The Fable of Bing

by Tim Sandlin

  Rosemary crosses from the bedroom, fresh from the shower, towel drying her hair. She’s wearing oversize sweats and fluffy house shoes. She waves her hand through the air to disperse cigarette smoke that she imagines wafts about her person.

  She opens the door to Turk Palisades, who, sure enough, is checking his screen. He clicks to sleep mode and charges past her into the house. No pausing for pleasantries. “Our podcast has had twenty million hits in two days, and that doesn’t count the million and a half who heard the original show. That You Tube miracle footage is up to fifty million.”

  Turk is wearing black. Silk shirt, jeans, ankle boots, he’s a Johnny Cash impersonator. “You’re monkey boy is the break we’ve been praying for.”

  Rosemary tucks her hair into the towel in a maneuver women are genetically programmed for and men aren’t. “He’s not mine and he’s not a monkey.”

  Turk turns on her. “What’s that?”

  “The boy is Bing. He’s not really a bonobo, much less a monkey.”

  Turk advances on Rosemary, studying her for signs of weakness. “You’re not emotionally involved with this ape, are you?”

  Rosemary sniffs and looks at Sarah’s photo above the false mantel. It’s Sarah in her field hockey uniform, alive in victory. She’d scored the winning goal while Rosemary was stuck in the penalty corner. “Of course not.”

  “He’s our ticket to the stars. One cannot get emotionally involved with ones ticket. You understand the subtext?”

  Flustered and uncomfortable, Rosemary retreats to the kitchen where she fusses with the Cuisinart coffee maker.

  Turk follows. “I’ve got him booked on San Diego Now. First thing Monday.”

  Rosemary stops, mid-reach for a mug she got free at a radio producer’s convention in Las Vegas. “But that’s TV.”

  “If he behaves himself and doesn’t scratch his nose or pick his butt on camera, we’ll place him on The View within a week. That’s your mission from now to Monday. Teach him how to sit in a chair without being disgusting.”

  Rosemary pours herself coffee. Assuming it is for him, Turks takes the mug from her hand.

  Rosemary says, “TV is the enemy. The false prophet. Why don’t we keep him for ourselves?”

  Turk squeezes a stream of honey into the mug. He likes his coffee sweet. “Your limits amaze me, Rosemary. It’s hard to believe how much time and energy I’ve invested in giving you the benefits of my wisdom.”

  Rosemary recalls what benefits of my wisdom means. They are the same benefits all the interns receive. When Rosemary first came to Centered Soul she saw Turk as the mentor she’d always craved. She was wild in her devotion to him. She was badly hurt when she went from intern to full-time and he cut out the personal instruction. Too much risk of a lawsuit, should her job end in bitterness.

  “TV is not the enemy,” Turk says. “Being common is the enemy. You want to be exceptional, don’t you?”

  She chooses another mug, this one a cup hand-painted by her mother at one of those paint-your-own ceramics shops in Encinitas. Her mother had painted the cup black with tiny silver stars. Rosemary’s mother was out of the picture now. Supposedly she’d moved to Denmark to farm. Before Rosemary can pour herself a second cup, Turk takes her wrists in both his hands. He turns her arms so the wrists face up, toward him.

  “Listen to what I have to say.” He leans in, close to her face. “If every searcher in America who is interested in life regressions, Transcendentalism, or inner balance tunes into my show, I still won’t have the numbers of a brainless bimbo batting false eyelashes on Home Shopping Network. Spiritual radio has a ceiling and I intend to smash through to the infinite.”

  “By switching to TV?”

  His tone is that of a sage speaking to a simple peasant. “We put the boy on TV, build this thing into a national frenzy, then have him perform one more brilliantly marketed public miracle, and I’ll be the most powerful personality in entertainment.”

  He sees disappointment in Rosemary’s eyes. “Us,” Turk says. “Bing. You and me. Centered Soul. We’ll reap a fortune.”

  Rosemary unlocks her wrists and steps away, toward the refrigerator. She speaks with her back to Turk. “Reaping a fortune isn’t why I followed you into spiritualism.”

  Turk touches her shoulder, swiveling her into eye contact. He knows she can’t get away so long as he maintains eye contact.

