"You call your car Pork Chop?" Jaron asked.
"It's a hatch back. Reminds me of a little pig." The clutch stalled as she shifted down a gear, bringing the glistening SUV that rode her tailpipe within millimeters of becoming a bulldozer.
"I need a new car!" she screamed to the latest Angeline billboard. The SUV gave her the finger on the flyby. "Can you buy me one, prick?"
The driver was a seventy-five year old Asian woman in a pink tea dress.
Jaron cracked up. "Only in L.A, man."
"I hate this place."
Jaron rubbed her shoulder. "Give it time. I'll lease you a car when my band blows up." Jaron gave that bright smile of unblemished pride whenever his mind fell on the subject of his music.
Jill pulled on a tiny dread peeking beneath his scull cap. "If you blow up, you can buy me a car."
"This is L.A. Everyone leases." Jill dragged a Salem Menthol from her bag and pushed in the car lighter. She pumped it with her thumb while driving with the other hand, the unlit cigarette scantily resting on her lips. "Keep your eyes peeled for a gas station."
"Salem's," he shook his head. "Only New Yorkers smoke Salems."
"Good. Then no one will bum one off me." Jill pulled into a Chevron on Arlington. Peeling open her sticky wallet always entailed a few quarters and a penny or so to spill to the carpet. Her keys clanked around her wrist as she kicked open the door.
Jill pulled the nozzle from the pump and dragged the rubber snake to Pork Chop's hole. Accidentally, Jill pressed the button for pay inside, but Jaron stuck his head out of the window, thus distracting her. "Jilly-Mack, want me to do the windows?"
"Sure." Jill stuck the nozzle in her car and pressed the switch.
She liked it when he called her Jilly-Mack. This particular crew of Manhattan guys had been calling her Jilly-Mack since high school. Perhaps because she had macked all of them at one time or another during their adolescent bloom. A friend with privileges. The name stuck.
Some imbecilic girls in the sorority she had rushed for five minutes had the brilliant idea of calling her Jilly-Bean, a name which she had found utterly repulsive, but she dropped out for community art school while they all went off to acquire Sociology degrees and Prada backpacks and sleep with one another's boyfriends and she never saw any of them again.
Jaron was one from the old days. He had expatriated himself from New York for tinsel town (the traitor), but as she watched him rub down the window glass with that soapy water, stretching his torso across her hood, all was forgiven.
Jill picked a small red flower from the pot beside the gas pump and tucked it behind her ear. She always kept her hair short. She liked to wear sneakers with long dresses and cut her vintage tee-shirts into halter tops. At parties, Jill always stood right next to the DJ booth, to watch the records spin. She loved dark beer. Especially Guinness. Jill leaned her head on her car and closed her eyes.
"You all right?" Jaron inquired.
"Just tired."
"You're always tired."
"I'm still fighting that nasty case of Lime's disease I caught somewhere in the hostels of England."
"I remember when your face went kinda crooked."
"Tends to happen when your muscles paralyze for two months."
"That sucked."
"At least I'll never be insecure about my looks. And I have a declared lack of sympathy for anything psychosomatic. No bad hair days, no stomach cramps, no twenty-something crisis about 'what am I going to do with my life.'"
"Hey. It's hard to be in your twenties and know what you'll do with your life. At least I have a music career to fall back on. Most people don't have that salvation."
"Here's a quarter to call someone who cares. If you haven't had facial paralysis, then I don't want to hear about it."
Jill looked into the sky, littered with fresh clouds and telephone wires and dot-com billboards. Maybe she was getting used to this town. Jill had been out to Los Angeles a couple of times before, but only on weekends when she ran suitcases for a Rastafarian named Boo back in New Haven. Even then, locked up in some Beverly Hills hotel, splayed out by the pool in designer sunglasses, surrounded by Persians and silicone queens basking like giant lizards on white towels while she waited for the call to tell her where and when, she had known she would wind up here.
Jill had not been permitted to leave the hotel until the call. She never much cared for strangers anyway, and room service was included. Samantha, her "partner," an overweight divorcé who had recruited Jill from the New Haven Sunset Suites Apartment Complex, just tossed her the cell phone and visited Sea World or the Santa Monica Pier while Jill watched Spectra Vision and ordered chicken fingers. Fuck it, she got three grand for one weekend trip. At the time, Jill had needed the money. She always needs the money. Looking back, the risk for handling a black Samsonite suitcase, filled with sixty pounds of weed and lined only with pine-scented air fresheners, was not justified by three grand. But hey, that was a long time ago.
