Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
I’ve been playing bingo ever since before I married Billy Wayne Brown over forty years ago. And I’ve been playing here at St. Teresa’s Catholic Church for as long as I can remember. I’m a Baptist, born and reared, but that don’t matter—you don’t gotta be Catholic to play bingo at St. Teresa’s, which, by the way, we regulars call St. Tessie’s.
Billy Wayne don’t go to church, and he don’t know about my bingo. He’d have a fit if he knew I was spending money every week gambling. So, I tell him I’m at a weekly meeting of the Baptist church ladies.
I’m pretty lucky at bingo. Last night I called bingo on the X and ended up with five dollars and seventy-five cents. I would’ve won the whole twelve dollars if my friend Gert hadn’t called bingo right along with me. Heck, I don’t mind splitting my winnings. St. Tessie’s pays good. Not like at the senior center where you win a box of spaghetti or a can of store brand pork ‘n beans.
There’re men who play bingo at St. Tessie’s. I sit with the ladies, but this old coot who always sits at the next table gives me the eye even though he knows I’m married. It’s not as if I come to St. Tessie’s all dolled up. Last night I wore a pair of brown polyester pants with a flowered blouse and slippers. I always wear big print blouses because of my weight. I had my hair permed, but it don’t look good because my beauty operator left the lotion on too long, which is why it’s so frizzy. Billy Wayne hollered that I ought not be spending his money to have my hair look like it’s been deep fried. “It’ll be cheaper if you stick your finger in a light socket next time.” I told him he should stick his finger you know where.
Sometimes I think if Billy Wayne was dead, I’d be the Widow Brown. That has a nice ring to it. Other times, when I’m playing bingo at St. Tessie’s I think about converting to Catholic. If Billy Wayne was dead, I might even join a nunnery. Sister Mary Louise has a nice ring to it, too.
Come to think on it, I’ve had one of them callings, if you want to name it that. A few weeks ago, I was down by the crick back of the mobile home park looking to pick some wild flowers to set in a vase on the kitchen windowsill. As I reached over to pick some daisies, the sky got really bright. The clouds moved away and golden rays streamed down. In the middle of the sunrays, I swore I could see a lady floating right over the crick. I rubbed at my eyes, thinking maybe I was seeing things, but when I looked again, she was still there. And that’s when I recognized her. Floating right there over the crick, wearing a beautiful blue robe and a crown on her head, was the mother of Baby Jesus. I fell to my knees and spoke to her. “Mary,” I said, “do you want to tell me something?” And I swear she answered me. She said, “Yes, Mary Louise, I do. I want you to join the Red Hat Society.”
And in the blink of my eye, she disappeared.
I was so excited by her visit I left my flowers at the crick and ran back home. When I got there, Billy Wayne was sitting in the reclining chair wearing nothing but his undershirt, boxer shorts, and blue socks. He was watching the bowling championship on the tv. I grabbed the remote and lowered the sound so Billy Wayne could hear me over the pins crashing. I told him that Baby Jesus’s mother said I should join the red hat ladies’ society.
“Them’s the ladies that wear purple dresses and red hats and go out to lunch together.”
He grabbed the remote back. “You’re either crazy or senile. Maybe both at once.”
I closed my eyes and pictured myself lighting his socks on fire. And then I got in the car and drove out to the Wal-Mart. I tried on some red hats and got my heart set on one with a big purple father. As soon as I join up, I’m gonna buy it.
As ornery a husband as Billy Wayne is, he is not as cantankerous as my friend Gert’s husband, God rest his soul. Stan drove a big black Lincoln Town Car. He could barely see over the steering wheel, that’s how short he was. He’d be driving down the road in his great big car, smoking a great big cigar, and there would be poor Gert, sitting in the passenger seat with the windows rolled up. I don’t know how she could breathe.
I remember the night Stan died because it happened while me and Gert was playing bingo. I picked Gert up at her house like I always do, and after bingo she asked me to come inside, said she wanted to show me the pink toilet paper cover she crocheted for her bathroom. As soon as we walked in the front door, we saw Stan slumped at the dining room table, his bald head face-down in a bowl of chili.
I ran over and lifted Stan’s face out of the bowl. His eyes were wide open and his nose dripped chili sauce. Because he didn’t have any hair, I held him by his ears.
Gert screamed. “Is he dead? Is he dead?”
“As a doornail,” I said. I didn’t know what to do with his head, so I laid it back down in the chili. I never got to see the toilet paper cover that night, but Gert showed it to me after Stan’s funeral. She promised to make me one in a pretty peach color.
This morning, Billy Wayne got up in one of his crabby moods. Soon as I served his breakfast, he complained about a pit in the fresh squeezed orange juice. Then he said the coffee was too weak, the eggs too runny, and the bacon snapped back at him.
“You’d better watch yourself, old man.” Then I tiptoed into the bedroom to call Gert. In a real quiet voice I whispered, “Do you have any of that leftover chili in your freezer from when you made it for Stan? I’d like to fix it for Billy Wayne’s supper tonight before we go to Bingo.”
Joanna Michaels writes fiction, nonfiction, and the occasional poem. She is the author of the mystery novel Nun in the Closet, and has published short fiction in CafeLit, Bright Flash, and Fine Lines. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, and is a member of the Florida Writers Association.