The Fable of Bing

by Tim Sandlin

  “Dr. Lori gave morphine to a lemur after another lemur tore out his testicles and he hurt.”

  Sarah almost smiles. “I don’t have testicles, but I can only think that if I had them and someone tore them out, it would hurt.”

  Bing tries to imagine what torn out testicles would feel like. He imagines it would be uncomfortable. “The lemur died.” He settles back into the guest chair and points to a monkey dish holding three forlorn peach slices floating in lukewarm fluid. “May I eat this please?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “I don’t –”

  “Go right ahead.”

  As he slurps peaches Bing looks at Sarah who seems to be looking inside herself. Just like on the porch, she is still the most remarkably pleasant to look at person he has ever seen, including Rosemary who is also remarkably pleasant to look at but in a more active way. Looking at Rosemary makes him want to lick behind her ears. Looking at Sarah makes him want to look at Sarah longer.

  Bing says, “Rosemary told me you sometimes forget where you are.”

  Sarah rubs her nose. Itchy skin, dry mouth, pinprick eyes — she hasn’t been here but a few times, but it only takes once to know what to expect. “I find that nice, sometimes, not knowing where I am. I’d rather be somewhere else than here even if I don’t where the somewhere else is. It’s like going on vacation.” She nods a bit. “Do you ever have times you’d like to forget where you are?”

  “Sometimes,” Bing says, although at the moment he can’t recall a time like that. “I usually know where I am. I haven’t been enough different places to forget them. Mostly just the zoo and Rosemary’s house.”

  “How is my sister?” Sarah asks. “Rosemary fakes cheerful when she comes to visit. She thinks she has to be strong or I’ll collapse in a heap, so I don’t know how she truly feels.”

  Bing tips the monkey dish to suck down the sticky fluid. “The slut jumped my bones.”

  Sarah — who wasn’t actually paying close attention to the conversation, due to brain slog and concentration on her insides — catches on to what Bing is saying. She makes the mental leap that the boy heard the word slut somewhere but he doesn’t know the insinuation. Same with jumped bones. Bottom line, though, is this guy is sleeping with her sister.

  “Good for her,” Sarah says. “Good for you too.”

  Sarah watches Bing at an angle, as if she knows things about him that he doesn’t know and she finds those things humorous. It makes Bing self-conscious, which isn’t a state of being he recognizes.

  “Her boss the great man wants me to heal you. He said it will raise our profile.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Bing shrugs the way bonobos shrug — with his entire body. “It has to do with famous.”

  Given the situation, Sarah would rather float away, but Bing is igniting hope and hope is something she needs to pay attention to. “Are we going to cooperate with this? You told me before you didn’t think you could cure me.”

  “Turk says I can, and he’s a genius with vision.” He picks up the mirror and spins the handle between his palms, causing a strobe-like reflection. “What do you think?”

  Sarah motions toward the IV bag. “Whatever happens has to be better than being tied to that.”

  Bing stops the twirling mirror and studies his lips. Being raised with bonobos, Bing has always found his lips lacking expression. He makes a kissing shape.

  Sarah says, “Bing?”

  “Sarah, what’s a messiah?”

  She wants to follow his thought process, but it isn’t straightforward and she needs straightforward. “A wise man. A healer and savior. It’s religious.”

  “I don’t fathom religious but Rosemary wants me to make you better. She told me the day she took me from the zoo. We are love now. Her happiness is what matters.”

  Bing sits in his chair and Sarah lies on her bed in silence for a while, each thinking their own thoughts and wondering what the other is thinking. Sarah can’t tell if Bing is thinking about the implications of being a messiah or he’s simply admiring his lips. He thinks she might be asleep with her eyelids half closed and half open.

  Bing says, “I think Rosemary is love with you. She cares that you are happy more than herself. I am love for her.” He drifts off.

  Sarah says, “And?”

  “Rosemary comes before me for me and you come before Rosemary for her, so what matters is what you want. Not Turk or Rosemary. You.”

