by Nick Padron
The blind man waited for Nelson to say something and when he did not he continued, "Clearly that is, unless that someone is naturally akin to its influence. You must be the kind of person it likes, if you know what I mean. Then and only then will this number bring in the goods. The thirteen has to choose you. It's not enough for you to choose it."
The blind man paused with a mischievous grin on his thick lips. "But you probably think this is all nonsense."
"No, no, I'm listening," answered Nelson with a superior smile. How could he begin to explain to the lottery vendor of all that he already knew about numbers, or of the many hours he had spent alone in the university's library while the riotous demonstrations were taking place outside, hiding in the section for the Occult Sciences with those forbidden volumes of ancient secrets all to himself. What could this old man know of Ramon Llul and the endless combinations that can measure the cosmos... When out of nowhere, as if for the sole purpose of shattering his mental self-assertions, eight carefree seagulls swooped down over his head and alighted on the wooden frame of the lottery display rack, each flying down and landing with such an uncanny precision and grace that it left Nelson feeling a kind of itchiness in the pit of his stomach.
He informed the blind man of the gulls on his rack, but Cheo Calandro discarded it confidently with a nod of his head.
"They're new around here," he said, half covering his mouth so as not to be overheard. "They always come around when I talk about these things. They only want to see if I really know what I'm talking about."
The blind man had to cover his mouth not to giggle aloud. When he got over it, Cheo Calandro raised his round head and looked at Nelson as if making eye contact.
"All numbers are of good fortune," he said gravely. "Some obviously more than others, but that is simply because people make them that way."
"I don't understand," Nelson said. More gulls were landing on the lottery display and on the floor of the niche. The ones already by their feet were walking around as if someone were feeding them. It occurred to Nelson that perhaps the blind man was in the habit of feeding the birds around this time. Why else would these wild dockside gulls be behaving like this?
"How could that be?" Nelson wondered.
"Simple," the blind man replied as if very glad to have been asked. "All things are affected by the pull of people's fixation on them. For example, the numeral thirteen is recognized throughout most of the world as an unlucky number." Cheo Calandro let out a grunt intended to mean: Who knows why? "Personally," he said. "I don't see anything wrong with it. But right or wrong, mistakenly or not, it's been fixed on people's minds that way and this causes a big pull. The result is clear: an endless set of repercussions, an unlimited chain of effects affecting the numerology in all-living things and material things. Curiously enough, it's not the same with inorganic beings ... They're another story."
Nelson was too distracted to listen. A flock of seagulls was now all over the niche's floor and he could have sworn they were indeed listening to the blind man.
"What I've noticed about the thirteen," Cheo Calandro continued, "is that it is a most faithful numeral. The more you conduct your life within its domain, the more your luck increases. In this aspect, it's no accident this number is the favorite of so many people. It can be generous to a fault."
Cheo Calandro drew a long breath and added: "The truth is I've caught myself wondering about these things once or twice before, but it's a waste of time."
"Why is that?"
"Because I'm no good for the thirteen. And I've got a sneaking suspicion this number is not good for you either. Something tells me you should not interest yourself with it too much."
"Does that mean you're not going to sell me it?"
"No, that's not what I mean!" he responded, shocked. "Clearly I would sell you this bill with pleasure. Who am I to make such a decision for you? The problem is I'm all sold out."
Cheo Calandro burst out laughing with the abandon only a blind man can.
Spooked by the old man's loud laughter, Nelson took off across the plaza. The nauseous itchiness in his stomach had turned into a painful fluttering that for some mysterious reason he thought he could soothe with cold coconut milk. The vendor fished out a coconut out of the iced water in the cut-off oil drum, chopped the top it off with a machete, inserted a straw into the opening, and handed it to Nelson. It cost a nickel.
Nelson leaned on one of El Emboque's pillars in the shade and seeped the coconut milk, as he peered at Cheo Calandro on the other side of the steaming plaza. A woman with a black veil over her head was standing beside the blind man now, inspecting the bills on the rack, but not one gull was anywhere to be seen. They must have taken off while he had been looking away, Nelson guessed, all thirty or forty of them. Hard to believe, he thought, though not impossible if you had seen their choreographed aeronautics.
When Nelson finished the coconut milk, he looked up at the sky and saw it was still as a picture, nothing moving in it but for the black smoke from the departing buses. He decided not to give the blind man and his gulls anymore thought. To continue thinking about them was slowly leaving him with one conclusion, too strange a conclusion even for him.