  “We’ll heal your sister.”

  Rosemary blinks tears. She stares at the floor. As if escaping from captivity, a long lock of spiral curls pops free from the towel apparatus covering her head. The word might be Boing, the way it pops out.

  “Isn’t that the reason you rescued him from the zoo?” Turk asks. “You’re not out to give this boy a centered soul of his own.”

  Turk turns to take in the living area. The house is so compact he can see most of it without walking around. Only the bedroom and bathroom are behind doors, and those doors are open, now. Bing’s absence is obvious.

  “Where is Tarzan anyway?”

  “Bing went outside to play. Said he wanted to be under the sky.”

  “By himself?” Turk retrieves his coffee mug from the counter. He looks into it as if deciding whether to drink or not, and decides not. “You sent our star outside without a handler?”

  “Bing doesn’t need a handler. He isn’t an animal.” Rosemary considers this statement. While Bing is not an animal, he certainly isn’t a grown up who can fend for himself. Handler is a nasty word, but if a nice synonym can be found, Rosemary would use it.

  “He’s worse. He’s a celebrity,” Turk says. “You can’t send a celebrity out with no handler.”

  “Why not?”

  “You have no control. He might start thinking.”

  42

  Bing is in a park. Not a park, really, more of a triangle formed by three streets that cross one another but don’t intersect. Besides badly cut grass, there are two Japanese black pines and a bench made of moldering concrete with a weak attempt at a Greek design on the back.

  Bing crouches on his haunches beside the root hump of one of the trees, next to a mid-sized red anthill. He strips a needle cluster through his teeth until he is left with a single, long needle. It’s not a maneuver most men his age can do cleanly, but Bing doesn’t view it as exceptional. He sights down the needle to gauge straightness, then he inserts the tip of the needle into the top hole of the anthill.

  Red ants don’t like objects stuck in their holes. They swarm up the needle, soon coating it with wriggling, crawling, antennae thrusting red bodies. Bing cocks his head to one side. He studies ants climbing over ants. Some circle the needle, most head up the blade toward his fingers. After thirty seconds or so, when Bing judges the needle about as ant saturated as it’s going to get, he withdraws the needle from the anthill hole. He holds it upright, to the sky, then he licks it like a kid on a Popsicle.

  As he slurps ants, he thinks about Rosemary’s eyebrows. Her eyelids. Her lashes, top and bottom. Her eyes. He wants to lick her eyelashes. They might feel like licking ants.

  That’s when Bing hears a squeal of brakes, a Yelp, and a curse — Fuck! He looks up from his ants to see a motorcycle on its side in the street and a leather-clad motorcyclist pulling himself to his feet, cursing again and again. The motorcyclist rights the bike, climbs on, and kick starts the machine. He glances down at a clump of fur beside the curb, then he drives away, swerving his body left, then right, before straightening up and speeding off.

  A boy — maybe ten, shorts, white t-shirt with nothing written on it, untied sneakers — shrieks his fury and runs into the street. He kneels next to the clump of fur, which is a Springer spaniel with broken back legs. The boy cradles the dog in his arms. The dog is near the limit of what the boy can carry, especially crying. He brings the dog to the only grownup in sight — Bing.

  Bing moves from haunches to knees as the boy gingerly places the dog on the ground. Bing can tell it’s a fairly old dog. The muzzle is gray. The t
eeth are worn. His mud red collar looks as if it hasn’t come off in years.

  “The fellow on the motorbike ran into your pet and drove away.”

  The boy gasps through tears. “Bastard jerk.”

  “Maybe he was afraid.”

  “He wasn’t afraid.” The boy touches the dog behind its ears. The dog looks up at the boy with an expression of infinite depth. He doesn’t appear to be in great pain, although he can’t breathe properly and blood dribbles from his nostrils.

  The boy’s lip trembles. “He’s an asshole.”

  Bing and the boy kneel on opposite sides of the spaniel, watching him gulp for air. His tongue lolls from his mouth. He makes no sound that Bing can hear. Bing wonders why the man on the motorcycle would be a body part.

