Pink Slip Party

by Cara Lockwood

  I glance over at the other unemployment window. There’s a small man with thick glasses sitting there behind a computer. He’s not calling anyone forward, but he doesn’t appear to be helping anyone, either. He’s not on the phone. He’s not eating his lunch. He’s just typing on his computer in short, controlled bursts. I decide he’s playing a video game. Maybe some 1980s games like Space Invaders or Centipede. I want a job where I can play video games. And take long lunches. And not show up for long stretches at a time.

  I sigh.

  “Next!” barks the woman at the first window. The guy playing Tetris is still intent on his computer screen.

  “Hi,” I say as I walk over to the woman’s window. I smile to show I’m friendly and not insane, and that she should help me because I can be cute and perky when I’m not clinically depressed. The woman isn’t buying it. She’s frowning at me, and clearly unhappy in her job.

  “I need my check,” I say.

  “ID?” she says.

  I scrounge around in my pocket and produce a battered Illinois driver’s license. I look fourteen in the picture, even though I was twenty-two. My hair was short then and spiky, and a mismatch of colors because I didn’t go regularly to a salon. Now it’s long and has deliberate highlights, and I usually wear it up in a messy, haphazard way. My brother Todd says I look like an ostrich, because my hair sticks up and I have a long neck.

  I take off my Buddy Holly glasses so the woman can get a good look at me. I smile again to show that there’s no hard feelings about her curt manner.

  “This doesn’t look like you,” she says, squinting at it and holding it up against the glass to get it closer to my face.

  “It’s an old license,” I say, smiling brighter. I’m sending her “please like me, I’m perky” vibes.

  “You have another form of identification?” the woman asks, coldly indifferent to my overtures of false friendship.

  I reach into my purse and retrieve a gas card, but this is not enough, apparently. Ron then steps up beside me and says, “Oh, I can vouch for her, Deena. She’s OK.” Ron puts his arm around my shoulder. Visibly, I flinch.

  “Ron? Is that you?” cries the woman behind the counter.

  “In the flesh,” Ron answers, showing his chipped front teeth. Ron is the sort of person who uses lines like “in the flesh.” He also, on occasion, will say “you rang?” in an exaggerated Scottish brogue.

  She rolls her chair backwards and calls to some of the invisible people in the cubicles behind her. “Girls! It’s Ron, come back to pay us a visit.”

  Immediately, two rather large ladies lumber up to the front window.

  “Ron!” they cackle. They look like a small herd of yaks wearing Kathie Lee Gifford dresses and Payless faux-leather shoes.

  “You got any more sugar for us, honey?” one of them asks.

  Carefully, Ron looks one way and then the other, and puts his finger to his lips. Then, stealthily, he takes the small white packet containing the pills and pushes it under the glass.

  In one swift motion, almost so I don’t see it, the woman behind the counter grabs the packet, shoves it into her pocket, and hands a slip of paper to me. It’s a check with my name handwritten on it and the amount of my meager unemployment: $1,035.

  “Is this for one week?” I ask, hopeful.

  “One month,” corrects the woman behind the counter. “It’s forty percent of your regular salary, minus taxes.”

  “Taxes?” I shout. “I have to pay income taxes on my unemployment?”

  “I didn’t make the rules,” the woman says. “I just hand out the checks.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot dude,” Ron chirps. “Last time I was here, my check was only $203.”

  The unemployment check, plus the money already in my account, means that I have $1,330, and even though I was an art major and stink at math, I know this means I’m almost two thousand short of the rent. I am so royally screwed.

  Human Resources Dept.

  Barnum & Bailey Circus

  8607 Westwood Center Dr.

  Vienna, VA 22182

  Jane McGregor

  3335 Kenmore Ave.

  Chicago, IL 60657

  March 7, 2002

  Dear Ms. McGregor,

  Thank you for your interest in employment with the Barnum & Bailey circus. Unfortunately, we do not have any openings for you at this time.

