Numero Uno
by
Katrina Rutgliano

I often wonder what my life would have been like had I chosen a different path. If it 
wasn’t for the choice I made on that sweltering November day five years ago, I’d 
probably still, due to a lack of funds, be applying my own sunscreen concoction of 
aloe vera and flour to my already too burnt shoulders. You see, my numbers came up 
– no, my number wasn’t up, my lucky six numero’s were drawn on a Saturday night’s 
Tattslotto draw on an evening I ate cold 2-minute noodles for dinner. 

It’s become a part of our culture to plan, in detail, what we’d spend the winnings on 
should we be so fortunate? Yesterday at the supermarket I overheard a lady listing, in 
order or purchase, the exact amount she’d spend on travel, a make-over, cars and 
jewellery. The checkout girl, who looked no older than 13, nominated a breast 
enlargement, nose job and ‘them real sick clothes Paris Hilton wears’. Non-winners 
often nominate items and procedures they think will end their so-called suffering. To 
think that changing ones appearance will delete the memory is a true sign of our times, a 
time where digital images control our emotions and judgement – if we allow them to. 

I didn’t spend one dollar of the 22 million I had on facial reconstruction, Italian 
leather or overseas travel. I gave half to the community, and the other half I used to purchase 
a cul-de-sac lined with sustainable homes. Every person I loved, my closet friends and 
family, were the proud new owners. In total 18 sets of keys were given away, along 
with ownership papers and of course, custom made themed letterboxes to suit each 
owner. 

To this day, and more than likely a few more, people ask me how I chose the numbers 
that changed lives. Did I randomly select them? Were they a combination of birthdays? 
and anniversaries? Was I psychic? I wish. There was a bit more to it than that. 

The day of November 27th 2003 was similar to the one before, and the one before that. 
I had been unemployed for months, yet worked everyday as though I was paid 
thousands. You see, I’m a writer, and it’s not like jobs for writers are plentiful. 
Permanent casual, part or fulltime, it just doesn’t happen in this country. I call myself a 
writer because that’s what I do, I write. I’m not talking about a novel that’s been in 
the making for 10 years or love poems never sent, I’m talking about constructing 
sentences that educate and bring light to issues in society that often get missed 
through bureaucracy and bad decisions. Every week, I scan the local newspapers searching for a story 
I can offer my opinion on. Whether it’s the itchiness I feel about the 
council’s allocation of funds, to asking the question ‘what level of training the 
(obviously ambivalent) journalists have?’ The editors heard it all. 

An elderly friend of mine once said the key to a successful life was one spent doing 
things one loved. Slaving to pay a mortgage by working a 9-5 you dreaded waking up 
for each day was an invitation for wrinkles resembling deep cuts. I wasn’t lonely, 
nor did I have a mortgage, and working in a corporate office making some overweight 
bigot a lot of money was not my idea of the good life. Yes I had no money to pay for 
what some refer to as luxuries, but boy was I satisfied reading my published argument 
against why the local pet shelter should close so a block of sky-high apartments could 
be put in its place. 

The radio was on and tragically yet another local school had been the victim of arson. 
Who would do such as a thing? In the space of 2 months, 3 high schools and one day 
care centre had lost everything in the callous hands of someone dubbed ‘the Fernside 
Firestarter’. Locals had reported seeing a man hiding in nearby bushes giggling at fire 
trucks approaching, but vanishing before police even had a chance to park their cars. 
In an attempt to highlight the need for a second police station, I felt it my 
constitutional duty as a citizen of Fernside to make the urgency known by writing a 
letter to the council asking why our protection is yet again being compromised. Like 
many letters I had sent before, not a word was heard back. Expecting a reply was like 
asking Jesus to admit he was a prophet who was good at marketing himself. It just 
wasn’t going to happen. 

When the radio cut out unexpectedly, I rushed to the television for an update on some 
evidence they had found in a nearby park close to my rented apartment. Pressing the 
remote’s power button got me nowhere, so I door knocked my way around the block, 
hoping it was a communal outage which would be fixed (and paid for) by the body 
corporate. No such luck. Knowing that my landlord was frolicking on the Greek island of 
Santorini, I held my sweaty head down in disbelief that trading tobacco or wheat for a tradesman’s 
services were, in this day and age, no longer an option. I had to phone someone in and fast. The zero 
wind factor and 38 degree heat was not doing my mind any favours -I needed an electrician to fix the 
fan, radio and fridge full of cider right away. 