Jaron snapped his fingers in her face. "No gas is coming out."
Jill stared at the row of the zeros on the pump ticker. "I have to pay inside, don't I?"
She went inside and handed the attendant her credit card. He was a Pakistani gentleman with a starched shirt. "I wondered what you were doing out there."
"I'm a little scatter brained. It's genetic. I blame my mother."
"Beep, beep."
"I'm sorry, Miss, but this card has been denied."
Card denied? Jill rubbed her head. "My card?"
"This is the only card you gave me, Miss."
"Swipe again, please."
She tapped her fingers.
"Still processing, Miss."
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
"Card denied. Insufficient funds."
"Crap!" She grabbed her card back.
"Can I blame this on my mother too?"
Jaron peeked his head in. "What's up?"
"My card's maxed."
" My wallet's in the studio or I'd loan you. I got practice tonight. I can get you some money then."
"I know you have practice tonight. I said I'd drive you."
"That you did."
"So how are we gonna get there if I don't have any gas?"
"Oh, yeah. I've got two dollars."
Jill threw up her hands in disgust.
They went back out onto the street while Jaron rubbed her back. "It's hard out here. I was drinking Guinness for a week straight when I had no cash for groceries. I've looked for coins in public phones, all that."
"Look at all these cars," she gestured. "They've got gas. It's not fair."
Two ancient ladies with garage sale hats waddled down the sidewalk, directed by their white leather purses. Jill and Jaron watched them nod and gesture for the street signal at the corner, then venture onto the crosswalk long after the sign blinked red. Impatient horns goaded them across. Jill's eyes followed the two women as they entered the old Mayan Theater. Art deco nostalgia hung in the appointments on the facade crumbling under the weight of age and neglect. The sign read "BINGO" in bold letters. Jaron and Jill turned to each other with simultaneous epiphany.
"Let's go."
Hand in hand, they ran strait for the theater, weaving through a mass of cars. A carpet, patterned with palm fronds worn to the bone, led them into the dim atrium, once dangling with large chandeliers and mirrors that reflected gloved men with beverage trays. Now there sat a food cart serving nachos and sweaty hot dogs. A wiry fellow with a curled mustache and permanently tattooed eyebrows manned the grill.
"Where do you buy cards?"
The man perked up. "Right here. Dollar per card. Ten for nine dollars."
"Two, please." Jaron unrolled the bills in his pocket.
Jill could smell the stench of tobacco rising from the bulk of the theater as the hot dog man in the his long tailed suit pushed back the curtain to reveal rows and rows of cafeteria tables. All bolted seats had been removed accept for those in the side balconies, flanked in red velvet swathes. Smoke rose from every cranny. The finery of the old theater endured in the cherubs that still hung from their garlands, but their wings had peeled and crusted over with soot.
Eyes turned as Jill and Jaron walked the slope. Most of the people wore sweatpants and flip flops, most were middle aged woman with unkempt hair, everyone was smoking, mostly Virginia Slims. Everyone had at least ten cards spread before them and beenie babies standing guard.
Jaron spotted a table in the corner.
"You two here to play?" someone asked. Jill turned to the voice. An obese woman in green sweatpants had wheeled an oxygen tank beside her. "If you're here to play, sit down. The next round's starting."
Jill obeyed. It was quite stuffy so she put her leather jacket on the back of her chair. A timid thing, wearing a "Listen for the Lord" shirt, smudged out her Marlborough in one of the disposable aluminum ashtrays and waited for the first ball.
Jaron flipped over his card. "Let's get it on."
Neighboring tables heard his call to arms. One lady whispered to her companion, others frowned. Across from her aisle, a tall gentleman with a white beard, wearing a white satin suit and a hat with a large peacock feather, prepared his card. Jill could not help stare at the marvel of him, but the stranger turned and noticed her, so she ducked to her card.
The audience began to rumble with anticipation for the first ball. Jill took a deep breath. "Here we go."
A voice, cracked by years of smoke and the Bingo circuit, announced, "This next pot is worth one hundred dollars. I repeat, this pot goes for one hundred dollars. And the first ball is---"
---A whoosh took over as a small woman in orthopedic shoes spun the metal wheel. A ball slipped onto the tray. She lifted the ball to her glasses. "N-34, N-34."
Jill didn't have it.
"I-18, I-18."
Nope. Not there either.
"O-31. O-31."
Jill scanned her board. It was there! She slammed the window shut and smiled. The woman with the oxygen tank looked over at her, took a deep breath of disgust, and turned back to her cards.
"Sorry," Jill squeaked.
"N-5. N-5."
Not there.
