The Lucky Strikes

By Brad Shaw

The way that I found out my father wasn’t my father happened at the most unlikely of places, a bowling alley. In the decades leading up to the reveal if one was or was not the baby’s father on Maury, word of mouth and whispers carried just as much weight as a paternity test did. It didn’t help matters that I looked nothing like my father, but rather someone from a bygone era, the milkman.  

But that’s getting ahead of myself and how these events transpired. 

My mother was on the bowling team The Lucky Strikes, named after their preferred cigarettes, which clung to my clothes like a cheap cologne hours after their practices and tournaments had faded away, unlike the stink of the cigarettes. The group of women was comprised of those who lived on our block. Miriam, Barb, Betty Sue, Trudy, and my mother Mary made up The Lucky Strikes.  

It was interesting, even at a young age, to see my mother outside of her wife, mother, and homemaker role. She seemed lighter, and prone to laughter that made her entire body shake. Because there was a definite shortage of laughter at our ranch style home.  

My father, Bob, could knock back beers after work just as effectively as my mother could knock down the pins. The difference was my mother wouldn’t become belligerent with her demeanor or throw hurtful gutter balls with her words.  

My maternal grandmother, Gladys, was also a bowling aficionado, and the primary influence of where my mother got her competitive nature from. However, she was on an opposing team The Sunset Ladies, given that the combined age of the five-woman that fleshed it out was 300 years old. But they were a force to be reckoned with and were up against The Lucky Strikes in the big tournament.     

The Lucky Strikes sat around our yellow Formica table, seated upon its matching-colored chairs, strategizing, white plumes of smoke creating a haze, making the lime green walls of the kitchen barely visible.  They were debating The Sunset Ladies’ strengths and weaknesses, each bemoaning the fact they needed a bigger edge over the competition. 

“Wait a second!” Miriam cried out. “I’ve got it, and it will put them in their gosh darn places!” 

She dropped her voice to a whisper tone befitting of a conspirator, even though the only one outside of the group who could spill the beans would be me; and I was having enough trouble reciting the alphabet at this point in my life, let alone tell my grandmother about the diabolical plot I was not privy to.      

 When she was done whispering her master plan, they all replied, “Miriam, you’re so crazy!” and motioned with their hands, as if raising a roof, in the hopes of dropping one on The Sunset Ladies.   

Had I known exactly how left their plan would go, and that the only word I needed to halt it was a simple “no,” I could have saved myself, and others, a lifetime of sorrow.  

And the next day brought with it the promise of victory and something foreboding, an invisible hand of fate ready to pick up a bowling ball the size of a wrecking ball and hurl it into the unknown, to let the pins fall where they may. 

The first part of Miriam's plan saw, or rather heard, Barb shout out to Sunset Lady Darlene that you could barely make out the outline of her adult diaper, as she positioned herself to throw a strike and stumbled after Barb’s fashion critique. The tactic worked as her hot pink bowling ball landed in the gutter.   

Betty Sue cautioned Linda that you couldn’t tell she had gotten drunk before the match and cautioned the other Sunset Ladies that they probably should not light one in her vicinity.  

After that distraction, Gladys huddled with the women on her team, giving them ammo to help them strike back. I had wandered over to where they were saying words like, “adultery,” “pill popper,” and “shoplifter,” only wanting one of the endless Werther’s Original candies that lived in the bottom of grandmother’s purse. She shooed me away like a pesky fly, and I retreated to The Lucky Strikes bullpen, sugarless and disheartened.  

They were also conferring with one another, and I was shooed away again. I sat down in an orange plastic seat with a thud. After more catcalls from both teams, mom and grandmother were facing off against each other. Both looked nervous, but not about breaking the tie that would name one of the teams as victorious. 

“Remind me, Mary.” Grandmother said, the previous nervous look replaced with one of a cobra that was ready to spit venom. “Was Billy breast or bottle fed? Because if it was that latter, you must have gotten a lot of free milk from his real father.” 

“Speaking of fathers,” Mom countered without missing a beat. “It’s a shame mine didn’t find you attractive. How many half-siblings would you figure I have? I forget how many secretaries he had.”   

Like gladiators in a coliseum, and with their bowling balls serving as their only weapons, I watched in horror as my relatives went into combat mode.  

My mother narrowly missed having her head smashed in, the ball leaving grandmother’s hand and made its way down the alley, knocking all the pins down, save for two. As grandmother raced away from mom coming at her, bowling ball raised above her head, she tripped. Grandmother used the opportunity to kick her in the stomach, the ball pitched behind her, went down the lane, and... ended up in the gutter. 

The owner of Up Your Alley had called the police, and as grandmother and mom were handcuffed and being led away, my mother said something that has always stayed with me.   

“Sometimes when we lose, we win.”