The Fable of Bing

by Tim Sandlin

  The kid holds his head with the pants-draped arm and sticks out his other hand.

  Rosemary tosses two quarters his way, and, in what Bing sees as amazing, the kid catches them both.

  “Everyone can go home now,” Rosemary says.

  The brute reaches down a hand to help Bing up. It appears to be a bygones-be-bygones situation. By the time Bing is upright, the boy with his pants has disappeared, followed by most of the crowd.

  The brute says, “Next time don’t accept gum you can’t pay for,” then he rests the bat on his shoulder, turns, and walks into the darkness.

  77

  Rosemary pulls a Kleenex wad from her bag and blots Bing’s ear. Doesn’t make him look any less beat up.

  “I can’t leave you alone for a minute.”

  “I am happy I can see you.” He means it.

  Rosemary spits on the Kleenex and rubs his hairline, which only smears blood. There are messes Kleenex can’t fix. She gives it up and returns the soaked-through tissue back into her bag. “Come on. Can you walk?”

  She takes Bing’s hand to lead him away.

  He balks. “How did you know where I am?”

  She reaches back into her bag for a cigarette. For once, he doesn’t give her grief as she lights up and blows smoke away from his face.

  “Sarah’s phone.”

  Bing digs into his jacket pocket to feel the Droid he’s forgotten.

  “She gets lost now and then.” Rosemary speaks of Sarah in the present tense. “I track her by the GPS on the phone.”

  Bing pulls it out. Thin, black, with a daisy pattern back case, a tiny, red light blinking in the upper right hand corner. It’s the sole possession he ever lusted after. “Do you want it back?”

  “Sarah gave it to you.” She takes the phone from Bing’s hand and gently returns it to his pocket. She’s consciously not looking at him below the waist. “Besides, I may need it to rescue you again.”

  Bing rubs his thigh. His leg hurts a lot more than his head. The head is mostly gratuitous blood, while the thigh is deep bruised. “That means if I get lost again, you’ll look for me?”

  “I looked this time. Why wouldn’t I look again?”

  She starts walking and after a moment’s thought, Bing follows. He still doesn’t know where they are or where they are going. He has no intention of letting her leave alone.

  He calls ahead. “Why did you find me?”

  She answers without looking back. “You’re too pitiful to abandon.”

  “Thank you.”

  They walk a half block down a street Bing didn’t see when he came to the place where he ended up. This street is even darker. The buildings have plywood for window coverings. Many of the doors are padlocked.

  Rosemary stops so he can catch up. When he comes alongside, she says, “I didn’t mean that. About you being pitiful.”

  “But you said it. Do people say what they do not mean?”

  “It’s going to take a long time before I’m not angry about what happened. I may say things, now and then, to hurt you. Things I don’t really think are true. You’ll have to forgive me.”

  Bing touches her hair. It’s what he likes best, even better than copulation. “I don’t fathom forgive.”

  Rosemary stares down into the gutter, which is full of cards advertising a strip club. Photo on one side, address and phone number on the other. They could be in Vegas had the words been English.

  She drops her cigarette into the gutter, steps on it, then bends to pick it up and tucks the cold butt into her back pocket. Considering the amount of litter already on the street, the gesture is more symbolic than useful.

  “I didn’t mean what I said before. At the station.”

  “About me being a fraud and a swindler?”

  “No, I meant that. I didn’t mean the part about you being an animal. That was cruel.”

  They round a corner to a block that seems built for amusement. There is a bumper car place with loud music and a disco ball light, although no one rides the cars. The owner or manager or whoever he is sits on a stool at the front, looking sad, while groups of boys and girls jostle into a video gaming store next door. Rosemary’s Jetta is parked in front of the bumper car business. She gives the man three dollars for not letting the kids steal her Jetta.

  Neither Bing nor Rosemary moves to open the car doors. They stand together on the driver’s side with Bing’s hand on the roof. As if watching a campfire for the light and movement, they both look at the video games where there are machine sounds and youthful laughter.

  Bing says, “What about the part where you said we are not love?”

  Rosemary steps toward Bing. She rests her forehead against his chest, but her hands hang at her sides. Forehead to chest is the only point of contact.

  “I didn’t mean that either.”

  “We are love?”

  “I was hurt, because of Sarah.”

  “You miss your sister.”

  “I miss what we were together. We were so shallow, shooting Jaegermeister, kissing boys in bars. Once we drove to Santa Fe just because we didn’t feel like going to sleep. We thought buying clothes was recreation and our opinions on music were vitally important.” Rosemary digs her fingers into Bing’s arms, deep enough to draw blood. “I’ll never be shallow again. It’s gone.”

  Bing knows what to do. He saw it on her TV. He places two fingers under her chin and lifts it gently so her eyes come up to meet his.

  “I did what Sarah wants.”

  Rosemary’s eyes go slick. He voice breaks. “I can’t for my life see the point in going on without her.”

  Bing and Rosemary hug. A long hug where Rosemary cries and he pats her hair and thinks about what she means to him. He cares for her hair, and her fingers, and her voice. His happiness depends on hers. The most terrifying thing about being lost in Tijuana was the thought that he might never see Rosemary again.

