by Tim Sandlin
She turns the knob on the side and a toothpick appears. “See,” Rosemary says. “It’s like magic.”
“Dr. Lori says there is no such thing as magic.”
Turk takes offense. His livelihood is based on belief. “Magic is all around us, kid. You have to see it.”
Bing turns the silver box over and looks at the bottom. “Dr. Lori seemed certain.”
“What did I tell you about Dr. Lori?” Rosemary says. “Nothing she taught you is true.”
Bing shakes the box and the top falls off. Hundreds of toothpicks hit the countertop, splattering away in every direction.
The hostess says, “Look what you’ve done.”
Bing says, “It’s not magic.” He faces Rosemary. “You said it is magic. It’s a trick.”
“I said ‘like magic.’ Some things that are not magic look like magic if you don’t know how they work. Light switches, for instance. And TV.”
Bing gives her a hurt look. He mumbles, “It wasn’t magic.” As Mitchell pushes through the glass doors, Bing says, “What’s TV mean?”
The angry boys await in the parking lot. They’ve been hanging around all this time, and the leader in the Xolos jersey has lost patience. He stands in the path of our group.
He says, “Nobody calls T.J. Rios sweet.” The other bangers gather in a clump behind T.J., like coyotes who smell blood. Mitchell steps aside to allow Bing direct access. Turk’s face takes on the aspect of a scientist observing a lab rat after its latest shock.
Rosemary whisper-hisses. “Don’t talk to him. Keep moving.”
Bing says, “You seem like a nice boy. You must be held in high value by your mother.”
T.J.’s face changes color. His hands form fists. “You fucking with me, chump?”
Rosemary lies to protect Bing. “He’s not from the United States. He just arrived, from Lithuania, and he doesn’t know our norms.”
T.J. says, “If he’s fucking with me I’ll kill him. I don’t care where he’s from.”
“How can we be fucking from such a distance?” Bing asks.
Rosemary says, “Bing, shut up.”
T.J. moves forward, chest-to-chest with Bing, followed by the gang. Mitchell thinks about backing Bing up, but decides it’s none of his business. Turk still takes it as a social phenomenon. Persephone blind digs through her huge canvas bag, searching for her phone, which has 9-1-1 on the speed dial.
Bing smiles in T.J.’s face. “Dr. Lori says I should not fuck strangers because I am not a true bonobo. Bonobos fuck strangers.” He glances at Rosemary. “But Dr. Lori might be mistaken.”
T.J. says, “Not a true boner?” His boys snickers on cue.
Bing says, “Bonobo. We’re primates similar to humans only without cruelty and humiliation.”
“I don’t give a shit who you are. You call me sweet and I cut you.” From deep in his oversized pants T.J. produces an evil knife. Snick. The blade appears as if from air — much more impressive than the toothpick machine.
Rosemary gasps. Persephone hits the speed dial. Bing smiles.
T.J. growls. “You’re dead, meat.”
Tires squeal. A 1999 Cadillac DeVille on low riders careens around the turn from Home Depot.
One of T.J.’s lieutenants yells. “Crips!”
Windows come down, gun barrels come out, gunfire hails down on the California Pizza Kitchen parking lot.
The bangers dive for pavement. After an instant’s hesitation, the Centered Soul crew hits the ground also. Innocent random customers scream and flee or flatten. Glass shatters in the restaurant windows.
Only Bing remains upright. Watching with mild curiosity, a slight smile flickering across his face, Bing stays rooted to his spot as the Cadillac flies up to and past him.
T.J.’s side has their own weapons out and are firing at the receding Cadillac. Mostly out of rage and frustration. Their return fire is too little, too late, although one of them does pop a taillight.
From the ground, Turk snarls. “I don’t like your friends, Bing.”
Someone screams. “T.J.!”
T.J. Rios lies on his back, riddled by bullets. Blood spreads into his shirt from his chest and shoulder, and into his pants above the groin. The boy is conscious, but in remarkable pain.
