“Madi, I don’t want to be here,” I said as she pulled the truck into St. Johns’ cracked parking lot. “It’s so -”
“Old? Social? Low-ceilinged?”
“No, it’s just -”
“In a church? You’re not that dark, you won’t get struck by lightning.” She said with a sideways smirk. “C’mon Fall, my ladies are gonna love you. It’s just bingo. It’s fun!”
She turned off the truck and the AC stopped blasting. It was stuffy in an instant. I rolled my eyes.
“Why do you call me that?” I asked, flatly.
“Because that’s your name, Fall, now put on your happy face and let’s go in before some old bat snipes my seat.”
I scrunched my face at her, but clambered out of the truck just the same, straight into a wall of cornfield humidity.
“I promise to try.”
It was still so humid at 6pm that I could hear my hair getting more voluminous by the second, and sweat beaded on my spine. I walked around the front of the truck, felt a pang when I saw a monarch butterfly pancaked across the grille, and joined Madi where she was hoisting a massive tote bag out of the back seat.
“At least introduce me by my actual name.”
“Look at you! Finally caring about impressions. There’s hope for you yet,” she said, standing up with the bag and sweeping her gorgeous blonde hair away from her face with a glowing smile. “Okay, Autumn, I promise I will introduce you by your actual name, as long as you promise to have fun.”
She looped her arm through mine, and lead me from the truck—she left it unlocked, which no matter how long I was stuck here I would never get used to—across the lot and into the building.
Frigid air fought back the humidity as we crossed the threshold, and a cacophony of voices replaced the crickets and cicadas. A small stage took up a wall across the room. The low tiled ceiling had stains in it where the roof had leaked, cracked linoleum lined the floor, and the whole place smelled like highlighter ink, decades of fish fries and country weddings, and, inexplicably, fresh bread. Madi dragged me along the back wall to a table by a double door and picked up a pile of paper bingo sheets from two gray-haired men wearing glasses and matching white polo shirts with the St. John’s shield on the chest. She introduced me, pulled a wad of cash from her wallet and handed it to the men. One of whom started counting the money, while the other counted the stack she’d grabbed. While they did, Madi looked under the table.
“Hi Truckie!!” she cooed, reaching down to pet a wrinkly yellow lab the size of a small hippo. He snored away, oblivious.
“This is Truck, he’s our mascot,” she said. “Isn’t he cute?”
“I would die for Truck,” I said. He snorted in his sleep, then moved a massive paw to cover his eyes. My heart shattered into a million pieces.
“Here you go Madison, have fun,” said the second man, handing over a stack of bingo sheets.
“Barry’s selling bread tonight, so keep your eyes peeled and your wallet out,” said the first.
“Thank you gentlemen!” said Madi, standing up straight again and doing a little dip. Then she lead me through a cramped maze of plastic tables and folding chairs until we made it over to Madi’s ‘Bingo Bitches.’
“Hi ladies! This is my cousin Autumn,” she said in a sing-song voice and presented me with a flourish. “She’s staying with us for the summer and I finally got her to come out.” She dropped our bingo sheets and her tote on the table.
“She’s never played bingo before, and I promised you’d all be nice to her.”
They all laughed and tittered at me, and I tried to smile but I knew it came across as a flat grimace.
“This is Miss Marjorie, Miss Violet, Miss Deborah, Miss Donna, and Miss Barbara,” said Madi, going around the table and bobbing up and down introducing each of the women. They each had perfectly permed hair, pastel floral shirts, little glasses with beaded chains, and tasteful gold jewelry.
“Oh hush Madison, we aren’t that serious,” said Marjorie from across the table while she very seriously organized her bingo sheets, two different colored stampers, and an odd horde of frog statuettes. “I’m Marge, this is Vi, Deb, and Barb.”
“And who am I, then?” asked Donna next to Marge, looking at her with her head sucked back like she’d just bit into a lemon.
“A pain.”
Donna gasped like she’d been stabbed.
“I used to have hair just like yours,” said Vi, puffing her perm with a hand and looking up at me. “Nice and curly and black. You take care of it dearie and it’ll take care of you.”
Madi and I sat down between Vi and Deb, and Madi started pulling things out of her tote. Deb leaned over into Madi’s ear.
“Did you see Katherine’s new cross?” she asked in a stage whisper, looking pointedly two tables over at another woman. “It’s a monstrosity,” she added, her eyes bugging out, scandalized.
I looked over. Katherine, I assumed, had long hair that was too dark to match either her complexion or her crows feet. She wore a low-cut cheetah print top, and a gaudy cross with a huge diamond in the center of it dangled prominently from her bird-like neck. She had a line of troll dolls across the table in front of her, all with hot pink or electric blue hair.
“The diamond is enormous, it must be fake,” hissed Barb.
