ALL THESE THINGS ARE TRUE

That thread known to you as BINGO BOY must abide for another night. Other voices seep through the ether now and their resonance is upon us. The night folk of 'The Vampire Wonderland' hunger for the stage.  The magic wants to come back. Crack open the door. Listen to the murmurs. For all these things are true...

First instantaneous truth~ As we sit here, cocooned in our own individual states of existence, a soul slides into the sea. A man falls over the edge, gasping incredulously, as his feet furiously try to find purchase, before plunging into the dark, cold, water. Night paints the firmament. And feathery clouds tickle the stars, as the ship drops over the edge. 

The solitary heartbeat falters, shocked by a death-like chill as the man goes ever deeper. After a time it will be over. Then he will be warm, or at least unaware of the cold. But the end comes slow down here. Ice preserves things. Bits of flesh take longer to die. And he lingers, suspended between the quick and the dead.

Ten heartbeats later, he is found. An intelligence rises up from the depths, piercing the blackness. It reaches out to him. Soft, graceful arms embrace his body, kissing it with many ardent mouths. His companion is large, long as a nightmare. Supple undulations draw him ever toward its face, a lethal countenance   more horrible than Medusa...

Monsters are real. We are food. Some people feign indifference. Others disbelief. But Kimodo Dragons devour sleeping babies. Cave bears crush hikers and microbes eat flesh. And the subject of this truth progresses toward the maw of a giant squid. He can't break free. There is no escape. No rescue will come. The razor sharp beak opens wide, freeing a tongue-like radula, eager to scrape him raw. 

The feet go in first. Then the legs, drawn in by the tongue that's not a tongue. He does not see it, but he feels it. Death, or the denial of it, can be so cruel. His back is abraded down to the bone, a live spare rib special for hungry calimari. And he wants to draw in water. He wants to drown. He wants to die. The pain is so great. The pressure so real. Yet the steel-like grip says 'no.' 

And the skin, just below his clavicle, feels the beak come down and  cut him through. Life, or something like it, lingers in his brain until the blood runs out to join the salty, womb-drink of the sea. But before that can happen, the beak comes down again to crush his skull...

The monster is satisfied, dropping down to rest in the abyss...

You think this scene has never, ever happened? Please.... don't be naive.....

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62ND BINGO BOY episode 1/17/13

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......

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RETREAT OF THE BODY SNATCHERS ... a one night break from BINGO BOY.. 1/15/13

The baby appeared almost normal. He cried at the right time, waved his little fists around and demonstrated a very well developed nursing reflex. Skin tone was a little off, though. Too ruddy. Not dark, just too much blood right under the surface. And his cranium was a bit depressed, maybe even lumpy. But that happens sometimes too. So they washed him off, smeared him with the usual anti-bacterial crap and passed him down the line. 

Daddy thought he looked all right. Mommy couldn't tell. She loved him and all, just thought he looked a wee bit unusual. The paternal pop-pop said - Wow! We got a little line backer there, lemme tell you!... The maternal mom-mom just went - Hummm.

So they sat there in the almost motel-like 'mothers' room,' pretending to watch Vana White tickle old fashioned TV screens and thought. Kid had too much hair. Even had teeny-tiny, black, glossy ones lying flat against the skin of his meaty forearms. Who'd they have there, Paul Bunyan? Nurses came in and all. Did all the regular stuff. But they looked at him funny. New mommy saw. She picked up on it. She said - What are you 'looking' for? What's a matter?... The older, skinny nurse patted her leg and said - Oh, we're just doing our job. We're just doing our job. Wow, he's a real bruiser, there, ain't he?

Twenty minutes later, when the family filed out, they air kissed the mommy (gotta be careful. don't wanna give her no germs), gave dirty looks to a doctor doing his best to avoid eye contact over by the nurses' station and stopped to see the infants in the baby zoo. About six of them in there. The two born before theirs seemed OK. But 'Liam' (that's his name) and the three who came after all had that same, dopey look. One stranger-lady said - Oh, look! They must be related..... Pop-pop turned and said - No, they're not..... But she just said - Oh...and proceeded to suck her teeth.

