Turkey
by Alex Taylor
I get drunk and buy a bowling ball. The first game I bowl a 122. I’m the only one here besides the manager and a girl running the snack-shack. I’d say the silence of the place is because of COVID-19 but it’s a Monday afternoon in a Gillette bowling alley.
“How’s the ball feel?” asks the manager, who sold it to me.
“Alright,” I say.
“Try another game, you get three for free with the ball.”
I order another pitcher of Bud Light from the snack-shack and she brings two glasses along with it. I fill both. It’s my first day living in Wyoming and, between the beer, the ball and shoes, I’m already $175 invested into a new hobby.
I think of the first night you and I went bowling together back in Michigan. Neither of us were any good. We drank beer and ate bowling alley nachos. You complained they didn’t give you enough sour cream. I placed eight two-ounce cups of sour cream on the table while you were in the bathroom.
I start another game and bowl a 116. The snack-shack employee goes to smoke a cigarette in the parking lot. I finish both beers and pour two more.
“Any better?” the manager asks.
“Worse.”
“You just have to get angry at the pins,” he says. “That’s what I do.”
I think of the engagement ring collecting dust in your closet. I start another game and bowl a 154.
“Drinkin’ for two?” the snack lady says.
“Habit.”
She brings me another pitcher, $8 more to the tab. Monday is the alley’s pitcher special, like a minor league baseball team having $1 hotdog nights without any fans.
Maybe it’s the shoes, I think, so I buy a pair of bowling shoes. My tab grows to a considerable percentage of the building’s rental payment. I pour two more beers and slip into the footwear that makes me feel like I’m wearing clogs.
I think of all the unanswered messages and the missed graduation, of the happy birthday that never came and the new guy you’re probably using to erase the memory of me. I bowl a 171.
“That’s better,” the manager says, with nothing else to do but critique my game and pretend to wash bowling balls. “Did the advice work?”
I think of shame. I think of the time spent feeling bad for myself. I think of the year I’ve spent away from you and the year you’ve spent away from me. I bowl a 182.
Another $8 to the snack lady nets me a fresh pitcher as I fight the craving to smoke.
“You gonna be here all day?” she asks.
“Lookin’ that way.”
She takes the empty pitcher and goes back to her bar stool across the alley. The dog at home needs to be let out. One more game of therapy.
I think about the day you promised we’d never break up. I think about all the days I believed you. I think about the letters you wrote for all our anniversaries. I think about you and aim straight at the two-pin. I think about you and bowl two turkeys. I think about you and bowl a 211.
“Whatever you were thinking about was working,” the manager says.
I pack the bowling ball and the bowling shoes in my trunk. I drive away from the bowling alley not feeling much like a winner. I haven’t been bowling since.
Alex Taylor is a sports reporter for the Gillette News Record in Gillette, Wyoming. He graduated from Western Michigan University with a creative writing degree and regretted it so much he went and got an MFA in creative writing at the University of Tampa. His work has been published in the Tampa Bay Times, Fleas on the Dog, and The Daily Drunk.