  “My mama’s had Spanky since before I was born. I said I would take care of him if she let us go for a walk.” The boy’s tears drip onto the dog’s fur. “She’s gonna kill me.”

  Bing looks from Spanky to the boy. He sees a leash coiled in the boy’s hand, a leash that should have been attached to the red collar.

  “I shall try to help.”

  More sniffles and a snort, as if the boy is pulling tears back in. “What can you do?”

  Bing leans forward over Spanky, who looks up at him. The dog’s eyes skitter, as if he sees things in the air Bing and the boy can’t see. He moans — once.

  Bing places his hands, palm down, over the dog’s head and midsection. He closes his eyes, but not tightly closed. Fluttery closed. He hums. The hum is a monotone, neither up pitch nor down. It continues a full thirty seconds. Around them, the world is silent, as if the air has been sucked away.

  The boy says, “Spanky died.” Bing opens his eyes and looks down at the clump of fur that used to be a dog.

  The boy says, “You told me you would help.”

  “I am filled with sorrow.”

  They both stare at the dead Spanky. An SUV drives past. A crow caws. The ants from the anthill crawl across Bing’s ankle. They bite him but he doesn’t react.

  Finally, the boy reaches over the body and touches Bing on the shoulder. Bing’s first impulse is rapid withdrawal, but he stops still. He’s grown accustomed to touching in the last few days, mostly from Rosemary. He doesn’t mind so much now.

  The boy says, “You did what you could.”

  “I failed.”

  “Spanky doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  Bing tastes salt in his mouth, from his tears.

  43

  Bing comes in as Turk is going out. Turk has finished not drinking the coffee and he’s explained the social impact of Bing picking his nose on TV.

  He said, “Don’t blow this, Rosemary.”

  She said, “I don’t want Bing hurt.”

  Statements like that bring out the worst side of Turk Palisades. He fell back on sarcasm, and, while no one comes across as noble when they’re dripping sarcasm, Turk comes across as worse than the norm. Maybe it is the poofy lips. Or the slicked-back hair that makes him look like a futures and options investment banker. Whatever the cause, it is not pleasant to witness.

  “No one’s going to hurt your little pet.”

  The door opens and Bing drags into the room. He looks discouraged. His pants are dirty. There’s a visible tear streak down his face.

  He says, “Hello, Mr. Turk.”

  Turk stares at Bing like he’s an exhibit.

  Rosemary says, “Where have you been, Bing?”

  “Outside.”

  “What have you been doing to keep yourself busy?”

  “Nothing.”

  Turk goes into friendly uncle mode. “Rosemary and I were just visiting, Binger. We’re wondering how you would like me to put you on TV?”

  Bing looks from Turk to Rosemary to the floor. “That would be nice.”

  “Nice?” Turk kind of blows out the word. “That would be Great!” He does a Tony the Tiger on the word Great! “We’ll make you the most famous boy raised by apes in the world. You’ll make George of the Jungle look like an assistant night manager at Arby’s.”

  Bing blinks rapidly, which is not something Rosemary has ever seen him do. “I do not know this George person.”

  “My point, exactly.” Turk laughs at his own joke. “Nobody who counts knows about George of the Jungle, but by next week, they will know about Bing the Bonobo.”

  Bing’s eyes search out Rosemary. “Is that good?”

  Rosemary says, “Yes, Bing. It will be easier for you to get the things you want when you’re famous.”

  “I don’t want things.”

  Turks laughs like Bing is being hilarious. He points an index finger at Rosemary. “Have him ready by Monday.” Then he pretends to shoot her with his finger pistol and leaves. He shuts the door with more force than is necessary.

  In the sudden silence after the door closes behind Turk, Bing says, “What is TV?”

  44

  “TV isn’t radio. You can’t simply talk and act anyway you want because people can see what you’re doing. You have to behave.”

  “I would very much like to view TV.”

  “You’ve never seen TV?”

  Bing twists his left foot up to his face and bites off the ragged cusp of his big toenail. He tastes the nail a moment, then spits it into a glass dish Rosemary has provided for just such an event. She’s starting to know Bing and plan ahead.

  Bing says, “Your TV in there looks like a security monitor.”