As his gang runs to his side, Rosemary bounces up and claws at Bing’s arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
Bing looks over at the T.J. writhing and moaning on the asphalt. He’s fallen next to a rental Hundai. The tourist family still in their car, watches in horror.
Bing says, “The young man is hurt.” He walks toward the group around the fallen T.J.
Rosemary shouts, “Stay out of it, Bing.”
Bing says, “He needs help.”
Turk says, “Let him go over.”
Rosemary turns from Bing to Turk. “Why, for God’s sake.”
“It might be educational.”
Bing slips his way through the young men encircling T.J. Most stand, a few kneel. One guy with a shaved skull covered in Aztec symbol tattoos holds T.J.’s head steady. As Bing drops to his knees, the kid holding T.J. barks, “What the fuck you doing, asshole?”
“I am on top of the situation,” Bing says so quietly he is hard to hear within the group and impossible to hear out in the second ring of onlookers, which includes Rosemary and her co-workers.
The angry guy says, “Don’t mess with my brother.”
T.J. coughs a rivulet of blood and fights to speak. “Let the boner try, Martin. You sure as hell can’t fix this.”
Martin glares at Bing. “You touch him and he dies, I’ll kill you.”
Bing nods. T.J. looks up into Bing’s eyes. “I wouldn’t, if I was you.”
Bing says, “You are not me. I am not you.”
Bing hovers his hands over T.J.’s forehead and the bullet hole in his chest. Rosemary edges closer. Turk still has the interested yet not involved attitude. Two teenagers in the crowd push close enough to aim smart phone video recorders at Bing and T.J.
Bing says, “This should not cause pain.”
T.J. tries to laugh at the absurdity of the statement, but instead burps up more blood and a spasm passes through his body like an electric ripple.
There is silence. Martin shifts his weight on this calves, not the paragon of patience. Then, Bing hums. The hum starts low, a vibration from his chest, before it escalates into guttural cooing. Rosemary moves forward another step, which blocks one of the filming kid’s shot. He mutters, “Bitch,” and circles to her side. Rosemary ignores him.
Bing’s hum moves from chest to throat and finally his mouth tips open in a full bore bonobo howl. One of the older scary guys steps up to stop him, but Martin holds out his palm.
“Don’t.”
T.J. sits up, folding at the waist, like a sleepwalker in a horror movie. He bumps into Bing’s outstretched hands. Embarrassed at the contact, Bing stands quickly.
T.J.’s face is spooked. It’s as if he has awakened from a nap to find the furniture moved. “What happened?”
Bing says, “Some people shot you with bullets. I’ve never seen one, but Dr. Lori explained bullets to me and that’s what is in your insides.”
T.J. stares down at the hole in his groin. “What did you do?”
“I stopped the blood flow and glued some of your parts. I suggest your friends take you to a licensed veterinarian now. The wound gash needs attention.”
Martin says, “Veterinarian?”
T.J. says, “If this man says veterinarian, that’s where I’m going.” He stands up. “Who are you?”
Bing says, “Bing.”
“I should thank you.”
“That isn’t needed.” Bing turns and walks to Rosemary. The crowd parts to let them through.
Turk meets them at Rosemary’s car. His eyes drill into Bing. “I want him in the studio — 9 a.m.”
Rosemary opens her door. “Sister Starshine doesn’t tape till noon.”
Turk’s stare is hard on Bing. It ma
kes him feel exposed and that’s not something Bing likes to feel.
Turk says, “He’s mine now.”
31
Rosemary drives down a wide boulevard in an upscale part of San Diego — internists’ offices, day spas, big houses set back from traffic. She is distracted, but she drives this route so often it doesn’t much matter. She could cruise this stretch in her sleep.
Bing plays with the glove compartment, popping it open, then closed, then open. He’s taken the CDs, maintenance log, map of Yosemite, and tampon box out and put them on the floor between his feet so he can reach into the box and pretend his fingers are skinks in a cave. It is a deep glove box, as boxes go. Bing has to lean low and peer to see the back.
