Luck

Alright I know that you have been waiting for the Two Corey’s rant for episodes 1 and 2. And I will do them, I promise. But, you must wait as I bait and switch and do something completely different just for my own writer’s indulgence complex.

I found myself walking, baking my brain in 100-degree weather, in a futile attempt to escape. I wondered quietly in the circuits of my inner mind and aloud to the bemusement of passerbys about how bad luck seemed to have grabbed my current being. It felt as is I was foiled at every turn like the Hamburglar, perhaps Dastardly and Muttley.
So what is luck?
Some have said, “It’s where preparation meets opportunity.” Bollocks.
The Happy Mondays said, “I wrote for luck, they send me you.” Shaun Ryder may have been onto something with that total frustration/philosophical idea if he hadn’t been talking about fucking drugs the rest of the song.
Maybe luck is for all those things you can’t control or just aren’t big enough for a prayer or incantation? Like when you’re watching Match Game 73’ and Richard Dawson is on it or you’ve parlayed some absurd two-dollar trifecta into a hundred dollars at some podunk West Virginian track.
No matter which version you take, I was shit out of it. I sat down in front of some teriyaki and thought about it as I thumbed through a new Murakami book. “I can’t possibly be so out of fucking luck. Did I grab a tiki god off the beach in Hawaii? There’s got to be a voodoo curse! Does that affect luck or perhaps kept my health fucked up a month ago? Jaysis, man there just had to be a way to change my luck.”
A rabbit’s foot? Nothing says doing better in your life than hacking a long foot of a cute holiday mascot.
Lucky pennies? They seem to have found their way into piggybanks or people’s carpet, because I certainly hadn’t picked one up in forever. You know have bad luck, when you only run into heads down pennies.
Then it hit me. Four-Leaf Clover. Surely you jest, you might scoff. Now I realize it’s become one of those things that has been glommed onto every Irish related item shipped to Dollar Generals and The Sharper Image.
But, just think about it for a second. A four-leaf clover? When was the last time you really saw a four-leaf clover? I thought about modern urbanity and realized that even in city parks you might see a classic double clover or perhaps the vaunted troika clover. But a four leaf clover.
I went back through my memories to remember if I had ever seen one, just growing in the wild and finally I found one in my head. I was age four and ten blocks from where I sat in front of my vacant bowl. I was in school running and bopping around shooting blaster bursts via my hand as Han Solo. I rushed hidden through a large grove of small trees, that sprawled along a cold, stone wall destroying the evil stormtroopers that hunted me and Princess Leia played by one of my kindergarten muses.
We ran together through that cool morning past the old mansion guest house where our classes were held clear to the other side where the green patches and swaying St Augustine grass bristled sharply, almost propelling us forward even faster than before.
Now, I was an X-Wing ship and she the Millennium Falcon and we flew together to take that Death Star bastards pay. We made loud whooshing sounds interspersed with more killer bursts via our arms. Our stamina never wavered as circles were made like vultures and left weird patterns in the grass with glow in the dark Keds like bees on the mate.
Time to crash. I jumped all fours, shot from the sky, sliding into home, arms outstretched to the harsh ground. Into a patch of small greens that cushioned the tear stained fall, I suddenly smiled as I looked in front of me there was a four leaf clover. Just one. A million little plants and only one stood tall enough to deserve my gaze. Just one. I reached for it gradually with my short, squat arms, my wounds crying for Bactine. They could wait, I knew what that little, cheerful plant meant; that luck at it’s finest, would become my own. I was close to it till the whirlwind swept over me and the girl grabbed the clover I had been reaching for.
“I found a four leaf clover! I found a four leaf clover!” she yelled for everyone to hear.
Our twelve compatriots rambunctiously ran over in childlike amazement of course to see the first four-leaf clover they’d seen, and I looked at the ground in frustration. If I had known that it was going to be the last four leaf clover I would see for at least 20 years, maybe I would've gone and looked too. If I had known that this girl had just gotten all the luck she could spare for like a lifetime, I probably would've cried.
Clearing my tray, I felt sad at the memory and the realization that you just never see four leaf clovers anywhere. Maybe they’ve all been picked. Maybe it was global warming that killed them. Maybe they were all stolen during a playground romp. I really didn’t know. All I knew was my luck felt like it was at it’s worst. There had to be something to change it, man I swear.
I think I sulked down the street, hands in my pockets, nothing to say, it was all just a jumbled self-abusing pain trip that nothing could…
A lucky penny!
Holy shit!
Lincoln was winking at me. Even one dose of luck could fill the tank pretty well. My head down, I smiled towards the scorching asphalt and when I grabbed it the copper was so hot it almost burned my hand. I pressed the coin hard between my thumb and middle finger to try and seal the good luck into my body before putting it in my pocket and resuming the short stroll. I felt at least a small jolt of energy and didn’t feel restless for what felt like the first time in days.
There may be those that don’t believe in luck, but I’m sure as hell not one of em'. I’ll take anything I can get in this difficult life. Any type of peace, anything that gives me that extra little bit of fight, I fully support. And even as I’ve tried to rally against the rotten luck and actually find some good luck with all the things that truly matter to me or tried to rally I’ve yet to see any more four leaf clovers. But, by the end of that long day I had found four lucky pennies, and could at least wistfully smile at the irony and luck that was now burning a hole in my pocket.