A Special Providence
by Rob Hunter
 

It was his miracle, Gerald Bronson MacKechnie's—a de facto, set in cement miracle. The question of the duck was never fully determined. That it was a duck, Gerry was sure. The duck was stuck on the screen of a Lotto terminal, endlessly flipping a gold coin. Sheila had chased him out of the house, again, and he was feeling low. He leaned on the counter at Arsenault's One-Stop and Family Sundries waiting for a roll of change. This was a losing day.

"Quack, quack, quack," said the machine as the duck appeared, stalking back and forth with a big cigar and a painted-on mustache. Doing a Groucho, a lure to the unwary, promising riches. When you're already a loser—a status to which Gerry readily confessed—slim pickings were better than no pickings, miraclewise. Gerald Bronson MacKechnie loved jelly doughnuts of every race, sex and flavor. He should have wished for a jelly doughnut. Or a crème-filed Bismarck.

"You, Gerry MacKechnie, are a prime example of reverse Darwinism. The jelly doughnuts, for example," said the duck. "You are a poster boy for failure. And as such, you shall be rewarded."

"I get a prize." Gerry thought of Cracker Jack.

Instead he got a miracle. It all started when Gerry lost his cool and pounded on an otherwise inoffensive video gambling machine.

For Willipaq, Maine, everything had been and gone with the previous century. These days youth fled to the cities of the south with the ink on their high school diplomas still wet. Across the border in Loup du Jour, Canada the provincial government poured in millions on infrastructure while Willipaq, from Augusta, the state capital, was transparent. Willipaq was broke—Loup du Jour a truckstop.

Willipaq, Maine, hoped for an Indian casino. What they occasionally got was payoffs on the gambling machines just over the river in Canada. Most of the money stayed in Canada. The proceeds went to National Health.

Gerald Bronson MacKechnie slammed the Lotto 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. It had been a bad night with Sheila and the kids. Now this.

Thwack!

He found this satisfying and did it again with the same minimal results.

Thwack!

High school and his rusty '78 Trans-Am were the biggest things that had happened in his life. And of course, his wife and children, in about that order. Drinking beer, driving the back roads with the radio loud, then hanging out and playing video poker was heady medicine. He was the lone customer remaining in Arsenault's. No one had seen him hit the machine and he could hope for a quiet getaway. He had put off going home till he had broken even and now he had broken the machine. Three AM. Sheila would give him a frosting—no nookie, cold feet in bed and up with the kids at six.

Thwack!

Inside the gaudily painted cabinet an erasable, programmable, read-only memory chip considered the pounding a bit much. A tiny field collapsed, sending its stored contents winging away to chip heaven. 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 a duck. 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?"

"No shit. Think about it." The duck paced the screen in a tight circle, gesturing with its cigar. "The silent sentinel doesn't really care what time it is. It doesn't care if you get towed or if the world goes to hell in a handbasket. Artifacts have a different schedule of priorities than living creatures."

Thonk, thonk, a video game sound effect, thin and reedy, rattled the terminal's tiny loudspeaker as the duck tapped on the edge of his screen. "The Provincial Lottery Corporation is waiting," said the duck.

Gerry fished out a handful of Canadian two-dollar coins.

"Go on. Plug 'em in." The duck's voice took on a stagy confidentiality. "For all you know this lottery terminal is a landing beacon for some ancient astronaut. Me. And the parking meter is obviously the superior local life form. Look at you—full of pride, all alive and strutting around. I'll just bet you think you're the bee's knees."

Gerry looked more closely at the lottery terminal. It looked pretty usual. "Uh, you are an astronaut?"

"No. I am simply trying to educate you, broaden your worldview. That was only a hypothetical scenario. That is your first lesson—defer to your betters. Me. I am better than you. Remember this always."

Where Gerry MacKechnie went, Cosmos went, and preferably by car. But though Cosmos was a dog always after a good ride, foot travel was Gerry's modality these days. Gerry's pride and joy was a rusted out '78 Trans-Am with more tweed than rubber on its tires. And no plates. Trips were special, and even though Cosmos and Gerry went everywhere together, usually to Loup du Jour to play the Lotto, the anticipation made Cosmos' blood race with feral memories—the pack, the hunt.

There would be rustling of preparatory activity, lacing sneakers, unpegging of a windbreaker from the coat tree in the hall. With his blue nylon warmup jacket half on, one sleeve dangling, Gerry MacKechnie executed his quick and perfunctory circuit of things to be looked into before the trip to the store—that was the giveaway. Cosmos plomped his 102 yellow pounds of Golden Labrador immediately in front of the door and thumped his tail on the kitchen linoleum, blocking all exit.

