Scarface

One of my earliest memories I am reminded of every time I look in the mirror, or every time someone asks, what is that scar on your forehead from?

It was a sunny summer day. My older brother and I were at our babysitters, who conveniently lived a few houses down from a playground. This particular day we decided to make the journey to the park. It was only my brother and I who went, for whatever reason the other kids stayed behind. On our way there, we spotted a really big stick, which was like a log to us. Being roughly seven years old, and a boy, my brother had to have that stick. We both jumped down into the ditch which was a pit of dry dirt, gravel and brush. I stood a few feet back from my brother who didn’t mind getting his hands and shoes dirty. The heat from the sun was beaming on both of us, and I could tell my brother was getting more and more frustrated by the stick that wouldn’t budge as he pulled on it. It was stuck under other large rocks and logs.

I could see the playground from where we were standing in the ditch. The sound of other kids enjoying the park was all I could hear. All I wanted to do was be swinging on the swings, or sliding down the red plastic slide. I didn’t care about a dirty log, but I stayed with my brother.  He stopped pulling on the log and went and dug around the rocks and tree branches hoping to free it up. I was still standing a couple of feet behind him. He took his position, hands on the log, back to me, and gave it one last tug. The stick freed from the ground, and flew towards my head.

I was on the ground and couldn’t see anything. I started to cry from the intense pain and sight of blood on my hands when I whipped my forehead. The impact of the log had knocked me backwards and hit my glasses off my face. My brother got up off the ground too, wiping his hands on his overalls.

Blood was running down my face, I was feeling the ground blindly trying to find my glasses. I was screaming at my brother between my shrieking cries.  He ran over to me, passed me my glasses, and helped me up off the ground, pulling me out of the ditch.

We were both panicking. The walk back to the babysitters is still blurry to me. My glasses sat crocked on my face, my head was throbbing, my hands were cut and dirty, and I could not stop the tears from streaming down my face. I know my brother told me he was going to flag down an ambulance, but since the distance from the ditch to my babysitters was basically two houses down in a small neighborhood.. the ambulance never happened to drive by.

The following months left me with a huge scab smacked right in between my eyes, made for a great school photo, and a constant reminder to my brother why he should be nice to me.

Now, years later, the scar on my head serves as a good conversation piece or an easy out if anyone happens to ask the question, what’s your earliest memory?

BINGO!

When I was 13, I got my first job working at a bingo hall! I worked every Thursday for two hours, so you can imagine the kind of dough I was rolling in.

The bingo hall was one big square room with rows of long tables, at the front was a platform where the announcer and my boss sat, almost like prison guards monitoring the hall.

It was very colorless. White walls, white tiled floor, beige tables, and fluorescent lighting (much like a classroom) that no one looked good in.

The time I worked there was way back when you were actually allowed to smoke inside. The minute you walked in you were greeted with a cloud of smoke that followed you even after you left.

I would get there at 6:30, Bingo started at 7. Every week, minutes after I arrived the crowd would start to pile in. They all knew each other, it was the same faces every week, and the majority was over the age of 50. They would take their seats carrying their hand sewn bags, made specifically for their bingo dobbers, get settled in, and then it was my time to shine.

My job was to walk around with a little pouch on, carrying 3 different sets of cards, and a float of money, with about 3 other people. We would wander up and down the aisles of the hall and sell tickets to the bingo players. This must have been where I got my exceptional math skills because we didn’t carry calculators. I had to do all the adding and subtracting in my head.

The first hour of my shift was always very chaotic (for a bingo hall). Everyone needed cards, and there were only so many of us running around the large hall. We made it easier on ourselves by dividing it up into sections.

My pouch always had 3 sets of cards – books for two dollars, “bonus” cards for 1 dollar, and the “special” cards for 1 dollar. No one was really there to socialize with me, and I didn’t seem to have much in common with the elderly, so my conversations were typically the same each time.

“I’ll have five books, two bonus’s and one special.”

“That’s 13 dollars please” that’s fast math.

“What?!”

“13 dollars please.”

“I can’t hear you, you’re going to have to speak up.”

This was always all between coughing, hacking, and cigarette drags. Sometimes I would get lucky and the person beside them would try to help me by telling my customer what I had just said, who usually also didn’t hear me correctly.  There was no loud music, just the calling of bingo numbers being listed off in the background.

The last hour was usually a little calmer. Everyone already had their books, so only so often would there be someone who needed a new bonus, or special card. But for the most part, it was more slack. At 8:30 the four of us who were working the floor would make our way to the front, where our boss was. We would sell back our cards, and float, ensuring we had the right amount of money. Sometimes, I would be over a dollar or two, which we would get to keep, and would be the highlight of my night/week.

Each shift ended the same; I would take off my apron, put on my jacket, walk to the front, where there was a small cafeteria, get a free pop, and congratulate myself on a job well done.