by Betsy Byars
And one final burning question: How long would it last?
The Black-Belt Eyebrow
BINGO WAS LOOKING INTO the dim recesses of the medicine cabinet. He had noticed last week that the Yogi Bear vitamins were gone. Bingo shook the can of mousse. They were out of that, too.
Every drugstore product that had brought him comfort in the past had been swept from the cabinet as he himself had been swept from the family. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself actually gone, vanished.
He turned the cabinet door around and peered in the mirror. No, he was still there.
As Bingo was closing the cabinet, giving up, his eyes spotted an unfamiliar container. He reached for it at once.
Perhaps this bottle had been there all along behind the mousse, he thought. Perhaps it was a product that his parents had even concealed behind the mousse.
He took it in his hand and read the unfamiliar words: Skin Bracer.
Well, everything about him needed bracing, Bingo thought, that was for sure. Might as well start with the skin. He applied the skin bracer to both cheeks and waited.
His skin was not braced. Maybe his skin was a little cooler. It certainly smelled better, but Bingo could not say it was braced.
Bingo decided to do something he had never done before—read the directions.
“Apply after shaving,” the directions said.
Bingo drew in his breath.
After shaving!
Bingo felt these were probably the two most important words he had ever read in his life. He was so moved he had to close his eyes and hold onto the basin for support.
He clung for a moment, head down, knuckles whitening. Then, slowly, he raised his head and had eye contact with himself.
For days Bingo had felt like the helpless victim of the entire world, a toy in the turbulent mainstream of life. Now, at last, he could do something positive for himself. With one stroke of the razor, he could put childhood behind him forever.
Bingo reached for his father’s razor, swallowed, and clicked it on.
The ensuing buzz was the most comforting sound Bingo had ever heard. He rubbed the razor tentatively over his chin. Then his cheeks.
Bingo moved with special care over his upper lip, where, for all he knew, a latent mustache lay below the surface.
Then he went over his sideburns; they were latent, too. In his eagerness, he even took off a little bit of one eyebrow.
Then Bingo clicked off the razor and stepped back for the result.
It took his breath away.
His face was—he loved this description—clean shaven.
He actually liked himself better without that part of his eyebrow. And—and! It gave him a quizzical look, as if he questioned the very nature of existence—which he did.
He looked at his reflection for a long time, turning this way and that. Finally satisfied, he reached for the skin bracer.
Bingo splashed it on liberally. It was bracing! It was so bracing it stung. It actually brought tears to Bingo’s eyes.
The phone rang.
Blinking back well-deserved tears, Bingo went to the phone and picked it up.
Fortunately the phone had a long cord so Bingo could take the phone back into the bathroom and watch himself in the mirror as he talked.
“Hell-o!” This was the first cheerful hello he had heard from himself in months.
“Bingo, it’s your dad.”
“Oh, hi.”
“Are you busy?”
“Not really.”
“Well, listen, what say we get some flowers and go see your mom?”
Bingo lifted his shortened eyebrow quizzically. He loved it. He loved it! He looked like, a famous rock star. He looked like—
“Bingo, are you there?”
“Yes.”
Bingo brought the eyebrow down. It looked good down, too! Down it was a suggestive snarl, like the curl of Elvis Presley’s lip. But up! Up it turned him into a totally different person. Up! Down! Yes, up was better, but down wasn’t shabby.
“Bingo, what are you doing?”
“Nothing. Nothing, Dad. I’m not doing anything. I’m talking to you.”
“Well, I’ll get the flowers, Bingo, and pick you up in, oh, a half hour.”
“I”—up—“will be waiting.” Up! Up!
The last two ups gave Bingo a sobering thought.
Now that he had this eyebrow, he would have to use its powers as carefully as a person with a black belt. Perhaps even have cards printed up. “Warning: The bearer of this card has a black belt in eyebrow.”
Bingo smiled. With one final up/down, he backed reluctantly away from the bathroom mirror.
Hot Dog Surprise
BINGO SAT BESIDE HIS father in the car. His father’s flowers, a dozen yellow roses, were in a box on the back seat.
On Bingo’s lap was a small casserole, Hot Dog Surprise, although Bingo knew the hot dogs weren’t going to be much of a surprise, since they were now sticking up through the grated cheese.
When Bingo’s dad had proposed taking the flowers to his mom, Bingo had been so exhilarated by his new eyebrow that he had not questioned the wisdom of the plan. He had rushed directly into the kitchen, whipped open The Three Ingredient Cookbook, thrown together Hot Dog Surprise, and gone out on the front steps.
He had sat on the steps, smiling in anticipation of their triumph.
Now, gazing down at the small unappealing casserole, Bingo realized how doomed the plan was.
Burning questions plagued him as they sped toward his grandmother’s condo.
Was this his role in life, to accompany the less fortunate on doomed missions of the heart? First Wentworth, now his own father? Was he himself doomed to share the stupidity of others forever? Was this the price one paid for skill in the language of love? Was—
They pulled up in front of the condo. Bingo could see his face in the side mirror as he got out of the car. His face was so flushed he could not see his freckles, but he knew they were there. “Freckles are forever,” his father had told him once.
