The Bingo Hall

by Shane McKenzie

  “Hello?”

  “S-Sasha? Hey.” The phone was slippery in his grasp, and he couldn’t stop himself from walking back and forth.

  “Chris? Is that you?”

  “Yeah…if, if you’re busy, I can—”

  “No, no I’m not busy. I’m not busy at all. I just…I didn’t expect you to call.” A soft giggle followed by a pause. “Chris? You still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. You…uh, you still wanna go to the movies? My mama skipped church today, so I thought maybe we could go early.”

  “My mom’s at the nail shop, skipped church too. She wants to go back to bingo tonight.”

  “You goin’?”

  “No, I’m going to be with you, right?” She giggled. “I have been craving another one of those corndogs, though. So good.”

  Chris took a seat on his bed, feeling more relaxed now that they were talking. “You hungry? I was thinkin’ about headin’ to the mall. Maybe we could grab some food up there.”

  “Yeah, okay. Wanna meet there? At the mall?”

  “Cool.”

  Chris tossed the phone to his bed and grabbed the city bus schedule off his dresser. He figured Sasha would probably catch a ride with someone, and he didn’t want to make her wait long. Face washed, teeth brushed, clothes ironed, he jetted out the house and went straight for the bus stop. He didn’t have any time to spare, and his jog became a sprint as the bus pulled up.

  “Wait, wait! I’m comin’!” He waved his arms just as the bus was about to pull away, then hopped on, paid the driver.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow and settled in his seat, his stomach writhing as he anticipated seeing Sasha again.

  When Chris had gotten off the bus, Sasha was standing at the entrance with her arms crossed, a look of discomfort contorting her face. Chris calmed his nerves with a few deep breaths, forced himself to look cool and not like a nervous little boy. He walked right up to her, hands in his pockets.

  “Whassup, girl?”

  She looked up and beamed. “Hey!” Her arms wrapped around his torso, squeezed him in a tight hug. “Good to see you.”

  Chris hadn’t been expecting the hug and he smiled like an idiot, then caught himself and went expressionless again. “Been waitin’ long?”

  “Not really. But I’m starving,” she said. “Stomach’s been bothering me all day.”

  The nausea Chris had awoken with that morning was still crawling around in his belly, but it was mild enough that he could ignore it. “Well, let’s go eat. Pizza okay with you?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fine. Wish we could get more of that food from Big Time Bingo, though. I’m telling you, those corndogs were amazing.”

  The last thing he wanted to talk about was bingo, but he let it go, held the glass door open for her, then followed her into the mall.

  They sat at a small table, the smells of hamburgers, Chinese food, pizza and waffle cones all mixing together in the air around them. Chris chewed on his pepperoni slice and watched as Sasha bit into her pizza and spat it out. She clutched her stomach and her face tied itself in a knot.

  “What’s the matter?” Chris said past a mouthful of chewed up food. He thought the pizza was pretty damn good, and wondered if maybe Sasha was just a picky eater.

  “My stomach…I don’t know. This food is fucking disgusting. I can’t eat it.”

  Chris almost laughed; he’d never heard Sasha say a curse word before. She shoved the plate away, leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I just wish we could stop by the bingo hall. You think they’re open right now?”

  “The bingo hall? For the food?”

  “Yes, for the food. It’s all I’ve been thinking about all day, and this food is nasty. I can’t believe you can eat this shit.”

  “Girl, the bingo hall is all the way across town. I can get you something else…whatever you want. Just pick any restaurant.”

  She eyed the array of eateries behind him, clicked her tongue. “Just forget it. I’ll wait.”

  As bad as he wanted to finish his food, he threw it and Sasha’s slice away, then held out his hand for her to take it. “Why don’t we take a walk?”

  The scowl on her face softened, and she took his hand and stood. When their fingers intertwined, Chris’s skin electrified. Sasha leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, then hugged his arm. “Sorry about that. I just don’t really feel good today…I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He pointed toward the Foot Locker. “I need some new kicks,” he said. “Wanna help me pick some out?” The spot where she kissed him tingled like she’d sprinkled her lips in pixie dust, and he hoped she couldn’t feel his hand trembling.

