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"Let me get another strip of twenty."
Peter raised his eyebrows. "Another one?"
"Yeah...I like rides."
"Sure." Peter counted twenty tickets and ripped them off the gigantic spool. He handed them to the stranger with a smile.
"Ten bucks, right?"
"You would know," Peter teased.
The man laughed and grabbed the tickets through the hole in the plastic window.
Peter imagined he'd be back within a half hour.
Fifteen minutes later.
"Dude. Why don't you just get a stamp that lets you ride all day? Buying tickets like this is expensive."
"I don't like stamps."
Peter shook his head and counted out thirty tickets.
"Oh, I only wanted twenty."
"I know, but I gotta give you something extra," Peter explained. "You've spent a ton already..."
"Thank you." The man leaned closer to the window. "Peter is your name?"
"What? Oh yeah.” Peter looked down at his name tag. "What's yours?"
"Bucky."
"Okay, Bucky. See you in ten minutes," Peter laughed.
Bucky came back ten minutes later like they'd agreed, but the line had grown. Peter kept glancing to see how much closer Bucky was to the front of the line. When he finally got to the window, Peter couldn't help but smile.
"Twenty more, please," Bucky said.
Peter sighed. "You're not scalping are you?"
"What? Scalping?" Bucky asked in confusion.
"Yeah...buying tickets here and selling them for more to people in line who might be a ticket short."
Bucky grinned. "Shit, that's a good idea. I wish I'd thought of it."
"You'd be surprised how many people do that," Peter said.
“Well, I’m not doing that.”
“Okay, cool. So you want twenty?”
“Make it ten,” Bucky bit his lip. “I’m running short on cash.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Peter said. He gave Bucky twenty anyways.
Bucky just smiled. “Thanks, Peter.”
Peter watched with a baffled expression when Bucky gave his tickets to one of the people in line and went to rejoin the back.
Peter had no idea what he was going to say when Bucky came back to the window. Obviously he was dealing with a lunatic with nearly unlimited disposable income.
“Bucky,” Peter greeted.
“Oh hey,” Bucky said. “Nice day we’re having.”
“I suppose.”
“So how much is that stamp you were talking about? The all-day pass.”
“What are you doing? I saw you give your tickets away. Is that what you’ve been doing with all of them?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Come out to dinner with me, and I’ll tell you.”
Peter scrunched up his face. “Seriously? You—why would you waste all that money?”
“I wanted to know your name…the window here is really smudgy. Took a few times to see it clearly.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Obviously.”
“Okay. Fine…I’ll come out with you.”
“I thought you might say that.” Bucky slid Peter a ticket with his phone number.
Peter smiled. He could tell by the sequence of numbers and letters on the ticket that it was from a ticket spool from much earlier in the day.