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Bingo Boy - post 62
Marty and Muscles sat in the kitchen of the neo-colonial tract house in Lower Bucks County. He'd have to get out soon. Muscles would too. Lawyers say the wife gets the house. Not really for her, but like as a trust for the kids. He ain't gonna fight it. He just wants this to be over. What do they call it...karma? Look, if the games weren't fixed, if he never hooked up with a creep, like that Jimmy, none of this would have happened. He'd a been poor all those years. That's a given. What talents does he have? Lemme tell you, money...and lack of money, changes everything.
Now there's maybe fifteen or twenty thousand dollars nobody knows about. It's all in hundreds and buried in a Snapple Diet Lemon Iced Tea bottle, or jar, or whatever you call it. Marty won it at a casino. Not from gambling. Went to a promotional bingo night they had. Won the final game. Won the cover-all. Twenty thousand dollars. Should a paid taxes on it, but he didn't. Nobody ever said anything. Look, the way he fricasseed his books, you think they're gonna worry about that? Happened at The Hilton, in Atlantic City. Think they call it the Atlantic City Casino now. Gave him four 'flats' of hundred dollar bills, fifty to a stack with one a those paper bands around it. Makes a pile about two and a half, three inches high. He was so nervous gone out to the parking lot. Knew he was gonna get knifed, or robbed. Waited in the lobby for some buzzed frat boys to leave and went with them. Didn't have far to go. Parked right in the corner closest the door. Ran across Pacific Avenue. Dodged a jitney (small ten to thirteen passenger bus). Jumped in. Sped off. Didn't even turn on the radio, or nothing. Just drove. Every time a car came near him, he thought - uh, oh, this is it..... You know, it's real easy hiding a body in the pines. If you're a 'regular' here, you know that. Got home late. Wife was sleeping. She let him go gambling by himself every once in a while. Street was all dark...all quiet. After, say, eleven, the dogs take their last dump and there ain't nobody out there. Slid into the driveway. Shut everything off. Fished for an empty iced tea bottle on the floor, in the back. Stuffed the bills in (had 'em, like a rock, in his left front pocket) screwed it shut. Went 'round the back and buried it right under the rhododendron bush. Lot a mulch there. Easy digging. Nobody saw, 'cept a spider and a petrified, little vole. And what are they gonna do about it.
Marty wants to go outside and get it. Maybe later. Muscles always goes out, like to wander around the CVS, or the Shoprite. What can I tell you? It's cheap entertainment. Usually drives over around three, or three thirty. Trouble is all the trees are bare. Not so private out there now. ..... Eh, he'd see.
Had a dream last night (Marty, I mean) about the time he 'befriended' a praying mantis on the front patio. Nice one. Seemed smart. Real easy going for a bug. Relaxed like. Lived in a planter. Ate aphids off begonias. Sometimes Marty'd turn the hose on a real, tiny, little trickle. Green little thing would turn up it's head and drink it. You know they open and close their 'beak' more like a bird than an ant. Had a teeny-weenie yellow, pointy tongue too. Named her Emerald. Figured she was a woman praying mantis, 'cause they always kill the husband. Looked big too. The husbands are scrawny. One time he gave her a piece a popcorn shrimp from KFC. She looked at it funny (You know, you get to know an animal after a while), but she took it. Marty liked Emerald. He really did. He liked her a lot. Gave her a little, tiny piece of corned beef once. She ate that too.... Now in real life, a bird got her, a big bird, like a crow, or something. He saw it happen. And he couldn't stop it. Dream ends same way, 'cept she's yellin'. She's screaming. He could hear it. He could hear her go - Help me! Oh, God! Please help me!..... And he just stands there going - Noooo! Noooo! Noooo!....... Then it ends.
Chinese people say praying mantis' are good luck. He should a been more careful.
But later, when Muscles got back from the Shoprite, he brought the mail in. Mailman comes so God damned late. Most of it was junk, or pizza joint menus, but there was a letter, a plain, old fashioned letter... and it was from Jimmy. The two a them read it and re-read it like about a dozen times. Postmarked from Philly. That's where they mailed it. Ricky and Little Chrissie drove all the way in. That way he couldn't trace 'em. Stopped at a discount shoe store in Mayfair for maybe ten minutes and drove all the way back. No, wait. They stopped at Mister Bill's for these real juicy, grilled burgers. I forgot. Brought some a the big 'black and white' cookies back for Marge and Jimmy too. Mister Bill's is like a drive-in, right in the Pines, 'cept it's a regular diner place too. Nobody eats out on the tables now, not in the wintertime.
Look, I'm starting to lose my ectoplasmic coherence. disembodied, spirit narrators get that way sometime. So let me stop and go round up some ghost hamburgers over here on my side.
We'll tell you what they wrote about the next time....
Nitey-night......
