Shakes 'n ladders

No matter how rational -- there is superstition; Hollis is a `regular guy'

by Sally Cragin

Residents of Tritown are generally acknowledged to be folks without illusion. The paper mill shut down, the woolen works moved out of town, and the plastics company went into receivership. Yet nothing surprises a Tritownie, who always expects the worst so, in Hollis the Mountain Man's words, "We'll never be disappointed." But there's one area where your typical Tritownie proves to be a moon-beam soaked romantic. In the immortal words of Stevie Wonder, there is superstition.

Undoubtedly one of the luckiest places in Tritown is Happy's Qwik-Stop (coffee, doughnuts and lottery tickets, not in that order). Happy's used to be known as just plain "Happy's Donuts," but when the Mass. Lottery Commission achieved full-bore market penetration in the late 1970s, Happy changed the name and is considering neon signs that say "Scratch" and "Lottery" for the exterior.

To date, Happy has sold 787 winning lottery tickets for sums larger than $50. More than a hundred of those were for sums greater than $1000 (but less than $5000). You would think this winning streak might make Happy happy, but no. Like fat men named Bones or bald men named Curly, Happy's name is his paradox, and he's essentially a dour presence. Though his cafe is famous throughout Tritown, so far, the Most Mega Bucks have eluded Happy and his patrons.

"How come the other guys sell the million-dollar tickets," he grouses. "Here I am with the nickel-and-dime business." But he never voices these fears aloud -- that would be tempting Dame Fate.

It's become a tradition that when Happy sells a winning ticket, the victor bestows a good-luck trinket on the vendor. After hundreds of scores, Happy's Qwik-Stop has more symbols of kismet than a bar has Bud signs. Horseshoes festoon the doorway (nailed with the points up, so the luck won't run out). The cash register is bedizened with four-leaf clovers, "trick dice" with only 3s and 4s, and wee plastic leprechauns. Rabbits' feet once dangled like Christmas bulbs from the doughnut trays until Happy's daughter, $erena the Waitress, went vegetarian and removed them.

Hollis the Mountain Man pretends he doesn't believe in luck, but he is faithful about spending a dollar on a weekly lottery ticket at Happy's, and only at Happy's. Every now and then, he'll win forty bucks or so, just enough to keep him coming back. Delia Ellis Bell the Partial Yankee (there was a questionable great-great-grandmother) regards the Lottery with skepticism. "The few times I cashed in the freebies the Lottery used to mail, I always won," she explains. "Invariably, after cashing my chit for $7 or $20, my car would need major work. So I stopped buying lottery tickets and my car's fine."

She and Hollis have run into each other at Happy's -- Hollis for his lottery ticket, Delia for her "every-third-day-at-4 p.m." creme horn. She shakes her head sadly, as Hollis deposits his ticket in his (lucky) shirt pocket. "That's just a clever `poor tax,'" she insists. "Although I should talk -- I'm as superstitious as the rest of you, and last week realized my correct religious preference is: `Episcopagan.'

"For example, I enjoy singing in my church choir, but the jury's still out about the son-of-God business," she says. "However, I do think the practice of prayer is essential. Except during times of a Mercury retrograde, when communication is fouled up, anyway."

"That's such hooey!" declares Hollis.

Delia counters by claiming that Hollis's rituals about buying lottery tickets make him -- "in Mr. Shakespeare's terms, `fortune's fool.'"

So Hollis plays his trump card. "Look," he says. "Compared to an ultra-rational townie like Ozzie the Wiz, who subscribes to the Skeptical Inquirer, I may have a few little quirks. But next to Lorencz the Hermit, I'm Mr. No Illusions."

Now Lorencz is a bearded character raised by Gypsies who kept one foot in the shtetl even when they were in the New World. Few in Tritown ever see him, fewer still get to know him. "He supports himself with a monthly check from the state for unspecified disabilities and devotes his energies to mushroom taxonomy, which he finds is the only thing that transcends the mundaneities of everyday life," Hollis says.

"Wait a minute," interrupts Delia. "I used to see a funny-looking hippie at the Pony Club, always following the horses and staring at the ground." "

"That was Lorencz," says Hollis confidently. "On an ongoing quest for magic mushrooms, which grow primarily in horse manure. What a character!"

Delia is impressed. Hollis is such a character himself, that for him to regard any other human with these desirable characteristics must be quite a specimen indeed.

"Lorencz refuses to go into town for fear of walking under ladders," Hollis says. "And he jokingly refers to his shack as a renovated outhouse, and I don't think he's kidding. You can practically touch every wall if you sit on the bed. He says, given its small size, a lot less can go wrong there than the sort of mansion that you have. Fewer opportunities for disaster, fewer cracks to step over."

Delia is excited. "We have to visit him. Let's get a bag o'bear claws and stop by!"

LORENCZ'S HUT IS DEEP in the woods, at the end of a long dirt track, and well-shrouded with secondary- forest growth. When they arrive, Lorencz is grateful for company, but even more so for the bearclaws and `go-cups' of coffee. He is a slight, bearded fellow wearing a worn tuxedo coat, old Wrangler jeans, and unlaced rubber boots. There is a light in his eyes that might be madness, loneliness, or the after-effects of a snack of Psilocybe coprophila.

At any rate, he has an exceptionally resonant voice and an authoritative manner. "Luck, you want luck?" he asks. "I'm a prisoner of my upbringing -- those Gypsies. I am terrified of black cats, the number 13, ladders, salt that is not thrown over a shoulder. In college, I lost several months of my life because one morning I opened my door and found a dead pigeon on the welcome mat. Rather than equate this with the open skylight above the hall, I was convinced someone placed a curse on me, and became so wary that I didn't even trust my barber to cut my hair, for fear he might cut my throat. Fortunately, it was the late '60s so no one noticed. Shortly after that, the mead I was making in the kitchen exploded. . . ."

He holds them spellbound for the first half hour. But it becomes obvious that Lorencz is no listener, and interprets "company" as "therapy." By the second hour, the dust in the cabin has invaded Delia's usually sturdy sinus system, and she sneezes three times in succession. Her nasal explosion catches Lorencz unawares, who doesn't have time to say "gesundheit" (German for "health" -- when you sneeze, the devil might creep in unawares, so the magic spell sends him packing).

He narrows his eyes, and begins knocking wood. "Gesundheit," he says. "Gesundheit, gesundheit, gesundheit. . . ." He touches every piece of wood in the place, and when his back is turned, Hollis grabs Delia's arm and yells, "Gotta go, Lorencz, seeyalatah!"

Their escape is successful, though perhaps Lorencz had just wearied of them, and yearns to return to his conversation with Phil Ochs, who, though deceased, is still a very articulate man.

As they walk back through the woods toward Tritown, Delia regards Hollis with fresh eyes. "You really aren't so unusual," she insists. "Really -- I can definitely see you as a regular guy."

"Knock wood," says Hollis, gently tapping his own skull with his work-hardened knuckles. "Guess I'll have to introduce you to my other best friend, who used to remove the nails from park benches because he thought the nails were worrying the wood!"

Sally Cragin thinks the luck is in the timing.

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