Bingo (2 page)

S
ince this is a work of fiction, I’ve taken advantage of the freedom of the form. Mentioned within the text are the PTL scandal as well as the Gary Hart scandal. Both events are inaccurately dated. The PTL mess is off by one month and the Hart debacle is off by a few days. Apart from those two news stories, the other events are as found in
Facts on File
.

One of the chief joys of fiction is that to some extent the reader is a co-creator. In a film or theatrical production you see the people. In a novel or radio show you must imagine them—their voices, their gestures. Every art form has its advantages and disadvantages, and I think having the reader participate is an advantage of fiction.

Apart from the fun of participation, this effort on the reader’s part forms a bond between reader and author which may be akin to the bond between audience and performer in the theater.

I have been fortunate in my readers. Not only do you faithfully buy my novels, you show up by the hundreds and sometimes even thousands to hear me speak and you send me blizzards of fan mail. I am grateful. Who could ask for anything more?

Well, I am going to ask for more. I’m going to ask you to consider carefully your own creativity. Many of you set aside your creativity for “practical” reasons. It isn’t within the scope of an introduction to list painfully why and how people abandon their imaginations but it is within the scope of this introduction to encourage you to find yourself again. You haven’t lost your creativity, your imagination—you’ve simply misplaced it.

There are as many different ways to recover that creativity as there are readers, but allow me to suggest something that will benefit each and every one of you. Keep notes on your own life. Call it a diary if you like but it’s much more than that. Write
down or record on tape your observations and emotions as well as the events of your time. Don’t forget your sense of humor while you do this.

If you take even fifteen minutes a day to perform this labor I think your imagination will start cranking up again. For those of you who have managed to hang on to your creativity, this exercise will give you some perspective and insight into yourself and your community.

No one will ever see the world the way you see it. No one will ever have exactly the same experiences in exactly the same sequence. You are unique not just because of your genetic makeup but because of every single thing that has happened to you or that you have caused to happen. Don’t let that consciousness slip off the face of the earth with your death. If you don’t want to share yourself with the living, then leave something behind for those arriving on this troubled planet after you’ve left it.

You might wonder why I’m impassioned about your creativity. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I will be enriched by your creativity. Whether or not you publish a book or sell a painting isn’t what I mean. What I mean is that activating your imagination is going to make you more exciting to yourself and to others. The second reason is that imaginative people forge new solutions to old problems. Right now we need every thinking person to step forward and contribute to a safe and sane future. You are part of that process. I celebrate your contribution.

As always,

Rita Mae Brown

February 28, 1987

Charlottesville, Virginia

R
un faster.”

“I’m running as fast as I can.” I was too. “Mom, call off Goodyear and Lolly Mabel. I keep tripping over them.”

“Don’t blame it on the dogs. You don’t know how to fly a kite.” Mother did, however, order the dogs to sit by her.

Goodyear, a huge, black male Chow Chow, was originally called Jet Pilot but he grew fatter and fatter, and hence the name Goodyear. Lolly Mabel, his gorgeous red daughter, was my dog, a gift for my birthday two years ago. Lolly and Pewter, my cat, were bosom companions but Pewter didn’t like Goodyear. Not that Goodyear wasn’t the world’s second-best dog, Lolly Mabel being the first, but Mom had taught him to howl and play dead at the mention of her sister’s name, Louise. We had to be careful to call Louise “Wheezie” or “Wheeze” in front of the dog lest Louise discover yet another of her baby sister’s blasphemies. Well, one day I forgot. Luckily, Aunt Louise wasn’t around but Pewter was. When the dreaded name Louise escaped my lips, Goodyear screamed bloody murder, then flopped down “dead.” Pewter, appalled, ran under Mother’s front porch and it took a good hour to coax her out.

The kite shuddered in the air but wouldn’t rise. “Dammit!” I continued to pump my legs.

“Gimme that.” Mother grabbed the string and ran across the lawn. At eighty-two, Julia Ellen Hunsenmeir Smith could still run, and the kite fluted upward. Mother walked backwards now,
jerking the string, urging the red kite, with the tail’s many bow ties, higher.

A screech around the corner snapped us away from the graceful sight of the kite to the less graceful sight of Louise taking the corner on two wheels.

“I thought I was going to pick her up. You can’t let her drive.”

“She does what she wants.” Juts observed Louise’s lurching halt in front of her house.

Aunt Louise drove a 1952 Chrysler. Her deceased husband, Paul “Pearlie” Trumbull, hated General Motors, hated the auto business, and hated Detroit. He used to declare that they were nothing better than Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and every year they’d jack up the price on cars. As it happened, he was right. “If you want to get back on your feet, miss two car payments” was one of Pearlie’s favorite expressions. Well, he never missed a payment, because he drove his Model A Ford until it died around him, but during those decades he saved and saved and then he went out and bought three identical 1952 Chryslers. He drove the one, intending to use the other two for parts, and he figured that if he took good care of his car, which he did, that Chrysler would be driven by his grandchildren and Detroit be damned.

