Saturday's Storyteller: "Fifteen was never my lucky number, but there's a first time for everything."

by Belinda Roddie

Fifteen was never my lucky number, but there's a first time for everything. It started with a scratch ticket that landed me a solid eight hundred dollars - just a measly little stub I had paid three bucks for down at the nearest gas station. I used a good two hundred of those dollars to take my girlfriend to a baseball game, where my favorite hitter - whose jersey blared the number fifteen - blasted a home run to right field just a few minutes after our seats were upgraded. We left the ball game and avoided traffic home by hopping into the car at ten fifteen PM, on the dot. A minute later, and we would have been jammed into a living nightmare of automobile gridlock.

The number fifteen, now that I was paying attention, was creeping into my life in astoundingly positive ways. When my number was called at the fast food restaurant, I got a free slice of chocolate pie with my burger. My receipt number: Fifteen. When I went to teach my creative workshop at the local university, who should wind up on campus but the esteemed author Nigel Spitz, a favorite of mine who lived a few cities over. He had been to see a friend, but felt compelled to give a fun, inspiring lecture to my students. The number of students enrolled in my workshop: An exact fifteen.

Maybe it was stretching somewhat, but I held onto that double digit miracle like my life depended on it. I was more inclined to buy things in stocks of fifteen if I could. I appreciated it when the number fifteen showed up in my purchases, and when it didn't, I'd throw something else into the pile to see if I could change it. I would count to fifteen in my head multiple times during the day, whether I was taking a shower, walking up the staircase, or doing the usual daily chores, like emptying the dishwasher. My girlfriend tried to tell me that she felt this newfound "obsession" with fifteen was a problem. I would try to remind her of my lucky scratch ticket, or the home run at the baseball game, but she wouldn't budge. She sometimes would even taunt me, pointing at the television screen when a well-known car insurance advertisement showed up and yelling, "See? Fifteen minutes can save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance! You gonna freak out, Danny? You gonna switch your goddamn insurance now?"

She backed off eventually, especially when she noticed how my love of the number fifteen was actually changing my mood for the better. Usually, when I came home from work, I was weighed down with exhaustion and grumpiness and was no pleasure to be around. Nowadays, I'd typically pull into the driveway just as number fifteen of the top forty hits was playing on the radio - and it'd always be a song I liked. That left me whistling and dancing a little as I walked up the steps to my house. My girlfriend finally decided that, if this new lucky number of mine made me happy, then who was she to complain? She even catered to my adoration sometimes, pointing out the number fifteen with endearment whenever we saw it on a sign or heard it in a movie or on a TV show.

We were both on a roll toward the end of 2014, and I had never looked more forward to 2015. Hell, the number fifteen was in the year. This was going to be, possibly, one of the best years of my life. We enjoyed Halloween, with fifteen trick-or-treaters showing up at our house, which left us with lots of extra candy. We had an excellent Christmas, in which I got fifteen presents on the mark. New Year's Eve brought forth fifteen hearty shots of hard liquor to get me swooning by the time the countdown came - though I was disappointed that it started with ten instead of, well, you know.

Despite my inebriation, I was just about quivering with excitement when I finally went to bed. I would greet the first day of 2015 with positive energy, determination, and a little sense of humor. What I did not know was, eerily enough, 2015 had a strange surprise waiting for me. And it wasn't going to be pretty.

***

I woke up to knocking at my door. When I turned to look at my alarm clock, it said 9:15. Fifteen. This was a good sign. Already, I was off to a good start. Maybe the person at the door had nothing but good news for me.

I was greeted, instead, by a strange woman in a masculine black suit, her hair cut all the way up to her ears. Before I could say anything, I was being cuffed, dragged out of my house, and tossed into the back of a large, white van. Faster than my girlfriend could scream, "Abduction!" I was being driven away to some undisclosed location, dumped into a singular warehouse room into the stereotypical metal chair.

I was staring down fifteen women and men, all dressed the same way, with the same haircut. I opened my mouth to make a comment. I was silenced with a finger.

"How," the woman who had knocked on the door said, "did you do it. How the fuck did you crack the system."

I blinked. Just yesterday, I had been doing shots at a New Year's Eve party. Now I was privy to some sort of secret organization gimmick. "I'm sorry?" I managed to ask.

"The number fifteen," replied the woman, gesturing around her. "It's everywhere. Our number. The one thing directing us. You found a way to integrate it into your everyday life. You cracked the system. Explain how."

"Uh," I said, "okay. Three questions before I say anything else. Number one: Who are you. Number two: Where am I. Number three: Who the fuck are you."

All of the suited people stiffened. It was as if they expected me to come up with twelve other questions on the fly. I didn't. Not all numbers save for fifteen eluded me, One man whispered something into the "fearless leader's" ear. She sighed and folded her arms.

"We are a group that specializes in the random fortune of your standard numerical system," she said. "Every group has a number. We are fifteen. Fourteen people manage the number fourteen and its lucky qualities. Seven people deal with number seven. You get the gist?"

I stared. "So does that mean one dude deals with number one?"

"Michael has issues," one of the other women said. "We don't envy him."

"You," the leader said, "found a way to manipulate fifteen to your whim. You didn't just embrace your lucky number - you outright began to control it. A young individual with skills like you can't be ignored. You could pose a threat to the entire balance."

For a moment, I started to wonder if I were still in bed, suffering from a hang-over dream. I wasn't. I sat zip-tied to the chair, unable to think of what to say or do. That was before, to my astonishment, I was unbound and brought to shake the leader's hand.

"I need someone like you," she declared. "For too long, the number fifteen has been mocked as a lucky number. Group Twenty-one has the casinos. Group Seven hundred seventy-seven has the slots. Groups Fifty and One Hundred, well, they monopolize anything. With your luck, and with this year being ours, we can restore some balance once and for all."

"You're crazy," I declared. "You're absolutely fucking nuts."

"Maybe at first glance," the leader replied with a slight smile, "but have you ever been given a second scratch ticket that uses the number fifteen to win a whopping thousand dollars instead of eight hundred?"

From her suit jacket, she offered me just that, and when I used a penny from another "agent's" pocket to scratch at the ticket, I stared as the number fifteen, in all its glory, showed up. One thousand dollars. That could afford me another handful of baseball games. I scrutinized the woman carefully before shaking her hand.

"Count me in. I've been dying to quit my old job, anyway."

"But boss," one other agent quipped, "doesn't that bring us to sixteen? That means one of us has to go."

"Glad you volunteered, Monahan," sneered the leader, before drawing what appeared to be a small laser gun from Star Trek and zapping her colleague out of existence. I looked down to see myself in a full black suit, like Agent Smith from The Matrix. I was bonafide Group Fifteen material.

Wouldn't my girlfriend be surprised.

This week's prompt was provided by Justin Tack.