  “Okay. I got good taste, you know.”

  “I know you do.”

  “You do?”

  “Well…you’re here with me, ain’t you?”

  She slapped his arm and chuckled. The rest of the date went pretty smooth, though every now and then Chris noticed the painful grimace on Sasha’s face, her hands clutching at her stomach. When he asked her about it, she dismissed it, flashed a smile, so he decided to just let it go. He bought the new Jordans, black and red, and wore them out of the store, tossing his ratty sneakers in the new shoe box. As much as the new bingo hall bothered him, he was thankful for the shoes, admired them with every step he took.

  They strolled through the mall, wasting time looking in various stores, all the while Chris putting on the charm and doing his best to make her laugh. He still couldn’t believe he was there with Sasha, after all the years they’d gone to school together, after all the time he’d spent fantasizing about her. And now they walked hand in hand, her left cheek stamped with her lip gloss.

  “What movie you wanna see?” he said as they stood in front of the cinema and stared up at their selections.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Something funny? Or something…romantic, maybe?” She gave his hand a squeeze.

  He checked his watch: 5:30 p.m. He couldn’t help but think about Mama, about Oscar and Jay. It was only a couple more hours before they would all be at Big Time Bingo, and just as the thought crept into his mind, Sasha turned to him.

  “Maybe after the movie…maybe we can go to the bingo hall? Get some food?”

  He ignored the statement and paid for the tickets to a movie he had never heard of, but the poster made it look “romantic”.

  Sasha’s stomach gurgled and her hand tightened, but Chris knew it was pointless to buy any popcorn or candy. He knew what she wanted.

  Maurice gasped as he woke up, sat up straight and looked around the room, disoriented. His face ached, and he grimaced as he prodded at the corner of his mouth, images of last night’s scuffle replaying in his head.

  He stood, stretched. “Chris, you here?” No answer. “Baby?” Nothing.

  The clock told him he’d been asleep only a few hours, not nearly enough to recuperate from last night’s events. A sloppy job. The job got done, that’s what was important, but he was losing his passion for it, had been ever since Chris was born. But we need the money, he told himself. And I gotta do what I gotta do to support my family.

  Brenda understood. She knew what the deal was from the beginning, and she never asked him to stop, never asked any questions. They did their best to keep Chris in the dark about it, and as far as Maurice could tell, his boy didn’t know what he did for a living.

  He inspected his scabbed-over knuckles, flexed his fingers. It had been a long time since he’d had to use his hands, but the motherfucker came out of nowhere, surprised him.

  Sloppy.

  He trudged toward the bedroom and retrieved his bag of weed and a grape-flavored cigarillo, then sat at the kitchen table and turned on the TV. A rerun of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was on, and he rolled himself a blunt as he watched it, letting the
weed smoke massage his aching body.

  Pounding footsteps, then the door swung open.

  “That you, baby?” Maurice said, bending forward to get a view of the door, but only caught a blur of color before Brenda wandered off toward the bedroom.

  Will and Uncle Phil argued on the television, and he cut the volume down, took another long puff from the blunt. “Baby, where you at?” he shouted.

  No answer, though he could hear the crumpling of plastic bags coming from the bedroom. He stood, put the blunt out in the glass ashtray and headed toward the bedroom. Just creeping down the hallway toward the unknown nearly made his instincts take hold, nearly made him reach behind his back for the pistol that wasn’t there. He shook his head and laughed at himself, quickened his pace toward the bedroom.

  Brenda stood topless in front of the mirror, a pile of new clothes lying on the bed. She picked up a shirt, held it up over her torso, shook her head and tossed it away, then went for the next one. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Baby, what the hell you doin’?”

  “What does it look like I’m doin’, huh?” She held up another shirt, cursed and tossed it to the ground. “Shit. None of these are right, none of them. I need to go back out, need to find something I can wear tonight.”