  When Rosemary speaks, her voice is muffled by his chest. “I couldn’t save her.”

  Bing says it. “You did.”

  Rosemary stops crying, but she doesn’t look up. She just holds him tightly.

  Bing goes on. “You saved her, but not the way you wanted. Not for you.”

  78

  Bringing a barefoot boy with no papers into Mexico is a walk in the park compared to getting him back out, particularly if he’s lost his pants and taken a blood bath during the turn-around.

  Rosemary wheedles, begs, flirts, fakes tears, and makes vague hints at a bribe, all running up against the stone wall of bureaucracy until she finally talks her way into the office of a supervisor. The supervisor is a woman who knows the difference between safeguarding America and squishing people in the name of policy. She also knows Bing’s story. She saw the Balboa Park non-miracle on TV and she knows Bing is no terrorist, drug runner, or illegal alien. To her, he is nothing but another would-be Jesus caught on a stretch of hard luck.

  She comes out to the Jetta and tells the rule-obsessives that sending Bing back to Mexico isn’t doing either country a favor.

  “He’s harmless,” she says.

  Rosemary, who knows better, says, “That’s true.”

  “If you’re willing to take him back after what he did, I don’t see why the United States government should stop you.”

  “I appreciate the thought.”

  “I’m real sorry about your sister.”

  “Me too.”

  79

  North of Chula Vista Rosemary pulls off the interstate and finds a Greek curb market with a Redbox out front. No gasoline sales. You don’t see convenience stores without gas pumps much these days, and, on closer inspection, the Redbox has been broken into and looted. The whole store has that looted look.

  “Wait here,” Rosemary says.

  “I’d prefer to stay near you.”

  “This dump may be low rent but they’d still call reinforcements if you came through the door in your underwear.”

  So, Rosemary goes inside an
d Bing explores under the passenger seat. He finds the jellies he left back at the radio station, an unopened condom packet, and a pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses are purple with yellow lenses and when he puts them on the bug zapper above the market door turns brown.

  Rosemary comes out fairly soon, carrying a bag of avocadoes and a six-pack of cut-rate water for Bing, and a pint of Jim Beam for herself.

  “This is all they had in the way of fruit.” She passes Bing the avocado bag. “Do you know if avocado is a fruit?”

  “Dr. Lori says the definition has to do with seeds in the part you eat.”

  “Tomatoes are a fruit then?” Rosemary cracks open the seal on the Beam bottle. At the smell, Bing retches.

  “Give me a break, Bing. I deserve a drink.”

  Bing twists the top off his water. It’s the kind they bottle straight from a tap, then mark up the price. “I deserve a drink too, but mine doesn’t smell like week-old emu urine.”

  “How do you – ” Rosemary cuts herself off. She doesn’t need the details. She takes a good Beam belt before she starts the car. Bing rips avocado skin with his teeth.

  “You know what happened at the station after you left,” Rosemary says. “I started talking. I told the others about all the people who ever loved me. Dad left. Mom left. Sarah’s gone now. Everyone but you left me, and I’d just driven you away. And you know what Mitchell said?”

  “He probably showed you his thumb.” “Mitchell said, ‘Are you stupid or what?’ And I said, “Right.” And walked into the booth and quit my job. I told Turk where he could stick his chi.”

  Bing pokes a peeled avocado into his mouth, swishes it around, and spits out the seed. “Turk is a pox.”

  “He’s an egomaniacal asshole.”

  Wisdom hits Bing like the bat did, up against his head. Suddenly, he gets it. “I do not fathom egomaniacal, but asshole is an apt word for Turk.”

  80

  Rosemary parks in front of her small house, on the same side of the street as the house. Neither she nor Bing makes any effort to get out. Rosemary stares at moths under the streetlight while Bing tears the wrapper off the condom.

  “You mind if we sit here a while,” Rosemary says. “I can’t face going inside and starting the rest of my life.”

  “Sure.” Bing blows up the condom, like a balloon. He pulls the mouth end of the rubber out so it forms a narrow slit and the air flows out in high squeal. Bing thinks this is neat.

  It’s trash day in Rosemary’s neighborhood, when everyone wheels their home dumpsters to the curb so they can be picked up early the next morning. Two houses down from where Rosemary is parked, a raccoon stands on its hind legs to knock over someone’s plastic trash dump. The can falls with a whack sound and the contents spill out into the street. Rosemary and Bing watch without comment.

  Rosemary has had all the suspense she can take. “Dammit,” she says. “Tell me.”

  Bing looks from the raccoon to Rosemary. He concentrates on her throat, with the pulsing vein. “I want to go home.”

  She slaps the steering wheel. “I knew it.” She reaches across and takes the sunglasses off Bing’s face. He blinks, as if it’s light out even though it isn’t.

  Rosemary says, “What about me?”

  “I do not fit.”

  Rosemary stares at Bing a long time till he gets self-conscious. He can’t decide whether to keep his eyes on the raccoon or play with the condom. He has to do something.

