Bingo

by Rita Mae Brown

  Mutzi unrolled the green awning over his store. The stalls were empty. The fruits and vegetables were stacked on the sidewalk. He stopped unpacking for a moment and loped over to play with us. Now Lolly had two people to chase and she didn’t know whether to shit, run, or go blind, as we say on the Dixon side of the line.

  We wore out before the dog did. Mutzi leaned against the cannon. Pewter’s long whiskers swept forward in curiosity. Mutzi petted her and then stuck his head in the muzzle of the cannon.

  “Can’t see a thing.” His voice echoed.

  “What’d you expect?”

  “Dunno.” He pulled his head out. “Stay here a sec, will you, Nick?”

  Mutzi crossed the street, disappeared into his store, and then reappeared carrying a huge metal flashlight.

  “What’s that for?” I asked. “It’s eight in the morning.”

  “Will you shine that like this?” He shone the flashlight muzzle at an angle. “And hold her steady?”

  “Sure.”

  Mutzi fiddled a bit to get the right angle and to keep his head out of the light. “Uh-huh.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a mess of powder in there. Damn, I must have been so drunk I poured in a quart of the stuff.”

  “How do we clean it out?”

  “Might try a vacuum cleaner. Run the wire into the store—late, very late at night.”

  “Are we in danger?”

  “Not so long as there isn’t a ball in there and not so long as nobody touches a match to the wick.”

  “Let me try something.” I examined the loading end of the cannon. The nub of a wick extruded. I lightly shoved it back so it was flush with the metal. It could easily be pulled out but until Mutzi and whoever, probably me, could come down in the middle of the night and clean this thing out, it ought to be safe. Anyway, the only person who played with the cannon was Mutzi.

  We were so engrossed in what we were doing, Mr. Pierre scared us. Mutzi explained the situation to him but swore him to secrecy. Who knows what civic committee would descend upon us over this? Yet another committee investigation. The only good thing ever done by a committee was the King James version. Mr. Pierre agreed that a tight lip was the wise course of action and he promised to help.

  When I finally got to my desk, a fresh copy of the Clarion was on it, as usual. The inky smell wafted to my nostrils even as the ink smeared over my fingers. We can send a man to the moon but we can’t print a newspaper that doesn’t smear. Mother picked on me for not dressing up for work but I didn’t see the point, since I resembled a smudge pot before nine-thirty in the morning. I leafed through and beheld Michelle’s article on bingo. The paper included samples of cards for the different games: regular X, railroad tracks, block of 9, champagne glass, inside picture frame, and a miniature of what a blackout bingo would look like. I read the piece, fascinated. Michelle did a fine job. She’d even included a history of bingo, which was developed in 1880 in Italy from the game of Tombola, a kind of lottery. Then I read in bold print the date of the blackout bingo game. May 8. That was ten days away.

  Michelle, carrying a pile of Congressional Records, entered through the back.

  Before she dumped them on her desk I was at her. “What’s this about the blackout bingo game May eighth?”

  “That’s what Saint Rose’s said.”

  “How come I don’t know about it?” I was peeved.

  “You passed out.”

  “Someone could have told me.”

  “Nickel, you’ve been occupied with the Clarion. We’ve all been in the dumps over the sale—who the hell has time to think about bingo?” she rebuked me.

  That was the first time I’d ever heard Michelle swear.

  “You’re absolutely right and I apologize.”

  The phone rang and she picked it up. “For you.”

  The call made me livid. It was an Eagle agent from God-knows-where; she sounded like she was speaking to me from the bottom of a well. The appraiser had recommended a check for $64.44. I had a $200 deductible. This amount was low because I had authorized repairs before the appraiser could see the damage. I told her about my claim being erroneously given to Maryland Accident Protection by my local insurance representative, just as I had previously explained to another Eagle agent, two weeks ago. The woman couldn’t have cared less. She talked to me as if I were a waterbug and she crisply said I could drop dead—in a less direct way. I jammed the phone receiver onto the cradle. Furious.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You don’t even want to know but trust me, never insure anything with Eagle! And you can bag Richards, Hilton, and Richards too!” I thought a second, picked up the phone, and dialed Jackson. His secretary put me right through.

  “Jackson, more crap and I need legal advice.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry about leaving the courts like that. I don’t know what got into me.” He wasn’t immediately interested in my problem, since he had his own agenda.

  “Tough loss.”

  “I couldn’t stand the way he gloated!”

  Diz had looked happy but I didn’t think he’d gloated. I kept that to myself though.

  “You can pound him in a rematch.”

  “I will but I don’t have you for a doubles partner this summer. Don’t you think it will be difficult being his partner? Maybe you can back out.”

  “I try to keep tennis separate from the rest of my life, and I can’t back out.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Listen, Jack, I’m having a real mess with Eagle over my Jeep.” I explained in detail what had transpired.

  After carefully listening, he said, “Bring me your papers and if you’ve got a phone log, bring me that too. I’ll take care of this. Often what they do on a large claim is, they’ll try to get off cheap. You’d be surprised at how many people accept that. The insurance company figures they’ve got your money. They’ve been getting your money for years, so this Jeep accident is really paid for. During negotiations they usually relent and the claim is settled. It’s a shitty way to do business but there you have it.”

