Nota bene, I can’t, I could if I wanted to, only present for what I’m inclined toward, a hook, a fish, alive in the morning, dead in the afternoon, on a plate or moldering later – fly food, botched reversal – then

Snowflakes swirling, wind swelling, squall subsiding, fingers frozen, I stamped my boots on the mat, dislodged some ice, opened the door, searching not for crabmeat, not for fresh eggs, but

“Oh, it’s the Lotto Man,” Holly said.

“In the flesh,” I answered, basking in my imaginary celebrity. It was the first time she spoke to me other than to confirm the price of a purchase or the amount of change due me. I stomped my boots on the mat some more, trying to remove the slush from the soles.

“Don’t worry about it,” Holly said, “the floor’s already a mess.”

I saw that it was, extracted a blank lottery ticket from the dispenser and retreated to one of my usual corners to fill it out. It usually takes me a while to blacken my ovals, longer since I adopted a system I read about in Q. This time I wandered the aisles a while waiting for my fingers to warm.

The store’s staff, perhaps because the daylong storm was finally abating, were in a giddy mood. The trays on the counter overflowed with baked goods and fruit; most likely they had few customers other than plowmen and emergency workers. They seemed to forget me soon after Holly greeted me.

“Yep, this is my twenty-year anniversary,” Holly said.

“Of what?” the younger clerk prompted.

“My suicide attempt. I was foolish then. I still don’t know why I did it.”

“We all get down,” the other said.

“Thank God for Len,” Holly said.

I knew, more precisely, had seen Len. He’s the town fire chief and an EMS volunteer. Most Sundays he sits at the counter, mornings or afternoons depending on his shift, drinking coffee and bantering with the staff and customers. Almost every local paid obeisance to him upon entering or leaving the store.

“He was just a junior fireman then.” Holly went on. “He lived in the apartment next door to my son and me. He must have heard little Huber crying. The door was locked of course but that didn’t stop Len. He pried it open, called 9-1-1, rode in the ambulance with me, fed Huber with the bottle on the way there.”

“I guess he was always something,” the younger clerk said.

“Oh he was. The most remarkable thing, though, was how he fought with the hospital. I didn’t have to pay a cent. I didn’t have any insurance, but he made sure the state covered the bill and that I stayed there as long as I needed to – a full ten days. That’s why I comp him his coffee. I bet he’d be mayor of this town if he had the inclination.”

“Or intelligence unless that’s not required,” I thought. My hands warm, I filled in my numbers, checked them against the sheet I’d devised from Q, and walked up to the counter. The women had a space heater running full blast behind Holly. She’d taken off her flannel shirt. She wore a sleeveless gray t-shirt. I saw tattoos that I normally see only in spring or summer.

“Will that be it, Mr. Lotto Man?” she asked as she ran last week’s ticket through the machine.

I looked around me, saw stacks of the Times on the shelf. “I’ll take a paper, too.”

“Pardon my appearance,” she giggled, “but it sure is hot in here.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m going outside to cool off.”

“You do that.”

My relations with the store staff were more cordial after that. They still called me Mr. Lotto Man, but we chatted about the weather, local sports, even the movies sometimes.

“Oh good, you brought the Times,” my wife said when I returned. “Is there anything in it?”

“I haven’t looked yet,” I said as I handed her the main sections.

“What’s this?” She showed me a picture of a car falling over a cliff. We read the article together. A young American, dissatisfied with work, his love life, or politics drove his car up to New Brunswick, made a sharp right, skidded on the ice, and fell 600 feet into the cold water and rocks of the Atlantic. We discussed his spectacular demise and Holly’s mundane attempt to die over dinner – frozen flounder stuffed with canned crab meat, a green salad, baked potatoes.

The newspaper of course only validated what was already on TV and the internet. The next evening I told my wife that the people at the water cooler were using “going to New Brunswick” as a synonym for killing yourself. She works at a hospital. She heard the same phrase used by one or two doctors or nurses. She found it insensitive. I thought it was funny but my humor is ponderous.