Rosemary flicks wavy hair from her right shoulder, the side Bing is on. She wants to see his expression when she asks, “How do you do that?”
He points. “You push the button thing and the gate flops.”
“How do you make people who are dying not die? You saved that boy’s life back there.”
Bing finds a barrette in the dark corner of the glove box. He sniffs it, smelling Rosemary. He tastes it and says, “It works, sometimes. Sometimes, it doesn’t.”
Rosemary doesn’t want to hear that sometimes it doesn’t take. Still, though, she has to ask. “How often does the miracle thing work?”
“I don’t know miracle?”
“A miracle is when something that is not possible happens. What you did is impossible, yet you did it and no one can say you didn’t. That’s a miracle.”
“What do you want?”
“I need to know the percentage of miracles to miracle attempts? Fifty? Ninety?”
Bing shrugs. He knows the word percentage as it applies to primate data, but he’s not certain what it means to his life.
Rosemary tries a new tack. “So, when was it you discovered your gift?”
The barrette is the spring-loaded kind. When Bing pushes down and releases, it flies into the back seat. “No one has passed me a gift today.”
“When you found out you could heal?”
Bing turns the tampon box over in his hands, looking for a way in. It does not smell like food or female, so he tosses it out the open window.
“An ostrich cut her leg kicking a cape buffalo. Ostriches are the meanest animal in the safari field. Listen to me: Never trust an ostrich.”
He drifts off, fascinated by the neon sign out front of a Pentecostal Baptist Church.
Rosemary can’t help prompting. “And?”
“She was lying in the mud, bleeding, and I went over and made the smooth fluid thick until it clogged the hole.”
“The ostrich lived?”
“She bit me.” Bing frowns at the memory. “I’m never helping an ostrich again, no matter how long I live or how much she bleeds.”
They drive another block and stop at a red light behind a Mercedes with a tiny dog in the back seat shelf. The dog’s tongue lolls. Bing lolls his tongue. It feels good.
Rosemary says, “Why do you think it works sometimes and others it doesn’t?”
“Sometimes the animal dies because it wants to.” The light goes green and the Mercedes pulls away. “Not all animals can live in a town.”
Rosemary pretends to concentrate on traffic. In reality, she can barely see traffic. “Do you think you could cure a sick person?”
Bing is dubious. “I’m better with accidents than illness. Illness is complicated. For some ill animals going forward isn’t worth the bother and they won’t let me fix them. I don’t know how it works on humans.”
Rosemary punches the radio button and the car fills with the bass voice of Turk Palisades. She lowers the volume quickly, but Bing still hears.
“It all comes down to ego against soul. Are you controlled by your ego or your soul? You can’t flash both ways. Do you kick in the doors of opportunity or do you whine. ‘Sort of.’ ‘Maybe.’ ‘If things line up right.’ Don’t wait! Scream Yes to life!”
Bing twists to look in the backseat.
Rosemary says, “It’s the radio.”
“I know about radio.” He finds the speaker in the door and touches it, feeling the buzz through his fingertips. “That’s the man in the restaurant. The man you admire because he visioned Centered Soul.” Rosemary says, “Turk.”
“How did he go from the restaurant to the radio place so fast? Is it close by?”
“He’s taped.”
Bing is confused. He knows the word tape is a worm you get from eating food that is not fresh.
Rosemary says, “Recorded this morning, on a digital machine so they can broadcast later. The network runs Turk’s show three times a day.”
“I demand all you searchers out there, buy a shotgun at your local gun show and I want you to blast your television. Kill it! Blow the Philistines and Pharisees to smithereens. When Jesus said people who pray loudly in public will go directly to hell, he was talking about CBN. Reject the charlatans who preach on television.”
Rosemary opens her Droid and touches buttons.
Bing says, “Your friend is angry.”
Rosemary studies the phone screen. “Turk’s is an enlightened anger. He doesn’t suffer false prophets. Listen, Bing, we are going to see my sister, Sarah.”
“Is Sarah human?”
“Of course, Sarah is human. She’s my sister.”
“My brother is not human.”
