Are We Going to Play Bingo?

 

Bingo, are we going to play bingo tonight? We’re going to be late, Henry.

Yeah, OK baby, 

if we’re going let’s go pendejo.

I need to take a dump first, 

how long will that take? 

I'll tell you when I'm on the pot,

hurry up then.

Lucia, Henry’s Cuban wife wanted to get to Key West Christian Church with time to spare to joke and drink coffee with her Latino friends.

Henry, who's compulsive at times, liked to sit at the same table every week, the same table he and Lucia had sat at for months now.

Last Friday night, he’d won a hundred dollar jackpot and had told Lucia afterward, 

I’ve been looking for another vice and now I’m hooked forever.

After he finishes the essentials on the throne, the couple locks the house and lets the Chi's, Che, and Mia, outside to run free in the fenced-in yard. 

In ten minutes they reach the church, parking their Vespa in the lot. And as you might guess, they're late.

Inside the recreation hall, they walk to a long table where hundreds of bingo cards are piled, choosing the cards they wanted, hopefully, the winning cards.

Then they sit at their lucky table and scoop a handful of white beans from a bowl, waiting for the game to get underway. 

Helena Humper, a stately, white-haired Latino church lady, commences turning her basket of numbered poker chips and begins calling numbers. Henry says to Lucia, 

I feel like something’s going to happen tonight, you wait and see, we’re going to hit jackpots all night long, we’re going to break the bank. She says, 

I don’t feel lucky, querido, your overtime caga is going to jinx me.

I’ll split my winnings with you baby, don't worry.

By the end of the night, neither of them had won a hand.

It's 11 PM, they’re riding the Vespa through Bahama Village, Henry’s driving in circles because he can’t get the bingo numbers out of his head— B 1, G 29, N 33.

A pit bull, running on the street dragging a chain leaps at the couple and rips a chunk out of the scooter seat, then falling to the asphalt. 

Undeterred, the pit pull gets up and runs at them again, this time Lucia pokes him in the ribs with the stiletto heel of her shoe, yelping the interloper runs home. 

The following morning the love couple's luxuriating in the hot tub and drinking Mexican coffee as Lucia says, 

bebe, we shouldn’t have left the house last night, your protracted caga made us late for bingo, we lost every hand, then on the way home, we were attacked by ese perro loco. 

Lucia, no one can foretell the future, life’s a crapshoot. She fires back,

Nostradamus predicted the death of Princess Diana and 911. 

Nostradamus? He’s abnormal. I’m talking about ordinary people. If people could predict the future Las Vegas casinos would go bust.

OK, you win, burro. 

Hey, we’re bullshiting in the hot tub, there's no winner or loser— it’s not the fucking National Forensic League. 

What were we talking about, Henry? 

I can’t remember.

Lucia's eyes are full of sweat so she lifts one fleshy butt cheek and then the other out of the hot tub, grabbing the closest towel and wiping her eyes. Henry who’s manning it out in the tub says,  

watching you get out of the hot tub, cheeks spread, was a moment that lasted an infinity.

love the honey mouth, bebe.

 

He remembers one morning, she had on a dressing gown and bent over to get some coffee out of a low cupboard and her breasts fell out and she continues to go about her business like nothing happened. She was drop-dead gorgeous and she knew it. 

Henry didn't have a great ass, but he could write like a motha-fucker. 

After a cold shower and a quick breakfast, he goes to his study to write. He’s going to do a bit on what Charles Bukowski called, The Frozen Man Stance. In Buk’s own words,  

it's an immobility, a weakness of movement, an increasing lack of care and wonder.

All men are afflicted with The Frozen Man Stance at times as indicated by flat phrases such as, 

I can’t go on, 

To hell with it, 

or, 

I’ve had enough. 

Usually, they quickly recover and are punching the time clock the next day.

Bukowski spoke of a European friend for whom The Frozen Man Stance lingered for months. So, he consulted, doctors, shrinks, and medicine men throughout Europe and none of them helped.  

One of the doctors treated him with worms, another stuck tiny needles in his neck and back, dozens of them. Then another prescribed a series of alternating hot and cold baths.

Finally, the poor chap, Buk’s pal, was staying in bed for days in a small dirty London room, living on the kindness of others, staring at the ceiling, unable to write or utter a word, not caring. 

In further explaining The Frozen Man Stance, Bukowski refers to his childhood. In his own words, 

I could and can well understand my friend the poet’s flop in a barrel of shit, for strangely, as long as I can remember, I was born into The Frozen Man Stance. One of the instances that I can recall is once when my father, a cowardly vicious brute of a man, was beating me in the bathroom with his long leather strap. He beat me quite regularly. 