  She tried to move past him, still shirtless, but he grabbed her, squeezed her shoulders and held her in place. The hard look on her face melted down a bit and she rolled her eyes and smiled. “Oh, god. I’m s-sorry baby. I…I ain’t been myself today.”

  Maurice looked over her shoulder at the clothes strewn about. “Where you get all that?”

  “I won big, baby. Real big. Just wanted something nice for myself…something I can wear when I go back tonight.”

  “Yeah, Chris told me you won. Said you was out payin’ bills too. Don’t look like bills to me.” He let her go and stared into her eyes.

  She smacked her lips. “I ain’t the one supposed to be payin’ the damn bills, am I? That’s on you. The motherfuckin’ man of the house. I did good, and I deserve to treat myself.”

  Maurice put his hands up, palms out, and widened his eyes. “Chill out, woman. I was just fuckin’ with you.” He bent down a bit, cupped her face in his hands. “You okay, baby? You seem all wound up.”

  Her expression softened all over again, and she stepped forward and hugged him, her bare breasts pressing against him. In return, he pressed up against her with the growing erection in his jeans.

  She smiled, reached up and touched the bruises on his face, but didn’t say anything about them, then leaned in and kissed him. He winced at the pain in his mouth, but kissed back harder.

  He laid her down on top of the mountain of new clothes, ripped her jeans when he yanked them off. She moaned, reached up and grabbed the back of his head, pulled him down on top of her.

  “Where’s Chris?” she said, whipping her face toward the open bedroom door.

  “He’s out,” he said as he ran his tongue over her neck. “Boy said he had a date.”

  Her rigid body went limp beneath him. “That’s right…he did say something about that. He’s growin’ up fast, ain’t he?”

  Maurice quieted her with his tongue and she writhed against him. “He ain’t the only one.”

  Chris couldn’t concentrate on the movie. His eyes kept moving from the screen to Sasha’s lips, moist and sparkling in the darkness. The sick feeling in his stomach had dissipated since he’d eaten the pizza, but Sasha kept baring her teeth and hissing and squinting. Her stomach growled every few minutes, and she squeezed his hand tighter every time.

  Her eyes remained on the screen and she laughed at times. Chris missed the jokes as he studied the beauty of her face. And when he couldn’t take it anymore, he leaned in and kissed her.

  Her body tensed, but she didn’t pull away. She leaned forward, kissed back, and when their lips parted, she rested her forehead against his and peered deep into his eyes. Chris didn’t know what else to do but smile, and before the reality of what just happened could sink in, Sasha leaned back in and kissed him again.

  And then her stomach roared. She yelped, bit Chris’s lip and bent in half, clutching her stomach.

  Chris hissed and wiped a smear of blood away from his lip. The man behind them cleared his throat, but Chris ignored him, put his arm around Sasha and whispered: “You all right?”

  “My…my stomach.”

  “Come on, let’s get outta here.” He helped her up and they left the theater. Once they were in the hallway, she seemed to collect herself, straightened her posture and laughed.

  “God, I’m so embarrassed. I’m sorry.”

  “I think you need to eat something.”

  She shook her head. “But I’m not hungry for anything. Except—”

  “Look,” Chris said, grabbing her hand. “We ain’t goin’ to the damn bingo hall to eat, okay? You just need something…anything.”

  She pulled her hand away. “But I don’t want anything. I want a fucking corndog, okay?”

  And she stomped off, slammed her body against the door leading to the parking lot. Chris followed, but Sasha already had her cell phone out, and he caught a few words as she retreated farther from him. She was talking to her mother, asking her to come pick her up, telling her she couldn’t wait to go to bingo tonight.

  Chris finally caught up with her, and as he circled her so he could see her face, she snapped the phone shut and slid it back into her pocket. The anger that was just spread across her face was absent now, and she rolled her eyes and giggled. “God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me today,” she said. She stepped into him, kissed him. “I had a really great time with you, Chris. Can we do this again sometime?”

