But it wasn’t the kids themselves that had dumped the food onto the table. The pasty concession workers brought it out by the bucketfuls, no longer taking money, no longer working the window. They dumped the stuff on the tables, more and more as the kids kept eating. Spirals of gray steam swirled off the slop, and the kids’ mouths and cheeks burned red from the heat of the food, but it did nothing to slow them.
Chunky goop oozed over Jay’s naked chest as he moved his face from left to right and inhaled the food. At a separate table amongst her friends, Sasha and the other girls licked the cheese and grease from the wood-grain table top, snapping at each other like rabid dogs until one of the workers, his skin the color of marshmallows, dumped another heap onto their table. Sasha slammed her entire head into the pile and swallowed the sloppy meat.
“O 61!”
Chris spun back toward the adults as they jabbed their ink to their cards. His stomach roiled as the food scent floated into the air and coated everything in greasy fog.
As Mr. Big called out more numbers, those whose cards did not display the announced numbers grew more and more agitated as their chances of winning the grand prize dwindled. Oscar’s grandma slammed her bony, thin-skinned fist on the table, over and over again until it was covered with blood, flinging red arcs over the people around her as she continued to punch the wood.
“Grandma!” Oscar moved toward her, but Chris held him back, his arm wrapped around his friend’s neck. Oscar struggled, weeping, then finally relaxed and slumped.
“I know, man, I know. But you go runnin’ over there, they’re gonna jump on you,” Chris whispered harshly into Oscar’s reddening ear.
“G 55!”
The old woman yelped and began stamping her cards, but a new set of people shouted their anger, screamed out curse words and slammed their hands or faces against the table. Chris saw Jay’s mom punching herself in the face, raking her long, pink nails across her cheeks and breaking skin.
Chris’s stomach dropped to the floor when he saw Mama daubing her cards. Please don’t win, he thought. He looked up at Mr. Big and the man stroked his chin, slid his tongue over his teeth and lips as he surveyed the crowd.
Moist chewing sounds and moaning emanated from the concession tables, the kids entranced by their meal and completely ignorant to what was happening around them. The workers continued to feed them.
Chris checked his watch again. Oscar wiped tears and mucus away from his face, his attention pasted to his grandma. The crowd grew more and more agitated as the numbers were called out.
“Bingo!”
When the woman’s voice sliced through the air, Chris was sure it was his mama, sure he was about to witness this money-hungry mob rip her to pieces. But a white woman with red hair and orange freckles stood on her chair and held her card high. Chris almost felt bad for the relief that swept over him, and he held his breath waiting for someone else to join her, but she stood alone. He looked toward Mama, and she held her face in her hands, head shaking, shoulders bouncing as she sobbed.
“Congratulations, ma’am! Come on up and claim your prize!”
But the woman never reached the stage.
She was pulled off her chair by the man who was sitting next to her, yanked to the floor by her curly red hair. The sound of her skull hitting the linoleum floor echoed through the hall, a loud crack like a giant egg breaking on the edge of a countertop.
And then the players were on her. They shoved each other to get at the woman, all stomping their boots, tennis shoes, flip flops and bare feet on her. Some were on the ground with her, slamming down fists, raking nails, biting chunks off. Good luck charms were used as bludgeoning tools, slamming into her face and turning it into a bloody mess of skin, teeth and hair.
All the while, the woman smiled, her bingo card still clutched in her hand, and even from where Chris stood, he could see the green dots all lined up on the card—the winning line of numbers—spattered with her blood.
“Let’s all give a huge congratulations to the big grand prize winner!”
Chris, mouth agape, knees trembling, glanced up at Mr. Big. “Oh, fuck! Oscar…O-Oscar, look…” Chris squeezed his friend with one arm, pointed toward the stage with the other.
“Oh…oh shit…”
As Mr. Big’s smile spread wider and wider across his face, his body bulged, bloated as if he were a balloon being inflated. His skin sizzled and burned a dark red. His cheeks fattened, a double chin bulging out like a toad’s throat. He chuckled and held his hands out at his sides as his coat tore at the seams.
