by Tim Sandlin
“It’s a saying. You like these?”
Rosemary points to a pair of green jellies on the rack. They’re the closest to masculine jellies she can find, which isn’t so masculine.
Bing has no concept of certain clothes being male and certain clothes female. “These are pleasing,” he says, touching a pink pair with a flower decoration over the toes. “They’re sparkly.”
The conversation is taking place at Famous Footwear in Poway a half hour from Escondido off the freeway in San Diego. It’s been a tough half hour for Rosemary. First came the seat belt trauma. Bing tried to bite her.
He said, “I won’t be tied.”
“It’s the law,” she said. “You have to wear your seatbelt.”
“It’s worse than decontamination and you said I wouldn’t have to do that anymore. If cars are so safe, why tie people inside?”
“You’re strapped in. That’s nothing like tied up.”
Bing refused until she gave up on that one. Rosemary’s theory was pick your battles and Bing in a seatbelt wasn’t worth major stress. Then, on the access road leaving the park, they met a car coming toward them and Bing shrieked.
“Stop that.”
“They’ll kill me.”
“No, they won’t. They’re in the other lane.”
Lifelong vehicle riders and drivers have certain agreed upon conventions. Right side of the road. Red light means stop. A blinking light on a car is a signal for the intention of turning. Merges and rights of way are accepted norms. Bing has no knowledge of these assumptions, so every car coming toward them is seen as death. Stop lights are random chaos.
“Bing does not enjoy cars,” he said.
“You’ll get used to it. In a week you’ll be begging me to let you drive.”
Bing opened the door and tried to jump out. Scared the beJesus out of Rosemary. After yanking him back in she locked the doors from the console in her door, which made Bing feel more trapped than ever.
“I can’t breathe with this shut against me. Let me open it.”
Rosemary pushed the button in her door that lowered Bing’s window. He thought she was able to control glass with her mind. It frightened him.
Famous Footwear is in the back parking lot of a huge Target store nearly the size of the animal park. It is full of aggressive chimp-like shoe shoppers willing to cut you off to get to the desired pair. Bing falls in love with jellies. He licks them, chews them, presses the cool soft plastic against his cheeks.
A passing sales girl sees Bing and says to Rosemary, “Any shoes he eats, you buy.”
Bing says, “I enjoy pink sparkles.”
“Pink is a girl color,” Rosemary says.
“Who made that law?”
Rosemary has no answer so she returns to her earlier line of interest. “Why were you expecting instant copulation?”
Bing holds the pink jellies up to his eyes and looks through at Rosemary. The filer affect turns her a washed purple. Something of a mauve, like a honeycreeper. Her hair becomes the color of male lion fur.
“Dr. Lori said Outies copulate when they are out. It might be where the boils are born from.”
Rosemary kneels before Bing to slip the pink flowered jelly onto his right foot. She says, “Listen to me, Bing. Every single thing you’ve been told about the world is wrong. Every single thing.”
She slides on the left jelly. “Your entire life from birth till this morning, you’ve been given bad information.”
She looks up at Bing who has the sad, puckered lower lip look. His eyes droop. “That’s not a good thing.” Bing stands and bounces on his toes, feeling the plastic heat, soften, and cling to his feet.
Rosemary says, “How’s does it make you feel?”
Bing misunderstands the question, or maybe he doesn’t. What he says is, “Squishy.”
26
Bing squats on the passenger side, his pink sparkle jelly-clad feet on the seat cover, knees to his chin, hands stiff-armed against the dash, immediately above the glove compartment. He stares out the window at the passing generic suburban strip made up of optician and dentist offices, muffler shops, hordes of computer repair stores, loan offices, check cashing storefronts, real estate offices, Sam’s Club, and, of course, fast food joints.
Next to him, Rosemary is talking about her sister. “Sarah is in longterm care. We’ll go visit after lunch, but first you need to meet the people I work with. You’ll be on a show tomorrow. I think you’ll love Sister Starshine. She exudes happiness.”
Bing says, “Exudes.”
