The partygoers trade their misfortunes like handwritten
recipes bound in a spiral notebook. They sit at card
tables in a room that has seen a lot of Jello in its
lifetime. Childish Gambino plays from the speakers.
“No live shows, cause I can’t find sponsors/For the only
black kid at a Sufjan concert.” A bottle blonde hipster
asks why he would even notice. Says she doesn’t see
color. That we are all the same. When all the chairs
are taken none of the men stand. Say they’d never
get up for a man. “No homo,” coughs one boy. The girls
say this isn’t what they asked for. In the corner,
Neal Schweiber says he won school treasurer, but
didn’t even run. One girl shakes dandruff onto the
table cloth. Says being shy now is like being a woman
was in the 60s. The boy in tight jeans says he hates
fashion and doesn’t know how to dance. On the bingo
cards, we all have to mark what we are—queer, shy,
woman, non-white—to see who earns the most pity
points. The ethnically ambiguous boy asks why the
middle says, “free.” Everyone knows that in bingo,
we all get a free space. A chance to start off on
equal footing. “What is an oppression that we all
know?” The host crosses out “free” and writes “alive.”
by Lauren Yates