Monday, January 14, 2013

60TH BINGO BOY episode 1/14/13

Bingo Boy - post 60

Now we of the spirit world can gather 'round and protect deserving mortals. Little children know that. We're their 'imaginary friends.' And yes, I'm embarrassed to say so, but some of us have been known to whisper correct test answers into the sweet, little ears of painfully struggling children. 

Adults (older children too) know us as 'conscience.' We try to keep them pure. I know two or three souls in the 'ghostly' form ministering to Muscles right now. He craves money... Not so much for the greenbacks, but for the enhanced position they provide. I don't think he'll kidnap the Baby, though. Miss Leslie, a former teacher of the handicapped, much admired among spirits for her saintly voice and quiet ways is with him how, coaxing him toward the good side. And he lays there, aware of Marty's snoring beyond the bedroom wall, but he listens to something else. He listens to Miss Leslie. She can access his every memory... His favorite, childhood playthings (a stuffed sheepdog called Pudgy..... a scaled down, though very real looking rifle, called Pow-Pow.... and an old World War II army helmet he once peed in). 

Muscles likes remembering those things. He likes recalling long ago Thanksgiving dinners attended by loving relatives since called to their Eternal Reward. Miss Leslie wants his Aunt Jeannie to give him her banana cake recipe. He always loved that. Ate two or three big pieces every year. And his Grampy Lou is waiting to tell him that Pow-Pow rests, still in it's original box, on the laundry-room shelf at Cousin Barbra's place.

Memories like that humanize us. They forge the tie that binds. And Muscles is lucky to have them. Imagine what life is like for those who don't?.... He's drifting off now. The small TV on his night table is still on. Jacques Pepin pulverizes thin sheets of veal with a little silvery hammer... exactly the fate their bovine mothers wished for. But the volume is turned down low. And the timer will soon click off.

So at this time we must leave the slumbering former bingo-gigolo. He snores too, you know... The Baby is safe for now.... And the only complications plaguing our happy seashore family comes from inquisitive neighbors. People want to know how they got all that money. They want to know what Ricky does. They want to know what Jimmy does. And they really don't give up. Marge avoids them. Jimmy makes jokes... He says - I sell guns to the Indians... I give hula-hula lessons. You wanna take some?..... But Ricky feels bad. He doesn't know what to say. Little Chrissie called this place. They're gonna take real estate lessons. Study for the test, I mean.  That's a good job around here, most years, anyway. At least it'll give 'em a legitimate answer. Look, one guy across the street made his money falling off an escalator at Macy's... twice. Another one bills scared parents with sick kids four hundred and fifty five dollars for every ten minutes of his time.... even if they don't get better...... That's how people are...... 

Let me tell you, we of the spirit realm have a lot of work to do.....

And you all better start listing...

Shhh... somebody's trying to reach you...

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