  “So you’ve seen security monitors.”

  “Everybody has seen security monitors.” He switches feet. “But monitors can’t see me, except for Dr. Lori. She has a special monitor that can follow me all over the park.”

  This is part of Bing Rosemary has never figured out. “Why is it that security cameras don’t pick you up?”

  “Except Dr. Lori’s does.”

  “All security cameras except for Dr. Lori’s. How is it they don’t capture you?”

  He shrugs. “Do you think this TV I’m going to will be able to see me? What I can and can’t do has changed since I left the bonobos.”

  A picture comes to Rosemary’s mind of the TV host sitting next to an empty chair. “It would be freaky if they stuck you in front of a camera and your image wasn’t in the shot. Your disciples would go ape shit.”

  Bing looks at her.

  “I don’t mean literally. No one would turn into ape waste.”

  “Then why say they will?”

  “It’s a metaphor. Means their brains would have the alertness of poop on the ground.”

  “I don’t know metaphor.”

  “We’ll work on it.”

  They are in Rosemary’s small kitchen, which is divided from the living area by a rib-high counter. Rosemary’s kitchen has a nook table with benches on two sides, so they aren’t face-to-face. They have to turn slightly to see one another full on. Rosemary sits on the trapped side of the table. She can’t get out unless Bing stands up and moves. His legs are turned to the side in a way where he can see them while hers are under the table.

  “You can’t go twitchy on TV,” Rosemary says. “No scratching or eating bugs during the interview.”

  He examines his foot closely. There is blood between the third and fourth toes. Using his tongue for floss, he cleans it out.

  “You must sit perfectly still while the host asks a question. Then you answer, but you still can’t move anything except your mouth.”

  “What question is that?”

  “We’ll worry about the questions after we establish a demeanor of calm control.”

  “I can do control.”

  Rosemary turns on her ever-present Droid and scrolls to the stopwatch function. “Let’s see how long you can go without movement.”

  “Your phone will explain that?”

  “I’ll touch this spot and say, Go, and the clock will start. I’ll touch it again when you wiggle and we’ll see how much time has gone by. You understand?”

  “I’m not comfortable w
ith time.”

  “No one is, Bing. But we need to see what you can do. Ready?”

  Bing nods. He leans back with his right ankle over his left knee. His hands rest on top of his head.

  Rosemary says, “Go.”

  Bing’s foot flutters.

  Rosemary says, “Stop.”

  Bing says, “What?”

  “You moved.”

  “I deny it.”

  “Your foot’s like a dry humping rabbit.”

  He looks at his foot. “But I didn’t go anywhere. I’m still right here.”

  “You don’t have to go anywhere to move. Let’s try again.”

  This time, Bing sneezes. Rosemary leans over with a paper towel to blot the snot train. “Two seconds.”

  “TV is hard. I don’t think I want to be on TV. I’d rather eat at that fruit place.”

  Rosemary falls back on a technique she learned from an Atman master who manifested on Turk’s show. It seemed to work well for the Atman guy. “Think of it this way. Pretend a blue band of light is entering your body at your belly button.”

  “The proper word is navel.”

  “Right. Your navel. And the band of light travels up your body and comes out at your Third Eye where it has turned a rosy red.”

  “What defines a Third Eye?”

  “Your forehead.”

  Bing touches his forehead. “I have no eye in that place.”

  “It’s invisible.”

  “Like I used to be only I’m not any more.”

  “Stay on task, Bing. The blue light goes in, that rosy light comes out, and your body is focused and solid. No tremors.”

  “How am I supposed to answer questions with light going in and out and my body frozen?”

  “We’ll worry about questions after we stop the fidgets.”

  45

  After twenty minutes of blue light in and rose light out — and a terribly failed experiment with duct tape — Bing finally focuses enough to move onto the question and answer part of training. By now, Bing and Rosemary are sitting on bar stools on opposite sides of the counter. Rosemary is using a pepper mill with a Knot’s Berry Farm logo on the side as a pretend microphone. Bing chews gum. Rosemary knows gum will never fly as TV etiquette, but it’s the closest she can get him to calm.