Beginner's luck (story idea)

He was a man who firmly believed in the rules of the universe:

Yin and yang.

Good karma follows bad karma

and vice versa.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

He had a wise smile. It was a smile of a man who knows that he can’t know everything, but who also knows he knows enough. Such a smile comes from both luck and hard work, just like everything else worthwhile in the universe (he knew this too). The hard work that had given him that smile was his ceaseless analysis and observation of his surroundings. The luck had came from testing his observations many times; many times more than a normal person would. His luck came after most people would have given up.

Toy cranes were popular in the city he lived. You could pay 50 cents and get three chances to win a stuffed animal by picking it up with a weak crane. Like most people his age, he would go out drinking with his friends at night. In between bars after a few beers, they would play the toy cranes. Usually the cranes were whipping boys for his friends: they put in 50 cents, half-heartedly moved the crane around, and when they didn’t win, they would drunkenly kick the machine and jokingly curse at it for being a ripoff. They’d each have a go at it and then stumble off to the next bar.

He never played them, though. At first he believed, like his friends, that they were a ripoff. But unlike them, he didn’t feel the need to feed it money just to have a justification for kicking it when he lost. Instead he just watched. His friends goaded him to try every once in awhile, but they were as lack-luster at peer pressure as they were at playing the crane.

Then one night, he was again out with his friends. They were getting even more drunk than usual and it was late in the night. On the way to the last bar, the found a crane and each had a go at it in turn. After all of his friends had tossed their money and frustration into the machine, they ambled off to get more drunk. Just one of them was conscious enough to notice that he had stayed behind.
“Hey guys,” he slurred, “look who’s tryin the crane!”

Everyone laughed the laugh that drunk people do when something is surprising. Then he pulled out a sack of quarters and plopped it on the crane with a metallic crash.

“These are all the quarters I saved while watching you morons throw money away on this dumb game,” he announced boldly with a huge grin on his face. He was awash with drunken bravado.

“Not a single one of you has won a single doll since you started playing this damn game, and tonight you’re all going to look like idiots when I win buckets of them on my first night playing.”

Everyone laughed the same laugh again because this statement was also surprising. But they were also drunk enough to be a little scared of someone just as drunk but even bolder than them.

He put two quarters in and played. On his first three tries, the crane merely grazed the edges of dolls, hardly moving them, the same as everyone else’s attempts. They all let out yet another laugh and said, “All right buddy, let’s go. We’ve got beer calling our name.”

“I’m not leaving this crane until every single one of these quarters is gone. I’m gonna catch up with you assholes tonight and spend just as much on this game as you have. Except I’m gonna have thousands of these stupid dolls and none of you morons will.”

They laughed him off yet again and started walking to the bar, leaving him behind. They all thought he might play for a few more minutes, and then catch up with them. But he stayed.

They all got a first beer and drank it. Then a second. Then a third and fourth. Even though they were drunk, they suddenly realized that their friend still hadn’t joined them. They thought maybe he had gotten frustrated and just gone home. But they all knew he was still there. One of them went to go check on him, and found him still there with the bag of quarters, now a little lighter, and without a single doll. Of course, he laughed.

“All right man, come on. Come get drunk. It’s all right. No one wins this damn game.”

He didn’t look up; he was still playing the game. But he cracked a little, half-drunk, half-conscious grin. “I’ll catch up when my quarters are gone. Didn’t you hear me? Get back there and drink another beer,” he said and patted his friend on the bum.

The friend went back to the bar, laughed a little more with the other friends about him, and just drank more beer, waiting around for the inevitable.