Even his new eyebrow seemed to have lost some of its power. It just looked like a shortened version of his other eyebrow.
Bingo and his father made their way up the walk. His dad was holding the box of roses over his arm like a bridesmaid would. Bingo held his casserole in front of him.
Bingo’s dad rang the bell.
“They’re not here,” Bingo said immediately.
“Give them a chance.”
His father rang again. His grandmother’s doorbell was one of those cheerful, uplifting ding-dong ones, but Bingo was neither cheered nor uplifted.
They waited in silence. Bingo shifted his weight to one hip.
“We look stupid,” Bingo said bluntly.
“Sometimes you have to risk looking stupid to get what you want,” his father answered in a mild way. “More people have lost out on more good things because they were afraid of looking stupid. …”
He rang the bell twice. Ding dong! Ding dong!
Bingo passed the time alternately hoping that his mother would come to the door and that she wouldn’t. He wanted to see her and he didn’t want to see her. He found he couldn’t remember exactly what she looked like.
Bingo shifted his weight to the other hip. He sighed. He felt that an unfortunate pattern was being established in his life.
“Is this what it’s like when you go on dates?”
“What?”
“Is this what it’s like to go on dates? You know, standing out here and not knowing if she’s coming to the door, not knowing if you even want her to come, wondering if you’ll recognize her, wondering if she’s hiding in the closet, waiting for you to leave, wondering if you’ve got time to run and hide in the bushes.”
“At first, I guess.”
“Then I shall never go on dates.”
“You’ll change your mind when you fall in love,” his father said, punching the bell again.
Bingo rolled his
eyes up into his head at this parental blindness.
“Actually, it was worse in college.”
Bingo glanced quickly at his dad. “How could it be any worse than this?”
“Well, they had a loudspeaker system at Catawba. So they’d call up to your date’s floor and say, ‘Sam Brown to see so-and-so,’ and you’d be standing there all dressed up, obviously expecting to go out, and the loudspeaker would come back with, ‘Sorry! So-and-so’s not here.’”
“How cruel!”
“Even if it didn’t happen to you, you were always aware it could.”
“Maybe I won’t go to Catawba College after all,” Bingo added thoughtfully. “Did Mom ever do that to you?”
“No, your mom was in love with me. Half the time she’d be waiting for me outside on the steps.”
Melissa would have been waiting for me like that, Bingo thought regretfully, that is, if my love had lasted till college.
His father rang the bell for what Bingo sincerely hoped was the last ding dong. He glanced down at his casserole.
His father gave up. “We’ll just leave the flowers on the stoop, if that’s all right with you.”
“It is.”
“I’ll write a note.”
His father clicked open his pen. They had not thought to get a card, so he had to write on the top of the box.
Bingo wanted to tell his father that something called the language of love might be needed here, ordinary words that portrayed extraordinary emotions.
Bingo’s dad finished. “You want to sign it?”
Bingo read it. The note said, “We love you and miss you and want you to come home. Sam.”
Well, they were ordinary words, that was for sure, but Bingo couldn’t detect a trace of the language of love.
He took the pen and added: “Cook at 350 until hot and bubbly. Your faithful son, Bingo Brown”
His father laid the box of roses on the stoop as solemnly as if he were laying a wreath in a cemetery. Bingo put his casserole on top.
Then, together, they walked in silence to the car.
CUT SMUT!
BINGO’S GRANDMOTHER WAS, AS he knew she would be, in front of the convenience store. There were eight other women, one with a baby, and two men. His grandmother was the only one in an appropriate T-shirt. Two weeks ago, in happier times, Bingo had designed it himself. It was one word, “SMUT,” with the “not allowed” sign printed over it.
He had also helped his grandmother make the two signs that she now held so proudly.
One of the signs read:
CLEAN AIR
CLEAN WATER
CLEAN MINDS
CLEAN EARTH
The other:
UNLESS WE LEAVE THE WORLD BETTER THAN WE FOUND IT, THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR OUR EXISTENCE.
“The letters will have to be real little,” Bingo had warned her as he blocked out the second sign.
“I don’t care. It’s my motto in life.”
“People won’t be able to read it from across the street.”
She had held up her red T-shirt with the huge unallowed “SMUT” on it. “Well, they’ll be able to read that, won’t they?”
She had looked critically at herself in the mirror, with the T-shirt against her. Bingo had watched.
After a minute she had said, “I will do anything, including make a fool of myself, to make this world a cleaner, better place.”
Bingo loved his grandmother. She was almost exactly like his mother. They both wore their hair pulled back, they both wore the same size clothes, they both wore Pure Watermelon lipstick. The only things different were that his grandmother was a little bit more wrinkled and that she had no faults whatsoever.
Bingo called her Grammy, like the award.
Grammy was a person, Bingo thought now, who would never run away from her child and husband, no matter what misfortune befell her.
