Leanna Katz and Jane van Koeverden
Artwork by Brianna Smrke
Thursday night: it’s club night and we’re looking fly. Waiting at the bus stop, there’s a group of girls in miniskirts and stilettos. We’re wearing our boyfriends’ oversized t-shirts and faculty swag. Cars honk at us as they pass by. Okay. Maybe not at us.
The girls might look tighter, brighter, and hotter than us. They might be louder, gigglier, and drunker than us. But no one’s got a buzz like us. They’ll spend their night dancing, flirting, and hooking up in a dark crowded club on Hess. We’ll spend ours in a brightly-lit, high-stakes, and even higher-intensity Bingo Hall at Main and Hughson.
The Delta Bingo Hall. You dig?
We part ways with the broads on the bus. They spend their ten bucks on cover charge. We spend ours on a bingo booklet.
“You’re late,” the lady behind the counter tells us. But she lets us in anyway. Hurriedly, she explains the rules. We nod, but don’t understand any of it.
Calmly, we find seats in the thick of the action. Leanna tries to sit beside a lady in her mid-fifties, clearly a pro, engrossed in her game. The lady asks Leanna not to sit there; she uses that seat to rest her feet. Instead, we settle ourselves across from the man who would take us under his wing for the evening.
The man, whose name we never learned, is wearing a Harley Davidson Motorcycle cap, which complements the spider tattoo on his forearm. His facial hair eclipses all the Movember staches we saw last month, and his mullet is sensational. He has at least eight brightly-coloured bingo dabbers, each emblazoned with “the ink of winners.” He had already been here for hours when we arrived midway through the fifth game. As we quibble on what to do, he gently gives us guidance.
We try to make small talk with our new friend. “You come here a lot?”
“Yes,” he answers.
“What do you like about it?” we press.
“I have a terrible gambling addiction,” he says.
“Oh.” The small talk ends.
We turn our attention back to the game, dabbing furiously. It is simultaneously overwhelming and boring. Someone yelps, “Bingo!” and the game is up. A frustrated growl rumbles through the room. It’s more than just a reflex; it’s genuine disappointment. But nobody turns to their neighbour to complain. This is a solitary game. People haven’t come here to socialize. They’ve come to play bingo.
“Have you ever won?” we ask the man across from us.
“About three years ago,” he says, “got the jackpot, $3000.”
“What’d you spend it on?”
“Bingo.”
“Oh.” The small talk is over. Again.
The silence makes us self-conscious. We look around, aware of the grey walls, grey carpet, grey tables, grey bingo cards, and grey hair. There’s a buzz of talk in the air, but nobody’s actually speaking to each other. The ripping of pages from bingo booklets and syncopated beeping of heart monitors compete to be heard. The announcer’s voice drones above everything in an unintelligible garble. Clearly, we don’t speak bingo announcer yet.
A lady from the table next to us calls out, “Bingo!” and the last game is over. Neither we nor our mulleted friend have won a penny. We turn to commiserate with him, but he’s already shifted his weight from his bingo hall seat to an electric wheelchair. Without a word, he drives away, the pirate ship flags affixed to his wheelchair fluttering behind him.
We get up and head for the exit. The night was not what we were expecting. We came to be part of a group of eccentric Hamiltonians, but we left with a punctuated sense of how alone a person can feel, even in a crowded bingo hall.
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