I could not understand why he beat me. He would search very hard for a reason. I had cut his grass once a week, once lengthwise, then crosswise, then trimming the edges with shears, and if I missed one blade of grass anywhere on the front or back lawns he beat the living shit-hell out of me. 

It was just the first appearance of The Frozen boy. I knew there was something wrong with me but I did not consider myself insane. 

Henry concludes his story on The Frozen Man Stance noting that the condition is either temporary, permanent, genetic or learned.

Bukowski’s The Frozen Man Stance is more commonly known as depression, a disease that brushes aside sex, geography, and economic status. 

Lucia walks into Henry’s study and asks, 

what ya doin, burro? 

Finishing a story,

she places her hand on his head and says, 

you feel cold bebe,  

then she wraps a blanket around him and hugs him tight saying, 

tu mama will warm you up. 

As she hugs him Henry realizes the best things in life have little to do with the brain box and everything to do with heart and soul.

The Evaporating Gypsie Cafe

 

                                                      

Henry’s in the study of his Key West bungalow. The phone rings, so he lifts the headset to his ear and says,

yes, hello,

this is Vivian Spot from Dwarf Press in Denver, we've yet to receive your story, It Never Happened Here.

Jesus, I sent it a month ago, maybe it evaporated in the mailbox. Come to think of it, a band of Gypsies was seen in the neighborhood a few days ago. 

Evaporated? Gypsies? Oh my goodness, do you have a copy? 

No, carbon paper’s messy. 

Write another Henry, one about Gypsies. Fax it to me at Dwarf Press, Denver, 312 251 7867. Thank you, love. 

Vivian hangs up, in a hurry like most editors.

Lucia, Henry’s piquant Cuban wife walks in his study saying,

Tienes hambre? There’s a Gypsy restaurante at Sugarloaf Key, let’s go for supper.

I’m writing a story for Vivian Spot at Dwarf Press. 

Querido, the penny-pinching-puta doesn’t pay,

Lucia, the rag has nationwide circulation, it gets my work out there, let’s go eat. 

They leave the Chihuahuas, Che, and Mia in the yard, lock the house and jump on their Vespa, driving north on the Overseas Highway, reaching Sugarloaf Key in twenty minutes. 

Suddenly the sky turns pitch black and Henry says, 

we should have driven the car, it’s an omen, I can feel it.

He steers the motorbike on the inkish stone road, the island’s small, desolate, so the restaurant should be easy to find. 

The couple sees a thicket of twisting honey locust trees arching over the road and Lucia points through it saying,

there. 

There’s a ramshackle building made from the wood of a scuttled boat with a small blue light neon sign on top that reads,     

                                                           LUNA

Henry parks the scooter and they walk through an open doorway framed with wild boar bones, sitting at the bar. 

The couple eyeballs the Gypsy cafe, the patrons are vacant but anodyne. The barkeep limps back and forth making drinks, looking like a loaded monkey with a hair lip. Approaching Henry and Lucia he introduces himself,

I’m Vlad, are you drinkin it or stinkin it, he ha he.

Vlad coughs without covering his mouth and they duck for cover. Sitting upright when the coast is clear Henry says,  

whatever Gypsies drink, Vlad. 

Vampire blood and Stoli, drink for gorgers, he, hoo, hoo. 

The cleft lipped simian brings the couple a pitcher of cherry juice and vodka, pouring the goo into two Viking horn mugs that they lift to the sky saying,

Skål.

When they finish the pitcher they move to a table made from pieces of driftwood. A tiny girl, a dwarf maybe, with grey eyes, wearing a headscarf embellished with coins comes to the table and says, 

Lachhi vat, I’m Banka, Vlad’s girl. I serve you Romani food today, wait gorgers,

Okay, Banka, 

the little thing disappears, evaporating. The couple is unnerved and Henry does his best to put the mystic event in perspective. 

I don’t want to overthink that, better to let it pass. Then, Lucia says,

el baro is queer querido, let’s get out of here.

Give it a chance dear, the cafe’s surreal, I like it. 

Henry, you’re a freak.

Then the busboy shows carrying a tray over his head that brushes the ceiling. He’s a Gypsy giant over seven feet tall wearing trousers that are knee-length and blue leather sandals laying bare his fat dirty toes.

Lachhi vat, I’m Drago, Banka’s father, I bring Romni food, plenty.

The leviathan reaches towards the clouds, grabbing plates of food with his thumping great meathooks, positioning dishes of—rabbit stew, cabbage rolls, polenta, and beet soup on the couple's table, then bowing and walking away. Henry whispers to Lucia, 

How could such a big man father a dwarf, inverse genetics?  

I don't know bebe, but, this place is a circus.

As they eat, Henry says, 

I was apprehensive about eating rabbit, but it’s tasty, better than chicken. 

Sí, querido, when I was a girl in Cuba, my family was so poor that we ate hedgehogs and Zebra snakes.

