A Postcard from Luck

Luck. I hate the word. I can’t get it out of my mouth. It sticks in the throat like a furball, with all the other ‘uck’ words. Yuck. Muck. Fuck. Truck.

Some people sit around for years trying to define it, name it, shape it. They wrestle with its slipperiness. These are the kind of people who spend their Sunday mornings at church. Or the casino.

I don’t roll dice. There’s no praying on my part, no sinking bottles of scotch and jumping in pools for a swim. We try to keep out of each other’s way, luck and me. The few scrapes we’ve had have been amiable. It made me a tall white man in a tall white man’s world. It gave me English. In return I try not to bother it.

I stayed in school, ate my greens, brushed my teeth and flossed. It’s started to pay off, in that I do what I like and get paid for it.

It’s a lot of work, making your own luck. Sometimes I need a break. A postcard from a friend offered the perfect excuse. “New Plymouth is cool,” she wrote, “you guys should come hang out.” The next day’s sunrise caught S- and me in our white Toyota, fanging our way out of Auckland.

Lucky people in Taranaki. Even the road into town is spoiled for…