Bingo At The Harvard Club May 28
Good medical care is hard to find. Dr. Moses runs an office in the basement of Regency Gardens, where a large drug depot was busted a few months ago, so overhead must be high. Opening cost of a visit runs $500 TT, and for this he does not even get out out of his swivel chair. His bedside manner consists of advising patients how to cope with untreatable conditions, of which he seems to know more than his share.
“Yes, I see a lot of this. Keep it dry and watch it.“ Then he rolls his chair out the door to the next palliative case.
One of my teaching colleagues is in need of surgery, so she is receiving a fundraiser at the Harvard Club, a multipurpose Ivy League muster point behind Nelson Mandela Park, along the trickling Maraval River in Saint James. I park in a spot labeled “Members Only,“ next to a drum wagon stacked with cricket scoreboards, and enter the open-air parlor under a metal roof. With only 4 bingo cards, I feel outnumbered. Already the regulars are enjoying wings at cocktail hour, organizing vast arrays of numbered squares worthy of an air traffic controller, laughing at bawdy jokes about “lucky balls tonight“ and shouting incomprehensible commands about where I may, and, more adamantly, may not sit. Some seats are apparently for members only. Unlike my mum’s Catholic bingo nights of yore, players here are serious about drinking and winning prizes, which include small kitchen appliances and large bottles of Angostura bitters, donated by Trinidad's most famous exporter.
Before the competition begins, we stand and pray in the name of Jesus, accompanied with loud “Amens“ from a line of matriarchs in purple wraps, thick shiny belts, and religious necklaces. The preacher calls on God to “lift every evil part of the devil, from her head to her toes,“ followed by more emphatic “Amens.“ Then a skinny vender with bad teeth weaves through the perfumed crowd, pushing “Hot Nuts,“ to which the ladies break into saucy laugher and cry out, “Amen, Lo’d.“
Deprivations continue. Electricity is scheduled to be shut down on Friday. The city has turned off the water for 48-hours due to the drought conditions, which is particularly odd given the record-setting rains and catastrophic flooding of September and October. There are no storage reservoirs on this island, and the pumps have been stolen, leading to “hosepipe bans,“ as they are quaintly called. There appears no time to plan for the future—there is only undefinable Trini Time, which is not any time soon.
Fortunately for me, the Towers crew replaced those massive cisterns on my roof which the August earthquake ruptured. Thus, I can shower and wash my clothes in comparative luxury. Just do not drink the water. I have survived four years in the tropics, and I do not intend to consume some nasty microbe at this late date. Dr. Moses does not make house calls from his swivel chair, and the bingo dames are in no mood to make a donation to my measly recovery.
“B Nine,“ the grace-sayer announces from his folding table. Given his previous cancer reference, the spoken word sounds like an encouraging prognosis. The big-belted lady behind me bursts like a balloon—“Bingo!“