Then, things begin to look up at Luna, the food is great and there’s a roving violin player with a Bolo hat on, no shirt, wearing a black vest, showing off his armpit hair as he fiddles.

Once again, shit gets weird, the cafe creatures dance a zombie two-step, swaying from side to side. Henry says as he sucks the last rabbit bone dry, 

great chow, wacko joint, let’s pay and get outta here. 

The couple gets up from the table, walking to the bar where Vlad’s gnawing on moldy cheese. With mouth open showing cheese he says, 

LUNA and Gypsy food, big fun, hey? 

Yeah Vlad, what-a we owe ya? 

You got Romani leu? Vlad just kidding, ho ho, twenty-five Gringo dolla. 

Henry hands over the gravy, says thanks, and they walk out the door to the parking lot.

Back on the Vespa, the couple begins the drive home, pausing for a minute at the honey locust trees and looking back at LUNA. Lucia's hit like a ton of bricks saying, 

dios mío, darling, the cafe's dematerialized! And, Henry says, 

look hear, 

he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a handful of rabbit bones, and as he shows them to Lucia they go up in smoke.

 

Let's Begin Here

 

Let’s begin here, in Henry and Lucia’s bedroom, they’re feeling each other up, experimenting with Doctor Vishnu's prescribed Tantric sex.

Tantric sex, noncoital contact work exercised to achieve mindfulness, breath-work, prolonged eye contact, deep emersion. The goal of Tantric sex is to facilitate the transmission of sexual energy between two willing participants to heal oneself by dissolving negative personality traits such as— 

• dishonesty
• disloyalty
• unkindness
• meanness
• rudeness
• disrespectfulness
• impatience
• greediness
• abrasiveness
• pessimism
• cruelty
• unmercifulness
• narcissism
• obnoxiousness
• maliciousness
• pettiness

A snake pit of isms and nesses, fat words, plenty to go around.

Henry and Lucia took the oath when it came to disloyalty, disrespectfulness, and pessimism.

They were Disrespectful and disloyal, casting a cool eye towards social institutions, or patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs, such as government, education, family, healthcare, religion, and the economy.

Pessimistic about the future.

It’s mid-morning in Key West. The couple’s in the backyard, tripping the cosmic highway, waist-deep in a hot tub, drinking Cuban beer mixed with Clamato. Lucia reminds Henry, 

darling, we have a meeting at the Center for a Stateless Society at three. 

Yeah, let’s eat,

si muñeca.

The freak couple’s raven locks bluster unscrupulously. Later,  at the mall, they park and walk to Goldman's Deli.

Sears Town Shopping Center isn’t much, just a strip mall, but, Conches love the retro, single-story, blushing color mall because it's filled with stores they love— Taco Bell, Radio Shack, Orange Julius, Red Owl, Banana Republic, and of course Sears & Roebuck.

The main draw for Henry and Lucia is Goldmans Deli, the only authentic deli in the Keys, a reproduction of a Brooklyn Deli. 

Inside, at a table, they stare at the condiment tray and a half-gallon stainless steel bucket of Kosher pickles. 

The owner, Pinkus Goldman, comes to their table. He has a white shirt on, open at the collar, an apron, and is bald. He greets the couple,

good to see yous people, how bout the Libertarian meeting, ya goin? 

How’d ya know Pinka? 

I’m a member, 

Yeah, we’re goin. 

Better eat then, whataya have? Henry orders,

let’s see? How bout a corn beef sandwich, lean, a bowl of matzo ball soup, noodle kugel, cole slaw, and ah, a malted egg soda. 

The couple's peckish,  they eat off of each other's plates. 

When they're full they pay Pinky’s wife, Golden Goldman. She's smiling, sitting cross-legged behind the cashier's station.

The next stop is The People for a Stateless Society in the Anchors Away Club.

They walks up the fire steps to the third floor where they're greeted by Edgar Shankman at room thirty— a champion of the Libertarian cause who’s happy to see them saying, 

welcome Libertarians. 

Inside there’s a circular row of folding chairs facing inwards. The room feels like a third-floor living room— ten people have shown, later, every seat is taken. The group is telling jokes and laughing. 

Edgar Shankman is chair, he opens the meeting saying,

hello, people, welcome to the monthly Libertarian free for all meeting. Please, only one person can speak at a time. The meeting is over when there’s nothing left to say.

A middle-aged white woman, who looks like a librarian speaks first.

Libertarianism is an express view of political philosophy. We value individual freedom and we believe this justifies strong protections for individual freedom. We believe in the rights of others. And most obviously, people should refrain from violating the rights of others. Libertarians strongly endorse, drug decriminalization, freedom of sexual choice, and oppose most military interventions.  