Chris left Oscar behind as he dashed toward his mama, who now had her head on the table, smashing her forehead against it and kicking her legs. The red-headed winner still giggled on the ground, gurgling on her blood as the rest of the people continued to maul her.
“Mama…Mama let’s go.” He pulled on her arm, and she looked up at him with her red-rimmed eyes, her face shining with tears.
“It’s your motherfuckin’ fault. You. I wish you were never born, you know that? I wish I let the doctor cut you out of me!”
Chris tried to let the words roll off him, but they still had bite. He clenched his teeth as he grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. “Let’s go home, Mama. We can come back tomorrow, okay? You can win tomorrow!” He didn’t know what else to say, could only think about getting them the hell out of that place.
He saw Oscar doing the same with his grandma, overpowering the elderly woman and lifting her off her feet, running toward the exit as she flailed her limbs, splashing the blood from her broken fists over the floor and Oscar’s face. Her head lolled on her shoulders and she cursed him in Spanish, an unending high-pitched gibberish. Chris wished he could do the same with Mama, but the woman was too strong, and she pulled against his grasp as he tried to force her toward the exit.
Then a gunshot rang out, and Chris screamed, fell backward onto the floor. The man with the rifle stood on a table and had just fired a shot into the red-headed woman’s face, ceasing her laughter. A pool of blood widened around her head, fragments of her skull and bits of gray meat clinging to the ruined remains of her head. But the others still beat on her body, didn’t even slow as the man pulled another bullet from his shirt pocket and began reloading the rifle.
Mr. Big cackled from the stage, his clothes now lying in a pile beneath him. His naked body jiggled as he laughed, still growing in girth. What looked like boils started to bulge from the skin, but as the flesh parted, tore open, Chris saw the white balls emerging from the man’s body, red numbers and letters printed on them.
“Mama, come on!” With a surge of adrenaline, he was able to yank her all the way to the door. Once they were outside, once the night air engulfed them, Mr. Big’s laughter and the growls and grunts of the players faded behind the door, and Mama seemed to snap out of it. The fight went out of her and she blinked at Chris, then smiled.
“What’s the matter, baby?”
Chris realized he was crying and wiped the moisture from his cheeks. “N-nothing… I’m just sorry you…sorry you didn’t win.”
She turned back toward the door, stared at it, and Chris was ready to stop her if she tried to go back in, but she only shrugged. “Guess I can’t win every night, right? We come back tomorrow night…try again.”
“Y-yeah. Can we go home now? Please?”
“Course we can.” A drip of blood oozed from a laceration on her forehead and circled her face before dripping from her chin. She wiped it away, looked at her hand for a minute, then started toward the parking lot.
Another gunshot rang out from behind them, and Chris ran, grabbed Mama’s hand and didn’t stop running until they were at the car. He stared out the window toward Big Time Bingo as they drove away, and he thought he could still hear Mr. Big’s laughter, exploding into the night and polluting the air.
“Domino, motherfucker!” Mauri
ce slapped his last domino down and smiled at his two partners, Dede and Louis, across the table, but they didn’t smile back. His buzz was strong, making it hard for him to keep his eyes open at that point. It had been another late night, another job done. But it’ll be my last, he thought. He had already decided, before he went out on the last hit, that he was done.
He had already told his boys, and they disagreed with him, told him it wouldn’t be that easy, that he couldn’t just leave the game without repercussions, but he didn’t care. Last night was it—no more. I can find a job, he thought. I can start being a father to my son, a better husband. So tonight he’d get fucked up, a last hurrah. No more weed, no more liquor.
And no more killing.
He marked his points down on the scratch paper, took a long drink from his glass.
The door burst open and Chris and Brenda stumbled in. Chris gasped for breath, cheeks wet, eyes red. Like something was chasing them.
