No one at the Newell VFW realized the yearly frozen turkey order was wrong and that only about half the turkeys showed up. They came in these giant cardboard boxes, so the guys who were there when the shipment arrived just took them directly to the freezer, stacked them without opening them up to count what was inside, and no one realized there weren’t going to be nearly enough turkeys for the winners. The way the VFW’s annual turkey bingo night worked was that you played bingo, and the winner of each game got a turkey, but also in between the games, more turkeys were raffled off. The members all sold squares on a turkey board for three bucks each, and then three people from each board won. All in all, the VFW was supposed to give away 160 turkeys—150 from the raffle, plus the 10 bingo winners—but there turned out to only be about 85 of them in the freezer.

They didn’t notice the problem until a little under halfway through the night. The raffle winners all came through the side door between the main auditorium room and the kitchen to pick up their turkeys, and as Curt Burrow opened up the final box, he looked to Zane Sutton and said “we ain’t got enough turkeys here.”

“Guess one of us better go talk to Frank about that.”

Frank was Frank Pickett, who called the bingo game. Frank was the oldest member of the VFW post, a World War II vet who flew planes in the Pacific Theater. He’d also been the bingo caller for the last 35 years. Frank was a bit of a minor celebrity in Newell. He used to work out at the Phillips 66 plant, and he developed a trademark way of announcing O-66. He’d say “underneath the O, we’ve got that good old 66,” and everyone would clap, because a lot of them also had or did work there too.

Curt and Zane did rock, paper, scissors to see who’d go talk to Frank about the turkeys. Zane lost. He walked out of the kitchen and snuck around the back side of the stage just as Frank was saying “B-4, B-4.”

“Bingo,” a woman shouted from the crowd. She sprung to her feet and held her card up high in the air. “Bingo,” she shouted again. Someone sitting beside her at the table pumped his fist, and the woman high-fived everyone around her and then started to make her way up to the front.

Zane poked his head from behind the curtain that hid the a/v equipment. “Uhh, Frank,” he whispered. “We got a problem.”

Frank turned his head. “What kind of problem?”

“We’re about out of turkeys.”

“We’re…how the hell are we almost out of turkey?” He covered the microphone with his hand to make sure no one heard.

“Heck if I know. But we’re on the last box already.”

The woman had made her way to the stage. She went over to the table where Breece Pollard, the VFW post commander, was sitting. Breece’s role on turkey bingo night was to check the cards to make sure the bingos were good. Once he determined that someone had one, he’d give a nod to Frank, who’d say “and we’ve got a good bingo,” and the winner would then walk over to Frank, where they’d get a ticket for one free turkey. Frank didn’t say the good bingo part when the woman walked up, and when she reached out to grab the ticket, he hesitated for a second, kept it clasped in his hand. Finally, he gave it to her.

“What about the turkeys?,” Zane whispered.

“That’s not my problem,” Frank said. “I’m just here to call out numbers.”

“What are we going to do when they get back there and there’s no turkeys?”

“Y’all’ll have to figure that out. Go buy some more or something. I can wait a game or two to do some more raffle winners, if that helps.”

Zane pulled his head back behind the curtain and punched the air a couple times before heading back to the kitchen. The woman who’d just won was already there to pick up her turkey. There were still enough left to give her one.

“He said to go buy more turkeys,” Zane said.

“I’m not paying for that,” Curt said. “Them shits cost a lot.”

“Maybe we can grab some money from the office. It’s club business after all.”

“That I can do. You hold things down in here and I’ll go poke around back there.” He headed back to the VFW office, which was in the members-only section at the rear of the building. Curt fumbled in his pocket until he found his key, then went into the small back room, which had darts, pool, and shuffleboard, plus a bar that was stocked exclusively with Jim Beam and Coors Original. Behind the bar was the office, which was where they kept all the paperwork. He went inside and dug around, but he couldn’t find any money or a checkbook. If it was there, then it was in the locked drawer of the desk, and only Breece had the key to that.

“Well, that ain’t shit,” Curt said when he got back to the kitchen. “We’re going to have to take this all the way to the top.”

“I should have just talked to Breece from the start,” Zane said.

“You just thought Frank’d know what to do ‘cause he’s old.”

“And I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

“Not like we’ve been giving out extra turkeys. Probably Breece’s fault anyway.”

“Maybe we should just let him deal with this then.”

“He don’t know there’s something to deal with yet. I’ll go talk to him. You just keep giving out turkeys, I guess.”

“What’ll I do if we run out?”

“Hell if I know,” Curt said as he headed out of the kitchen. Zane walked into the freezer and started to count how many turkeys were left: twelve, which was enough for the rest of the bingo winners, but not nearly enough for more raffle winners. Maybe, he thought, they could just give everyone a rain check. Say “come back next week for your turkeys,” except it was already the Thursday before Thanksgiving, so would they even have time to get enough turkeys? He paced around the kitchen for five minutes or so before Curt returned.

“He said he ordered enough so we should count them up again.”

“I know how to count.”

“And he said if we count again and there’s still not enough, then the phone number for the company we got them from is on the desk.”

“It’s 8 o’clock. They ain’t going to be open.”

“Just passing along what he said.”

The next bingo winner came back to the kitchen and slid Zane his free turkey ticket. Zane took it and gave the man the turkey,  and as he put the frozen bird in the guy's hand, he heard Frank’s voice from the other room as he started to read off more raffle winners. “Jesus, he’s just hanging us out to dry back here. He said he wouldn’t announce any more.”

“I guess we’ll just give out what we have here and then tell everyone else we owe them a turkey.”

The next wave of raffle winners made their way to the kitchen. Curt and Zane set up by the freezer door, with Zane taking the tickets and Curt grabbing the birds. With each new person, the number of remaining turkeys dropped until they’d handed out the final one and the next guy stepped forward. It was Rowdy Joe, who owned a motorcycle repair shop in town. He had a reputation for causing problems, like when he threw a guy through a window during an argument over the price of custom exhaust pipes.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “I won me a turkey.”

“Actually,” Zane said.

“Actually what?”

“See, funny store. We ran out.”

“Quit the crap and grab my turkey.”

Curt stepped out from the freezer. “Afraid it’s not a joke,” he said. “Damn company didn’t send us enough.”

“So now I ain’t getting a turkey?”

“We’re going to work something out,” Curt said. “But for now, yeah…no turkeys.”

“This is turkey bingo. It’s right there in the name. It’s why I’m here. Shit, it’s why everyone’s here.”

“Look Joe, we’ll make this right.”

“Maybe I should go back out there and scream ‘they’re out of turkey’ and see how everyone feels about that.”

“Neither of us did the ordering, man,” Zane said.

“But you’re doing the handing out, so I suggest you find me a turkey, unless you want this to get bad.”

“You threatening us?,” Curt asked. “That’s pretty low.”

“Y’all get me a turkey before this night’s over or I’ll show you low.” He walked back out to the main room, and Curt and Zane waited for him to shout something about the turkey situation. They almost hoped he would, because then everyone would know and they wouldn’t have to face the awkwardness of more people coming back there. But all they heard was Frank’s voice calling out more numbers. B-12. G-59. They looked at the empty boxes in the freezer. “And underneath the O, we’ve got that good old 66,” Frank called out, and the room erupted into applause, and two voices screamed “bingo.” Curt and Zane looked at each other again, then closed the freezer door.

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Justin Carter is the author of Brazos (Belle Point Press, 2024). His short stories have appeared in BULL, HAD, Passages North, Rejection Letters, and other spaces. Originally from the Texas Gulf Coast, Justin currently lives in Iowa and works as a sports writer and editor.