  He nodded, his brow wrinkled as he stared at her. “So…you’re leavin’? Now?”

  “Well, my mom needs me…needs me to go with her tonight. To bingo. You gonna go?”

  He checked his watch again and saw that the games would start in less than an hour. Mama’s probably already there, he thought. And Oscar and Jay too. “Nah, I’m good. I thought maybe we could kick it instead.”

  She shook her head. “Can’t. Like I said…my mom, she needs me. So I have to go. I have to, okay?”

  “Yeah, whatever. That’s cool.”

  They stood there in silence for a while, Chris feeling out of place and awkward, and then a gray sedan came screeching around a curve and sped toward the mall entrance.

  “There she is now,” Sasha said.

  “Goddamn, that was fast.”

  “Well…it’s about to start. We can’t be late.” She kissed him again, pressed her mouth hard against his, even flicked her tongue between his lips one time.

  Chris was so stunned by the kiss that he just stood there and watched as the sedan’s passenger door swung out and Sasha’s mom leaned over. “Hurry the fuck up, girl. Makin’ me come out here and get you. Now I ain’t gonna get a good seat. Shit.”

  Sasha shrugged and sat in the passenger seat, and before she could even close her door, they were speeding off.

  Chris still had some money left, and since he didn’t get to finish his food earlier, he figured he’d go back into the mall and eat something. Knowing that everyone he knew was at the bingo hall besides him made him feel alone, almost left out, but there was no way in hell he was going to Big Time Bingo.

  Even with the unease bubbling inside of him, he touched his lips and shook his head. I kissed Sasha, he thought. It should have been the best day of his life…but he couldn’t help but worry for his mama, for his friends.

  Oscar stood alone in the corner. He kept his eye on Grandma as she caressed the Virgin Mary in an almost sexual way, her gnarled hands sliding across the ceramic statue, veins bulging like thick blue worms under her skin.

  There had already been two rounds of bingo, and the old woman hadn’t won. In fact, he noticed a lo
t less people were winning than the night before. He figured that would be the case, guessed Mr. Big couldn’t afford to pay everybody every night. He wondered if maybe Mr. Big had rigged the game the first night, made everyone feel like big winners, that way they would keep coming back, night after night. But tonight, the prizes were bigger, double what they were last night, and still at least half of the people there had already won, including Jay’s mom and one of his aunt’s.

  Oscar noticed that the remaining people with no winnings, including Grandma, glared at those around them who clutched money-fat envelopes in their tight fingers. Good luck trinkets were molested and some people even muttered prayers.

  Oscar had hoped Chris would stop by eventually, especially since he saw Sasha wander in just before the games started with her mom, but Chris never showed. Sasha sat at the same table as Jay, the both of them eating junk food by the handfuls. He expected this kind of behavior from his friend, had always given him a hard time about being on the chubby side, but not from Sasha. She always had that athletic build, a tight-looking body, and he couldn’t imagine she got that body by eating this way. But she licked the grease from her lips as she bit into another corndog, her fourth by Oscar’s count.

  Even Jay seemed to be more of a pig than usual. His friend kept his eyes on his food, not once looking up, barely even acknowledging Oscar’s presence the whole night. Three empty chili-cheese nacho trays lay beside him and he bit into a hotdog, breathing hard through his wide nostrils as he chewed. Meat juice and cheese coated the boy’s chin, and when Oscar couldn’t take it anymore, he stomped toward Jay, grabbed him by the spongy shoulder.

  “You gonna get sick, fool. Take a break, come kick it with me for a minute.”

  Jay shook his head, licked his lips. “Nah, man. I’mma stay right here.” He smiled and patted his swollen belly, then reached into his pocket and showed his remaining vouchers. “Shit, still got plenty of free food to eat. You sure you don’t want something? You missin’ out, man.”

  “Yeah,” Sasha said from beside him, the other kids nodding in agreement at the table. “Best food I ever fucking had. The best.”