  “Why do we take it? I mean, why do Americans just sit around like two hundred and forty million bumps on a log and get raped by these big companies?”

  “Good question. The chain of accountability is removed from the customer. Theoretically, your local agent is accountable to you, but the minute there’s trouble the job gets fobbed off on the major carrier. And there’s no such thing as a ‘clean’ accident, so if the major carrier wants to, they can find ‘variations’ in any claim. On the other hand, there are people who gouge the companies for more money than the actual damage.”

  “I’m not that kind of person.”

  “I know that but Eagle doesn’t. It’s a little like the IRS. You’re guilty until proven innocent.”

  I felt sick again. This kind of stuff upsets me. “Sometimes I think I’d like to be a hermit and never have to deal with junk like this again.”

  “I know the feeling. Why don’t you bring me over your materials after you put the paper to bed?” He paused. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about how things are working out—everything.”

  “Me too. See you tonight.” I hung up the phone and then remembered that it was Tuesday. Our night. I didn’t want to go over to the office.

  Charles had come in to work while I was on the phone with Jackson. He was a little draggy but he picked up when we had the meeting of all the Clarion personnel over the issue of public figures’ right to privacy. What a great meeting. People contributed a lot and their comments were not shallow. How was I going to live without Arnie and the boys, the gang?

  It’s a funny thing. A lot of people, higher up on the social scale, stare down their noses at working people like Arnie. They figure they don’t think. I know a fair number of people perched on those corporate ladders who don’t think either. Some people’s minds question and roam and others’ don’t and it has nothing to do with one’s station in life. Just becau
se someone is a laborer doesn’t mean he or she is stupid. Sometimes hardships have kept an individual from an education, and sometimes temperament. A lot of people I know observe the man in the three-piece suit and they think he’s choking on his white collar. For some people success is money and power or the illusion of it. For others it’s quality of life. It would be nice to have it all but the older I get the more I respect the guys like Arnie Dow who love what they do, knowing full well they’re “just a working man.”

  Well, we worked hard today. After the meeting, which lasted three hours, we had Verna bring in food for us. I returned to my desk and picked up the paper again.

  In Michelle’s article she had woven some funny facts. She found a place, Sullivan, Illinois, where people play Bessie bingo. They’ve marked out 144 squares on grass and use cow chips. If a cow chip lands on your square, which you’ve bought for $20, you win the prize of $1,000. The proceeds go to the forty-nine-member Sullivan High School choir, which is so good it needs the money to travel to national competitions.

  As I reread her article I found myself laughing anew. The screwiest fact she’d picked up was from the Globe and Mail, a Toronto paper. A Mrs. Grisdale had been lost and the authorities brought in a medicine man from Ontario who prepared a sacred hut and called on spirits to help locate Mrs. Grisdale. After this ceremony they held a bingo session and raised $200. No word yet on whether they ever found Mrs. Grisdale.

  Michelle leaned over my shoulder. “Not bad for a cub, is it?”

  “You don’t think much of yourself, do you?”

  “Who’s my teacher?”

  She had me there. “Thought about what you’re going to do next?”

  “No. What about you?”

  I shook my head.” You know Roger will hire you even though you turned Diz down. They’ll take you gladly.”

  “The new Clarion is slashing editorial staff.”

  “He’d hire you anyway.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t want to work on the other side of the Square, do you? You ought to think about it. It’s the way newspapers are run today.”

  “I know, but no amount of technology is going to help me bang out a good story. I learned that here.”

  I waited a minute. “So how’s it going with you and Rog?”

  “I go to bingo games with him and sometimes I go to dinner with him. Don’t start sounding like your mom or Wheeze.”

  “I do not sound like my mother or my aunt.”

  “You’re getting as nosy as they are.”

  “I am?”

  Her eyes darted. “A little bit.”

  “I think I will assign you that story on early airport art.” I dumped out paper clips on my desk. I like the plastic kind because they’re in different colors and then I can sort them out according to color. I pushed together the orange ones. “Okay, so I’m curious. Hoping for the best, that’s all.”

  “The best meaning I have some romance?”

  “Well—yeah.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “We are having a discussion about romance, are we not, or did I miss something?”

  “Don’t get fresh, Michelle. Romance and I seem to be strangers.”

  “Every single day of your life?”

  “Are you interviewing me or what?”

  “No.”

  “Not every day of my life. I lived with a woman for three years—God, that was ten years ago. Anyway, she left me as her career prospered.”

  “That doesn’t exactly follow.”

  “Yeah, it does but you have to know her. If she’d thought anyone knew she was gay she would have died on the spot. She was so far in the closet she was voted Miss Garment Bag of 1977. Anyway, I respected her wishes and we didn’t go anywhere publicly together but as time went by, as time does, a few people noticed that she was in her thirties and unmarried with a roommate. When the roommate was determined to be me, the plot thickened. So she dumped me and maybe it was just as well, because I can be quiet, you know what I mean, but I have a damned hard time lying. If someone had put it to me: ‘Are you Frances’s lover?’ I don’t know what I would have said. Anyway, I’m probably not the easiest person to live with.”