  While we appreciate that you have a natural sense of balance and have always dreamed of walking on a tightrope, we must inform you that we only hire trained specialists to do all of our acrobatic acts. A two-week gymnastics camp during the summer of your 8th grade year, we’re afraid, does not qualify as adequate training.

  Thank you for thinking of Barnum & Bailey Circus.

  Sincerely,

  Kate Ricordati

  Co-director, Human Resources Dept.

  Barnum & Bailey Circus

  4

  I have emptied out my closet hoping to find something worth $2,000 to sell on Ebay. The only things I find as salvageable, sellable merchandise are:

  a) one radio alarm clock (I no longer have use for this. It is simply a curiosity item).

  b) the sweater Grandma gave me last Christmas (it’s pink and four sizes too small. Grandma still thinks I am ten).

  c) my old roommate’s set of electric hair curlers.

  Call me crazy, but I think I’m going to be a few dollars shy of the rent. I’m going to have to do what any self-sufficient modern girl would do in my situation: sell my eggs. Since I’m not getting any action these days, maybe I should let my eggs have a go.

  I go online to research egg donation and discover three things in rapid succession: 1) it pays $7,000; 2) there is a screening process; and 3) it requires minor surgery and something scary called transvaginal ultrasound. “Trans” and “vaginal” are two words that don’t belong together in any context other than Jerry Springer.

  But, the pink and blue fertility site assures me I’ll “have a great sense of fulfillment from helping an infertile couple fulfill their dream of parenthood.”

  Fulfillment is less tempting than the seven grand.

  I consider this, and while I’m doing so I’m suddenly struck by the horrible thought of my life turning into a bad sitcom where I end up dating my own son or running into my daughter at the gym — complete with garish laugh soundtrack.

  Still. It is seven thousand dollars. I could pay Landlord Bob what he’s asking and still have more than a month’s worth of expenses paid for. All in cash.

  No. That’s crazy. I don’t want them to accidentally take my only healthy eggs, since I probably only have five or six of them. The last time I checked, smoking, not exercising, and eating your weight in high cholesterol foods does nothing for reproductive health. Besides, egg harvesting takes at least two months, and I don’t have that kind of time.

  My thoughts are interrupted by a hard knock on my door.

  I jump, fearing it’s Landlord Bob, but when I get to the peephole I see Mrs. Slatter, my downstairs neighbor. As she’s never even made sustained eye contact with me before now, I am curious as to what she wants.

  I open the door cautiously.

  “You’re too loud,” she says to me, right off. “I can hear you all stomping around up here like a herd of elephants.”

  “It’s just me in here,” I say.

  She looks past my shoulder into my apartment.

  “You sure you’re the only one in there?” she croaks.

  “Sorry, it’s just me.”

  “Well, I’m going to Bingo, but when I get back, I think you should tell your friends to go on home. I’ve gotten a new hearing aid, and I don’t mind telling you that things up here are loud.”

  “Mrs. Slatter, honest, there’s no one in here but…” Did she say Bingo? “You’re going to play Bingo?” I ask her.

  “Every Wednesday at the Y.”

  “Can I come?”

  Mrs. Slatter looks at me like I’m about to hit her over the
head with a metal pipe and take her purse.

  “Why?” she asks.

  “I need rent money,” I say.

  She considers me a moment. “Young people. Always spending what they don’t have,” she sniffs. “Well, if you pay my way, I’ll let you come along for the ride.”

  “Deal,” I say.

  Bingo is in the basement of the local Y, about four blocks away from our apartment. There’s a healthy showing of seniors, and by seniors, I mean stooped women with blue hair and smudged red lipstick. It’s wall-to-wall oversized pearl earrings and leisure suits.

  “Don’t embarrass me,” Mrs. Slatter hisses at me when I balk over the $35 she wants me to dish out for her set of Bingo cards. Reluctantly, I hand over the last of my MasterCard cash advance, and we take our bingo cards and sit at one of the long tables.

