The Battle of Badger Hall

by geoffrey m miller

            It's the kind of problem people never expect to happen to their own families, but to my horror, it had happened to mine.

            I don't mean to sound self-righteous here-- Lord knows I've done my share of reckless things-- and I understand that it's not even appropriate for me to say anything to her about this.  She's a grown woman, after all.  But someone has got to do something and I'm afraid it's going to have to be me.  I have to convince the rest of the family to face a shocking and embarrassing fact:  Our Grandmother has become a 'Bingo Thug'.

            The first clue that something was wrong was an abrupt change in her behavior at home.  Nunny, as we call her, had until recently been a gentile and soft-spoken soul.  Within a month of her first night at the bingo hall, her demeanor had turned coarse and ornery.

            She always used to be in by 7:30, (to catch "Wheel Of Fortune"), but could now be found hanging out on street corners at all hours of the early evening, waiting with her reprobate bingo buddies for the hall to open.

            Out of concern, I contacted BIPA, (BIngo Players Anonymous), who referred me to their support group, FOBLA, (Families of Bingo Ladies), who assured me that I had every reason to be concerned.

            "She has all the signs of a serious case:", the counselor told me, "Irritability, possessiveness, an exaggerated sense of superstition.  Can you tell me where she plays?"

            "At the Benevolent Order of Badgers.", I told her.

            She slid back in her chair, eyes wide.

            "The B.O.B Hall, huh?", she repeated with a tinge of fear in her voice.  "That's bad.  The parish hall people can get pretty nasty.  The firehall gang is tough.  But the Badgers have, by far, the worst reputation in town.  They are the Crypts & Bloods of the bingo world."

            Despite the danger, she suggested that I try to smuggle myself into the Badger hall some night and see for myself what I was up against.

            "It is a good night to die.", I thought bravely as I parked my car a few blocks away from the Badger's hall.  I thought I'd try to sneak around the back and get in through the service door.

            It was spitting cold rain as I turned the corner.  Flashing emergency lights raced across the graffiti-covered backs of dingy buildings that lined the alley behind the bingo hall.  There, in the dank drizzle, amid rotting remains of cigarette butts and ripped-up bingo cards, paramedics were attending to a poor soul who had mistaken "G3" for "B3" and yelled "Bingo" out of turn.  The mob had set upon her with a vengeance.

            Their gurney was blocking the back door, so I had to sweet-talk my way in through the front by claiming to be here to pick-up my Auntie.  The security guard who admitted me was packing heat.  Ostensibly, he said, it was because of all the cash, but I could tell from the way he kept shifting his eyes that the gun was a precaution of self-defense.

            The hall had the ambiance of an opium den-- sinister and dimly lit.  Half the fluorescent bulbs were missing from the decrepit fixtures that dangled from the ancient  tin-plate ceiling.  Half of those that remained were blinking and buzzing, casting an eerie, uneven light through a gray-green haze of cigarette smoke.

            Away at the far end of the hall, three members of the Benevolent Order of Badgers spun the ball cage, called the numbers and kept track of the proceedings.  Their part in this was strictly business.  For better or worse, they had allowed themselves to become totally dependent on this shady crowd for financial support of their little refuge-- a wife-free zone where they could drink for cheap.  Aside from myself and the security guard, they were the only other men in the place.

            Before them, in rows stretching back almost to the front door, were lines of battered folding tables and metal chairs whose legs had worn bare spots in the floor's tattered terrazzo tile.  Hunched over the tables, surrounded by sheaves of cards and piles of colored markers, were fifty-or-so of the most menacing human beings I had ever beheld.

            Back in high school, the tough kids always sat in the back of the bus.  The same held true in the bingo hall.  Nunny-- a relative newcomer-- was sitting way up in the second row.  The kingpin, the cappo, the Godmother of the group appeared to be the woman sitting directly to my right.

            Her thick sweatshirt was embroidered with the slogan, 'World's Greatest Grandma'.  An overstuffed babushka did it's best to subdue a mound of heavily-permed, light-blue hair.  The heavy rouge on her cheeks clashed with her thick gold chains-- which clashed in turn with the heavy turquoise brooch that hung from her shoulder.  Her bright red lipstick was thick enough to allow her to hold her unfiltered pall mall with only one lip.  She smelled of smoke and Avon.

            A dozen bingo cards were spread out before her, flanked by a row of colored markers and a good-luck shrine that included a lucky penny, a horseshoe medallion, her lucky lighter, a plastic Jesus, and a pile of pocket lint from the time she won the big jackpot.

            The latest round had just ended.  The woman who had won was being dragged toward the back by the two biggest, meanest old ladies in the place.

            "Da boss wants to see ya'.", I heard one of them growl as they passed.  Apparently the Godmother had been just one number away from winning when this woman had yelled 'Bingo'.  There followed a discussion I couldn't quite hear, although the woman's gestures had a certain 'begging for mercy' quality about them.  It ended with one of the boss' bodyguards jabbing the woman's foot with the sharpened point of her umbrella, while the other whacked her in the stomach with her over-size purse.  I could tell from the sound that it was packed with bricks. 

            I had seen enough and was just turning to sneak back out the door when a meaty hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.  It was the lady with the bricks in her purse. 

            "Just where do ya' think you're goin', pal?", she asked.

            I was hauled before the Godmother.  She was casually munching peppermint patties from a glass bowl, in much the same way that I had seen Jabba The Hut eat frogs.

            "So how are things at the Moose Hall?", she asked.

            "The WHERE?", I replied.

            "You know perfectly well what she means!", threatened the lady with the pointy umbrella.  "Da Moose gang-- what sent somebody down here last week to yell 'Bingo' in through da ventilation fan."

            Having no clue what she was talking about-- but fearing for my skin-- I confessed. 

            The Mooses held their bingo games in an equally dingy hall across the street.  The riot that ensued caused the National Guard to be called out, headed by the Governor's Bingo Lady Task Force.  The games were canceled until further notice and Nunny has been spending her time with a BIPA counselor.