  “I have no clue what you just said.”

  “If I help you feel less hurt, it would be good. Yes?”

  “I would do anything to feel less hurt.”

  Bing stops playing with his face. “Anything there is?”

  Sarah nods and this time it’s a yes nod and not a nodding out of reality nod. Even Bing can tell the difference.

  “I did not know you want this so much.”

  Sarah reaches her hand with the IV in the vein across to touch Bing on his wrist. “Pain is no fun at all, Bing. None.”

  Bing stares at her. She stares back. A world of communication flows between them. It would be awkward if she wasn’t stoned and he was more than two weeks from living with apes. As it is, they both understand.

  “We’ll do what Turk and Rosemary want,” Bing says.

  She watches him closely. Even though he is in soft focus, she knows what he is thinking and what it means to her.

  Bing says, “I’ll be famous for them. You won’t hurt.”

  61

  The miracle is set for next Saturday. Tuesday, Rosemary takes Bing to a movie — Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Bing has more experience with Impossible Shit than special effects, so, naturally, he believes it’s all real and he makes such a racket they are escorted from the theater before Harry finds out whether or not Draco Malfoy is a death eater but not before Bing discovers popcorn.

  Wednesday, Bing borrows Rosemary’s Jetta keys without permission. He has observed closely, so is able to stick the key in the ignition and he does know how to put the car in gear, and he knows at least the theory behind steering. What he hasn’t observed is Rosemary’s feet as she drives. The accelerator and brake are unknown elements, which is why Bing tops out at two miles an hour before he high centers on a lilac bush.

  Thursday, they go shopping at the mall. Bing drinks from the reflecting pool. His followers spot him and two hundred people follow Rosemary and Bing into Nordstrom’s. Bing bites a paparazzi. Later, he eats his first plate of nachos and the onslaught of grease on his system culminates in vomit at the height of a romantic moment with Rosemary.

  Friday night, Sarah goes for a walk.

  62

  George Levinson, C.P.A., battles his lungs. He concentrates on his abdomen because he’s been told raising your abdomen will bring in more oxygen than raising your chest. He sucks air and counts — one, two three — then he exhales — one, two, three.

  George is dying. He’s known this since yesterday when his wife Anita brought toiletries and an overnight case of clothes to the hospital. She’s in for the duration. Right now, Anita sleeps next to his bed in a hospital chair so uncomfortable it must have been designed as punishment for loved ones.

  George it trying to memorize Anita as he counts each breath. She’s lost weight. Her collarbones are bookends. Her hair is flat. George and Anita have been together fifty-two years, yet she won’t tell him he’s dying. She won’t call hospice. His fear is that caretaking him might finish her. Her heart isn’t up to living on coffee and sleeping in a chair. He should die and let her get some decent sleep, but his other fear is death.

  Blackness and forever nothingness. To George, people who aren’t terrified by death haven’t put any thought into the matter. Every tortured inhalation beats the alternative of disappearing into the blank room.

  Outside his window the horizon behind the avocado field shows a line of light. He’s survived one more night. George doesn’t want to die at night. He doesn’t want to die. A finch lands o
n the feeder Anita keeps stocked outside George’s window. George blinks, watching the bird twitch at the seed. He loses focus on breathing and his chest throbs, then he sucks air with a rasp of the tubes that dip into each nostril.

  Without knowing how he knows, George is aware someone else is in the room, someone other than Anita. With effort, he turns his head from the window to the door where he sees a beautiful young woman — white hair, white nightgown, blue eyes, soft mouth. She is at peace, looking at him.

  George’s voice is raw. “You an angel?”

  Sarah smiles. “Yes.”

  “You here to take me?”

  She tilts her head a touch to the side. “Not now. Soon.”

  George blinks rapidly, processing. He always wanted to believe, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t. But, now, with her standing before him – “Will it hurt?”

  “Of course not.” Her voice is what he always imagined an angel’s voice would be. “You will feel better than ever before. You will have no pain, and you will breathe without effort.”

