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

couldn’t concentrate. Those wooden balls rattling in that cage make a lot of noise. I tried to color Casper the Friendly Ghost, but how many colors can you color a ghost? Snookie told everyone to be ready because after the next game for $10, the big jackpot was coming up. Everyone started getting nervous, and I had to buy Momma and Grandma Coca-Colas and cheese crackers.
    Almost nobody played that game. They all headed for the bathroom. Grandma’s friend Pearl Tatum won the $10. She was mad about it because she said she used up her good luck for just $10. Grandma told her not to be upset. She might win again, but Pearl said, “Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” and asked Grandma if she would play her cards for her in the jackpot game.
    That meant Grandma would have to play thirty-two cards at one time. Grandma thought about it and said she would, but if she did bingo on Pearl’s card, Pearl would have to give herhalf. They set up all the cards on one table. Momma told her not to try it, but Grandma never listens to Momma. She told her to worry about her own cards.
    Grandma had to stand up to play. The game started. Grandma was going great guns. You should have seen her. She was smoking her Camel cigarette, and Pearl Tatum was handing her those red bingo chips just like they were bobby pins at the beauty parlor. She was doing great, up until Snookie called the number I 29, that Grandma had on twenty-four of her cards.
    When Snookie called the next number, B 3, Grandma hadn’t finished covering all her I 29s and she and Pearl Tatum and Ollie Meeks started hollering at Snookie to slow down.
    The other women sitting around them screamed at them to shut up because they couldn’t hear the numbers being called. But Grandma, Pearl and Ollie kept screaming for Snookie to slow down. The other women got madder and madder, and pretty soon this Italian woman called Ollie Meeks an old bat.
    Ollie ran over to her table and knocked all the bingo chips off the woman’s card. Then the Italian woman’s friend got mad and threw a handful of vanilla wafers at Grandma. Pearl Tatum knocked them away like they were Ping-Pong balls. It was great. All the Italian women started screaming, and Pearl Tatum got mad and threw down her bingo chips, took her Coca-Cola bottle and shook it up and spewed the whole table right down the line.
    Meantime, people were pulling for their numbers all over the room, “I need N thirty-two,” or whatever number they needed.
    Grandma hadn’t missed a beat. She still was going strong when one of those women hit her in the head with a piece of fruitcake. It was at that moment that someone in the room yelled, “Bingo!”
    Everybody turned around and it was MY MOMMA ! She bingoed on I 69 and hit the jackpot. Aunt Bess whooped and knocked Mr. Bill right off the barstool. It took seven of those VFW men to hold back the Italian women from killing Grandma and Ollie Meeks and Pearl Tatum. All I could think was: We are on our way to Shell Beach!
May 19, 1952
    Momma almost didn’t give Daddy the money after she had won. She was still scared to death to go off with Daddy even though he promised that if she would give him the money to put down on that shop, he would not drink on holidays and not look at any other women. It was just what he had been waiting for, a chance to be his own boss and quit running movies. He might even join the Lions Club. He promised her the moon.
    I told her I would stop singing like Mario Lanza, which was hard because it was still my best imitation.
    Daddy said for her not to think of how he had acted in the past, but to think of our new life just like Coming Attractions in the movies.
    She finally said yes. We are leaving in three days. Boy, did I get Rose Mary Salvage and Jennifer May! I told them that I was moving to Russia to be a spy and for them not to write me. Imagine how surprised they will be when I come back to Jackson in my mink coat, the wealthy daughter of a very successful