Bingo!

by Daniel MacIvor

  Nurk: I didn’t do it. Heffer, what were you doing on this?

  Heffer: What?

  Nurk: What were you doing on the phone before?

  Heffer: What nothing what?

  Dookie: Let me see that.

  Heffer: What is it?

  Dookie: Holy shit it’s Heffer.

  Heffer: What is let me see?

  DOOKIE keeps the smartphone from HEFFER.

  Boots: (looking at the smartphone) Holy shit. Wow.

  Bitsy: Well I didn’t see it so…

  Dookie: (holding the smartphone for BITSY to see) Well have a look.

  Bitsy: No. (not able to look away) Oh.

  Heffer: Gimme that.

  Nurk: How do you know it’s Heffer?

  Dookie: The bunny tattoo.

  Boots: Heffer’s got a bunny tattoo?

  Nurk: (to HEFFER) You’ve got a bunny tattoo?

  Dookie: He came up to visit me in Halifax one weekend and got drunk and went and got a bunny tattoo.

  Boots: A bunny tattoo?

  Dookie: (pointing near his pubic area) Right there.

  Pointing on the smartphone.

  Right there.

  NURK, BOOTS and BITSY look at the smartphone.

  Heffer: It’s not a bunny it’s a Playboy thing.

  Dookie: Which would be a bunny.

  Boots: (to HEFFER) You got a bunny tattoo?

  Heffer: It’s a Playboy thing!

  Bitsy: (staring at the smartphone as DOOKIE continues to hold it) That’s you?

  Heffer: Yeah it’s me so what give it to me.

  Nurk: (taking the smartphone from DOOKIE) What are you doing emailing pictures of your penis? On my phone?!

  Heffer: I wasn’t emailing anything I was looking at something. It was already there. It’s a website all right? It’s a website I’m on with pictures and stuff. So what?

  Dookie: Does Deb know about it?

  Heffer: Yeah Deb knows about it she’s on it too. It was her idea all right?

  Dookie: What?

  Heffer: It’s just to meet people and stuff. Just for something new. And I went on it tonight because… because I just went on it that’s all. It’s just for something new.

  Dookie: You and Deb together?

  Boots: It’s called swingers.

  Dookie: So that’s the “lifestyle” you were talking about? That’s not a lifestyle that’s just sick.

  Heffer: What do you know?

  Dookie: I know what’s right and wrong, that’s what I know.

  Heffer: Ah you don’t know anything. You think you’re some big deal because you left here and married some screechy girl from Moncton and her dad got you a job in Halifax. You’re so full of shit.

  Dookie: Watch yourself.

  Heffer: I’d say you were a douchebag is what I’d say if douchebag was a bad thing.

  Boots: Douchebag is bad.

  Heffer: No it’s a jock who parties.

  Boots: It’s a mindless jock who parties.

  Heffer: Then douchebag he is.

  Dookie: I just about had enough of you.

  Nurk: Settle down Heffer.

  Heffer: Why? No I won’t. Everybody’s laughing at me.

  Bitsy: Nobody’s laughing at you.

  Heffer: You can all go to hell. How about that?

  (to NURK) You, acting like you’re better than everybody else but you’re just a crap cleaner.

  Nurk: Heff…

  Heffer: (to BOOTS) And you. You’re in love with (indicating BITSY) her or something.

  Boots: I’m not in love with her.

  Heffer: (to BITSY) And I don’t know what your problem is. Like you’re socially retarded or something.

  Bitsy: (yelling) I’m shy!

  (quietly) I gotta get out more.

  Heffer: Like you never got over that you didn’t…

  Bitsy: That I didn’t what?

  Heffer: But I’m just as bad. And I go on that stupid website because Deb wants to. And I go on it tonight because I’m thinking that she went on it on her own, which we’re not supposed to do on our own, but she does sometimes, I know she does. We’re supposed to only go on it together, not alone, that’s the deal. That was supposed to be the deal. Nothing works out. Nothing ever works out. Nothing worked out like it was supposed to.

  Nurk: There is no “supposed to.” We just figure it out as we go along.

  Dookie: No wonder things don’t work out Heffer. Take a look at your “lifestyle.” That’s disgusting.

  Bitsy: Oh for God’s sake Dookie shut up.

  Dookie: Pardon me?

  Bitsy: You always were a bully and you still are.

  (to HEFFER) Heffer, if you don’t like how things are you can change them. Maybe “today is the first day of the rest of your life” isn’t in the Bible and it’s just off a plate in Boots’s mom’s kitchen but you know what?

  It should be in the Bible because it’s true. Every day is a new day. Yesterday was tomorrow two days ago, and tomorrow will be yesterday next week, and yesterday’s tomorrow is today which is tomorrow’s yesterday. You know?

  Heffer: Kinda.

  Dookie: What the hell are you talking about?

  Bitsy: I’m just saying every day is a new day everywhere tomorrow.

  Dookie: (to BITSY) Well then maybe tomorrow you can start your new day by seeing if they still do high-school equivalency classes at night school.

  Bitsy: What? I… I… What?

