving this asshole a piece of my mind.

He began to approach me with teeth clenching and fists ready for war. As he got closer, his eyes were noticeably bigger and his pupils had contracted to the size of pin heads. Right as he wound up to repeat his assault on me, instinct took over and I gave him a good old fashioned ass beating. Punch after punch got the crowd back on my side and left my fists and his face completely covered in blood. I continued my strike until all of his front teeth were gone and he was lying in a heap on the ground, barely able to keep consciousness.

My pals began patting me on the back for my accomplishment. We all had a laugh and they gave me swig from the bottle. In mid drink, I noticed the girl began to stand up and head towards me. I smiled at her, expecting gratitude for rescuing her from her attacker. Instead she would up and punched me right in the face.

“YOU FUCKER! YOU HURT MY MAN!” she screeched in complete insanity.

I fell backwards, trying to figure out what had just happened. By the time I realized what had was going on, meth guy stood up and was heading over to me to join in the assault. The two of them just unleashed their drug induced fury and beat me to a bloody pulp. The stupid bitch I had just rescued even sank her remaining tooth in the side of my neck, causing me to bleed profusely all over my favorite flannel coat. The crowd just stood and watched, then cleared out and left me to fend for myself.

I learned a very important lesson on this night. In this day and age, it doesn’t pay to break up a domestic dispute. Especially when these domestics are completed fucked on crystal methamphetamine. They say chivalry is dead and I couldn’t agree more. Next time I see anything of the sort, I’m walking in the opposite direction. I was even forced to head to the hospital and get tested for the virus, which luckily came back negative. Fuck junkies!

Whether it was my dramatic entrance or the fact that I hadn’t washed my ass in about five days, but every person within a ten foot radius had moved to a different pew. That was fine with me, I wasn’t in the mood for socializing. The priest continued his sermon as if I had never arrived and received the undivided attention of every person in the audience, including myself.

His speech was focused on the great gifts that his God has bestowed upon our world, which at this point in my week gave me a little laugh. The basic points I agreed on, like the creation of our planet, the beauty of plants, animals, flowers and the whole lot of sissy bullshit. He went on to explain the face of God was in everything that comes from the earth. I couldn’t agree more. I thank him everyday for grains and tobacco, because without them, I would have probably ended up drowning myself in the world of chemicals and man made drugs, like so many other bums do. Which in the long run, usually ends up with terrible results.

I try not to drink in church, but in my current state of drunkenness, stopping now would end up causing me a massive headache. Not to mention, I always like to have a cocktail when I’m doing something I enjoy, and for the first time in quite awhile, I could honestly say I was enjoying the sermon. It felt good to be a part of something. Just sitting in the pew gave me a sense of belonging, that is a gift rarely given to a loner.

Unfortunately, I am cursed with a sort of mental affliction where no matter how happy I am at the moment, it is never enough. I always need more sensory satisfaction. Some call it compulsive personality disorder, but I like to call it “Can-never-have-enough-itis”. Regardless of the wonderful teachings about appreciating our world and lives for what they are, I was desperate for a fuckin’ cigarette. I turned myself at a angle so I could see the exit, since I couldn’t just light up right where I was sitting. But on the way my eyes noticed a bathroom slightly closer. “Well lookee here”, I said in a slight whisper. I propped myself up, which was a task in itself, and I headed to the bathroom to light up a smoke like a bad kid in high school.

I ran in the yellow and white tiled room and scoped it out for other bathroom goers. The coast was clear, so I pulled out a pack of smokes and lit one up, sending that familiar feeling through my lungs and to every nerve ending in my body. The combination of a mean scotch buzz mixed with tobacco sent my senses into overdrive, which of course led to an immediate crash. I began to get extremely tired, so I figured after a few more drags, I’d return to my seat. I put my stogie out on the ceramic counter, tossed the butt into the trash can, and returned to the congregation.

When I sat back down in the wooden seats, they seemed a lot more comfortable then I had remember them being only minutes prior. I settled in nicely…a little too nicely. Before I knew it I had completely passed out. Right in the middle of Sunday morning mass, I was deep in an alcoholic coma.

When I began to come back to life, I was incredibly warm. I had never been so warm in my entire life. I even wear my flannel coat in the middle of July. Sweat was pouring down my head and I even felt like it was a little hard to breathe. I opened my eyes and to my astonishment, I couldn’t see a thing in front of me. “Holy shit, did God blind me with his furious rage?”, I thought to myself. Then, in the corner of my eye, I saw large orange and red flames. At first I thought the Alpha and the Omega had sent me to the seventh layer of hell, until I realized that I was still in church. A wooden statue of Jesus was completely engulfed in flames, a bad summation of my current situation. I jumped up and ran towards the only clear path that I could see, directly at a stain glass window. Like something out of a movie, I dove head first completely through it, landing on the sidewalk on the other side.

A large group of people that was standing outside jumped back, completely in shock of the old homeless man that jumped through a glass window. When I lifted my head, I saw the congregation and the priest staring at me. Those fuckers left me behind in the burning building. Without saying a word, I stood up and brushed myself off. I walked up to the priest and spit right in his face. “Eat my nuts you pious cocksucker!” This was last time I would be attending church. My faith in humanity was completely shattered. But I did learn one very important lesson. There had to be a God, otherwise there was no possible way I would have made it out of there alive. This boost of faith was just enough to break me out of my month long depression.

Apparently, according to the police report, the cigarette I had smoked was never fully extinguished. When I threw into the garbage, I ignited a huge trashcan fire. Rather than do the right thing and help me, the entire church, clergy included, left me there to die. Some messed up shit, huh? Oh well, with this streak of good luck riding on my shoulders, nothing can stop me now.