“It’s moissanite,” said Marge, looking at Barb over her reading glasses. “I looked it up after she came to the garden club with it. It’s brighter than a diamond, and it reflects rainbow hues. Diamonds don’t do that.”
“And it’s cheap,” muttered Donna.
“What’s with the trolls?” I asked Madi.
“Those are luck totems,” she said, pulling out a collection of neon-colored stampers. I looked down the table. All the women had little collections arranged in front of their bingo sheets. Marge had frogs, Vi had a beautiful spun-glass violet, Deb had a small statue of Mary and a picture of her grandkids, Barb had a pile of amethyst crystals, and Donna had a full rainbow of stampers. “They’re fun! People are superstitious but I just like to have a mascot,” Madi said, then she pulled out an orange stuffed octopus with gold sequins on his underside. “You’ll be borrowing Julio today. He has the Midas touch, but only for bingo,” she said, earnestly. Then she handed me a blue stamper, kept a pink one for herself, and arranged our bingo sheets.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to Friday night bingo at St. Johns. My name is Tim, I’ll be your caller this evening,” said a man from the stage. He was balding and mousy, but he had a strong voice and sharp eyes. “We’re going to get started here, so have your stampers ready.”
I looked down at the sheets Madi had arranged for me. I had two to keep track of, which felt like too much at once. I looked over. She had nine. Marge, across the table, had twenty.
How?
I looked back up at Caller Tim. He took the handle of a large, round cage filled with ping-pong balls, and started rolling it. The balls bounced around while the crowd talked, until he stopped, opened a tiny door, and pulled one ball out to read the number before closing the door and starting again. I started scanning my sheets over and over while the ladies stamped and gossiped. I could barely keep up with the conversation, much less the numbers. I looked at Julio, and his happy, empty-headed expression bolstered me.
“Kathy has trolls because she’s trashy,” said Madi with a sour expression, searching her sheet with her tongue sticking out. The ladies all nodded knowingly.
“A zebra can’t hide its stripes,” said Marge.
“She’s a whore,” added Donna.
“That’s what I said.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Sorry that I’m more genteel than you, Donna.”
“Genteel? I’ve played golf with you for sixty years, Marjorie, and the last word I would describe your drive with is genteel.”
“They’ve been friends since the second grade,” said Madi, leaning toward me. “I think they love each other more than their own husbands.”
“BINGOOOOOOOOOOO!” shouted a high-pitched voice from across the room.
I looked up. It was Katherine. She had her arms over her head and her chest out, and she bounced in her chair, making the moissanite cross sparkle in the fluorescent light while the whole room collectively groaned.
“That was quick,” grumbled Barb. She crumpled up her sheets and moved them out of the way to reset her board. The rest of us followed suit. Another man in one of the matching St. Johns polos made his way to Kathy to check over her winning sheet, calling the numbers out to Tim.
“Anyway,” said Madi, “Kathy stole Pam’s—” she nodded toward another woman down the table from us, “—cheating liar of a husband.”
Pam, who was shooting murderous looks at Kathy, had short blonde hair, chunky highlights, a simple platinum cross, and a host of praying saints lined in front of her. She worked the beads of a large rosary through her hands.
“Kathy stole him with the lift she had done,” said Vi.
“It was a comprehensive lift,” added Deb.
“And those awful extensions,” continued Vi.
“And she’s a whore,” muttered Donna.
Tim refilled the cage and started spinning again for the next round. The people chattering and stamping and shifting their creaky folding chairs completely drowned out the rolling balls.
“Oh, look look,” said Barb urgently, tapping Deb on the arm. “Mr. Man is here.”
All four of the other ladies craned their necks around to follow Barb’s line of sight. Tim called a number, and Marge deftly stamped her sheet without even looking down.
“Madi, you should date him, he’s gorgeous,” said Barb.
“Who?”
Madi and I looked over too, and saw a well-muscled man with a crew cut and a dark green polo sit down in the corner opposite the double doors. He was maybe only a few years older than Madi, and tanned. He pulled out a stamper and a solitary toy border collie, then pulled his chair in. Something large swung from a chain under his shirt and knocked against the table. He stopped scootching his chair, looked sideways, then sat up straight again and went about arranging his bingo sheets.
“That’s what my husband used to look like,” said Vi into my ear, as Tim started calling numbers.
“Look at the size of him,” said Marge, looking over her glasses again.
He looks like a cop, I thought. He probably drove a Charger for work and for pleasure.
“Go walk past him and drop something,” said Donna, leaning toward Madi and looking her up and down. “Bend over and pick it up and he won’t be able to tear his eyes away.”
“Oh stop,” laughed Madi, swinging her hair over her other shoulder.
“What? That’s how I snared Jim,” said Donna. “And he thought it was his idea to take me out. HA!”
