Thirty Nine Million Smackaroom Jackpot that I believe was supposed to be mine.

Everybody in our neighborhood keeps asking each other, "Was it you? Was it you?" Some of the asking is all friendly and joking, but some of it, sort of squinty eyed look comes first, then, real slow, "Was it you?"

Personally, I think it might have been the guy that lives in the tiny shack house a couple blocks over, I think he's not quite right and doesn't brush his hair and has a squeaky voice and rides his cruiser around, brown bagged beer in one hand. His house is the size of a can of frijoles, and I think his mom might live in there with him too. Across the street is where they crammed the 3 modulars onto one lot and not sure how you get to the door of the back one, wedged so tight onto the tiny lot.

The surfer guys, who have been spending the day on ladders on Richard Next Door's house's roof, they don't know who it was. Couldn't believe it happened at the market they've been working across the street from all week. All morning, before I leave for work, I hear all about this, over and over. They say Dude a lot.

"Dude. No way. Can you totally believe it?"

"Insane, man. Like we are RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from that Market!"

"Sick. Dude. Like I almost BOUGHT ONE that DAY!"

"Dude. That's so tight. Someone is so stoked."

"Sick."

We heard it's a He. That's the latest rumor around the street. So not the grandma of around the corner, the sea of crap multiplying by the day in her front yard. Cars and mannequins and boxes and masks and bears and chairs and things to wear. Leaves moldy old rolls out for the pigeons on palettes outside her gate, where the Mickey Mouse See and Say hangs faded by the sun. Not her daughter with the haunted house stuff out in front of her own junk heap yard display a few doors down, barking white and black spotted dogs that live out in her front yard, or anyone from the funny half shingled nun house across the street.

Maybe Mr. Lopez, who quietly sits out in his yard weeding, day in and day out, songs from the '40's playing on his tinny and teeny transistor radio, laying on the grass? I wouldn't mind if it was Mr. Lopez. He moves slow, like he lives underwater, and I hate it when his big white fence gets graffitied. He's too old to paint that big white fence.

I know most of the neighbors. The ones that don't know my name just call me The Lady With All The Little Black Dogs. And I might call them The Guy with the Baby that Fixed Up the Jones' Old House or The Guy on the Corner that Works at the Mushroom Plant or the Guy on the Corner's Son with the Lowrider that Got it's Tires Slashed.

A lot of the neighbors, they know my name, I know a lot of their's. Lynnie, she feeds the squirrels and takes care of all the sick birds. Her husband had some bad health problems, and they don't have health insurance. Actually, I would be super happy if it was Lynnie that won. She showed me her special French Pigeons the other day. She lives across the bumpy street from Fern who has a big mean dog and a million parrots. Right by Dorothy who has a giant hole in her roof, still after all these years. Can't imagine how all those tarps still keep the water out. They helped out Dorothy a lot before she went in the nursing home. Dorothy's house is next to the one that's vacant now, but the punk rocker son still has band practice in the garage. Which is next door to Lexi whose husband died and rented out the barn and still hasn't painted her house, after all these years. Also next to the old guy with the vintage Willy's jeep and a million trailers and all the cardboard you would ever need stacked out back. You find out a lot about your neighbors when you walk by their house, every single day.

Everything except, Who It Was. That got my lottery ticket.