  “Why is that?”

  “ ’Cause I love my cat and dog more than anything or anybody else.” I laughed.

  “That’s a sad story.”

  “Not as sad as you think. The happiest day of my life was when Frances moved in with me and the next happiest day of my life was when she moved out.”

  “Not everyone is as brave as you are.”

  “I’m not brave, Michelle. Don’t ever mistake me for someone brave. I just happen to be a bad liar. Even a child could see through me. Anyway, I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”

  She thought about that. I opened my drawer to push in the paper clips of colors I didn’t like. On Tuesday nights I’d substitute those colors for the good colors in other people’s paper clip boxes and so far no one had ever noticed.

  I put the paper to bed about ten. The Hart scandal was exploding but Roger and Michelle had their fingers on the pulse and I figured they’d be in early tomorrow. I went into the bathroom and combed my hair. I was sure there was more silver in it than at the time of my haircut. Then I rooted around in the cabinet and found a tube of lipstick that Michelle must have left there, Mango Ice. After all these years I couldn’t get it exactly right and left a streak of Mango Ice on my front teeth. I rubbed it off.

  Lolly and Pewter led the way. Jackson was glad to see me and I was glad to see him, even if I was steamed about Eagle. On top of my car damage I’d now have legal fees. After all, Jackson couldn’t work for free.

  After a proper social kiss on the cheek we settled down to work.

  “Jack, you’ve got lipstick on your cheek.”

  “Gives me a raffish look. I won’t wash my face for days.” He smiled and then gasped. Ragged pain etched on his face.

  “Jackson?”

  Sweat poured down his face. He couldn’t answer me. His left arm twitched. His breathing was harsh. My father died of a heart attack and I knew one when I saw one. I also knew if I took him to the hospital at this hour we’d both be ruined.

  I picked up the phone. He frantically waved at me with his right arm. He was thinking about the rescue squad, and on Tuesday nights Peepbean Huffstetler was in charge over there.…

  “Don’t worry, honey. I have a plan.” My voice sounded reassuring and calm.

  My plan involved calling Mr. Pierre so he could carry Jackson to the hospital in his car. But Mr. Pierre was out and about. Now I was in trouble. Without a second of hesitation I dialed Mother.

  “Mother, come over to Brown, Moon, and Frost right away. Jackson’s had a heart attack.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Only socially.” How could I be flippant at a time like this? I always came up with smart-alec stuff when I was most scared. “Mom, I think he suffered a mild one. I can explain later.”

  We hung up the phone without goodbyes.

  Mother arrived within three minutes. Together we helped Jackson down the back stairway to Mom’s car. At this point he was more frightened than in pain, although he could have another attack, and Mother and I knew she had to get him to the emergency room fast.

  Mother, cool as a cucumber in danger, whispered to me: “You go pick up Regina. Tell her I called you and don’t tell her anything else. I’ll have time to think of a story on the way to the hospital.”

  She shut her car door and took off. I could see that with her right hand she was rubbing Jackson’s neck.

  Regina was checking her course plans for the horse show. I had only to say, “Come with me,” and she came without resistance. I explained about Jack while we drove to the hospital.

  When we arrived she turned to me. “Come in with me.”

  “Sure.”

  Mother and I stayed there until Jackson was comfortably s
ettled in his room. Mom said that she’d gone over to the office late to change her will. Evening was the only time Jackson had open today. He suffered the attack and she rushed him to the emergency room because she didn’t want to wait for the rescue squad; not that the squad wasn’t good—they were—but she thought she could get him there five minutes faster by herself. She said she’d called me from the emergency room so I’d go pick up Regina. Mom covered all the bases.

  When she left, Mother looked tired. Memories of Dad’s heart attack must have been going through her mind because her face was so sad.

  I took Regina back home, once she was satisfied that Jack would be all right. I wanted to make sure she’d be all right herself. We talked with the windows down, and the sweet smells of spring perfumed the conversation. She said that every woman married to a middle-aged man was secretly braced for this kind of thing. Jackson pushed himself too hard. He simply could not admit that he was growing older. Then she smiled and said if he recovered she’d go out and buy a Porsche 911 Cabriolet, white. She’d worry about paying for it later.

  When I walked Regina to her door I hugged her and told her I loved her.

  I drove back with Lolly and Pewter, who’d endured the whole ordeal with me. I felt as low as, maybe lower than, I did the moment I knew I’d lost the Clarion. I just about lost Jackson. Whoever said “Here today and gone tomorrow” wasn’t kidding.

  The difference between genius and stupidity is that even genius has its limits. How stupid I was to assume that tomorrow would be like today. The vicissitudes of romance were painful but it never occurred to me that Jack could die. He wasn’t even fifty. I was beginning to realize that even if we all lived to be one hundred we wouldn’t be who we were today. We can only imagine the future in terms of our own current emotional state, and it’s well nigh impossible to imagine feeling emotions you’ve never felt before. Time would propel us through new situations, new emotions. The thought of Jack dying was a new, terrifying emotion.