“He’s only been here a couple weeks, you still have a chance before someone else takes him,” added Vi. “He’s already catching on, he didn’t have the little dog last time.”
“He’s still not as new as those two,” said Deb, pointing her stamper over her shoulder at the double doors.
“No, and he’s much nicer looking.”
I followed Deb’s stamper and saw two people, a man and a woman, both stick thin and sickly looking. They sat by the double doors next to the stage with their heads together, muttering. Both of them were distinctly unkempt, and neither had any totems. They looked like the tweakers that smoked behind the gym.
“BIIIIIIINGOOOOOOO!” shouted Kathy again, accompanied by an explosion of disgruntled shouts from the room.
“New caller!”
“Come on, Tim!”
“Mix the balls up next time!”
“He must be in on the take,” said Marge, tearing her sheets up in disgust.
“Or she’s sleeping with him, too,” added Donna.
“I was so close this time,” said Madi, pointing out two lines of four stamped numbers on her sheets. “One away in two spots.”
“Look at Pam,” said Deb, pointing over at her.
Madi and I both snuck a look at Pam. She was white knuckling her rosary in one hand, and a stamper in the other, squeezing it so hard that bright blue ink dribbled out all over the table. She literally shook with rage, watching Kathy bounce in her chair again. One of the women next to Pam put a hand on her arm, and she calmed enough to set down the stamper and start muttering prayers, working through her rosary beads.
Madi folded her dead sheets together and tossed them into her tote. I passed her mine, and she pulled out another stack while the checkers went to review Kathy’s sheet again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, before we start our next round, don’t forget to visit Barry,” said Tim the caller, with the exact same bland intonation he’d had the entire night. He pointed over to the double doors just as a man the size of a lineman walked through carrying an armful of loaves. “Proceeds all month are going to the missions to send our wonderful high schoolers to Guatemala so they can spread the word of the lord and build those poor folks a school.”
The huge man—who had a balding buzzcut, deep frown lines, and a pristine white apron that read ‘Barry’s Breads’ across the front—nodded to the room before dumping his loaves of bread on the same table we’d picked up the bingo sheets from. With Tim’s announcement, several people had gotten up from their seats and were already forming a line in front of Barry. While Madi set up our next round and the ladies sniped at Katherine, I watched the bread line.
Barry had split the loaves into two piles, and as I watched, the pile on the left shrunk significantly faster than the one on the right. Most of the people in the line handed over fat wads of wrinkled cash, and something about them reminded me less of the ladies with me and Madi, and more of the two tweakers sitting just on the other side of the double door.
“Alright everybody, are we ready to get started again?” asked Tim, bumping the mic and sending it ringing. “Whoops, sorry about that. Up next, the haaaaam roouuund,” he said like a half-hearted boxing announcer. The crowd cheered.
“The ham round?” I asked Madi.
“You have to make an H shape, both sides and a line across the middle. Then you win a ham,” she said, leaning across her card, laser-focused. “You only get one card, no stacking.”
I glanced around. An entire ham sat on the table in front of Tim. The other ladies had stopped gossiping, and were poised with their stampers. They each only had one sheet. I picked up my stamper and petted Julio for luck.
Tim started calling numbers, one at a time with more pomp and circumstance than any of the other rounds. The room was quiet and focused, except for Mr. Man in the corner. I could hear him muttering to himself from across the room. I looked away from my sheet, and saw him pushing an earbud deeper into his ear. He leaned his head onto his hand like he was trying to hide it.
“Pay attention! You missed B6,” hissed Madi, slapping my arm.
I turned back to my sheet and stamped it. The next few numbers I didn’t have, and Mr. Man was still muttering, so I gave him a “would you please shut up” glare. He didn’t see me. He stared intently across the room at the double doors. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that Barry was gone, and the two tweakers had left their seats. The double doors clicked gently closed.
“O…” called Tim, drawing it out.
Mr. Man stood up from his seat, taking a step toward the double doors.
“62,” finished Tim.
“Oh! Yes! BIIIIINGOOOOOOOO!!” shouted Katherine again, jumping up from her chair. She started bounding down the aisle to take the ham from Tim. “I can’t believe it, I’m the ham queen, I—”
“aaaAAAAAGH!!!”
I flinched around in time to see Pam launching herself over her table, sending her saint statues scattering. She fell to the floor on the other side of the table, scrambled back to her feet, then flew at Katherine like an attack dog. She grabbed Kathy by her extensions and yanked her to the ground screaming as the whole room exploded.