Brenda looked out of it, her expression lost, dreamy. She glanced at Maurice, and her eyes went hard, her hands balled into fists. “What the fuck you lookin’ at, nigga!”
Maurice stood, eased toward her, expecting her to retreat to the bedroom and slam the door. She charged him instead, fists raised. “Whoa, baby, what—”
She swung, and Maurice barely dodged it, caught her wrist and wrenched her arm behind her back. Chris ran toward them.
“Dad, I…I need to talk to you. There’s something goin’ on…” He looked toward the men sitting at the table.
“I think y’all should go,” Maurice said, doing his best to hold Brenda still as she thrashed in his arms.
Without hesitation, both men stood and strolled toward the door. Louis turned at the last second and scowled at Maurice. “Remember what I said, nigga. Think about what you doin’.”
“I done already made up my mind, now get the fuck outta here!”
The men disappeared behind a slammed door. Chris ran toward it and turned the lock, then fell to his knees and wept.
“Chris, what the fuck’s goin’ on?”
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you! Let me go!” Brenda fought hard but Maurice held her tight.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” She didn’t answer, only fought harder.
“It’s the bingo hall. Big Time Bingo. It’s makin’ everybody crazy.” Chris wiped his face. “The man…Mr. Big…he, he’s some kind of…he ain’t human.”
“What you talkin’ about, Chris?”
Brenda broke free with a sharp elbow to Maurice’s stomach, then ran toward the bedroom and slammed the door, cursing and mumbling about being ready for tomorrow night.
Maurice, still doubled over from the blow to his stomach, gasped for breath, eyes now on Chris. “T-tell me what’s goin’ on. Now.”
Chris’s eyes were wide, perfect circles in his head, and as he told Maurice what was happening, starting with the fliers and ending with the woman being murdered tonight, Maurice found himself laughing. He shook his head and walked back toward the table, sat down. “You been gettin’ into my weed, boy?”
Chris stood, punched the wall. “You think I’m lyin’? You think I made all that up? Look at how Mama’s acting, look at how everyone’s acting!”
Maurice didn’t see anyone else around the neighborhood, but he did notice Brenda wasn’t herself lately. He could hear her banging around in the bedroom right then, opening and closing drawers, cursing and grunting.
“So you tellin’ me the bingo hall got into everybody’s head, right? And now they killin’ each other? Chris…that’s just…it’s crazy, man.” He rubbed his temples. “Look…I’m tired. Tired as hell. Your mama, she’s stressed out. Happens to adults sometimes.”
“You don’t believe me?” Fresh tears spilled down his cheeks as he stepped closer.
It hurt Maurice to see it, and he knew, if anything, Chris believed his story to be true. “Tell you what. How ’bout I go to bingo with you and your mama tomorrow night. See what’s goin’ on for myself. Okay?”
Brenda screamed: “Motherfucker! Fuck!”
Chris turned toward the noise, scratched his head. “Listen to her, Dad. She ain’t right. If…if I didn’t drag her outta there tonight…I don’t know. The people…they, they killed that woman. A man shot her in the face. I saw it. I was there and I saw it.” He collapsed back to the floor. “Mama…she was okay at first. We got outside and she was okay. But on the way home…in the car, she…she started getting mad. I didn’t think we’d make it here…”
Maurice took a long, deep breath, rose from the chair and sat on the ground next to his son and wrapped an arm around him. “Look. If what you say is true, if a woman got killed, maybe we should call the police.” Maurice chuckled. “Believe me, I hate to say that, but I think it’s the best—”
“No, it won’t do any good.” Chris shook his head, cuddled up to Maurice. “They set foot in that bingo hall and Mr. Big’ll just make ’em go crazy, like everyone else. We have to handle this ourselves.”
Maurice nodded, had a feeling his son would say something along those lines. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was some sort of scheme that Chris had come up with to force Maurice to spend time with him, so they would actually do something together for once, as father and son. And Maurice really couldn’t blame the kid. One thing was for sure though, Brenda was acting a damn fool. He decided he’d sleep on the couch, let her work out whatever shit she was going through alone.