"B-27, B-27."
Another one! This little board was working out.
"O-7. O-7."
Nowhere.
"G-30. G-30."
Nope.
"B-I-N-G-O! Bingo!" The word sprung into the air like a gun shot. Who said that? Suddenly, Jaron prepared to stand.
"What are you doing?" Jill grabbed his arm. "Don't screw around."
He took her hand off his arm. "I said Bingo, didn't I?" Jared strutted to the front of the room.
"Ladies and Gentleman," the voice announced, "We claim to have a winner." Jill looked out at the masses of the infuriated bingo circuit. She locked eyes with the stranger in the velvet hat. He nodded to her. Jaron was already leaned over the announcer's desk, confirming his win by calling out his balls into the microphone.
"No one ever does that!" The woman sucked a frenzy of oxygen through her mask. The skinny one tugged on Jill's sleeve. "Better if you go up with him."
The gentleman in the satin suit touched her arm as she stood. "Here." His voice was quite low, nearly inaudible. He held out a small red jewelry box, the dime store variety, made of felt.
Jill took it, confused. "I don't---" She pressured the hinge to open it but the gentleman put his hand on the top of the box. "Not now," he said. "Open it later."
"Whatever," she said tersely, feeling the eyes of the bingo mob on her. She thought she better join Jaron. She stuffed the jewelry box in the back of her jeans. Taking a long drag from a Virginia Slim, the filter smeared in sparkly lipstick, the announcer shook her head until ash fell on his board. "Only seven balls. Amazing kid. Take this voucher. You can collect your money at the front counter when you're through."
Jaron grabbed the voucher from her puckered hand and wrapped his arms around Jill's waist. "Jilly-mack, I think we're through." They strutted up the isle, through the smoke haze, and headed for the ticket booth.
The booth gal took the straw from her mouth only long enough to read the voucher. "Nice job," she said, handing Jaron five twenties. Then she took back up her straw.
On the street, Jaron jumped up and down. "How sick was that?! We rolled right up in there, one card a piece, and strait off the bat, just won the biggest pot of the day!"
"Yep," Jill concurred, "very cool."
"What time you got?"
She studied her digital watch. "Almost four-thirty."
"I gotta roll, sweetie. Let's go."
They darted across the street to the Chevron Station. Her shoe stuck to the pavement and slipped off her foot. As Jill stumbled forward, her ankle turned under. "Ow!" she yelped, grabbing her foot. Tenderly, she hobbled back to grab her shoe. Cars started up from the green light. Jill yanked the rubber sole off the nail just as an oncoming car honked her out of the way, ripping the heel off to avoid becoming someone's windshield.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"I smarted my ankle. It's twisted."
"Try to walk it off."
As she was trying, she noticed that the space at the pump was now filled by a Ford Bronco. "Where's my car?"
She turned a three-sixty and scanned the circumference of the lot, passing over the streaks of automobiles and street lights. She turned herself around until she went dizzy. When Jaron grabbed her, a pain shot into her foot. "Ouch!"
"It ain't here."
"I see that."
Favoring her good foot, chill seeping through the flap in her heel, Jill hobbled to the station window. The attendant was reading a GQ magazine, Ben Affleck spread out on a beach in a wet tank top. The attendant lowered the magazine. "Yes?"
"Have you, by any chance, seen my car?"
"Hatchback?" The gas attendant bowed his head to peek at the pair. "Brown?"
She nodded.
"Do you realize that you left it over forty-five minutes?"
She nodded.
"It was towed, Miss."
"Towed!" Jill protested.
"Towed. I have paying customers who need the pumps. You cannot just leave a car wherever you please and block my business."
"Where did they tow it?"
"Lucky's Auto Yard. Glendale. I can give you the number."
"Glendale? Where's that?"
"You don't wanna know," Jaron warned.
"How much to get it out?"
"Seventy-five dollars."
Jill threw her hands in the air. "What next? I suppose curses come in threes."
"Jilly-Mack," Jaron put his hands on both her shoulders and made her whimpering face focus on his eyes. "I gotta bounce. Take seventy-five bucks to get the car out. I'll use the rest to catch a cab."
"But it was your two dollars in the first place. You bought the cards, you won the money."
"No worries," he told her. "Page my cell tonight. We'll take you out for a pint after practice." Jaron kissed her on the forehead and gave her the money. "I gotta run; it's a band thing."
"Sure, sure, sure."
"Hey, I'll always put you on the guest list," he gleamed, jogging off in the distance.
"How comforting," she scowled, her ankle throbbing. Jill turned to the attendant in the starched shirt. "Could you give me the number for Lucky's Auto Yard, please?"
