Dave Materna: A New Story

Socks

It was cold in the woods, but Roger peeled the socks from his hands anyway. They were too small, the socks, so he threw them away. There was a nice big tree and he sat for a minute back from the path to watch the frost from his breath and to look at his hands—nothing special, scarred as usual. Roger’s feet wore workman’s gloves that fit better than the socks did, but didn’t fit all ten toes quite right. Roger was on vacation.

~

He shouldn’t have used the socks, he knew that, not the way he did, but this time was his time and he knew that too although his third wife warned him, “Don’t try to escape.” Well, he wasn’t. Trying, that is. If he was trying, he wouldn’t have taken the socks. Just the gloves for his feet that didn’t really fit. Rabbits brought rubber bands and he secured the gloves on his feet enough to get up and walk on.

~

Now it was night and much colder and the dew on the damp grasses around him sparkled with starlight. Roger wished he’d never thrown the socks away. He’d played a joke and after, forgotten his coat but had his lighter and a whole box of cigarettes so he started smoking to keep warm. As he walked, he thought about what a sorry vacation he’d picked this time, mostly spent running or lost, and now both, in this place he knew nothing about.
~

After a rest he saw light through the trees. He stood up and approached the noise and shook his head. A whiff of beer, the smell of popcorn. Of all things: a bingo game all the way out here. Roger looked up at a cloudless midnight sky and shuffled with his work-gloved feet down to the bingo tent.
~

He started to skid and tried to stop but couldn’t, not with those gloves on and wound up bashing onto Delores and Dorcus, twin sisters who play here nearly every night.
~

“B-Bingo in the woods!” Roger stammered as he stood up and dusted himself off.
~

“What. Never heard of it before?” Delores sneered as she marked “N-5.”
~

“I’m on vacation,” Roger explained then offered, “I brought cigarettes.”
~

“Sit down,” Dorcus the other twin advised, “and shut up—here’s a marker.” Dorcus handed Roger a bright pink fat felt-tipped marker and a score card.
~

“N-5...” the bingo caller called out as Roger looked around for the first time at all the other players. Women. A hundred of them. Every one a woman and all of them twins.
~

Roger said to Delores, “I’m probably the only one here with work gloves on my feet...”
~

“Shhhh,” said Dorcus. “N-5,” said the caller. Roger looked at his bingo card. All twenty-five squares had N-5 scrawled on them–“No no no,” Roger said,” No no, this ain’t It... I’m on vacation...” The bingo caller called out N-5 one last time and the night was perfectly black, the moon long gone as the rubber-band-rabbits came back pink with glowing red eyes bleeding and Delores and Dorcus and everyone finally called out “bingo.”