Cosmos had no life other than being with Gerry—the nearness of Gerry, the wonderfulness of Gerry. Aside from the occasional squirrel or the wonderful smell from the pizza oven at Arsenault's, Cosmos never felt more fulfilled with the exception of when letting fly from his bottomless bladder.

But recently that had started to change. It was that red-haired woman that he saw in his sleep, he was sure. In his dreams he was a greyhound, rich with an ancient lineage, bounding joyously as she raced ahead of him astride a bicycle. Cosmos found this puzzling. Time was when lifting a leg was the happiest exercise of his heritage.

Gerry waved to Hal Overby at US Customs. Hal was barricaded in his guardhouse by a heap of torn up asphalt. The Americans were installing electronic gear to scan license plates. On the other side of the bridge the Canadians had had the technology in place for a decade. Gerry walked over to Canada and back to the United States almost every day and yet the grilling was the same. "How long have you been in Canada (or the USA)? Are you carrying firearms, tobacco, citrus or potatoes?"

A woman sat in the booth at Customs Canada.

"Hiya Gerry."

"Hiya Tammi."

"Just over for the day?"

"Just over to play the Lotto and video poker."

"Thought so. Any citrus?"

"Nope."

Tammi eyed him up and down. She checked her computer monitor from habit, but no car, no plate for the scanner. Gerry was a pedestrian. "No potatoes, drugs, explosives?"

"Nope."

"Have a nice day."

"Bye Tammi."

"Bye Gerry."

Cosmos wagged on through, no questions. Dogs were welcome. As long as Cosmos wore his rabies tag he was an international citizen.

The duck was waiting.

On the Canadian side of the bridge high yellow sodium lights on sixty-foot pylons ringed a set of gas pumps, casting few and deceptive shadows. Arsenault's One-Stop and Family Sundries was also the bus stop. To this it owed no small portion of its success. In an age of specialization, Arsenault was generalist, with gas pumps, a soda fountain, over-the-counter drugs and notions, and a wall of coin-operated gaming machines. Plus lottery tickets, tobacco and magazines, pizza and beer.

Gerry MacKechnie slunk into Arsenault's, beery and unshaven.

A pair of teen toughs played at one of the machines. Gerry moved to the far machine of the row of identical terminals. As Gerry slumped over, digging deep into his pockets for a dollar coin, the machine spoke.

"I'm back." The duck waved, looking like an animation cel, against a matte of interlocking tessellations of faded images of itself. Gerry had seen a movie once about a man sucked inside a machine. A portrait of his tormented soul decorated the escutcheon plate for all eternity. Or was it the cover of a book, a horror comic?

"Good God, where do they get that stuff?" It was the duck. "You watch too much TV, me laddy-buck."

"You're back. And it was a comic, not a TV show."

"Well, that's about it then, Gerry my old and rare—you can read. Go or stay—it all comes down to that in the end."

"I have dollar here someplace..." He was being rejected even by the Provincial Lottery Corporation.

"Not you, you silly, compulsive boy, me—go or stay, that is. Not a red letter day in ego land. Divinitywise, if you catch my drift."

"Beg pardon. You are a duck."

"Save your money—the advice is free. The duck is a guise, an aspect. Sometimes I am a talking volcano, others a burning bush. Today I am a screensaver under the auspices of the Provincial Lottery Corporation. One of those days, dig? No wonder your wife regards you as an asshole past redemption. You might find things better with Sheila if you stopped plugging loonies into these damned machines and spent some attention on her. At home—you know, where the hearth is and appended bullshit. She has made her decision."

"Sheila? You mean Sheila is moving out?"

The duck faded to a tiny dot of luminescence. The machine dinged and a two-dollar payout bounced into the takeout drawer.

"But, Sheila," said Gerry.

"Sheila, Sheila," said the duck. "You are so wrapped up in your own miserable existence you have lost sight of the bigger picture—me and my perquisites. Go home to Sheila and save your money. I have spoken."

"I wish." Gerry fumbled the few coins left in his pocket. "I can't go home until I at least break even. I wish. I wish."

"Three wishes? Bite me, gringo Americanski. You would be lucky to get back over with a sack of oranges. You have cable?"

"No. They cut it off last month."

"No MTV? My, you are deprived."

