Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

tip his cap when you give him money. I like to see him eat potato chips. Boy, is that a mess. He was just getting ready to eat some when my Grandma Pettibone came in the door.
    The whole VFW hall got quiet. They were scared of her because she was on a winning streak and could play seventeen cards at once. She was wearing her lucky blue and white polka-dotted dress and her multicolored jeweled earrings.
    She must have gone over to Bootie’s Beauty Shop that day because her hair was bright purple. Her two friends Ollie Meeks and Pearl Tatum were with her. They are the three most feared bingo players in the state of Mississippi and even play penny bingo in the daytime just to keep sharp. I know ’cause I’ve been there. One of the reasons my Grandpa Pettibone left was becausehe said those old women used to scare his chickens to death yelling, “Bingo.”
    When Momma saw Grandma, she said, “Mother, you know I hate your hair purple!”
    Grandma said, “It is not purple, it is bluish gray and I have the box top to prove it, miss,” and pulled it out from her purse and gave it to Momma.
    Momma didn’t say anything else. I love it when Grandma fusses at Momma, but Grandma’s hair was purple. She had two round circles of powdered rouge on her cheeks and a little dot of lipstick on her lips. Her hair is so thin you can see right through it in the light. Sometimes she lets me play with the fat on her arms during the nickel games. I don’t think she looked like a Shriner clown, no matter what Momma said.
    Momma never could get anywhere with Grandma. Momma told me I was lucky to be her granddaughter and not her daughter.
    When the official games were about to start, Grandma sent me up to look at the wooden bingo balls in the cage and tell her what numbers looked the best and for me to be real sweet to Snookie. Ugh!
    He never took that smelly old cigar out of his mouth the whole time he was telling me how lucky I was to be the granddaughter of Leona Pettibone and would I be a sweet girl and draw the lucky number for the door prize later. I told Grandma that I 29 looked good to me and she got seventeen cards with I 29 on them.
    Just then my Aunt Bess came in the door with some old railroad men friends of hers and hollered at Grandma, “Hey, Leona, what you gonna do with that five hundred dollars, girl?”
    Grandma pretended she didn’t know her. She doesn’t like Aunt Bess to come around her friends.
    One time three days before Christmas, Grandma was downtown when somebody she knew saw her and said, “Leona, come up to the toy department and look at this crazy drunk woman who’s sitting on Santa’s lap, getting her picture made.” Grandma turned on her heels and marched right out of the ladies’ lingerie department. She knew it was Bess because Bess gets drunk andhas her picture made with Santa Claus every year.
    Bess never comes to the bingo game much and I was glad to see her. Besides, she gave me a present, a little colored baby doll. She’d put mustard in its diaper as a joke. Momma thought it was sickening, but I like jokes.
    Aunt Bess knew she couldn’t have any fun with Momma and Grandma when they were in their bingo moods, so she went on over to the bar to have a good time with Mr. Bill and her friends. Momma wouldn’t let me go with Aunt Bess. Instead, she told me to shut up and sit down and color my books, but I had to go to the bathroom. Momma made me promise not to sit on the seats because all the old ladies peed on them.
    I tried and tried not to sit down, but my legs started to shake and wouldn’t you know it, I sat right down on the seat by mistake and got the back of my dress wet.
    There must have been twenty old ladies who came in and every one of them pinched my cheek and asked if I was having fun. When my dress dried off a little, I went back to Momma’s table and sat down fast.
    The games started. I colored my June Allyson and Van Johnson coloring book and read my Little Audrey comic book, but I