A Special Providence

Thwack!

Gerald Bronson MacKechnie slammed the video poker machine with the heel of his hand. Gerry was a decent sort, a husband and father, unemployed one month out of two, a solid citizen who saw himself as a free spirit. A repetitive pattern of a duck and its endlessly flipping coin had stopped dead center in the screen, coin frozen in midair. On a screen framed by irreverently stenciled plywood, a Jack, deuce, nine and a pair of red tens blanked out leaving a field of low-resolution scan lines.

After a moment of furtive embarrassment, he thought what the hell and knelt to see if the plug had come loose from the wall. It had not.

“Shit.” Gerry hit it again. Nothing. Not even the satisfying jingles and rattle of springs and linkages you got in the good old pinball machines. “I thought there was a special providence that looked out after these things,” said Gerry, meaning the Provincial Lottery Corporation.

“There is,” replied the machine. A ten dollar jackpot dropped into the takeout drawer.

Gerry looked around. The night clerk was fussing with a clipboard out at the gas pumps, getting totals. This must be some new program from the Lottery Corporation. He scooped up the money and reached for his jacket.

The voice continued. It was the duck. “Be fruitful and multiply—that’s all you get. And don’t whack the machine—the lottery corporation doesn’t favor muscleheads abusing church property.”

The picture flickered. The screen filled with the Corporation’s usual come-on—Youth, Beauty and an annuity somewhere in an ill-defined future all for a dollar investment.

“You have heard the saying Lord love a duck?”

“Everybody has.”

“Well, I’m the duck. And you have been blessed.”

The screen flickered again and the duck was back, carrying two stone tablets. The Ten Commandments.

“I am but a humble messenger. Matthew 11:10—Behold, I send my messenger before your face. Well, this messenger is in your face.”

“That’s about John the Baptist,” said Gerry who had won prizes in Sunday school.

“So? You get Duck the Hegemonist. Play the game. You double parked?”

“Nope, I walked.”

“Too bad. I’m good with parking meters. The silent sentinels. They, too, are God’s messengers.”

Gerry considered parking meters. “No shit?”