Except for the tires, which Louise wore out with alarming frequency, the black Chrysler looked spanking new. The door opened and shut with a thud. Louise emerged in her blue-haired glory.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Well, what?” Mother replied.

“Do you like it?” Louise stood motionless like a geriatric Greek statue.

“Like what?” Mother was paying more attention to her kite than to Louise.

“You getting cataracts, Julia? My hair! Do you like my hair!”

“Looks like it does every Wednesday when you hit up the Curl ’n Twirl.”

“It does not! You are blind. Nickel, what do you think?”

On the spot, I fibbed. “I like it fine. It’s a little shorter and more youthful-looking.”

“Thank you. At least someone around here has the courtesy to pay attention to me even if it is only my adopted niece. Blood sister doesn’t pay attention to anyone but herself. What are you doing out here flying a kite, anyway? You’re too old for that stuff.”

“It’s your birthday, so I’d lay off the age jokes.”

“You haven’t even wished me a happy birthday!” The shadow of a pout hung on Louise’s cerise lower lip.

“I was going to wait until the party.” Juts reeled in her kite.

“What’d you get me?”

“Wait until the party.”

“Give it to me now. I don’t like presents in front of strangers.”

“Strangers? You’ve known most of the people who’ll be at your party for over eighty years.”

“Not Mr. Pierre.”

Mr. Pierre owned and operated the Curl ’n Twirl. His hair was tinted a delicate shade of lilac. Mr. Pierre was big on tints. “The girls” zipped into his shop on Runnymede Square and zipped out like so many pastel Easter eggs. Mother and Louise had only known Mr. Pierre for perhaps thirty years. Behind his back Mother called him “the bearded lady” but she did love him. When his companion of twenty-eight years died of throat cancer in 1981, all three drew closer together, since each was widowed. Apart from his passion for tints, Mr. Pierre was a good influence on the girls. He insisted they lower their cholesterol, he fought valiantly against refined sugar, and he encouraged them to wear shorts in the summer, old age be damned.

“Aunt …” I paused and looked at Goodyear, whose ears pricked up in anticipation of his trick. “… Wheezie, let me drive you all over to your party.” Goodyear’s ears drooped a little.

“No, I’ll drive. I might want to stay later than you do.”

Mother and I glanced at each other and decided the fight wouldn’t be worth it. Everyone in Runnymede, both North and South, knew the 1952 Chrysler and they scooted off the road
when they saw Louise coming. Visitors quickly learned to do the same. The novelty of a town’s being divided in half by the Mason-Dixon Line drew a small stream of tourists, like ants to a picnic. Once they saw the perfect town square, the statue of the Yankee general astride his horse on the Pennsylvania side and the statue of the Confederate soldiers on the Maryland side along with the cannon, they usually had a sandwich and homemade ice cream at Mojo’s and then left—unless they encountered Louise behind the wheel, in which case they left immediately.

Mother put Goodyear and Lolly Mabel in the house. Usually she took Goodyear over to Saint Rose of Lima’s Catholic Church, the site of her once-a-week, hotly contested bingo games and the site of tonight’s birthday party. However, as the assembled friends, acquaintances, and enemies would undoubtedly sing “Happy Birthday, Louise,” Goodyear would fall into his faint after the hideous howl, so Mom thought better of it.

Aunt Louise, excited to get to her party, revved her motor as Mother and I slammed the doors of my Jeep. Before I could hit the ignition, she was leaving rubber on Lee Street.

“Crazy girl,” Mother said. “I’ve tried to get her to slow down. She won’t listen.”

“She’s amenable to money if not to reason. We could bribe her.” I let up on the clutch and we were off.

“Yeah—with our many millions.” Mother laughed.

By the time I pulled into the crowded parking lot at the church, Louise, her turquoise cape fluttering, was stepping through the back door.

After I parked the Jeep, Mom and I trotted through the parking lot. Wheezie, in her haste, had left her motor running. Mother reached in, turned off the car, and pocketed the keys. She shook her head and then sailed past me into the warm bosom of Saint Rose of Lima’s large hall. I was a few steps behind, loaded with packages.

“Mom
cherie!
” Mr. Pierre greeted Juts. “
Ma cherie!
” He kissed
me on the cheeks. Gentleman that he was, he helped me with the presents and we put them on the table, already piled high with what I knew would be junk once unwrapped.

A huge banner that read
HAPPY 39, LOUISE
! hung over the little bandstand. About one hundred and fifty souls were jammed in the room and Louise was in her glory. It was going to be a long night, because not only would we live it, we would be forced to relive it almost daily hereafter.

“Aunt Wheezie’s hair looks divine.”

“Why, thank you, Nickel. You know she’s
très chic
.” He pronounced
chic
like “chick” and winked.