Two gruelling and very long hours later, the knock on the door literally brought me to 
my knees in appreciation. He was here, toolbox and all, and by crikey he wasn’t 
leaving until this problem was fixed. “How’z it goin?” he asked, in suburban Aussie 
twang. “It’ll be better once you’re gone” I joked, hoping he’d get the ‘fix it fast’ 
message. He had a look about him that seemed familiar, yet I wasn’t sure I wanted to 
remember how exactly I knew him. We were similar in age and height – I really 
hoped he wasn’t one of the boys who used to throw bricks at me from the bridge after 
school 20 years ago. “Looks like ya safety switch saved ya mate, but it’s all good 
now”. Great – so all I had to do was flick a switch. It’s funny how the simplest 
answers in life require $250 and 5 minutes with a stranger in your home who stinks of 
last Wednesday’s beer spillage and cheap rollie tobacco. It was like society had 
forgotten how to act respectively. Why did he feel the need to write me an invoice for 
the use of one of his fingers for half a second? Why was I required to pay him for the 
unpleasant task of inhaling an odour that caused me to gag? I guess life is full of 
priceless unanswered questions. 

“Sign here would ya mate” he gasped, as he handed me a pen the shape of a woman’s 
torso. At the same time from the corner of my eye I noticed a piece of paper drop. I 
sensed it was an old receipt, probably from last night’s fish and chips he’d consumed 
in a hurry on his way to the pub. I ignored it and signed the invoice. After I closed the 
door, I lit a match and blew it out – anything to disguise the lingering offal scent. 

Later in the day as I returned from the corner store, I noticed my cat Winston smelling 
the receipt the electrician let fall earlier. I picked it up to place in the bin -and that’s 
when I realised that it wasn’t a receipt at all, it was a ticket, a Tattslotto ticket for that 
very evening. I’ve never been a gambling man, and the idea of winning was so far 
fetched it didn’t even cross my mind. I placed the ticket in the rubbish and carried on 
reading the paper. 

Two days later I heard on the radio that the winning first division lotto ticket was sold 
in the Fernside shopping centres bookstore. The winner had not come forward, and 
residents were urged to literally check their back pockets. The idea of the ticket I had 
thrown being the winner was not something, even as a writer, I could find words to 
express. I wasn’t superstitious, spiritual or silly; I was a writer who wanted to open 
the eyes of those who had trouble opening their own. 

And that’s when I began to hunt through 8 individual large council rubbish bins outside 
for the bag I had thrown earlier. I was on a mission -I didn’t know what the outcome 
would be, nor did I care. For the first time in a while my hunger differed to that 
usually associated with food, and although it was filled with butterflies, something 
else had taken over both my mind and body. I didn’t care about the vulgar stench 
coming from the bins, nor did I care who saw me, and when I finally laid eyes on the 
one, it was like the clouds in the overcast sky had parted and the sun shone clearly 
through. I tore the bag apart like I was 5 and it was Christmas, and placed the ticket swiftly into 
my wallet. Olympic sprint champions had nothing on me as I ran the fastest I could 
have imagined directly to the local bookstore. 
I walked in unemployed, and walked out never having to contemplate working a day 
in my life again. 

The next morning as I sat down to read the local rag, the front-page headline said it all 
-‘Fernside Firestarter caught red-handed’. The 6pm news that evening revealed his 
burnt corpse was found beside what was my old junior high school, with an empty fuel 
tank and a silver lighter in the shape of a woman’s torso. And then I clicked – the pen 
and lighter must have come in a boxed gift set. 

If ever I’d thought about returning the ticket to its owner, now was certainly not the 
time, nor would it ever be. The smelly obnoxious over charging brick throwing (yes, 
it was him at school) electrician who tormented children for years was the culprit of a 
lot more than a bad haircut and Neanderthal hygiene. 

Weeks went by and I finally made up my mind how the money was to be spent. A 
friend of mine once said her dream would be to live in a street surrounded by the ones 
she loved most. That way, she’d never have to drive far, use the phone or email to 
connect with her most dearest, because they’d probably be in her kitchen helping her 
prepare a banquet for that nights celebration -the celebration of friendship, love and 
life. 11 million dollars saw that dream become a reality. The remaining 11 million 
went towards building 3 new schools, 2 pet shelters and a most needed additional 
police station. 

So when people ask me how I chose the numbers I quietly say ‘by pure chance’. 
Little do they know that through someone else’s number being up, those and that 
which I cared for most became number one, in ways not even words can describe 
easily.