A gaggle of day care kids shuffle up the sidewalk, clutching a nylon rope that runs to their teacher who is texting. A clown with a red bulb nose and size 60 shoes rides a Vespa past them on the right. The clown sees Bing’s gape and flips him the bird. At a stoplight, a grub of a beggar hurls himself at Bing’s window and shouts, “Hungry war veteran! God bless!”
“He said God,” Bing says. “Was that another saying?”
“Don’t make eye contact.” Rosemary rolls the window up. “If you do he might explode on us.”
A wailing ambulance blasts through a light on red, reinforcing Bing’s belief that there are no rules and everything is loud.
A bear stands on the corner, twirling a sign on a pole. Bing says, “Can you read what the bear is holding?”
The guy is whipping the sign back and forth like a baton. He appears to be on meth. “It says, ‘No money down. No payments for 60 days. O’Meara Cosmetic Surgery.’ Are you familiar with cosmetic surgery?”
“Surgery is when they cut an animal open.”
“Cosmetic surgery is a thing where you pay some quack to change the way you look.”
They pass a grotesquely thin person of indeterminate gender slumped over a parking meter. He or she has peed his or her cut-offs and is trying to smash open the cash box with a brick.
Bing turns to Rosemary. “Are these exhibits?”
She glances at the parking meter felon. “They’re people.”
Bing doesn’t understand. Rosemary says, “This is how real people live. Some of them, anyway. That bear was a kid in a costume, not a real bear. The clown was no doubt on his way to work. This is how people get by.”
“I’ve seen magazines, and outside is nothing at all like this place.”
“Magazines aren’t real.” She pulls into the California Pizza Kitchen parking lot. “Right here is what real looks like.”
Bing focuses hard on the yellow sign with the palm tree above the door of the restaurant. “Do I get my picture phone now?”
She whips the Jetta into a parking slot, stopping inches from a vine-covered wall, which is normal if you’ve driven and parked before. Bing thinks he has cheated death.
Rosemary says, “This is where we eat.”
Bing nods. “I enjoy food.”
27
A group of young men about Bing’s age are lounging around late model Chevys and Fords that sit close to the pavement. Leaning against hoods, one foot propped on bumpers, smoking unfiltered cigarettes, glaring at pedestrians. Although their shirts and jackets vary, for the most part they wear red pants much too large for their frames, and steel bracelets and necklaces. Recently shaved heads finish the look.
As Bing and Rosemary cross the parking lot, moving toward the California Pizza Kitchen front entrance, one of the young men — a boy really — wolf whistles. “Love the shoes, bro.” The others laugh and cut their eyes at one another.
Rosemary whispers, “Don’t stop.”
Bing stops. He admires the series of blue black tattoos on the kid’s bald head, and the Xolos jersey with the sleeves cut off to show more tattoos on the arms.
Bing says, “Thank you, sir. They’re called jellies because they feel like jelly between your toes.”
The kid sneers. “They make you look sweet.”
This time, Rosemary hisses. “Keep moving, Bing.” She drags Bing away by his arm.
Bing waves back to the boys at the cars. “Thank you for
the nice words. I am certain you also are sweet.”
The kid takes a couple quick steps toward Bing, but Rosemary has him at the door and is pulling him through.
“Those gangbangers will kill you for looking at them, Bing.”
Bing turns his head to look back at the boy who is standing in the lot, staring hard at him. The guys in the background maintain their postures of contempt. “They seem like nice fellas.”
28
Rosemary exchanges words Bing cannot hear with the pretty young woman wearing colorful braces on her teeth at the front of the dining room, then Rosemary says, “They’re back there,” and she takes Bing through a gap in the tables. Bing hasn’t been inside a chain restaurant filled with people before. He drops to a knuckle-walk, then catches himself and comes back up, erect. No one pays him any mind except a toddler in a booster seat who points at Bing’s jellies and gurgles.
Rosemary leads Bing through the maze of tables and chairs crisscrossed by waiters, waitresses, and bus people who all seem to find Bing in their path till she stops at a round table where two men and two women sit behind huge menus. The table is made from some sort of hard plastic. The chairs are yellow.