Daddy was real quiet, though. Kissed his mom. Hugged his dad, got in the car (think it was a cool, looking mustang) and drove back home..... Actually, he needed to stop for toilet paper, but he didn't. Just didn't feel like it. 

Pop-pop turned on the TV at his place. He likes the news. Watches news stations.... Mom-mom said - Jesus Christ! Turn that the hell off! I wanna talk about the baby!.... But the guy on the screen was saying something. So he just told her to go to hell.

TV guy said - According to unnamed sources, every baby born since eight thirty p.m. at Lou Costello Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, California exhibits signs of the same, mysterious, muscular-cranial abnormality. Some have taken to calling it 'Fred Flintstone Syndrome.' ..... Then they showed video... Little Liam had the same look. Even mom-mom saw it.

And every birth, thereafter was the same. They all resembled Fred Flintstone. Some were dark. Some were light. French babies. Chinese babies. Colombian babies. Israeli babies.

You see, the universe is a big place and not every life form looks like we do. I'm talking about Earth life, slugs and gerbils and praying mantis' and all that.  Some 'people' are smoke. Others, little black orbs that bounce through eternity. For the last sixty thousand years or so, we've been studied by one of them. Not just us, the whole planet. We've been thoroughly examined by a somewhat neurotic, though extremely curious, virus cloud. Not a dense cloud. This 'individual' is quite nebulous. Our eyes were his eyes. Our hands were his hands. And our genitals were his genitals too. 

But now the term is over. The paper's all done. School's out for the summer. And 'he' doesn't need us anymore. So the great viral cloud rose up above the solar plane and looked down for a moment before drifting off to places yet unknown. That happened right before Liam was born. The elixir is gone. The juice is turned off. And we are all alone, just as we were all those many thousands of years ago. 

The Body Snatcher has left the building. And what we call evolution was but a temporary, laboratory manipulation. 

A new hominid walks the earth, or rather an old, original one. Behold... MUNDO NEANDERTHALIS.... 

And we are just the prey. ....... Zombies, but without all the viscous goo.

At first we cherished them and raised them as our own. Then we tried to lock them away. A few defeatists called for universal, human sterilization. But what if we discover a 'cure.'?

So now we all just run...

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61ST Bingo Boy episode 1/15/13

Bingo Boy - post 61

The next day was damp and drizzly. The shore feels icy when it gets like that. It's the mist and the wet and the gray that does it. Oh, people still go out. They bundle up, put on a baseball cap. They got these scarves. They got these real big scarves. Everybody looks like movie directors on location in Britain, or Seattle, or Nova Scotia. I don't know if it rains a lot in Nova Scotia, but it must get cold. Maine gets cold and Nova Scotia (you know it means New Scotland?) is a little bit further north than that.

Marge looked out through the draperies. The street was all puddled. Looked like goldfish could swim through the air. Two old ladies minced by under a big golf umbrella. Probably going out for a good, hot breakfast. Old folks walk a lot at the shore. That way they get real old. Marge wanted to go out too. She liked that part of the shore routine. Had the hat and the scarf and everything. Looks at jimmy and goes - You wanna walk over and get corned beef hash, or something?...... That means - Run upstairs and put on the nice sweater I got you.... Now Jimmy could grab whatever was in the kitchen and be happy. But he knows they have to fit in. And if the neighbors don't see you out and about, you never fit in. Jimmy understands that and he does not want to be an outsider anymore. So they fix themselves up and go. Baby's already had his breakfast and Little Chrissie doesn't want him out on raw days like this. Look, he's happy in the kitchen throwing heavy, little, metal Hot Wheels cars against the wall. They try to stop him from doing that, but what can you do? He's a baby. 

Ricky went to talk to some guy at one of the big real estate agencies down near Washington Avenue. That's in what you might call 'downtown Margate, all of nine blocks away. They're gonna start him, so long as he sits for the test. Use him for open houses and easy stuff like that. All he has to do is hang in the kitchen and ask the lookey-loos to sign the register. Eighty percent give him a fake phone number, but that don't make any difference. Most houses sell by word of mouth anyway. People buy to be near their friends, or because grandma died. Dead grandmas pay for lots of houses around here. Lots of expensive houses too. Thank God the market's starting to turn around. Should be a good spring.  The big hurricane didn't cause too much damage 'round here. TV guy says people will pay extra for 'intact' locales like this, especially seasonal renters. They want their summer to look normal. 

