Mr. Lucky

Yesterday, in anticipation for a six hour flight to Seattle, I stopped at the airport bar. My stomach was cartwheeling into next week and my mind could barely keep up with the pace. A well-dressed black man with a slight stutter, offered me the only empty seat at the bar. I accepted his invite and he bought me a beer. The charcoal skinned man was drinking kentucky straight bourbon whiskey out of a plastic cup. And I, was guzzling my beer straight from the bottle. "Mr. Lucky is what they call me." I perched expressionless and cross-legged on my bar stool. The fit phillipeno bartender brought me another bottle. I really shouldn't have had another bottle but me and "Mr. Lucky" were switching notes on Manhattan real estate and offering vague life histories. My mind glazed over as he preached his military past, twenty-something years in the armed forces. He didn't look like a military man to me, I would have guessed him to be a bouncer of a banker. "I won the Quick pick in the lotto in the same night," he said. To win the lotto twice in a life time is lucky enough but, in one night. I was amazed. This man really is Mr.Lucky. After serving his country, having eight kids, and retiring in his early 40's, he sits at an airport bar waiting for his "ladyfriend". Who, after she drops of her 13 year-old daughter flying to Vages, will accompany him to New York for a night of lounging and boozing with Al Sharpton's campaign manager. Thanks for the beers, Mr. Lucky. I, as the bearer of my own personal little black rain cloud, hope some of your luck rubbed off.