  The Bingo sheets are practically poster size with gigantic letters and numbers on them, I guess for the hard of seeing. Across the table from us there are two women with ten sheets in front of them and giant markers made exclusively for Bingo.

  “Show-offs,” Mrs. Slatter mumbles.

  The banner at the front basement wall reads BINGO FOR CHARITY but it doesn’t say which charity. There’s an overwhelming smell of gym shoes and moth balls in the basement, and my allergies are threatening to attack me. I rub my nose and try to concentrate.

  The announcer, a middle-aged man with a shiny bald head wearing salmon-colored polyester pants and a too-small golf shirt, approaches the microphone to announce the start of the game and the feedback is deafening to me, but none of the other women in the room seem to hear it.

  “Let’s get started with round one,” Mr. Salmon Pants says, sounding like an over-enthusiastic game show host. “Today’s jackpot is $5,000.”

  One woman lets out an “ooooh” from the back.

  “Ah, shut it,” Mrs. Slatter grumbles, taking out a round highlighter from her purse and hunching over her score sheet.

  There’s a bent wire cage with balls in it up front, which looks like someone has kicked and stomped on it, because it’s completely caved in on one side and is leaning dangerously to the left.

  “B-1. The first number is B-1. Did everyone hear that? B-1 is our first number. That is B as in boy, and one as in the number one,” says the announcer in salmon pants. His voice is breathy in the microphone and he sounds like he’s really trying to get into Bingo announcing, as if he were a radio DJ.

  “Bingo!” a woman cries.

  “Simmer down now, simmer down!” Mr. Salmon Pants cautions. “There can’t be a Bingo after just one draw.” He laughs a staccato laugh. “Now that would be really something. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it folks?”

  No one answers him.

  “Again, our first number is B-1. That’s B as in Bingo. Ha. Ha. And one as in the number one.”

  There’s a thwack, thwack, thwack sound as Mr. Salmon Pants turns the wire cage over and pulls out another ball.

  The women in front of us with the multiple Bingo sheets are poised over them with two highlighters in each hand.

  “N-32. The next number is N-32. N as in Nancy. Thirty-two as in Thirty. Two.”

  “Bingo!” shouts the same woman.

  “Alzheimer’s patients,” Mrs. Slatter mutters under her breath.

  “Will someone get her out of here?” someone else shouts.

  This could be my future. Right here. Bingo playing. Every Wednesday.

  This thought, or the mold in the basement, I’m not sure which, causes me to sneeze. Not once, but three times in a row.

  This reminds me that should some horrible medical condition befall me — like the sudden onset of asthma — I would not be covered with health insurance. I couldn’t go to a hospital for treatment. I couldn’t even go to my primary care doctor, the one that takes four weeks to see. I couldn’t, sadly, even get to a vet’s office. I feel worse than a fugitive. I feel like a leper. No treatment anywhere, except for self-induced exile. I don’t know what happens exactly for people who don’t have health insurance, but I’m pretty sure that once the paramedics find out, they just dump your body on the side of the road. And if you manage to actually sneak into a hospital, then, in exchange for treatment, the government extracts all your eggs and fertilizes them with alien DNA like on The X-Files.

  I could, of course, apply for Cobra. But I don’t have $350 a month to spare. If I pay for Cobra, then when I’m evicted and living on the street and get sent to the emergency room for starvation and exposure, my medical expenses will be eighty percent covered. Sure, sign me up.

  “Oh-75. That’s O as in orange. And seventy-five as in Seven. Five.”

  “Bingo!” the same woman yells again.

  I decide that if I’m ever diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and want to make sure that every last minute of my life is stretched to its fullest capacity, I will come here. Two hours feels like twenty years.

  I look around at other people’s tickets. Everyone has more squares blotted out than I do.

  It’s going to be a long afternoon.

  Clearly, Bingo is not the proper gambling outlet for me. I should have tried slots, or better yet, the lottery.