Gerry watched western movies, Sheila the Science Channel. No MTV. Sheila had named Cosmos "Cosmos" because of a severe crush on Carl Sagan. “Evolution is fact, not a theory...” Sheila said. "Carl Sagan said that. That explains you, Gerry." Their new puppy licked her hand. "He, at least, knows where he is," Sheila had said.

"Want to do a dog a favor?" asked the duck.

"Beg pardon?" Gerry started backing away. He had got his hopes up about that cable bill. One lucky jackpot. But the duck had dropped the cable subject.

"No, no, no," said the voice. "None of that, no easy getaway. Just do as I say. Pretend I'm Sheila. Right now your dog's gotta pee something fierce."

"You're sure you're a duck?"

"Ducks pee. Dogs pee. Everybody pees. Come on—make it snappy. There's a pile of newspapers under the baggage counter. Here is a chance for you to demonstrate some delicacy. Spread them on the floor and turn your back."

Cosmos stretched then vigorously shook his head. He headed toward the papers.

"Well?" said the duck.

"Well, what?" asked Gerry.

"Turn your back."

"Uh, okay."

Cosmos had long entertained a nagging doubt that there should be more to life than peeing on tires. The newspapers were strange and wonderful. Something had changed.

Gerald Bronson MacKechnie did not change. Sheila had named him but Gerry was Cosmos' pole star. Everything was right because that's the way things were. Gerry was here and all was well.

Behind Gerry the great yellow dog's muted trickling went on for a considerable time.

"Gerry?"

"Uh, yes." The duck knew his name, Gerry only now realized. Well, why not, it knew his wife's name.

"Pick up the papers and put them in the trash, then we'll play. Pick up some food." The duck nodded to the luncheonette. "Cheeseburgers will be just fine. Wash your hands first. And be sure to come back, I don't like waiting."

Gerry pulled a quarter-folded ten dollar bill from an inside jacket pocket. He unfolded it with an apologetic expression.

"I get it. You're broke," said the duck. "No problem, just take a cruise by the poker on your way."

Gerry MacKechnie did as he was told. He looked up at the video poker display. The duck was here, too, superimposed on a flashing screen of rampant royal flushes. It spoke.

"Here's the funds." The machine whirred and a winning chit for two hundred dollars was ejected. "For your trouble. And that cable bill. Here's for the food." Twenty shiny gold loonies slid into the tray. "Make that double cheeseburgers and hold the pickles."

Gerry stayed a long time in the tiny lavatory holding his hands under the blow-dryer, turning them over and over. What the hell, he had nothing else on today.

"Took you long enough. I'm famished," said the duck when he returned with the food.

Gerry and Cosmos were Arsenault regulars four times a month, at minimum, during the weekend benders when Gerry reviewed his career mobility and analyzed the slights and indignities of the week just past. The unsteady man and the huge yellow dog received only a cursory glance from the two teenaged toughs, full packs of Pall Malls rolled up in their T-shirt sleeves.

This time there was no duck in evidence.

An attractive, bewildered-looking woman in an oversized Tour de France cycling jersey was pressing a sheaf of bus receipts on the night clerk.

"Lady, I'm sorry, but it just hasn't gotten here yet. Freight isn't like check-on baggage. They send it on when they have the room to spare." He was gesturing to the empty shelves behind him emblazoned with the Atlantic BusWays logo.

"But there was lots of room. I was the only passenger on that bus."

"That bus, miss. There are others and they are full. Your bag will probably come along tomorrow." Seeing Gerry, he reached down a pack of Players from the overhead cigarette stacks. "S'cuse me, got a customer." He favored the woman with a smile, a wall of friendly, attentive indifference.

The woman turned and gave Gerry the once-over. Gerry's hands and feet felt oversized and his neck started throbbing. He was very conscious of his condition and appearance and wished he had met this woman sober and by daylight. She was magnetically lovely and he spun a fantasy scenario of the two of them walking barefoot on the beach. Compelling, that was the word. He found her compelling. His nerves were shot. He was getting edgy. When had he last shaved? Huh, two days at least. He had his cigarettes, why all this hanging around? It was time to get over the bridge and back to the waiting bottle. Forget the duck, forget the broad, forget Lotto, forget video poker, there would be other days.

Snatching a copy of Modern Fly Fishing from the magazine rack, he leafed furiously through it. Resentment flared against himself, a spreading stain of social wreckage at a spiritual and magnetic moment.

Cosmos also felt the call, but had none of his master's inhibitions. He walked up to the woman trailing his leash, and stuck his nose between her legs.

"Well hello there, big fella. You're not in the least bit shy are you?" Not intimidated by a dog almost her size, the woman knelt down and, putting her nose to Cosmos', shook his head by the ears.