  Boots: Don’t let him get to you Bitsy, everybody already knows.

  Bitsy: They do?

  Nurk: Yeah.

  Heffer: Yeah.

  Dookie: Yeah we do.

  Bitsy: Well… Well… Well thanks for bringing it up, douchebag. Dookie the douchebag.

  Heffer: No it’s not “Dookie” it’s “Douchie.”

  Nurk: (laughing) “Douchie.”

  Boots: From here on.

  Bitsy: Yeah, from here on you’re newly christened “Douchie.”

  Heffer: Har har.

  Nurk: (to all but DOOKIE) Let’s get out of here.

  The group begins to gather their things to go.

  Dookie: Hey… Hey…

  (to NURK) Oh, you’re with this crew are you? I thought better of you, considering you at least had the balls not to waste your life living in this shithole. But at the end of the day Nurk, you know what? You’ll probably end up living back here in a year and using your EI cheque to pay salaries at the liquor store.

  Bitsy: Well that’s better than being a douchebag.

  Heffer: Douchie.

  Dookie: Everybody out.

  Boots: Oh we’re going, we’re going.

  Heffer: Where are we going?

  Boots: We’ll go to Lloyd’s.

  Nurk: What’s going on at Lloyd’s?

  Boots: It’s Saturday night, there’ll be a party.

  Bitsy: The party won’t start at Lloyd’s till after two.

  Boots: Then we’re going back to the reunion and then we’re going to Lloyd’s.

  (to HEFFER) And I’m not freakin’ in love with Bitsy.

  Heffer: Well I don’t know.

  Boots: Everybody thinks I’m a lesbian just ’cause I never got married and I like the Indigo Girls.

  Bitsy: And hockey.

  Boots: Lots of people like hockey.

  Bitsy: And you like wrestling.

  Boots: It’s not wrestling it’s UFC.

  Heffer: And cats.

  Bitsy: Lesbians are more liking dogs I think.

  Heffer: Oh yeah.

  Bitsy: (to HEFFER) She liked you.

  Heffer: When?

  Boots: Before you hooked up with Deb and became an idiot.

  Heffer: Really?

  Dookie: Could you all take your fucking The Edge of Night out of here?

  Heffer: No problem Douchie.

  Boots: Toodle ooshie Douchie.

  HEFFER and BOOTS exit.

  Nurk: See you Doug.

  Dookie: Probably not.

  Nurk: No.

&n
bsp; DOOKIE’s phone rings.

  Bitsy: (to DOOKIE) You should get that, it’s probably your wife. She called before when you were downstairs.

  Dookie: She called? You answered it?

  Bitsy: She had a message but I’ll let her tell you.

  Dookie: Out out out out.

  Everyone leaves.

  DOOKIE stands talking on his phone.

  (on phone) Hey baby!… What?… No… Just by myself… No no no that was a mistake… No I mean just some bimbo… I mean not a bimbo, a girl. I mean not a girl, a woman. Older than you even… Baby? Baby? Baby?

  Scene 3

  The bar.

  HEFFER stands alone. He speaks to us.

  Heffer: It’s pretty much totally different, but exactly the same. To look at the room it’s totally different. The door wasn’t where it is now—used to be you came in at the front, now you come in at the side, the coat check is bigger, they took out a wall and moved the dance floor away from where you first walk in to over by the stage, the stage used to be smaller and at one end was a door to the patio, then the patio became the smoking room, and once they weren’t allowed to have a smoking room anymore they just moved the wall and made the stage bigger. To look at the room, at a picture of before and after, at a set of plans, it’s totally different. But if you look at the people it’s exactly the same. Always was, always will be. That’s because everybody here all wants the same thing. I mean the details are different, somebody wants a job, somebody wants a girl, somebody wants another drink—but everybody wants something they don’t have. That’s what’s the same. The details are just details, it’s the wanting that’s the point. The details are just a bigger stage, a longer bar, a different door. But in the end a room is a room and a person is always going to be a person. Totally different, exactly the same.

  Light shift as BOOTS joins HEFFER.

  Boots: Minglewood! Can you believe it?

  Heffer: I know.

  Boots: Lucky!

  Heffer: I know.

  Boots: Do you want to go outside before the next set?

  Heffer: Nah.

  Boots: Yeah, best to leave them on their own out there.

  Heffer: Who? Nurk and Bitsy?

  Boots: Oh yeah.

  Heffer: You think?

  Boots: Oh yeah. You could cut the sexual tension with a hammer.

  Heffer: Where’d they go?

  Boots: To have a look at the harbour.

  Heffer: People are nuts for that boardwalk.

  Boots: Yeah.

  Heffer: I can’t take the smell.

  Boots: It’s better than it was.

  Heffer: I think we just got used to it.

  Boots: Maybe.

  Heffer: People can get used to anything. And that’s what’s so sad.

  Boots: Ah Heffer.

  Heffer: People stop wanting what they wanted because they get used to not having it and then they pretend they never wanted it.

  Boots: You want to get a drink? Or? I’ve got a puff.

  Heffer: You know what I wanted?

  Boots: I know, to be an engineer.

