Stories: All-New Tales

To win, the host lifts up this little box. Like a magician, he shows everybody what’s underneath—just this whole thing of bread in its naturally occurring state, the way bread comes before it’s made into anything you can eat like a sandwich or French toast. Just this bread, the whole way your mom might find it at the farm or wherever bread grows.

The table and chairs are totally, easily yours, except you have to guess the price of this big bread.

Behind you, all the Zeta Delts crowd really close together in their T-shirts, making what looks like one giant, red pucker in the middle of the studio audience. Not even looking at you, all their haircuts are just huddled up, making a big, hairy center. It’s like forever later when your phone rings, and a Zeta Delt voice says what to bid.

That bread just sitting there the whole time. Covered in a brown crust. The big voice says it’s loaded with ten essential vitamins and minerals.

The old game show host, he’s looking at you like maybe he’s never, ever seen a telephone before. He goes, “And what do you bid?”

And you go, “Eight bucks?”

From the look on the old grandma’s face, it’s like maybe they should call some paramedics for her heart attack. Dangling out of one sweatshirt cuff, this crumpled scrap of Kleenex looks like leaked-out stuffing, flapping white, like she’s some trashed teddy bear somebody loved too hard.

To cut you off using some brilliant strategy, the United States Marine, the bastard, he says, “Nine dollars.”

Then to cut him off, the rocket science guy says, “Ten. Ten dollars.”

It must be some trick question, because the old grandma says, “One dollar and ninety-nine cents,” and all the music starts, loud, and the lights flash on and off. The host hauls the granny up onto the stage, and she’s crying and plays a game where she throws a tennis ball to win a sofa and a pool table. Her grandma face looks just as smashed and wrinkled as that Kleenex she pulls out from her sweatshirt cuff. The big voice calls another granny to take her place, and everything keeps rushing forward.

The next round, you need to guess the price of some potatoes, but like a whole big thing of real, alive potatoes, from before they become food, the way they come from the miners or whoever that dig potatoes in Ireland or Idaho or some other place starting with an I. Not even made into potato chips or French fries.

If you guess right, you get some big clock inside a wood box like a Dracula coffin standing on one end, except with these church bells inside the box that ding-ding whatever time it is. Over your phone, your mom calls it a grandfather clock. You show it to her on video, and she says it looks cheap.

You’re onstage with the TV cameras and lights, all the Zeta Delts call-waiting you, and you cup your phone to your chest and go, “My mom wants to know, do you have anything nicer I could maybe win?”

You show your mom those potatoes on video, and she asks: Did the old host guy buy them at the A&P or the Safeway?

You speed-dial your dad, and he asks about the income-tax liability.

Probably it’s the Hello Kitty, but the face of this big Dracula clock just scowls at you. It’s like the secret, hidden eyes; the eyelids open up, and the teeth start to show, and you can hear about a million-billion giant, alive cockroaches crawling around inside the wood box of it. The skin of all the supermodels goes all waxy, smiling with their faces not looking at anything.

You say the price your mom tells you. The United States Marine says one dollar more. The rocket science guy says a dollar higher than him. Only, this round—you win.

All those potatoes open their little eyes.

Except now, you need to guess the price of a whole cow full of milk in a box, the way milk comes in the kitchen fridge. You have to guess the cost of a whole thing of breakfast cereal like you’d find in the kitchen cabinet. After that, a giant deal of pure salt the way it comes from the ocean only in a round box, but more salt than anybody could eat in an entire lifetime. Enough salt, you could rim approximately a million-billion margaritas.

All the Zeta Delts start texting you like crazy. Your in-box is piling up.

Next come these eggs like you’d find at Easter, only plain white and lined up inside some special kind of cardboard case. A whole, complete set of twelve. These really minimalist eggs, pure white…so white you could just look at them forever, only right away you need to guess at a big bottle like a yellow shampoo, except it’s something gross called cooking oil, you don’t know what for, and the next thing is you need to choose the right price of something frozen.

You cup one hand over your eyes to see past the footlights, except all the Zeta Delts are lost in the glare. All you can hear is their screaming different prices of money. Fifty thousand dollars. A million. Ten thousand. Just loony people yelling just numbers.

Like the TV studio is just some dark jungle, and people are just some monkeys just screeching their monkey sounds.

The molars inside your mouth, they’re grinding together so hard you can taste the hot metal of your fillings, that silver melting in your back teeth. Meantime, the sweat stains creep down from your armpit to your elbow, all black-red down both sides of your Zeta Delt T-shirt. The flavor of melted silver and pink bubblegum. It’s sleep apnea only in the day, and you need to remind yourself to take the next breath…take another breath…while the supermodels walking on sparkly high heels try pimping the audience a microwave oven, pimping a treadmill while you keep staring to decide if they’re really good-looking. They make you spin this doohickey so it rolls around. You have to match a bunch of different pictures so they go together perfect. Like you’re some white rat in Principles of Behavioral Psychology 201, they make you guess what can of baked beans costs more than another. All that fuss to win something you sit on to mow your lawn.

Thanks to your mom telling you prices, you win a thing like you’d put in a room covered in easy-care, wipe-clean, stain-resistant vinyl. You win one of those deals people might ride on vacation for a lifetime of wholesome fun and family excitement. You win something hand painted with the Old World charm inspired by the recent release of a blockbuster epic motion picture.

It’s the same as when you felt sick with a high fever and your little-kid heart would pound and you couldn’t catch your breath, just from the idea that somebody might take home an electric organ. No matter how sick you felt, you’d watch this show until your fever broke. All the flashing lights and patio furniture, it seemed to make you feel better. To heal you or to cure you in some way.