Gerry hurried over, muttering apologies. "Sorry about that. He just likes people is all."

"Well, I like him, too. He's just a big love." She formed her words well. It was an articulation from away. An educated, big city girl. She rose and extended a hand. "Hi, I'm Morgana le Fay. Call me Maggie."

The simple, everyday gesture caught Gerry off balance. He was prepared for a quick getaway, but in that instant it was all over. Gerry was awash on the shoals of beauty, his compass demagnetized. Modern Fly Fishing was twisted into a paper party favor.

Her hand hung between them. She pressed it forward, coming closer. She had noticed the crumpled magazine in his hands. There would be no easy retreat for Gerry MacKechnie. "Are you a fisherman? I'm keen on bicycle racing, myself."

"Oh, me? No." There was a pause. Cosmos thumped the floor, approving. Her eyes were dark and clear, friendly without a trace of amusement at catching him out. Gerry's embarrassment flushed and faded. "Lose your baggage?"

"No, my baggage is fine, or so the man here assures me. It's just not here yet."

The hand was still extended. Gerry dropped Modern Fly Fishing and took it. "Welcome to Loup du Jour, New Brunswick, Canada. Gerry MacKechnie."

"Well, Mister MacKechnie, it's simply grand to make your acquaintance. And besides, my arm was getting tired. They say a pretty girl can always find some nice man to look after her. You are a nice man. I trust you."

"Come on, Gerry, the broad is hot to trot. Make your move." The voice came from a lottery terminal behind Gerry and the woman. "You lust wistfully, MacKechnie. It is poor clay they give me to work with." Gerald Bronson MacKechnie turned to confront the duck.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You are hoping she's an adventuress out on a big money scam and finds you irresistible? This would add some meaning to your pathetic life? She's a figment. You're hung over. Forget it. This is a bus stop—not a likely location. A classy babe like her should be on a cruise ship or at an international air terminal. And you? Cut me some slack, please."

The duck stared out from the screen. "Check the chick," said the duck.

The woman was gone.

"Whaddid I tell you?" The duck was triumphant. "She never was there."

"Who was that woman? Uh, Maggie?"

"Not her real name. You are the punch line of a parable, young Gerry. She is a goddess, a myth. Just a glimpse, a peek of better things—dispensation for your delicacy in the matter of your dog having to pee."

"Because I turned my back?"

"We all enjoy our private moments. The goddess has a weakness for dogs—dogs don't get irony, maybe that's why. She races greyhounds regularly. And she wins."

"But the woman?"

"A piece of street theater and illustrative of what you may yet make of yourself, Gerry, my boy. Hey, divinity needs a day off, too. Look at me. She is Morgana le Fay, on loan from the International Cycling Union. Just think—the Morgaine, Queen Mab of Avalon, patroness of grand tour bicycle racing. She was only just passing the border, back from the Giro d'Italia. Divinity is an interlocking directorate and I now owe her one—and you therefore owe me. Lay off the booze and the gambling and Sheila will be Queen Mab of Avalon for you."

"Sheila will be a goddess?"

"The Morgana has discovered a soft spot for you. Unfortunately you have bartered your soul to the Provincial Lottery Corporation for chump change so any favors I can pass along will be understandably small."

"Uhn. I'd like to go far. To travel. Whatever."

"Simple enough. You have punched all my buttons and the Lotto Corporation owes you one."

"One what?"

"One miracle."

"Why?"

"Because you are kind to your dog. The dog loves you, which is more than I would be inclined to do. The dog trusts you. Of all creatures of creation, you at least have never let him down. You will go far." Quack, quack, quack, the duck did a Groucho right off the screen.

A cascade of coins fell into the trough. "But for you this night there will be a plenary indulgence. Take a cab."

When Gerry arrived home he found no bus ticket, no airline ticket plus brochure for enchanted islands with bare-bosomed tawny wenches, no Queen Mab. Just the '78 Firebird Trans-Am. With four new tires, wide metrics—the P225/sixty-fifteens—an inspection sticker and fresh, shiny license plates.

Miracles are where you find them, figured Gerry. He had told the duck that he would like to travel, after all.

That night it was dinner out at McDonald's and the late show at the Willipaq Cinema for Sheila, Gerry and the kids. Cosmos opted for the double cheeseburgers and a side of fries.

copyright 2003, 2007 Rob Hunter

In a slightly different version A Special Providence
was first published in the May 2003 issue of Quantum Muse