  If I ever won the lottery, I’d set up a special charity fund specifically for people like me. Lazy people. People without clear career goals. I’d set them up for a year — a full year — doing absolutely nothing. I would call it “A Year of The View” or “Pop Culture Sabbatical” — something like that. The laziest person wins. No type-A personalities. No essay questions. Any hint of motivation or actual ambition would disqualify you from my fund. It would be like welfare for the uninspired.

  Ron says if he wins the lottery, he will charter a cruise ship, fill it up with his closest friends, and sail around the world for a year. It would be stocked with the best drugs money could buy. “In international waters, drug laws don’t apply,” he says. “Plus, I’d be fucking rich, so I’d hire the very best doctors to be on board in case of massive overdose.” Thank goodness Ron doesn’t actually play the lottery. I shudder to think about what a boat of 1,000 stoned and terminally high people would do for a year. Not to mention, he’d no doubt ask me to go. And if I didn’t have a job by then, I know I’d be tempted to say yes, if only for the free health-care. Then, I’d spend the next 365 days regretting my moment of weakness. It’s a lot like my whole relationship with Ron: eight months of sexual relations, a lifetime of regret.

  “Bingo!” someone yells, and I realize it’s not the demented woman, but Mrs. Slatter, who’s sitting next to me. She jumps up and pumps one wizened fist in the air. “In your face, you old biddies!” she cries. “I’m going to Vegas!” She does a little victory dance, as much as her arthritic hip will allow.

  I fail to convince Mrs. Slatter to split her winnings with me, even though I technically bought her Bingo cards. She double-bolts the door even as I’m talking, and less than an hour later I see her dragging a suitcase down our stoop along with her little white fluff dog in a carrying case.

  * * *

  Because I still have Landlord Bob’s rent money to fetch, I’m left with Plan C: Get a loan.

  I dig out a legal pad and make a list of the possible candidates. Let’s see.

  There’s Steph. She’s broke, like me. And I suspect, like me, she has limits on the cash advances on her MasterCard.

  Ron. Also broke.

  Todd. Out of the question. If I asked him for a loan, I would be handing over a “Lord This Over My Head for Eternity” card. When I was twelve, I borrowed twenty bucks from him to buy New Kids on the Block tickets, and he’s never let me live it down. For years afterward, he’d introduce me as his “little sister who borrowed money to go to New Kids” even when I was sixteen and listened only to The Smiths and The Cure.

  Kyle. Even worse than Todd because technically he’s not a blood relative, but because he’s Todd’s best friend he’d feel the need to tell Todd, who would naturally lord it over my head anyway, even though he didn’t actually
loan me the money.

  That leaves my parents.

  My parents lead simple lives, a rare thing on the North Shore in Evanston. My dad works in insurance, and my mother is a housewife. They are both industrious people who cling to the outdated dream that working hard will actually get you somewhere. Dad spent a lot of time grooming Todd for a career and Todd is now an actuary at an insurance company with nice offices downtown, but Dad didn’t spend a lot of time on me. He just assumed Mom would teach me how to bake and I’d go off to college and find a nice husband, and my husband and Todd and Dad could stand around the barbecue pit in July and complain about the humidity and the Cubs. This is the life Dad envisioned for me. The worst contingency he ever foresaw was me marrying a White Sox fan, and even under those circumstances, Dad had planned to be open-minded and magnanimous.

  I disappointed him by not meeting Mr. Accountant in college and by dating boys with no ambition and no money and odd piercings. And then I graduated college with an art degree (something Todd was forbidden to do, but was all right for me since Dad never planned on seeing me single at twenty-eight and really just humored me while I was studying at college). I found a job, only to be laid off six months later. I’ve never moved back home with my parents, so maybe that will win me good favor and the $2,000 I need.

  Plus, I have something even better than the I’m-Your-Daughter-Please-Help-Me card to play. Tomorrow is my twenty-ninth birthday.

  “Happy Birthday!” cries Steph into my phone line the next day. She’s bubbly and happy as is only possible when it isn’t your birthday and when you have a job. She’s calling from an office supply convention in New York, where her boss has sent her to stay until Friday.