"I have already written the directions down for you." He passed her a scrap of paper through the silver cigarette tray dividing the window. "They close at seven."
She checked her watch. 5:03. She could make it on a bus. "When does the next bus come?" "Check the sign." He pointed to the stop. Her eyes drained of hope. The sky filled with purple clouds that swept over the halogen sky like a vampire's cape. She zipped up her sweater and rubbed her swelling ankle. When the bus came, Jill paid the fair and sat, holding the pole, sinking her forehead against the window. Peace at last. Except for that stink. What was that? It slid from under the floor. A woman with a dress of indistinguishable color, bags of groceries tucked beneath her arms, dozed contentedly, squeaking wind every two miles or so. Jill covered her mouth. She scanned the bus for another seat. Nothing. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine she was in another place, a happy place, where incense perfumed the air as she walked the streets of London (with a perfectly good ankle) in a fabulously expensive suit, passing the red phone booths on the way to a fashion shoot where she was the star attraction. Her eyes opened as they headed for the bridge. The distant sound of sirens came from behind. The bus halted half way across the bridge. The sirens grew louder. Traffic built like a train wreck, spreading in all directions. In less than thirty seconds, the bus was trapped. Everyone, except for the fart-lady, peered from the windows to inspect the commotion. Ambulances and police cars swarmed ahead; flares sizzled on the concrete. "Must be an accident," someone said.
"Let's go see!" shouted a pug nosed kid, spattered with freckles, jumping off the bus. His less-than-pleased mother darted after him. Suddenly, something shook the bus, like a giant beast had taken hold of the underside and thrashed the metal. Everyone steadied themselves. The bus dropped six inches, the left side hitting pavement, causing a slew of passengers to face plant on their neighbors. Jill remained upright, clinging onto the pole tighter than a Vegas stripper. Steam rose and a slow hiss escaped from the bus' innards. The driver didn't look happy. He threw off his cap and, without a word, stepped outside. Everyone else looked at one another, then at the Fellini state of affairs in the traffic jam, out the window. Someone was cooking hot dogs on a portable barbecue on the hood of their SUV. Everyone grabbed their things.
"Wait!" Jill cried. "Why are you leaving?"
A small fellow with long fingernails pointed one right at her. "Look around you, Dear, this bus isn't going anywhere."
"But!" she wanted to protest, then followed the line out.
Hundreds of cars squeezed onto the bridge, deadlocked as far as she could see, honking for the sheer pleasure of it. Jill unfolded the paper containing her scribbled directions and tried to catch her bearings.
"Where is Roosevelt Avenue?"
The fellow pointed his long fingernail to the east. "About three miles. That's Wiltern. Make a Right. Go to the end. That's Roosevelt."
Gulp. "Thank you." A symphony of horns accompanied her as she snaked through cars and trucks and commotion. She saw that freckled kid leaning over a partition set up between the public and the accident. A mangled car was lodged in the window of a big rig; three others smashed beneath it's cargo. She looked at her watch. 6:25. She had thirty-five minutes to make four miles.
Jill lugged herself down Roosevelt Street. Sweat dripped over her hairline. She barely tolerated the pangs in her ankle, cursing the torture of it all, in Glendale no less. Lucky's Auto yard loomed ahead, a sparking Neon sign half blinking above the heap of scrap metal. She imagined herself a war victim, legs blown off and bleeding in a trail behind her, as she dragged herself, by the sheer strength of her arms, to the gate.
"May I help you?" The woman looked more like a librarian than a Tow Service Representative.
"I'm here to get my car back. It's a brown Honda, hatchback. Towed from a gas station on Arlington."
"Oh," she hissed, "So you're the one."
"The one what?"
"I don't know how to tell you this, but your car never made it to the yard."
"What do you mean? Is it still on the way? Can't you call the truck, there's a traffic accident back there so---"
"---I'm afraid it's not that simple. You see, the truck that picked up your car was not one of ours." She even emphasized her words like a librarian. "We've had a bit of a problem with counterfeit trucks intercepting our calls and, well."
"Someone stole Pork Chop?"
"Who?"
Jill envisioned her own head growing into a giant cobra with green seething eyes. The librarian cowered for mercy as Cobra Jill rose above her, puffing her chest and devouring her in one long gulp that had the librarian squirming down her throat. Burp.
"Excuse me," Jill said, covering her mouth.
The woman made her fill out mounds of paper work and sign countless documents that in all probability had Lucky's Auto Yard exempt from liability.
