You are hollering. Loud. A simple number. 18. Over and over. Your eyes are fixed on a number grid. You are not alone, there are 50 others screaming numbers; just not yours. Some try it with "here, here,...." No, you are not in Las Vegas at a roulette table, you are cramped around a wire cage west of San Antonio, in Big T's Roadhouse and you watch a chicken strut the grid. Finally, relief is here, the chicken sets a wet one on a number and that number wins. Wins, wins big, the whole pot.
That's how you experience "Chicken Shit Bingo." What started out at carnivals under tents, is still played in the country. Also known as "Chicken Drop" it actually has universal appeal, in the Alps furry cows do it on a gridded meadow, they call it "Cow Patty Bingo." But back to the fowl in St. Hedwig, where Big T's draws a big crowd every Sunday.
Whenever the band takes a break people rush to the pool table covered in a randomly numbered and gridded plywood top with a chicken wire cage on top of it. Two dollars gets you in and gives you "your number." And then the protagonist of the afternoon arrives. Shiny feathers, a comb reaching the sky. He knows it's his 15 minutes of fame to make you a loser or a winner.
Normally the 15 minutes get cut short - a mild laxative helps to keep the attention span at bay. Originally brought into Austin by Country musician Dale Watson, the by now worldwide famous Chicken droppings event, started around 2000 in Ginny Kalmbach's bar, "Ginny's Little Longhorn." She retired in 2013, new owner Dale and part of his family took over. Dale also bought Big T's in St. Hedwig. By now Dale left the central Texas area, sold his interest in both bars and moved to Memphis. So I assume there soon will be a "Chicken Shit Bingo" - maybe at Graceland? But the tradition in Austin and St. Hedwig goes on, after church and lunch you spend the afternoon at the bar, having a couple of cold ones and scream your numbers.
And when relief comes, I heard more than one patron shout "shit," not to encourage the barnyard fowl, but realizing that they just lost. 5 won the pot, 18 the sneer. Glad there is another round of playing the next time the band takes a break. Let's get a beer and dance to the band like the dickens to the West Texas Waltz.