  He says, “I try to fit. I enjoy love with you, and riding in cars, and sometimes TV. Restaurants are nice. But I shall never fit.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Outies are cruel to one another. They make loud sounds and they can see me. They expect me to do what they expect me to do. I don’t want to put up with that.”

  Bing rolls down the window. First, he tosses out the condom, then the sunglasses, then the jellies. He opens the glove compartment and throws out the maps.

  He says, “I miss my mother.”

  Rosemary thinks about her mother. Does she miss her mother? She hardly remembers the woman who played Dungeons and Dragons and had her hair done the first Friday of every month. After Rosemary’s dad died, her mother never touched her again, that Rosemary can remember. Her mom stopping loving anybody except some off-kilter always-changing version of God. Loving God and disliking people is a fine way to avoid abandonment.

  As she twists the key to start the car, she says, “I don’t fit too well in my world either.”

  Bing turns from the window to smile at Rosemary. “I hoped you might say that thought.”

  82

  Tabla.com plays from a radio site on Dr. Lori’s computer. She only listens for the background beat. If hard pressed, Dr. Lori couldn’t name a musician or musical piece broadcast by the station she listens to several hours a day.

  She’s entering the food/weight/waste data in her log. Kano has been losing weight, ever since Bing ran away. He seems to eat, but Dr. Lori suspects some bonobo version of bulimia. She suspects Kano is throwing up and burying the muck before she finds it.

  Other than sulking, Betty handled the loss better than Dr. Lori expected, much to Dr. Lori’s resentment. Mothers should implode when a child leaves, and Betty gets all the credit for being the mother, at least in Bing’s mind, while Dr. Lori is what? The keeper? The provider? The enforcer? Somebody had to make the rules and Betty sure as hell didn’t.

  Dr. Lori pulls her glasses chain off over her neck. She drains a coffee mug of Drambuie and Cranberry Cocktail, then she pours herself another one, leaving out the cranberry this time. She deserves alcohol. She’s had a tougher than average day and average itself has been piss poor lately.

  She refused to watch that mockery at Balboa Park, on principle, but she followed it so closely on the internet that she might as well have driven down there. She’d known Bing wouldn’t cure the girl. Where did he get the idea he could? He has unique powers when it comes to disappearing, but that’s as far as it goes. He can’t heal people, not that Dr. Lori knows, and, to her way of thinking, she knows more about Bing than Bing does. Killing the girl had been a surprise.

  It’s too late to go home and there’s no reason to go home anyway. No reason to do anything. She’ll sleep in the Airstream tonight. First, however, she has to check on the bonobos. Taeyando’s chest has been rattling. Taeyando the queen bonobo is five years older than any bonobo has ever lived, in captivity. There’s no precedent for what may be going on in her body.

  Dr. Lori shuts off her computer and bends to fasten her rubber boots. Before rising, she shoots the second Drambuie — fire in the belly — then she shuffles down the hallway, wondering how many more years she can do this. It’s not fun anymore. Even worse, it doesn’t feel important. She’s no longer the California Jane Goodall. She feels insignificant.

  She opens the enclosure door, locks it behind her, and crosses to the hanging tire nests. As always, the four accepted animals are bunched more or less together, with Ubu over by himself. Tonight, they are more bunched than usual. They seem to be curled around something.

  When Dr. Lori passes from the arc of security light to the shadows of the nests, she sees Bing. Asleep on his stomach next to Kano. Armani jacket, bloody exposed side of the face, Costco underwear. He chews in his sleep. Betty’s arm rests on his back.

  Waves of nausea flood Dr. Lori — joy, fury, betrayal, relief, mother’s love — the greatest of these is relief. It’s as if she has been holding her breath for weeks and now she can inhale.

  Lola kicks her feet in her dream. Bing shrugs off Betty’s arm and shifts to his side with his hands over his head. Relief, for Dr. Lori, is quickly replaced by fear that she can’t keep him. He’s seen the outer world. He knows stories of boils and wretched death are just stories, and even though Balboa Park went terribly wrong today — yesterday, now — he’ll go back.

  Maybe she can settle for Bing part-time. He could travel between the worlds with her taking care of him on this side. Dr.
Lori knows better. She knows she couldn’t bear not knowing when or if Bing might return.

  Betty huffs, blowing air through her lips. Kano moans. Bing stretches and rolls onto his back, and, for a moment, Dr. Lori thinks he may awaken. If he does, how should she play it? Rapture would show weakness. Strict punishment might drive him away again. All she can do is act as if he never left. Keep it casual. No big deal. No deal, at all.

  That’s when Dr. Lori sees the third hand over Bing’s head. Three? One clasped between the other two. All three human. Bing rolls clear onto his back, revealing Rosemary, curled in sleep beneath him.

  Dr. Lori’s heart pounds. She looks down on the woman she isn’t — skinny, lips, hips, thick hair, dressed like she’s going to the movies. The nightmare girl’s other hand — the fourth human hand — is cupped possessively over Bing’s crotch. She’s wearing the engineer’s cap.

  Dr. Lori stares a long time. It seems like most of the night. Finally, she exhales and whispers: “That little shit.”

  We — the observers from above — will never know. Does she mean Rosemary . . . or Bing?