  Heffer: No. Well yeah but, I mean what I really really wanted?

  Boots: What?

  Heffer: Kids. But Deb didn’t so I said I didn’t. But I always still did. Just kids. A bunch of kids or three or two even. To take care of and teach things to. How to ride a bike or what shows are good and what shows not to watch. And to even take to church or something sometimes. Christmas eve. And Christmas mornings, giving them the thing you made them think they weren’t going to get. Or to drive a car. Teaching your kid how to drive a car. Wouldn’t that be the most amazing thing? And now I’ll never get to do it.

  Boots: The world’s a mess. There’s too many kids. We should be getting a medal for not bringing more kids into the world. We’re lucky for not to have done that.

  Heffer: I don’t feel lucky.

  Boots: You can still have kids.

  Heffer: Not likely.

  Boots: I got two.

  Heffer: What are you talking about?

  She goes for her wallet.

  Oh cats don’t count. A dog might though.

  Boots: I’m not talking about cats.

  She shows him a picture.

  That’s Nona and Gobi. From over where the flood was. She’s ten and she’s eight. Three years now. We write and everything. I sent them pencils and T-shirts last Christmas. I don’t think they have Christmas though. They made me pictures to thank me.

  Heffer: Yeah. But you can’t teach them how to drive though can you.

  He hands back the picture.

  Boots: But you can help them get an education and clean drinking water and a goat or something.

  Heffer: What are they going to do with a goat?

  Boots: Get milk.

  Heffer: From a goat?

  Boots: Yeah, goat milk.

  Heffer: Oh yeah.

  Boots: Or start a goat farm.

  Heffer: With one goat?

  Boots: No you’d give them two then they’d do the work. Well the goats would do the work really.

  Heffer: They could start a goat farm?

  Boots: Yeah.

  Heffer: If you gave them the goats.

  Boots: That’s right.

  Heffer: Lemme see.

  HEFFER looks at the picture again.

  They look so serious.

  Boots: I don’t think they like getting their picture taken.

  Heffer: Bet this one’s got a smile and a half though, look at her eyes.

  Boots: I know I know.

  Heffer: Which one’s this?

  Boots: That’s Nona. No wait that’s Gobi. Oh let me look at the back.

  She looks at the back of the photo.

  That’s Nona.

  Heffer: (laughing) Some mother! Don’t even know your own kids’ names!

  Boots: Oh shut up.

  Heffer: That’s a very nice thing you’re doing, Laura.

  Boots: You should see the pictures they made. I had them framed and put them up in my bedroom.

  Heffer: Maybe you’ll invite me back to have a look sometime.

  Boots: Maybe I won’t. Maybe I will. Maybe maybe.

  The band starts to play Matt Minglewood’s “Me and the Boys.”

  Boots and Heffer: Whoo hoo!

  Scene 4

  BITSY is alone. She talks to us.

  Bitsy: Blackie LeBlanc’s wife Neeta died two days after their forty-fifth wedding anniversary. Everybody thought that was going to be the end of Blackie because Blackie and Neeta were one of those couples that if you saw them in a movie you’d think, “Well that doesn’t exist.” He’d leave the bar early to have supper with her—and not because she told him to but because he wanted to—and they still held hands when they went for their walk every night and they were best friends in that true way where they don’t ever say they are but you can see they are. After Neeta died nobody saw Blackie for about a week and we were all thinking that the next time we’d see him he’d be now like this little old man carrying his groceries home from the IGA all bent over and shuffling and looking at the ground. But then a couple of days later Blackie turned up. He was coming down Common Street jogging. Jogging! At sixty-nine! I saw Blackie at the mall just after that and I was curious and I said to him how it must be hard and how he must miss Neeta, and he said, “Just because I can’t see her doesn’t mean I can’t feel her.” And that might sound weird but if you heard Blackie say it you’d know exactly what he meant. Then a few months after that Blackie started talking about hang-gliding. I never saw any hang-gliding around here, just people flying kites on Dominion Beach and one time two guys came down on parachutes into the field out where the Bill Lynch Circus used to set up. But Blackie went up to Halifax or somewhere for two weeks and took lessons and went hang-gliding. That’s when he broke both his legs. Everybody thought that was going to be that for Blackie but about two months later he turned up jogging again. Not really jogging jogging, more fast walking becau
se now he had his limp. I saw him over at the soccer field one evening and I said to him, “Blackie it must be hard jogging with your bad leg,” and he said, “No not really, it’s just a limp, everybody’s got a limp of some kind. For some people their limp is a limp or for some it’s cataracts or for some it’s being shy around people.” That part I think he was saying especially for me. Last month he turned seventy-two and I heard he’s been going to the dances at the seniors’ centre and he might have a girlfriend. And now he’s got a trip planned in December to Africa. Africa! I saw Blackie at the Legion and I said to him, “Wow, the farthest place I ever been was Tampa, Florida.” And Blackie said, “Don’t worry darling, you’re not seventy-two yet.”

  A moment.

  And I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m thinking that probably Blackie LeBlanc might be my hero.

  A bench on the harbour boardwalk.

  BITSY sits on the bench.