“All right, Chris. Me and you, we’ll go see about this shit tomorrow, okay?”
Chris didn’t say anything. He just pressed himself harder against Maurice. The boy trembled, his whole body shaking, and Maurice could only hold him tighter, whatever buzz he’d managed to work up now dissolved.
Grandma slapped him again, and all Oscar could do was cover his face and beg her to stop. He knew he could make her stop, but he just couldn’t bring himself to hurt her, so he curled himself into a ball on the couch and let her bleeding hands crack against his skin.
“Andale! Ahora! Necesitamos ir ahora!”
“Go where, Grandma? W-we just got here…” Slap! Slap, slap, slap! “Stop…please stop! What’s wrong with you?”
The old woman grabbed him by the chin and stared at him with her milky eyes. She had the car keys in one hand and she dangled them, then threw them at him.
“A el cementerio,” she said, then pointed across the room to the shovel propped up against the wall. When they got home, Oscar’s arms and face beaten and scratched from the ride, Grandma had gone straight into the garage. He didn’t know what she was doing, but he was just thankful to be away from her for any amount of time.
“The…the cemetery? Why? Por que?”
She raised her hand again, her brow a desert of wrinkles, but then she smiled. Her gaze went to the wall behind Oscar’s head, to where all the photos of his grandpa hung, still in his youth, smiling out from the frames. “Tu abuelo… Necesito su ayuda.”
Oscar turned and stared at the photos, then turned back to Grandma. Her pink gums looked swollen under her cracked lips as she smiled, her scattered teeth like headstones in her mouth. All the pieces came together for him, and he realized what the old woman wanted him to do. He shook his head. “Nah…I can’t do that. Please don’t make me do that.”
Her smile melted down into the sagging flesh of her face and the hard stare was back. She pointed a crooked, gnarled finger at him. “Callate la chingada boca y has lo que te digo!”
The keys jingled in his lap as he shifted his weight, then he finally stood, keys in hand, and nodded.
“Bueno, mi hijo. Muy bueno.” She patted the side of his face and flashed her wrinkly pink grin at him again.
They walked back out to the driveway and Oscar opened the car door for her, now holding the shovel in his other hand. He shut the passenger door and squeezed the shovel as he studied his gra
ndma who peered at him from the other side of the streaky glass.
The door clicked open.
“Subete en el carro.”
Her voice was poisonous, sent violent tremors down his back. So he circled the car, got in and drove toward the cemetery, a place he hadn’t visited since he was barely able to stand, at his grandfather’s funeral.
Jay lay on the floor, hands clutched to his bulbous midsection, rolling back and forth and kicking his legs. The pain was like a million living needles burrowing into his flesh. The inside of his stomach felt like he’d swallowed liquid magma.
His aunt was dead, that much he knew for sure. When they got home from the bingo hall, after the concession workers refused to give him any more food and told him to come back tomorrow and after his mom and aunts were finished helping the others tear that woman apart, the women turned on one another. Jay didn’t have the chance to care what those stupid bitches did, couldn’t care less if they were all dead. All he wanted was more food. No matter how much he ate, it just wasn’t enough. He never wanted to stop eating…never.
“Nnnggghhh… Fuck!” His legs kicked and the soles of his shoes scraped across the carpet.
His aunt’s blood leaked from the dents in her head. Her once blond wig was now dark red, soaked and lying beside her still body. When they got home, the women had yelled and screamed, cussing and blaming one another for their loss. His aunt, the dead one, held on to her money, the only one of them to win anything that night. She caught a frying pan to the face, and as his mom repeatedly slammed the flat metal across her sister’s skull, her other sister slammed her foot down on the woman’s head. It didn’t take long for her screams and gurgles to go quiet, for her arms and legs to stop thrashing around.
Now, the remaining women were on each other and fighting over the money. The bills were scattered all over the room, some soaked in blood like flat green sponges.
The Bingo Hall Page 7