Published 'The Banshee' 1994

The purpose of Bingo was to cross off numbers on a pre-printed sheet of coarsely recycled paper as some loud-mouther called out the numbers to be deleted from the sides of bouncing ping-pongs. The supposed randomness of such a method was unquestioned...until, of course, the occasion on which I thoughtfully accompanied my mother on her birthday. It abruptly dawned on me that such a haphazard method was relative only to the law of averages. Indeed, this law of averages is not an average law, being far more powerful than, say, the law of wasting assets: even, the path of physics that science finds itself treading is nothing compared to it. Futhermore, Chance, that some treat as a deity greater than God Himself, sometimes has to curtsey to Fate, which, in turn, is subservient to the law of averages...

My mother did not seem to listen to these ramblings of mine with which I assailed her. In fact, she was rather irritated, because her almost religious concentration on the numbers was being adversely affected. Had she won, I imagine the whole matter would have blown over and lain down like sleeping dogs in the mercenary fortunes of war. However, I was deeply perturbed at the manner with which my mother's gullibility was being milked for the little she was worth. There could only be one set of winners. Those bingo bongos. Chance chancers. Snotto blotto scavengers of the golden average. Whatever they were called, they couldn't even lose a blind farthing.

On top of that, there was a single punter who kept on winning all the games, the full house, the pyramid, the single slice, even the so-called nationwide jackpot; a little lady with granny glasses who was, I suspected, one of the snotto-blottos in disguise. So, they weren't even playing the law of averages by the rules. Means and medians were by-words for something far more insidious.

Ignoring my mother's pleas, as she tugged at my sleeve, I stood up in the middle of a game and shouted BINGO! at the top of my voice. This was despite only having crossed out a measly two numbers. The scowling scoundrel with multicoloured ping-pongs for balls motioned to one of his side-kicks to check out my credentials, which he had obviously pre­empted with prejudice.

In the meantime, my mother was as good as having a coronary at the embarassment of me sticking my head above the parapet of averages. The grannied lady had turned her bristly chin towards us. She nodded to an accomplice who was directing the spotlights.

With the help of osmosis rather than self-built instinct, I suddenly realised that all the punters, my mother included, had actually paid good brass for the purpose of being ripped off by slick merchants -- all part of an enjoyable evening's entertainment -- and I was in the process of spoiling it with my jumped-up principles. Losing was better than winning, because people of my mother's vintage can no longer handle good luck. It would deprive them of the ability to complain bitterly about their lot in life.

I waved the side-kick into touch, indicating that the numbers I had crosses on were more faith than fact. The spotlights uncrisscrossed and abandoned me to re-gather my resources in a moment of simple shame at trying to untangle the knots that held the world up.

My mother smiled, showing me that she had already crossed out all her numbers. Too shy to shout. Too long saddled with sadness to suffer the statistics of success, even on her round-numbered birthday.