  “Will I know who I am? Where I am?” This matters to George. He’s read about belief systems where you go on but you don’t remember your life or what you did or who you loved, which, to George, seems an awfully lot like not going on at all.

  “Yes, silly. You will still be you after you are no longer pinned to your body. You’ll just feel good.”

  “I don’t understand how that can be.”

  Sarah lifts her hand, as if bestowing her blessing. “The only thing to understand is this: There is nothing to be afraid of. That is what you need to know now. Nothing to fear.”

  George feels the terror lifting, like a wet, heavy net rising from his body. He can accept this. “What is it like, on the far side?”

  Sarah seems to be listening to someone outside the room. After a long moment, she says, “Do you recall the dog you loved, as a child?

  “Toby?”

  “Toby is waiting. He will be just as happy to see you now as he was when you came home from school.”

  George pictures the dog he hasn’t thought of in years. Toby was Australian shepherd and whenever George returned from anywhere, even if he was only gone five minutes, Toby would explode with joy.

  Sarah goes on. “You will be fine. The change is easier when you aren’t frightened. It’ll be like slipping into a warm bath.”

  “Okay.” George glances at his sleeping wife, then back to Sarah. “I’m ready.”

  She gives her head a small shake. “Not now.”

  “When?”

  “Later today, after you have said goodbye.” She leans toward Anita. “Don’t change without telling her you are content. That you love her. That she is not to blame.”

  “Not to blame.” George draws a breath. One-two-three-four. He nods again, slowly. “It’ll be good to see Toby.”

  Sarah slips away.

  63

  The day arrives.

  Bing curls fetal in darkness. A true darkness without form. None of this various shades of black you find on moonless nights on the savannah at the Safari Zoo. This is a darkness your eyes will never grow accustomed to. In darkness, Bing nests on and under warm, wooly material. Like being untethered in space, he feels buried in softness and he trembles with fear.

  He moans. He would wonder what he ever did to reach this place, but that was earlier, now he has moved beyond thought to white emotion.

  From far away, he hears a voice. “Bing?”

  It is Rosemary, calling him. “Bing, where are you?”

  Bing curls deeper into himself. He holds his breath, no moaning now.

  “I need you, Bing.”

  Part of Bing, the part past memory, feels the way he did in the box with Betty and his brother on the long trip from Africa. It’s the dark, soft odor of being inside the warmth of breathing fur.

  “Bing.” The closet door opens, flooding the pile of dirty and clean clothes with light. Rosemary can see Bing’s bare foot, peeking out from under her sweats. She says, “It’s time to get ready.”

  She reaches in and pulls her winter coat that she hasn’t worn in three years — since Yosemite with Sarah — off Bing’s head. His eyes are clenched on the theory that if he can’t see her, she can’t see him. He’s naked.

  “What are you doing?”

  Bing says, “Decontamination.”

  “You self-imposed decontamination?”

  He nods without looking up.

  Rosemary says, “You’re not contaminated, Bing. You’re pure as bottled water.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Get up and get dressed. It’s time we put this show on the road.”

  Bing opens his eyes, but he doesn’t move.

  Rosemary says, “Bing. Pull it together here. I can’t let you flake now.”

  Bing turns his face to look up at Rosemary. Backlit by the bedroom, her hair appears to be smoking, about to burst into flame. He says, “Too late. I am flake.”

  64

  Bing sleeps under a big damn fig tree. One of those trees so big and old they rate a name. The afternoon is blue and open in a way fairly unique to San Diego County. There is a crispness, a mix of humidity, sunshine, and breeze. Even for a city whose primary distinction is its weather is better than the weather in Los Angeles, days like this are not taken for granted.