The winter was mostly mild after that blizzard. Most Sunday afternoons I sat in my workshop making lures. Something about whittling took my mind away from work, prepared me for the week ahead. As the weather warmed, I of course thought of using them. I’ve caught a few trout with my creations – “stupid fish,” Len would say but then he despises fly fishermen.

I saw him holding court last year after he returned from his Florida vacation. He’d caught five blue marlins in one afternoon, breaking the marina record. “I had them clean and freeze four of them and ship them to me,” he bragged. “We’ll be eating marlin steaks into the fall. I gave the folks at the marina the smallest one, a 250 pounder, bigger than the guys who operate the boat. That’s 250 pounds of meat minus fins, skins, and entrails. How many meals do you get out of the trout you catch?” he asked me.

“My wife and I sometimes split one for lunch,” I said.

“That’s not much of a lunch,” he snorted.

I smiled, paid for my lottery ticket, and left. The people surrounding him probably thought I was offended. I wasn’t. I didn’t interact much with the people at the store back then: I wasn’t sure what I should do.

Nowadays Len and I are friends of a sort. He calls me a crazy Laputan. If only he knew my schemes for picking lottery numbers.

Spring came. My buddies and I went to some fishing shows. I always bought a few lures chosen more for their beauty than their utility. My wife paints watercolors of them. She’s sold a few on the internet. One Sunday I went to a show over a hundred miles away. I got back too late to buy my lottery ticket at the general store.

“I was worried about you, Mr. Lotto Man,” Holly said the next evening.

“I was at a fly-fishing show. I learned some new techniques I can’t wait to try. Len will be jealous.”

“Len’s been getting his boat ready. In a month or two he’ll be taking it out. He’s been talking about bringing along some new people. Are you interested?”

“I just might be,” I said as I paid.

He never invited me on his boat. It’s just as well, I’d probably get seasick or otherwise disgrace myself.

Trout, catfish, carp, black crappie: once in a while I’d catch one, release it or give it to a friend. Fishing was a just means to test my lures. The best – by that I mean best-looking – lures never hooked anything. Alone or with a friend, I’d wade into streams or stand on a bank, cast and dream. The fish disrupted those dreams as I disrupted them.

I try to observe, I want to live in the present, I can’t.

Just after Labor Day, my company sent me to a conference in a city on the West coast. My wife joined me on the Thursday, we stayed till the end of the following week. I didn’t fish there, I didn’t miss it. I found a book, more of a pamphlet than a book, by W in a used bookstore there. On the flight back I perused it, anticipating my lure-making season.

Our plane touched down on a Saturday evening. I was back into my normal routine next day. The store was mostly empty when I came in to buy my Lotto tickets. Holly wasn’t there. That wasn’t unusual: she sometimes took days off for weddings, christenings, and the like. I saw Len leave as I came in. He clapped me on the shoulder, didn’t say anything. An old pickup truck pulled in front of the store as I filled out my ticket. A young poorly dressed man came in, waited while a container of soup was filled for him. I saw his sullen dog sitting in the driver’s seat while we waited. “Here you go, Huber. Take care now,” the cashier said as she gave him the container.

The weather turned cold, fishing season was ending. One Sunday, I came in distracted, took longer than normal filling in my lottery ticket. I don’t know why I bother, I remember thinking, I never win more than a few bucks anyway. Len was at the counter showing all who cared to look the gun he’d restored. Deer hunting season was about to begin. “If there wasn’t a limit, I’d give you some venison,” he called out to me over his circle of admirers. “We finally finished last winter’s marlin. I won’t get another supply till I go back down to Florida. You don’t hunt, do you?”

“No,” I answered.

“Not even for mice or chipmunks?”

I couldn’t think of a rejoinder.

While we were bantering, Huber came in. This time the cashier gave him two containers of soup, a cold six-pack, a pint of whiskey, and a carton of cigarettes. He didn’t stop to joke with Len who was like a father or an uncle to him. Someone new came in to admire Len’s handiwork. I left the group to get in line.

As the cashier ran my ticket through the machine, I recalled that I hadn’t seen Holly in over a month. “Say, where’s Holly been?” I asked the clerk.

She handed me my ticket, didn’t say a word.

“You haven’t heard?” she said. “She’s gone to New Brunswick.”