It was a cold day in Glendale.
Jill wrapped her sweater tight around her, feeling the chill. That's when it hit her. She had left her prized leather jacket at that damn Bingo parlor! She was not going to loose her car and her favorite jacket on the same day. Oh no.
The librarian was decent enough to offer her a ride back with one of the dispatchers. A greasy type, with a meaty forehead and a belly the size of a small child, chewed on a cigar as he drove Jill back to the Bingo Theater. She thanked him and got out. He sat there, without a word, until she handed him a tip. He looked at the five bucks, looked at her, then drove off.
There it was, the Mayan Theater. She dreaded returning, especially without back-up. Jill ran across the palm frond carpet, past the imp manning the the nachos, and sailed through the fog of smoke. She wove through the Bingo crowd, too busy scanning their cards to notice her. Then she saw it, as though a spotlight had hit it from a cherub in the ceiling. Her jacket, alone on the back of a chair, waited for her. She snatched it up. The oxygen tank rolled across the floor. The green sweatpants wheezed, "What are you doing here?"
"Just leaving, Ma'am."
But a strange thing occurred, putting quite a kink in Jill's plans. The geriatric announcer tapped the microphone. "The prize of the night is now on the block." With Vanna White rapport, she tugged a golden rope holding up a black curtain. Beneath the curtain, Pork Chop was sitting on the block like a cheap whore. "Someone is in luck tonight!" she beamed.
"That's my car!" Jill stammered, pointing at poor Pork Chop.
"Not yet, it ain't," the sweatpants wheezed. "I'm gonna win that car, I can feel it." A hideous image of Pork Chop, barely puttering along, an oxygen tank strapped to the hood, swam in Jill's head.
"Sit down," a soothing voice told her. The regal gentleman with the white satin suit offered her a seat. His red velvet hat and brocaded vest, worn nearly to the bone, matched the scuffed pair of red shoes on his feet. His hair flowed beneath the wild hat, cocked over one eye like Robin Hood with a lounge act.
The stranger only had one card before him. Jill had none. "I don't have a chance," she whimpered.
"Don't worry. Where is that younger gentleman who was with you earlier?"
"He abandoned me for his music."
"They tend to do that. Let those ones go."
The Bingo circuit was restless, their beady eyes glistening for the grand prize. The announcer, with her cackling voice, called out each number to the whoosh of the wheel. Number after number, Jill could feel the heat of anticipation in the room grow as thick as the smoke. She couldn't look. The man with the feather in his hat patted her shoulder. "Don't worry," he repeated. He began shutting various card windows with the bravado of an artist playing his instrument.
The oxygen tank shook a bit on the linoleum floor. "N-6, N-6."
"I-18. I-18."
"Bingo." The gentleman slid over the final window and handed the card to Jill. "Fetch your prize."
Jill was in too great a shock to argue. She thought she would faint right into the pyramid of beer cans on table number three as she maneuvered to the front and the announcer read the balls. The eyes of the oxygen woman simmered with hot venom as they confirmed her win.
"Congratulations!" Streamers and balloons and colored paper confetti rained down upon the stage, a large bouquet of tournament roses were thrust into her arms as drums rumbled and trumpets blared. Yet a collective moan spread throughout the theater. Some were taking up sticks. The announcer leaned to Jill and told her it would be best to wait outside while someone brought around the car. The Bingo circuit was particular about strangers.
Her knight in satin armor accompanied her to the lot. She helped him with his cane. "Do you hang out at the Mayan a lot?"
"It's on the circuit. Not one of my favorites."
"Mine neither."
Then the car was there, waxed to a polish, full tank of gas. Jill ran to her long-lost Pork Chop. She hugged the hood, cooing soft words, vowing never to abandon him again. She opened the door, sat inside, fiddled in her purse for her key. It wasn't there. She checked the ignition, the cup holders, her jacket pocket, no key.
When she looked up, the satin stranger had already folded into the sidewalk traffic. "Wait!" she called out. She jumped out of the car to stop him. "Please, wait!" she yelled leaping forward. Her ankle gave out; she plummeted to the concrete, her shoulder knocking the ground. "Ouch!" The red jewelry box tumbled from the back pocket of her jeans and rolled a few inches from her nose. "I don't have my keys!" She completed her plea in a whisper, but the stranger was already gone.
Jill wiped herself off and picked up the dime store box.
Inside, the key to her car lay in a pillow of white satin.
© 2002 Carolyn Anderson Miller, all rights reserved
appears here by permission
Image Alternative Bingo created by and © K.L.Storer, all rights reserved
appears here by permission
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