Jimmy and Marge talk over breakfast. They got a nice, little booth in the back. Nobody hears. Jimmy says - Let them nosy neighbors go to hell. They ain't gonna bother us no more. Know what I'm gonna do?.... Marge, struggling to talk through a mouthful of toasted, cream cheese slathered bagel says - What?...... Jimmy goes - Give 'em money. Five thousand dollars. Each one gonna get five thousand dollars.... She just looks. He sounds crazy. But she's loved him since the first night they dragged him down the basement for her. That's why she fixed the cell up so nice. So Marge just sits there and listens..... Jimmy says - Give a check to the Catholic Church, the Jew Church, the Protestant Church. I don't know if they got no Greek Church 'round here, but I gotta see. You know, like subscribe. Like donation. Know what I am? An investor. A venture capitalist... semi-retired. What they gonna say about that? Nothing. Ricky gonna be real estate. Chrissie gonna probably be the same thing. That's it. No questions. It'll work..... What am I supposed to be? - says Marge...... You gonna teach Zumba lessons. You an artist. You make jewelry - he goes....... She says - Wow, how'd you come up with all this?...... He just shrugs and shovels in some hash....

But you know how he did it? Gloria told him. You know, the 'ghost,' if you want to call her that. The lady who's house they bought. She's back from her under the sea jaunt. Saw a merman. Saw a dead, human body inside a giant jellyfish. Saw lots a stuff. Gloria likes the Baby. Wants everything to be real nice for him. So she been advising Jimmy, whispering in his ear, telling him things. And he listens, especially when he's drifting off. 

That's how these things work. And them nosy neighbors got their own slew of dead folks hypnotizing them too. Dead folks, well meaning ones, are the glue that holds it all together. That's all I can tell you.

You either feel it, or you don't.

But you know that...

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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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59TH BINGO BOY episode 1/13/13

Bingo Boy - post 59

Someone is whispering in Muscles' ears...First the right one and then the left. Spirits can do that. They come close at night, just prior to drifting off... just prior to the long, nighttime nap. The voice says - Get the money. Take what's yours. Sometimes it says other things. Sometimes it just breathes. 

Muscles lays there. He wants to move. He wants a Lexus and maybe a fancier girlfriend. He wants to eat dinner in restaurants with all the big guys in Center City. And he knows about Margate. He knows they're all there. His friends on the force saw to that. They traced the license plate number of the limo and now he knows everything. 

Marty snores like a jack hammer. Plaster board don't block that. He tries to ignore it, turns on the little radio and puts the ear-buds in. That helps, but only a little bit.

You know he drove down there yesterday...to the shore, I mean. Parked right across the street. Just sat there and looked at the house. Saw Jimmy go in carrying a big bag of groceries. They got a nice, little supermarket down there. Everybody walks over. Don't have to drive, or nothing. Saw Little Chrissie come out. Saw her put the Baby in his stroller, cover him up real good and wheel him away. He could grab that Baby. He could take him. He could hide him somewhere and ask for money. What are they gonna do...call the cops? Jimmy ain't got no papers. How they gonna explain who they are? How they gonna say where all the money comes from? Might be able to fool small town cops 'round here, but kidnapping's a federal offense..... Muscles don't like to think of himself as a kidnapper... but he still thinks about doing it. 

He sat out there in the car for about an hour and a half. The air felt good. Nobody noticed. Lots a places were empty. Who's gonna look at a white car? Half the cars they got down here are white. But then, around three o'clock, the school must a let out, 'cause all of a sudden there were kids in the street. And kids (some kids) look at everything. So he turned on the ignition and pulled away. 

Muscles likes driving. It relaxes him. The seventy two miles back to Marty's house went by real fast... But he likes money even more. 

Just before he got back, he turned into a McDonalds for some burgers. You know, the cheap shit from the value menu..... At least they'd have something.