Rosemary speaks to a man in black — jacket, pants, shirt, and hair, all a lustrous black. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
The man touches his chin to his pinkie ring which isn’t black as he sizes up Bing. “After all the fanfare, you can’t expect me to miss a chance to meet the Chimp Boy.”
“Bonobo,” Bing says. “Chimps are violent. They eat their babies.”
The man in black’s lips tighten and he nods, as if this confirms his deepest suspicions about Bing’s character. The thing Bing notices about the man is how rarely he blinks. His eyes are like the eyes of a lemur.
Rosemary doesn’t sit in an empty chair, so Bing doesn’t either. She says, “Bing, this is Sister Starshine. You’re slated for her show tomorrow.”
Sister Starshine — Hawaiian shirt over ample body, Lycra sweat pants, trainer shoes, canvas bag the size of a backpack — says, “You have an azure aura.”
She studies Bing so closely he starts to itch. She says, “With silver spikes and golden tendrils. You must be deep.”
“Dr. Lori says auras don’t exist and if they do I don’t have one. That’s why people don’t see me.”
Sister Starshine smiles, as if giving Bing reassurance that contrary to popular opinion, he doesn’t have a terminal illness. “You have an aura all right. The aura of a man ruled by a combination of passion and instinct.”
“Maybe I grew it this morning.”
Rosemary says, “And this is Persephone. Persephone specializes in regressions.”
Persephone dresses like a state fair gypsy. A plethora of vibrant scarves. Troweled eye make-up. Earrings the size of yo-yos. She extends her hand to Bing, palm down. Bing looks at it.
Persephone says, “I danced at Woodstock.”
Bing looks to Rosemary who says, “Persephone believes each of us defines him or herself by a singular event.”
Persephone says, “What event do you feel made you what you are.”
Bing considers the question seriously. “I ate cotton candy I found in a dumpster and I threw up. It was blue.”
Persephone says, “Now you know.”
Rosemary says, “Mitchell here runs the booth. Without him we’d all go to white noise.”
Mitchell — very large as in both tall and heavy, cowboy hat, yoked shirt, Wrangler boot cuts, lace-up packers — reminds Bing of the truck drivers who deliver frozen food to the park concessionaires at dawn, so he assumes booth is another word for truck.
Mitchell forms his hand into a fist with his thumb pointed at the ceiling and says, “Whazup?”
Bing looks at Mitchell’s thumb and wonders if it means something that he should know. He mimics the word “Whazup.”
Rosemary extends an arm toward the guy wearing black. “And right here is the gifted spirit guide I told you about yesterday. Turk Palisades. Centered Soul exists because of this man’s vision.”
Turk stares hard at Bing as Rosemary takes her seat in one of the two vacant chairs. She tugs Bing’s sleeve and he also sits, all the while watching Turk watch him.
Turk says, “Raised by apes, able to heal the sick and raise the dead. That’s some résumé you’ve put out for yourself.”
Bing murmurs. “I don’t think I can raise the dead. It looks difficult.” At this point, Bing finds himself sidetracked. Jam boxes and cream cups sit nested in a bigger box and cup on the table, beside the napkin dispenser. Bing has wanted to play with these toys for many years, but never had the chance.
Turk makes his fingers into a tent. “Let me tell you up front, the humble savior shtick has been done. So has raised by beasts.”
Bing builds a tower made of jelly and cream. It takes all the concentration he is able to muster.
Rosemary says, “Bing, Turk is exchanging ideas with you.”
Bing protrudes his lower lip. “Bing doesn’t fathom shtick.”
That’s when the waitress arrives. Turk orders for everyone. “Persephone here will take the avocado egg rolls. Grilled vegetable salad for Sister Starshine.”
Sister Starshine makes a grimace face that Bing sees but Turk doesn’t. Bing can tell she doesn’t want grilled vegetable salad. He can also tell that interrupting Turk to point this out would be considered inappropriate behavior.
Turk studies the menu. “Mitchell needs a wedge salad. Getting a tire around the middle, aren’t we Mitch? And Dakota Smashed Beans and Barley for our little Rosemary.”
Rosemary isn’t happy. “But I want Jamaican Jerk Chicken pizza.”