Edgar Shankman says, 

amen sister, you said a mouthful.

Lucia whispers in Henry’s ear, 

the señora mayor, she’s smart, but her share was memorized, espontáneo is better. Pinkus Goldman speaks up,

 

I’m a Jew and a Libertarian, but a Libertarian first. I need what we have here, the unity of purpose and support you all give me, it's grounding and it gives me hope. 

Lucia jumps in,

I'm from Cuba so I adore freedom. It's no fun living in Cuba, it's a derelict place. Gracias a Dios, Henry got me out. Cubanos are afraid to talk about Libertarianism, but Gringos are free to say what they want, gracias a Dios.

Attendees nod their heads and some say Amen. Henry, who’s uncomfortable with the heady, ethereal shares says, 

Enough with the civics and staged speeches, political parleys engender hesitancy and consternation. We can talk ourselves blue, but a single idiom that brings peace is better than a thousand words.

There are a few minutes of silence—  the minutes hover on the ceiling, longer than usual.

Edgar Shankman jumps in saying, 

Fellow Libertarians, we have found the end, or it has found us. We’ll close the meeting in the usual way, with some selected  Libertarian adages. 

Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights.

The libertarian worship of individual freedom, and contempt for social convention, comes easiest to people who have never really had to grow up.

Then Shankman calls it day saying, 

drinks at the Moon Dog Cafe.

Henry and Lucia skip the after-party, riding home on their Vespa. Their hungry so they order a Mediterranean Pizza and boiled artichokes spritzed with Key Lime butter. 

They camp on the living room sofa with the Chis. The doorbell rings, its the delivery guy, Fritz, from Italian Kitchens who says, 

the Lucowskis, local literatus. The za’s sprinkled with bush, you'll love it.

great— Henry pays Fritz, taking the goods from Fritz, placing the square pizza box and cardboard buckets of artichokes on the sofa table in front of the TV. Lucia brings a pitcher of rum cocas and a couple of cocktail glasses.

The moony couple eats with their hands—  surrendering to the run the wet artichokes drip.  

Henry picks up the remote, turns on the TV, and says, 

the more pizza I eat the higher I get. Is there a concert on? 

They have cable TV, the premium package. He presses the CH button on the remote, landing on the opening scene of the film— Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. 

Virginia Woolf was a British writer who pioneered stream of consciousness writing and the exhaustive study of a character’s emotions and psycho-motives. Dame Woolf suffered from psychosis and eventually commented suicide. 

Unlike the central characters in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, George and Martha, played brilliantly by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Virginia Woolf had a happy and loving marriage to Leonard Woolf. 

Lucia brings in another pitcher of rum cocos.

No one knows how it happened, but, George and Martha got their names from the seventeenth century Washingtons and lived on the campus of a New Carthage, Massachusetts college. 

George is a history professor and Martha thinks he is a failure, he has been teaching college in New Carthage for years and still wasn’t a dean. 

Martha would often remind George of his failures, alone or in front of others. Mostly, George’s career failure and another topic, their dead son. 

As the film opens the couple is already half in the bag, waiting at home for Nick and Honey, played by George Segal and Sandy Dennis, to show for a drink. 

Nick is a new science professor at the college. The young couple’s naivety and niceness are in contrast to George and Martha’s jaded spitefulness. 

The first act is Fun And Games. Nick and Honey show at George and Martha's house, walking unknowingly onto the battlefield. 

As they sit on the sofa,  the older couple is pushing drinks on them.

George and Martha use Honey and Nick as pawns, transforming their guests into an audience to witness humiliation, whipping the green-eyed monster as they express their own sides of their mutual story. 

Eventually, Martha comes on to Nick and the two go upstairs to have sex. Nick was very loaded and he wanted to impress Martha because her father was president of the university. 

Unfortunately, he couldn't get it up for Martha and self-loathing Martha really lets him have it from then on.   

While the two were upstairs trying to get it on, George was alone with Honey who is unaware that her husband is upstairs with Martha, thinking he just went upstairs to take a catnap. When George tells her what is really going on, Honey who has had too much to drink throws up all over the sofa.

When Nick comes downstairs the young couple goes home, mentally beat and wondering what the fuck happened? 

In the last scene, The Exorcism,  George and Martha are sitting alone at home and they begin talking about their dead son. Well, it turns out he isn’t dead, he is just an illusion the couple uses as part of their twisted love game.

George announces he is killing talk of their dead son and they will have to get along by simply loving each other without the illusion. 

In life, things tend to evaporate— the mystical couple, George and Martha, are falling apart again, back in the pits slugging it out.

Lucia cries when the short film is over saying to Henry, 

it’s the film, it's muy depresiva. It’s about real-life maybe, we’ll forget it in the morning,  I'm going to bed querido, I love you.