You know what Jimmy had in that grocery bag?... Deli stuff... good deli stuff... good corned beef... good turkey... good tavern ham. They have this real good homemade potato salad in that market. He had that too. He had a whole lot a good stuff. 

They had a good lunch. They had a real good lunch....

But that night, when they went to sleep, Marge triple checked all the locks, 'cause she had like a feeling...

And back at Marty's place, Muscles still heard the voices........

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58TH BINGO BOY episode 1/12/13

Bingo Boy - post 58

They had these real comfy, pillow-top mattresses from Kensington Furniture on Tilton Road. Everybody from 'The Downbeach' gets their stuff from them. Marge saw a commercial on TV. She and Jimmy called them up. Got a few other 'pieces' too. That's what they call them. They call them pieces. Didn't buy no doo-dads (Ricky calls them tchotskies) for the kids rooms. Gonna let them do that themselves. Little Chrissie says Marge has to dress better too. Not more expensive. That isn't it. Just more low key. Marge knows. She's seen magazines. She used to watch Martha Stewart.. Tomorrow they're gonna go look for stuff. Got a KNIT WIT store on the avenue. And I don't mean like Frankford Avenue where the bingo joint used to be. I mean Ventnor Avenue and that's a whole other thing. They got red brick sidewalks and fancy, black iron street lamps with hangin' plants all over 'em... even in winter time too. I like being a disembodied ghost/spirit narrator 'round here. And no, I ain't Gloria. She off wanderin' the sea floor for a little while. Dead folks like to do that, since breathin' don't pose no problem. Vampires like to do it too, 'cause they just breathe outta habit. But we ain't got no vampires in this story... just us... just the ghost narrators. Gloria enjoys findin' stuff. She likes discovering things... like a three hundred pound grouper (big, carp-like fish) what got a decomposin' Japanese fella in its belly. Don't know how he got in there. Seem his ghost is somewhere else. But she see him, 'cause she stick her head inside the fish. ghost/spirits can do that. Then she find a shitty diaper. Ocean got lots a shitty diapers. Folks is always changin' babies. And what are they gonna do? They just wrap it up and set it free. Lot a people think the crabs'd eat it. But they like dead cats and white folks a whole lot better. Good, dead, white lady like a feast.

I would tell you my name, but I do not know it. Maybe I don't want a know it. Don't know how long I been dead either. My bones is still wedged in deep under the Boardwalk. Not here. Not in Margate. Ain't got no boardwalk in Margate. I wedged in a few miles up the beach, in Atlantic City. Folks stroll over me most every night. I say - Howdy do?.... Sometime I float up under a lady's dress, but I jus' do it sometimes...

I'm in Margate, 'cause the wind blew me here. Ghost/spirits can do that. We jus' rise up in the air and catch a breeze. I like it here. Drift in and out a whole bunch a nice houses. Half a them all closed up for the winter. Sometimes I visit with what ghosts they got inside. Me an' an' old man what live by the bay ( he not all-the-way dead yet, but he will be) play games. We play 'movie stars' initials.' He tell me to go to hell, 'cause I always win. I say - How you know I not already there?... But that jus' make him madder and he tell me to go to hell some more... Most mortal human beans can't see me, but he can. Dogs can too. So can cats, but they too stuck up to admit it.

You see, when folks go 'guhk' ('dies' I mean) they gives 'em a job. I a night-guard. I watch folks... livin ' folks. Not every night, jus' when I got too. Gloria help when she feel like. I watching the new folks what bought Gloria's house. She think they a little bit common... nice, but common. Me, I don't judge people like that. Got one cute baby boy, though. He like when I sing songs at night. He like 'Old Susanna' and 'Banjo On My Knee.'... Some babies can't see no ghost, but some can. He one a the kind what can... An' he don't think a me as no ghost, jus' a regular person what lost his whole body. He not prejudiced that way. We say the word 'ghost.' We use it too, but we don't like it. 

Feel like somebody gonna try somethin'. Somebody wanna hurt 'em, or steal from 'em, or something like that. We feel things. It like 'lectricity.... Sometime it jus' tingle..... 

But sometime it hurt.....

An' this feel like one a the hurtin' times...

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