“Oh dear baby Jesus,” said Tim over the microphone. The ladies jumped up from their seats, Donna cackling loudly and Vi with her hands over her mouth. Mr. Man stood, dumbstruck, with the fight between him and the doors the tweakers had followed Barry through. Pam cocked back a fist with her rosary wrapped around it like brass knuckles and swung down, screaming bloody murder, her hair a sweaty mess. Madi and I backed away from the table. I had grabbed Julio instinctively. Madi reached over to cover his eyes.
Two of the rotating sheet checkers ran around the back wall to get to Pam and Kathy, but as they crossed in front of the double doors, they burst open, knocking the two checkers to the ground. Barry came barreling through the doors, and Barry wasn’t alone.
One of the tweakers clung to his back, choking him, while the other, carrying handfuls of bagged bread loaves, had his neck in Barry’s thick hands. They crossed in front of the table where Truck still snoozed, and one of the loaves in the first tweaker’s hands swung right in front of the dog’s face. As though he could sense glorious opportunity, Truck opened his eyes and chomped down on the bag, just as the tweaker on Barry’s back bit his neck.
“GAHHHH!” shouted Barry, louder even than the shrieking Kathy and Pam. He thrashed the tweaker holding the bread, jerking him away from Truck, but Truck was tenacious. His grip on the loaf was too strong, his body too heavy to be moved. The bag ripped in half, and the loaf split, sending white crystals showering like hail across the room.
“What the hell?” I heard myself say, as most of the people who’d bought the bread earlier dove onto the floor after the crystals. Mr. Man, who had broken out of his stupor, ran across the room, grabbed the tweaker on Barry’s back, and tried to pull him down. Barry, sensing the weight shift behind him, spun around, sending Mr. Man flying but failing to dislodge the tweaker. When Mr. Man got back up, the thing that had been swinging underneath his shirt had fallen out.
It was a police badge.
Barb screamed, and I whipped back around.
Not to be outdone by the four men and the dog, Pam had stood back up, unbuttoned her pants, and pulled them all the way down.
“Oh. My. God,” said Madi.
“KISS MY GOD-FEARING ASS YOU WHORE OF BABYLON!” screamed Pam, and she sat fully on Kathy’s screaming, botox-filled face as an army of cops burst through the front door.
The people on the floor, who were scrabbling around for what I realized were the meth crystals that had flown out of the bread, collectively bolted. A few ran for the double doors, pursued by a horde of policemen. One tried to climb up to a high window, but was tackled down before he could escape. Another couple jumped on stage and bowled over Tim, running behind a curtain and out of sight.
I reached out a hand for Madi, but she wasn’t there.
“Madi??” I said, looking around for her. Where had she gone?
“GET ON THE GROUND!” shouted one of the cops, aiming a taser at Barry, who bellowed at the ceiling as the tweaker on his back reached for his eyes. Mr. Man, still on the ground, rolled onto his back just in time to see Barry falling over backwards, tweaker-first, straight down on top of him. Five officers followed the falling man and dove on top of him, pulling out handcuffs in the process.
A few minutes later, the scene had calmed. I stood with the ladies, who tittered and pearl-clutched, but seemed unable to tear their eyes away from Kathy and Pam. Those two, disheveled and bloody, were being walked out of the room in cuffs behind Barry, the tweakers, and the host of other people who’d been here to buy meth from the baker. Truck had gotten into the meth rocks on the floor, and he was being driven to a vet to get his stomach pumped. The ham had disappeared and Tim, who had bashed his head on a table when he’d been knocked over, was being bandaged up by his wife. People started filtering out of the church basement, chattering wide-eyed.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Madi, coming up behind me and hefting her tote with a grunt. “Oof. Do you have Julio?”
“What? Yes, I have Julio. Where did you go?”
“Keep his eyes covered, he’s too innocent for all of this. Bye ladies! I’ll see you next week” she said with a cheery wave, before looping her arm in mine again and steering me outside in a rush. She walked me past the police, their cars, the crowd of gawkers outside, and back to the truck, looking over her shoulder the whole way.
“Madi, what -”
She gave me a look, and I stopped talking.
She hoisted her bag into the back seat of the truck and we both got in. She turned it on, the AC still blasting. We buckled our seatbelts. Then she backed out of the parking spot, turned the wheel, and drove out onto the open road.
It took two miles before either of us said anything.
“So, what did you think? Did you have fun?”
I stared out of the windshield, watching lines of corn flash by in the setting sun.
“That was… Insane,” I said, barely able to comprehend what had just happened. “I hope Truck is going to be ok. Is it always that dramatic?”
Madi didn’t say anything.
I looked at her, and she was grinning at me. Her hair had stuck to her face.
“What?”
She grinned even broader.
“Madi, what??”
“Look in the bag.”
I looked around at the bag, sitting in the middle of the backseat. I looked at her, but she kept her eyes on the road. I reached back and grabbed the bag. It didn’t move.
I pulled harder, and out rolled the stolen ham.
