74. Grey City

          

I took Vinny to the city where I sometimes sleep in a car. One could play the little clover lottery game there. It was a quiet place, so we were as safe there as we could possibly be in any other mortal city. When we set out, we both wore baseball caps and sun glasses and carried a satchel each. It was early afternoon of a  very hot summer and there was hardly any shade and the sun was so bright it could shrivel Vinny.To avoid this he carried a little bottle of dew water and drank from it every now and then just like I had warned him to do. Despite the heat, it was best to venture out at this unseemly, torrid hour because there were less people in the streets.

“It’s true,” said Vinny, who had never been in a city before. “The ground here is like a river of stone, flanked by long banks of flat rock. There is neither grass nor piles of fallen leaves on its banks and all is hard as the hearts of the horrid humans. Is it true the humans spit monstruous traps on the hard city ground and that delicate and airy things can get stuck to them forever if they step into one or are stepped on?”

I glanced at the dark, greasy  blotches of what once had been chewing gum that could be seen on the pavement. I did not want to frighten Vinny more than necessary to for him to survive so I asked him not to dwell on such ideas and to keep away from the floor. 

“Just sit tight on my shoulder,” I said, “or on my cap if you are more comfortable there. Don’t hover about flying with your ears. We don’t want to be taken for bugs.”

“These aren’t my ears,” said Vinny. “They are my wings. I’m wing-headed. If I see a mortal I will want to take off like a bat out of hell but yes, yes, I know I mustn’t lose my head. I have to keep cool and be alert and be as still as possible or move fast and with intention among mortals.”

Next Vinny noticed a very small tree planted in the corner of a square. It was tied to a stake so it would grow up straight and there were bricks on the ground round it.

                                          

“How terrible!” he cried. “Why have they put that little tree in the pillory?”

“That is a city tree,” I said. “It hasn’t done anything wrong. The wooden stick is supposed to help the tree stand. It’s so the tree has something to lean on till its roots become familiar with this new ground and grow stong enough to hold it up.”

But Vinny would not accept my explanation. “How could it not need something to lean on here! It must be scared to death, growing here! Alone and tied to a stick when it should be among its kith and kin! You’re lying to me. Of course it is in the pillory! They’ve even thrown things at it. Look at all the garbage there is round it!”

There were indeed paper wrappers and cigarette stubs and other more disgusting items within the four borders marked by the bricks. I assured Vinny that some humans liked trees and missed having them in the city. That was why they had brought the little tree there. But yes, others were mean and threw things all over the ground, and that included round the tree. Hence the saying so popular among fairies that where there are humans there is trash.

“What happens to the leaves that fall to the ground?” asked Vinny. “Can they return to the earth fusing into this kind of ground?”

“Certain persons are paid to come for them and take them where they can melt into...their surroundings.” I mentioned the garbagemen and the dump yards as lightly as I could so as not to upset him further.

Vinny said he would like to check out the place where the leaves were taken. Could we visit it? I told him it would be better to do that on another outing. For the moment we had to concentrate on our present purpose.                    

I found a shop that sold lottery and peered inside. The vendor behind the counter was a lady that did not look unfriendly. And it looked like we were going to be the only customers. I grew to human size and  instructed Vinny to take the size of a tiny doll and sit on my cap and be as still as possible, pretending to be a pin or a sort of ornament. Before we stepped inside Vinny removed from his tiny satchel a mortal coin that took up all the space there was in there. I thought that he must have felt like he was carrying a boulder. He wanted me to pay for the lottery with this coin he had found in the forest. I told him not to worry about the money. I would take care of that. I grew to human height and we entered the shop. But...

“Certainly not!” said the lottery seller frowning at me. “You’re a minor. You can’t buy lottery.”

  

This was something neither of us had foreseen. Vinny was so indignant he forgot to be quiet.

“What do you mean he’s a minor? He’s over seven!” Vinny shouted.

“Oy! What is that?” cried the lady in surpise. “Are you a ventriloquist?”

                                 

“It’s a collectible doll,” I lied. “It will be the rage next Christmas. My grandfather is a toymaker. He’s waiting outside. Can I ask him to come in to buy his lottery?”

Fortunately for us the lady believed me and Vinny did not put his foot in it again. He kept his mouth shut until we were outside the shop. Then he began to shout, “What do you mean your grandfather is out here?”

“You let me handle this. Just pretend to be a toy like I said you were and be still as you can.You almost got us into trouble in there.”

                               

A little abracadabra later I had turned myself into an old man. I had a big white moustache and my hair was all white too. I looked like a chubby but beardless Santa Claus in orange bermudas and a purple t-shirt with a baseball cap and a satchel, and I felt a little ridiculous but there was no denying I looked old.

“Vinny, you mustn’t say I’m lying to the lottery lady. What I’m doing is called diplomacy. I’m getting what we want without provoking an incident between our people and the mortal people due to our different customs. “

And that is how we got the lottery lady to sell us a ticket for the little clover game to be played that night.

“Do you want it from the machine or would you like to pick the numbers you’ll play with yourself?” she asked.

I was ready to answer that. Vinny had told me the numbers he wanted to play with. They were number one because it always came first, number two so it wouldn’t feel bad because it never won first place, number seven because we had to have the luckiest number on the ticket, number twenty-seven because it was the number of  Vinny’s pet toadstool, number thirty-five because he had closed his eyes and pointed with my ballpen at a list of numbers and touched this one and last but not least, number fifty because it was the last of the numbers one could play with and who knew? The last might come out first.

“Have I won?” asked Vinny excitedly when we were out of the shop.

“You’ll know tonight. We can check the results using my laptop.”

And the result was that Vinny was drowning in an ocean of tears a few hours later.

                                        

“Whaaaaah! Oh what a setback!” wailed Vinny, more tears gushing out of his eyes than dew water he had drank. “How can I not have won? Everybody says I’m a lucky little fruit! No, don’t ty to console me. I’m coming apart. It’s the first time I’ve ever lost anything. Besides, I should have had beginner’s luck! It’s the first time I’ve played. Why didn’t I win?”
     

I begged him not to take it that way. I knew for certain it was almost impossible to win the little clover lottery. In truth, it was just a strange way mortals had of collecting taxes or doing charity. I asked him if he didn’t know that.

“No, I didn’t,” he replied between sobs. “I was sure I would win. If not, I would never have tried to gamble the coin I found in the forest and that I should have handed over to the  FFTROKL.”

“What is the FFTROKL?” I asked.

                                     

“The Fund For The Ransom Of Kidnapped Leafies,” he replied. “We cede every bit of mortal money we find to the fund. But...I needed the coin to eat. That justifies my having kept it, doesn’t it?”

“To eat? You have nothing to eat?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “How awful! I had no idea! But what exactly do you eat?”

He said Leafies rarely ate more than a soup of earth and water, though they gathered nuts and berries and such to help the forest creatures go through harsh winters. It was that he was once sent to spy on Binky who went to have a business meal at a posh restaurant called The Poultice. It was a new restaurant, so Binky and his guests ordered the tasting menu. For four hours Vinny had watched the waiters serve all kinds of rare, bizarre and luxurious morsels. And he was hooked. Day after day and night after night all Vinny did was dream of tasting that food. He knew he would feel like a failure if he couldn’t give himself a taste of those delicacies. All this, plus losing the little clover lottery game, had shattered his self-esteem.

Ah, but sometimes there are consolation prizes!

“Oh, Vinny, you’re in luck!” I cried happily. “My parents are going to celebrate my brother Devin’s birthday at that new restaurant. Consider yourself invited.”                           

                             

“Sniff. Really?”