For a moment Bingo remained in the shadows of Video Village, watching his beloved grandmother. Video Village had been picketed by CUT! in the spring, and they now displayed a sign in the window saying, “We no longer carry X-rated films.”
His grandmother’s head was turned toward the store, but as a car went by, she swirled and, face bright with hope, began to lead a cheer.
Two, Four, Six, Eight
It’s smut we hate!
Two, Four, Six, Eight It’s—
Slowly Bingo crossed the street. “Harrison!” His grandmother broke off her cheer. She was the only person in the world who called him by his real name.
She embraced him so vigorously that her protest signs flapped around his ears. “Are you joining us? Are you going to help us protest?”
“Not really, Grammy,” Bingo said. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Here, hold this while we talk.” She pressed the Clean Air sign into his hand. “You can look as if you’re protesting even if you aren’t. We need some young people.”
“I’ll be glad to.” Bingo took the sign, but it drooped. He held it as if he intended to hit a golf ball with it instead of protest.
“Now what did you want to talk about?”
“Did Mom get my casserole last night?” Bingo asked. “I had to leave it on the front stoop. I was afraid a dog or cat might—”
“She got it.”
“I guess you were out, since you didn’t come to the door.”
“Yes, we went out for pizza.”
“You didn’t eat the casserole?”
“We’re saving it for tonight.”
“Oh. Did Dad’s flowers do any good?”
His grandmother hugged him with her free arm. “Every act of kindness does good, Harrison.” She smiled. “Your mother needs your support right now.”
“Well, I need hers. Doesn’t she know that?”
“She knows. Sometimes a person needs a little extra support.”
“You can say that again.”
She hugged him.
“Grammy, will you let her know that I forgive her for what she did?”
“Harrison …” Her voice was low, as if she were chiding him, but since she had never chided him before in his entire life, that could not be possible.
“I forgive her even though when this baby is my age, I’ll be twenty-four.”
“So what? I’ll be seventy-four.”
His grandmother broke off the conversation. A car was turning into the 7-11 parking lot. His grandmother moved forward to take her place at the head of the protesters.
Inspired, the others broke into a new chant:
Smut no more! Smut no more!
Starting with this convenience store!
Smut no more! Smut no more!
Bingo’s grandmother signaled the driver to roll down his window. She did this with a gesture worthy of a highway patrolman.
“What’s going on here?” the driver asked.
“Sir, we’re asking the people of Townsville to boycott this store until the manager agrees to remove pornographic magazines from the shelves. Will you help us?”
The man hesitated. “I was just going to get a loaf of bread.”
“Yes, but that loaf of bread can make Townsville a better place for your children.”
The driver shifted gears and, with a sigh, circled the gas pumps and drove out of the parking lot, accompanied by cheers. Even Bingo raised his sign … “When’s Mom coming home?” he asked.
“I’m working on it.”
“Do you think it’ll be tonight? Because I’d like to fix something special. That casserole last night, that was just something I got from The Three Ingredient Cookbook.”
“Probably not tonight.”
“You could come, too. Grammy, I just realized you’ve never tasted my cooking.”
The lady with the baby had stepped up beside Bingo, and Bingo felt a light tap on his shoulder.
He glanced around and saw that he was being patted by the tiniest hand he had ever seen in his life. He had not known hands came that tiny. This baby—o
f all people in the world—this baby, a stranger to him, this baby had sensed the depth of his anguish and had reached out. It was like a message of hope from the future.
He hadn’t known babies brought comfort! He only thought they had to be comforted, changed, pacified. This was a whole new concept.
“Harrison, hold your sign up!”
“What?” The tiny hand was holding his shirt now. Bingo could not move. He was held in place as surely as if the hand that held him was made of iron.
“That’s the WAXA television truck. It’s turning in! We’re going to be on TV!”
She grabbed Bingo’s arm and thrust it high into the air. He quickly repositioned the sign over his face and hid behind it.
The baby let go.
A Thief at the Mailbox
BINGO ROUNDED THE CORNER slowly. His cheeks still felt hot from the strain of participating in the protest.
Although he had tried to hold the Clean Air sign directly in front of his face the whole time the TV truck was there, he might have—in fact he was pretty sure he had—peered around the sign twice. He might—in fact he was pretty sure he would—be on the evening news.
And worst of all, it had been the side of his face without the new clipped eyebrow! From now on he would have to be as careful about which side of his face was photographed as a movie star.
He looked up at his house and stopped. His lower jaw dropped in astonishment. Billy Wentworth was on Bingo’s porch, putting something in Bingo’s mailbox. What was going on here?
Bingo moved closer. Then he saw that Wentworth was not putting something into his mailbox! He was taking something out!
Billy Wentworth was stealing their mail!
Silently, moving in a line so straight it could have been drawn with a ruler, Bingo closed the distance between himself and Wentworth. Now he, Bingo, was Rambo, and Billy Wentworth the hapless victim. Now Billy Wentworth would know what it was like to be ambushed!
Wentworth never heard a sound, never suspected a thing. He was staring at the envelope in his hand as if he were hypnotized, as if he couldn’t believe what he saw.