_____________________________________________
Marty and Muscles sat in the kitchen of the neo-colonial tract house in Lower Bucks County. He'd have to get out soon. Muscles would too. Lawyers say the wife gets the house. Not really for her, but like as a trust for the kids. He ain't gonna fight it. He just wants this to be over. What do they call it...karma? Look, if the games weren't fixed, if he never hooked up with a creep, like that Jimmy, none of this would have happened. He'd a been poor all those years. That's a given. What talents does he have? Lemme tell you, money...and lack of money, changes everything.
Now there's maybe fifteen or twenty thousand dollars nobody knows about. It's all in hundreds and buried in a Snapple Diet Lemon Iced Tea bottle, or jar, or whatever you call it. Marty won it at a casino. Not from gambling. Went to a promotional bingo night they had. Won the final game. Won the cover-all. Twenty thousand dollars. Should a paid taxes on it, but he didn't. Nobody ever said anything. Look, the way he fricasseed his books, you think they're gonna worry about that? Happened at The Hilton, in Atlantic City. Think they call it the Atlantic City Casino now. Gave him four 'flats' of hundred dollar bills, fifty to a stack with one a those paper bands around it. Makes a pile about two and a half, three inches high. He was so nervous gone out to the parking lot. Knew he was gonna get knifed, or robbed. Waited in the lobby for some buzzed frat boys to leave and went with them. Didn't have far to go. Parked right in the corner closest the door. Ran across Pacific Avenue. Dodged a jitney (small ten to thirteen passenger bus). Jumped in. Sped off. Didn't even turn on the radio, or nothing. Just drove. Every time a car came near him, he thought - uh, oh, this is it..... You know, it's real easy hiding a body in the pines. If you're a 'regular' here, you know that. Got home late. Wife was sleeping. She let him go gambling by himself every once in a while. Street was all dark...all quiet. After, say, eleven, the dogs take their last dump and there ain't nobody out there. Slid into the driveway. Shut everything off. Fished for an empty iced tea bottle on the floor, in the back. Stuffed the bills in (had 'em, like a rock, in his left front pocket) screwed it shut. Went 'round the back and buried it right under the rhododendron bush. Lot a mulch there. Easy digging. Nobody saw, 'cept a spider and a petrified, little vole. And what are they gonna do about it.
Marty wants to go outside and get it. Maybe later. Muscles always goes out, like to wander around the CVS, or the Shoprite. What can I tell you? It's cheap entertainment. Usually drives over around three, or three thirty. Trouble is all the trees are bare. Not so private out there now. ..... Eh, he'd see.
Had a dream last night (Marty, I mean) about the time he 'befriended' a praying mantis on the front patio. Nice one. Seemed smart. Real easy going for a bug. Relaxed like. Lived in a planter. Ate aphids off begonias. Sometimes Marty'd turn the hose on a real, tiny, little trickle. Green little thing would turn up it's head and drink it. You know they open and close their 'beak' more like a bird than an ant. Had a teeny-weenie yellow, pointy tongue too. Named her Emerald. Figured she was a woman praying mantis, 'cause they always kill the husband. Looked big too. The husbands are scrawny. One time he gave her a piece a popcorn shrimp from KFC. She looked at it funny (You know, you get to know an animal after a while), but she took it. Marty liked Emerald. He really did. He liked her a lot. Gave her a little, tiny piece of corned beef once. She ate that too.... Now in real life, a bird got her, a big bird, like a crow, or something. He saw it happen. And he couldn't stop it. Dream ends same way, 'cept she's yellin'. She's screaming. He could hear it. He could hear her go - Help me! Oh, God! Please help me!..... And he just stands there going - Noooo! Noooo! Noooo!....... Then it ends.
Chinese people say praying mantis' are good luck. He should a been more careful.
But later, when Muscles got back from the Shoprite, he brought the mail in. Mailman comes so God damned late. Most of it was junk, or pizza joint menus, but there was a letter, a plain, old fashioned letter... and it was from Jimmy. The two a them read it and re-read it like about a dozen times. Postmarked from Philly. That's where they mailed it. Ricky and Little Chrissie drove all the way in. That way he couldn't trace 'em. Stopped at a discount shoe store in Mayfair for maybe ten minutes and drove all the way back. No, wait. They stopped at Mister Bill's for these real juicy, grilled burgers. I forgot. Brought some a the big 'black and white' cookies back for Marge and Jimmy too. Mister Bill's is like a drive-in, right in the Pines, 'cept it's a regular diner place too. Nobody eats out on the tables now, not in the wintertime.
Look, I'm starting to lose my ectoplasmic coherence. disembodied, spirit narrators get that way sometime. So let me stop and go round up some ghost hamburgers over here on my side.
We'll tell you what they wrote about the next time....
Nitey-night......
_____________________________________________
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