  A hundred yards from Bing, across an immaculate lawn, lies a scene of orchestrated chaos. The crowds are held back by yellow rope. They have naturally divided themselves between God seekers and the afflicted. Network and cable news trucks have their satellite hookups mounted like antlers. One truck has the sole purpose of dropping off and picking up Port-A-Potties. Earlier in the afternoon, Bing volunteered to help unload the blue plastic outhouses, but he was rejected on the grounds of no union card. He didn’t understand and not understanding flustered him to the point of sleeping in the fig roots.

  A temp stage has been set up on risers at the end of the picnic area, behind a huge flat rock that costs Turk $3,000 for the day. This is a rock straight out of Narnia. Waist high, flat as a Ping Pong table, you could easily envision tying a lion down on it.

  Turk — in upscale, urban black, with silver jewelry off his neck and right wrist — stands next to Sarah’s primary physician explaining Sarah’s health problems and the impossibility of faking a healing to a pool of reporters. They’ve passed around x-rays. Turk uses a laser stick to point out scar tissue on an x-ray blown up the size of a movie screen behind his podium.

  “This is Dr. Aurelio Chavez who will explain the disease better than a modest radio personality such as I am ever could.”

  Turk steps aside and Dr. Chavez takes his place at the microphone. Dr. Chavez has been in long-term care for thirty years, first as a doctor then as an administrator. He sees this as his fifteen minutes in the spotlight and he doesn’t intend to waste the moment. As the doctor pontificates — no other word will do — on the subject of tubal scar tissue, Mitchell edges under the spreading fig leaves to awaken Bing.

  “Hey, Binger, they’re about ready for you.”

  Bing blinks awake. Bonobos don’t go from asleep, to sleepy to gradually awake. They go from full sleep to full alert. It’s a jungle thing based on predator and prey. Lions can afford morning grogginess. Bonobos can’t.

  Sticks in hair, Armani suit, Givenchy black t-shirt, jellies, he plucks a cocoon off a fallen twig, pops it open, and eats the white thing inside.

  Mitchell settles in beside him. “Can I ask you a question, Bing?”

  “Yes, you may, Mitchell. I would enjoy answering a question.” The ground is littered with dry fig husks and a visible root system you mostly see in hot weather trees, making it awkward to sit or lie on. Mitchell shifts around, settling his great bulk. He leans forward, like a man about to fart, but instead he pulls a fig husk from under his bottom.

  “Do you think I should move to Africa?”

  Bing says, “That is a good question,” because Rosemary taught him to say that
when asked a question he can’t answer.

  Mitchell takes off his cowboy hat, revealing a tan line like a bowl across his forehead.

  “I’m thirty-four and I live with my mom and step-dad. You know what that’s like?”

  “I am not thirty-four, I don’t think.”

  “I haven’t been laid in two years. The last time I brought a girl home the next morning Mom brought us oatmeal in bed.” Mitchell snorts a mirthless laugh. “With raisins and brown sugar. That was the last I saw of that chick.”

  “Turk said laid. I thought I could fathom laid but I don’t anymore.”

  Mitchell edges toward Bing, in confidence mode. “I’ve been told by a fella who should know that African women go ape-shit for cowboys.”

  Bing considers the picture. “In what part of Africa do women go ape-shit?”

  Mitchell frowns. He hadn’t considered parts. “Is there a difference? It’s desert at the top and jungle at the bottom, but the girls are all the same. My friend said a cowboy in Africa is like a kid at 31 Flavors of Ice Cream.”

  “Is that the number of ice cream kinds? I only know two.”

  “He said you point at your choice and enjoy. Then when you’re done, you point at a new choice. I figured since you came from Africa you would know the mores.”

  “I do not know mores.”

  “About the girls.”

  “Pointing and enjoying does not sound like what Rosemary showed about being love.”

  “We’re not talking love. That won’t come till girl number three or four.”

  “I may have been born in Africa, I do not remember. Rosemary is the first girl I met and she is from somewhere else.”

  “I figured you know something about leaving home and going in search of your bliss. How’s that working out for you?”

  “I would not compare my friend Rosemary to ape shit.” Bing pops another fig worm. “She says I am to reach my potential and that is positive.”