Kip found himself thinking that she must have aced the swimsuit competition, as the clearly nervous woman fairly butchered the performance, struggling to smile and sing at the same time.
“Don’t you just love her dress?” said Jolene.
“The sequins are simply divine,” Little Esther replied as she knitted away at the quickly forming sock in her lap.
“Looks like a two-dollar whore to me,” Miss Pearl replied with her head propped on her fist and her white orthopedic shoe banging the table leg as she kicked away, impatiently waiting for the song to end. “Can’t we at least get Miss Austin?”
“Now, you just hush up, Miss Pearl,” Polly said. “That little angel is a pageant winner, and that plumb makes her Texas royalty in my book.”
“What book is that?” Miss Pearl asked sarcastically. “Streetwalking for Dummies?”
“Don’t you get me started, Miss Pearl,” said Polly. “She’ll be done in a minute, and then I’ll get to work cleaning your clock at the bingo.”
“Bring it on,” snapped Miss Pearl.
After a few minutes, the song mercifully ended, with the still-smiling pageant queen trembling as she clutched the microphone in a death grip. Scattered applause came from pockets of the room as the nervous woman took her place beside the drum-like cage that contained the lettered and numbered ping-pong balls.
“Encore, encore!” cried Polly as she applauded loudly.
“I’ll slap the tar out of both of you if she touches that microphone one more damn time,” said Miss Pearl through gritted teeth. Polly turned and stuck her tongue out at her.
“Thank you, darling,” said Old Man Handlebaum as he spun the cage. “That was delightful.”
“Delightful?” said Miss Pearl as she stood and placed her hands on the table with one leg extended back in a runner’s stretch. “That old fool couldn’t hear a word she sang.”
“What’s she doing?” Kip whispered to Polly as he stared at Miss Pearl in curiosity.
“She likes to get warmed up before we start,” replied Polly. “In case she gets a bingo, she doesn’t want to pull a muscle jumping up to call it out.”
“Here we go!” announced the caller as the girls leaned over their cards, bingo daubers raised and poised. Intently concentrating, the girls waited for the first number to be called, while Kip looked back at the door and wondered if this might be a good opportunity to make his escape. The pageant queen removed the first ball from the drum and handed it to the caller.
“G-fifty-four!” the old man announced.
“Fifty-four. Clean the floor,” said Miss Pearl as the girls furiously scanned their multiple cards and marked away.
“B-two!”
“Two. Me and you,” said Jolene as the girls rotated calling down the line.
“N-thirty-four!”
“Thirty-four. Ask for more,” said Little Esther as she alternated between marking her cards and knitting the sock resting in her lap.
“G-fifty!”
“Fifty. Hawaii Five-O,” said Big Esther as her small head with shortly cropped, slicked back white hair bobbed forward and back on her elongated neck.
“B-eight!”
“Eight. One fat lady,” chimed Polly as she looked to make sure Kip was keeping up.
“I-twenty-seven!”
“That’s you, Kip,” said Polly.
“Uh, what’s twenty-seven?”
“A duck with a crutch,” said Polly as the other girls stared down the table, waiting for him.
“Twenty-seven. A duck with a crutch,” Kip said meekly.
“Good job, sugar,” said Polly. “Now, don’t forget to mark your cards. You got one there, and one there.”
“I-sixteen!”
“Sixteen. Never been kissed,” said Miss Pearl as the calling rotation began again.
“O-sixty-nine!”
“Sixty-nine. Your place or mine?” Jolene said as she stared down the table at Kip and his broad shoulders. She twirled a lock of her bleached-blonde hair with her index finger, wondering what he liked for breakfast.
“Back off, Jolene,” said Polly. “He’s already got plans this evening.
“What a shame,” Jolene sighed as she winked at Kip again.
“B-four!”
“Bingo!” screamed a woman two rows in front of the girls and Kip, as she leapt into the air, waving her arms in excitement. “Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!”
“Damnation!” swore Miss Pearl.
“How’d she get one so fast?” inquired Little Esther.
“Must be sleeping with the caller,” answered Jolene.
“Why that’s purely disgusting,” said Big Esther, covering her little ears with her huge hands.
“Shut up, you old prude,” Miss Pearl replied. “You’d jump Old Man Handlebaum if he gave you half a chance. Might be a good match, too. He couldn’t hear your squawking.”
As he sat down at the front of the hall, the woman’s scream of “bingo” had snapped Ziggy back into focus. The hallucinogenic mushrooms he had taken before he closed up the Curio Shop, although he actually hadn’t remembered to open today, were just starting to go to work.
Ziggy enjoyed coming to bingo, though he really didn’t play much. He preferred to get highly inebriated and listen to the caller announce the numbers. In his delirious state, he could see the ping-pong balls floating through the air and filling the room like numbered and lettered balloons.
He also really enjoyed the game room in back, filled with vintage video games. The game room was usually empty as opposed to most of the video arcades in town, which were filled with rowdy teenagers playing modern three-dimensional shooting games or bouncing around on dance contest machines. No, the arcade here was his favorite. All the classics like Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man were there, and it was one quarter, one play. No tokens or game cards like the newer arcades. The name “Ziggy” dominated the high score column on almost all the machines. Plus, Ziggy thought the concession stand in the back of the hall served a pretty mean hot dog.
Feeling a little queasy from the drugs, Ziggy decided that one of those fine tubular sausages might help. He stumbled down the aisle past the row where the girls and Kip sat, desperately concentrating on not falling down. Weaving his way down the aisle, he finally reached the back of the hall.
“Like, one foot-long, please,” Ziggy said as he endeavored to pull some money out of the back pocket of his baggy cargo shorts with one hand while holding onto the counter for balance with the other. The attendant produced the long hot dog and took Ziggy’s money.
“Mustard?” Ziggy inquired.
“Over there,” the attendant replied. “Same as it always is.”
Suddenly paranoid, Ziggy snuck over to the condiment bar, attempting to not draw attention. Hunching over to avoid being seen, he pressed down on the lever of the large jar of mustard, sending a long stream of the bright yellow liquid oozing along his snack.
“Like, far out, man,” Ziggy mumbled as the mustard filled the bun and began to run over the sides. “Like, liquid gold, dude.”
With mustard dripping from the covered hot dog, Ziggy turned to find his seat. After a few staggering steps, he stopped and returned to the jar.