Rosemary closes her phone with a click. “Sarah is human, but she’s sick. She has pain and the medicine confuses her so some days she wanders or forgets where she is. I use this,” — she shows Bing the phone — “to keep track of her.”
Bing tries to lift the phone from Rosemary’s hand, but she’ll have none of it. “Sarah used to be vibrant. She was so alive, standing next to her made me feel stale. But then she got sick and changed.”
Bing doesn’t know vibrant, although he does know stale and he knows sickness is to be avoided if at all possible. “I’m sorry your sister is in pain. Pain is never a comfort.”
“No, it’s not.” Rosemary moves into the bottom line, the words she’s been leading up to since she saw Bing save the drowned groundskeeper. “I want you to help her.”
Bing flips the window visor down. There’s a mirror on the back side, which makes him jump. Bing’s experience with mirrors has been limited and he never instantly recognizes himself. It takes a moment.
“Bing?”
“How should I help Sarah?”
“Like you did the boy back at the restaurant.”
“The boy had bullets inside.”
“Sarah has scars inside.” Rosemary waves her fingers over her lower abdomen. “I want you to fix them.”
As they drive by a green park they pass four middle- to old-aged joggers with headbands, ear buds, and the sleeves scissored from their sweatshirts. They gleam with perspiration and look miserable.
Bing says, “Those men are nervous. They should go to sleep. That’s the thing I do when I feel nervous.”
“Do you think you can help her?”
“Help who?”
“Sarah.”
Bing flips the windshield visor back up. He turns to face Rosemary. He enjoys looking at Rosemary from close up. It is a time he looks forward to.
“I would enjoy meeting your sister.”
32
Before reaching the place where Sarah stays, Rosemary and Bing have a spat. It happens when she knocks an open Kent 100 pack against her thigh and shakes out a cigarette. Bing starts in mewling before she even lights up.
Rosemary says, “Give me a break.”
“Dr. Lori says smoking tobacco is how human people commit suicide.”
“What did I tell you –”
“She is not wrong always. Just some of the time.”
“This is one of those times when she’s wrong. I am not committing suicide. I’m relaxing.”
“By taking poison.”
“I’m under a mountain of stress. Cigarettes help me stay fo
cused.”
Bing tips his head to get his nose into the flow from the window crack. Rosemary relents by giving him a couple more inches of air.
Bing says, “I do not fathom stress.”
Rosemary cracks her own window and blows smoke in its general direction. “How is it that woman taught you complicated words but not simple ones?”
“Is stress simple?”
“Sure. Between my job and my life I am swamped by insecurity which causes anxiety. You know anxiety?”
Bing shakes his head. It causes the wind to blow from one cheek to the other. Kind of cool.
“You know worry?”
“That’s when you’re waiting for a grant to come through. You worry.”
“And worry makes for stress. I have a lot to worry over.”
“Is that why you are nervous?”
She nods and blows smoke out her nose. She crushes her cigarette out in the ashtray that is almost clean. Only one other butt shows its yellow filter. “You happy now?”
Bing settles back into his seat. “I believe so. Yes. Happy is how I prefer to be.”
Rosemary turns into a long gravel driveway flanked by junipers and palms. It circles around a spacious lawn and a water-belching dolphin toward a bone white building with pillars out front and a long porch on the side Bing can see. The grass is bright green and short. The whole thing looks well tended.
“I’d be thrilled no end if you don’t mention the cigarette to Sarah,” Rosemary says. “She has enough to dwell on.”
33
They find Sarah on a glider placed alongside a series of metal chairs that have bent tubing for front legs and no back legs so they rock when you sit in them. There are also wide spaces for wheelchairs to fit between the glider and the chairs. Bougainvillea flower on one end of the porch with yellow roses on the other. Nurses and aides in their color coded smocks and quiet hospital shoes pad back and forth, taking patients inside, tucking blankets around hips. That sort of thing.
Sarah’s eyes are closed. They can tell she is awake because the toe of her right foot keeps the glider gently gliding.
Rosemary says, “Sarah.”