Turk keeps it smooth. He commands from calmness. “Chicken wreaks havoc on your chi, Rosemary. You know that because I’ve told you more than once. You cannot work for me with an imbalance in your chi. If you are out of balance, the group is out of balance to the detriment of Centered Soul’s entire program. We can commit no action that will threaten Centered Soul.”
Rosemary sulks.
Turk says, “I value you opinion. Is pizza worth risking Centered Soul’s mission?”
Rosemary says, “No.”
Turk closes his menu. “Bring me a glass of pomegranate juice.”
He turns his attention to Bing. “And what was your diet, while being raised by primates?”
Bing is adding butter pats to the top, only they won’t stick unless he unwraps the foil, so he unwraps the foil.
Bing says, “Fruit.”
The waitress stares at him under studded eyebrows. She has liver colored hair and fingernails, and a hickey the shape of a map of Wisconsin.
Bing says, “Oranges, grapefruit, watermelon, cantaloupe. Bring all the fruit your gatherers can gather. Limes. I enjoy limes.”
Sister Starshine is thrilled no end. “Then you are a fruitarian. How exciting.” She explains to the others, who, except for Mitchell, need no explanation. “Fruitarians won’t kill animals, like any garden variety vegan, but they take food ethics one step further. They don’t kill plants either.” She pronounces either with a long I. Ither. “They only eat food that falls from trees — fruit, nuts. Food they can consume without moving the cosmic footprint. It’s a difficult regimen to maintain.”
Persephone says, “We know what fruitarian means, Martha —” Martha is Sister Starshine’s civilian name. She hates it — “You don’t have to rehearse your show at our expense.”
Mitchell has been doing isometric exercises with his chair. No one notices except Bing who assumes Mitchell has pain in his digestive tract.
Mitchell says, “So you’ve never killed a plant or animal?”
Bing finger flips a creamer cup from the bottom corner and his castle tumbles onto the table. “A wild deer came into our compound and my brother and I pulled its front legs off. We didn’t mean to kill it, but it died anyway.”
Mitchell is charmed to his hefty core. “How brutal. Like pulley bones on a turkey.”
>
Bing says, “I got the big side.”
29
Lunch grinds to a halt. The radio team sits, almost but not quite frozen mid-bite, watching Bing consume a small mountain of fruit. He has already inhaled a dozen bananas and a watermelon. Now, he’s working on cantaloupe. Rosemary leans forward, toward him, transfixed by Bing’s fingers. They are long, thin, shimmering in juice. The nails appear worn short as opposed to cut or chewed. The finger pads are calloused, but on the lines of soft calluses, if that is possible, as if more pillowed than ridged.
The palms as they move quickly around the platter also show signs of extreme wear. His wrists are thick as his hands are wide. His knuckles are tough as rhinoceros leather.
Three waitresses cluster together behind Turk.. The girl with the hickey who took their order chews on a lip post. Another waitress rests her hand on the hickey girl’s wrist, for consolation. The busboy returns from the kitchen with a pair of cooks and a dishwasher. They stand beside the glittery-mouthed hostess, silent and motionless except for an occasional catch-that elbow nudge to their neighbor’s ribs.
Conversation has also died at nearby tables. They too watch Bing work his concentrated way through mounds of fruit.
Bing moves into a pile of limes, his favorite. He lifts them up, one at a time, sniffs his chosen lime carefully, then pulls it apart with his fingertips, and pops it peel and all into his mouth. Juice sluices over his lower lip and runs down his chin before dripping back onto his plate. The consumption of one lime takes all of five seconds, and Bing eats twenty.
Rosemary wonders why Bing peels bananas and leaves watermelon rinds behind, yet he polishes off entire lemons, limes, and oranges. There seems to be a system. Bing looks across the table at Rosemary’s untouched plate of Dakota Smashed Beans and Barley and points his wet finger at her orange slice garnish.
He says, “You want that? If you don’t, I’ll eat it for you. I don’t mind.”
30
Forty minutes later the Centered Soul crew and Bing pay up and head out. At the cash register Persephone says that since Turk ordered for everyone he should pay. Turk pretends she is joking. Rosemary shows Bing how the toothpick dispenser works.