The Winners Circle by Christopher Klim

have to come here.”
    “ It’s my divorce too. Excuse me, annulment.”
    “ I did it like this so you didn’t have to show.”
    “ Do you really want to erase the marriage? Is that what you think of it?”
    “ It’s not that simple.”
    “ I’d rather have a divorce. There’d be a record of us, not this cleaned up effect, Cogdon-style.”
    She released him. “You’re angry with me. It doesn’t suit you. It never did.”
    “ I’m better when I have something to fix.”
    “ Jerry, don’t screw this up.”
    “ I’m past that point. I’m screwed up already. I want to know what you’re doing? That’s the question.”
    She looked at him again. He saw his reflection in her eyes. In many ways, he was the same boy from the woods of Chesterfield, yet she had kicked her life into high gear. She was embarrassed for him. He sensed it down to his core.
    “ I know you.” He saw her as she had been: harelip, normal breasts, regular clothes. She was a terrific therapist, top of her class, but she never missed the details that her egghead college mates disregarded. On Christmas Eve, she stuffed little stockings full of candy and toys for the kids in the neighborhood, and when Jacob Johansen caught a cold, she sent homemade pies and chicken soup. She was the most beautiful person he’d known on the inside. He wondered if she hadn’t turned inside out. That transformation was more astounding than anything a plastic surgeon might perform.
    “ You’re making this hard on me,” she said.
    He appreciated the glint of compassion. He was beginning to think that she’d stowed it away with everything else. “So I’m no good for you any more. Cogdon can do a better job?”
    She took his hand in the old way. Her long fingers wrapped over his big hands, hooking over his knuckles. She always set their direction. He was helpless to run against it.
    A tear formed in her eye, dangling in the corner. “We have to move on.”
    Why, he thought but never said it aloud.
     
     
     
     
     
    The judge slammed down the gavel, dividing Jerry from Chelsea on paper. Jerry left the courthouse. Frozen rain bounced off the steps like fragments from a shattered windshield. He was numb. Rattlesnake venom coursed through his veins. He felt it, tasted it in his mouth. It was pure poison.

 
     
CHAPTER 7
     
The Winners Circle
     
     
     
    On Tuesday nights, The Winners Circle gathered in room 201B at the Trenton JCC. Jerry studied the new faces. They were millionaire winners too. At the first meeting, he’d counted only five heads, yet by spring, a dozen men and women crowded the room. The place held a constant stink of coffee and donuts, and a haze of cigarette smoke hung in the air like the mist at dawn.
    “ Let’s get started.” Dick Leigh led the sessions. The Circle was his brainchild. He was a certified psychologist and one of the first big jackpot winners. He dressed in a Gordon Liddy kind of way: sport coats, turtlenecks, hair increasingly shorter. He claimed to have adopted the style during the trial against his dead wife’s family. “Can we take our seats?”
    Tucker, Dick’s bodyguard, assumed his customary position outside the circle of chairs. He leaned against the wall beside the kitchenette counter, digging jellybeans from the pocket of a kelly green windbreaker. The leather strap of his gun holster peeked beneath the nylon zipper. “Coffee’s ready.”
    “ Did you use the French roast?” A bald man called over from the chairs. Jerry hadn’t learned his name yet.
    “ Yes.” Tucker replied.
    “ I brought it back from Provence. I hope everyone likes it.”
    “ Smells good.”
    “ I found it in a charming cafe by the sea.”
    People politely acknowledged the offering.
    “ Next time,” he said. “I’ll bring china cups.”
    Jerry filled a styrofoam cup, like the others. The Circle broke the monotony in his routine. The company wasn’t bad either. He didn’t have to speak. He needed to have good ears and loads