by Tim Sandlin
Bing puts a yellow sundress on the girl.
Turk says, “We’re going to have you heal Rosemary’s sister. That should raise your profile.”
“My profile is high enough, I think.”
Turk tries another angle. “Saving the sister will make Rosemary happy. You want Rosemary happy, right?”
“That is correct. Rosemary’s happiness must be placed before my own.”
“Right.” Turk isn’t certain where that came from. “We’ll do it in Balboa Park, with a media circus bigger than the O.J. trial.”
Bing gives her sandals. “Rosemary doesn’t want me to evolve into a circus act. She said so.”
“Rosemary talks too much. We need to put a muzzle on that.”
“She is my friend.”
“But I’m your father. I’m the one you listen to.”
Bing gives the paper doll girl’s hair a permanent. She is the image of Rosemary the day he spotted her from the acacia tree.
Bing says, “I win.”
58
Rosemary is driving. This being San Diego, there’s going to be driving in any story set here. Rosemary is driving back to the Rose of Sharon Extended Care facility and Bing is hand surfing out the passenger window. Not that he’s ever seen a surfer. Bing hasn’t seen an ocean. He’s spent his life within thirty miles of the Pacific but he has yet to see it.
Bing holds his right hand out, parallel to the highway. He tilts the thumb side up and the wind blows his hand up. He tilts the pinkie side up and the wind blows his hand down. Flipping back and forth is fun and it’s even more fun when he makes a bloop bloop sound as accompaniment.
Rosemary turns off the freeway onto an access road with stoplights and the game ends. Not enough wind.
Bing says, “Phooey,” which is what Dr. Lori would say if a monkey pooped during an examination.
Rosemary flicks her turquoise blue lighter and fires up a Kent 100. Bing pretends to gag.
“It’s my car, Bing. I can smoke in my own car.”
He coughs to the point where hacking up a piece of lung is a possibility.
She says, “Shit,” and stubs out the cigarette. Bing smiles. They pass a pet mortuary next to a Coffee Bean. Ralph’s Grocery. A hot dog stand that looks like a hot dog. Legal Limit Tanning and Massage (PARKING IN REAR).
Rosemary says, “So what did you and Turk find to talk about?”
“He wants another miracle.”
“I knew that would come up soon.”
“He said I should fix Sarah.”
Rosemary glances over at Bing who is biting the plastic off a huge pickle they bought at Trader Joe’s. This pickle is big as a bread loaf. “What did you say?”
“I didn’t say.” Bing sucks juice from the pickle. It makes his nose wrinkle.
“Do you think you can make Sarah well?”
Bing nibbles the tip. It’s not like fruit he is accustomed to. He is filled with suspicion. “Turk says I can. He’s certain beyond doubt, but I don’t know. She doesn’t seem to need fixing.”
“Sarah is in terrible pain, Bing. Listen to me. She needs fixing and if you can do it, you should fix her. It’s right.”
Bing takes a bigger bite. “Turk said I should not listen when you talk. You need a muzzle and I should listen to him.” Pickle juice runs down Bing’s chin and drips onto his shirt. “I don’t fathom muzzle.”
“It’s a cup they strap on a dog’s mouth to keep it from biting.”
“You don’t bite. I bite.”
At a stoplight, Rosemary holds a dollar bill out the window so a dirty man in shorts and a sleeveless army shirt with a sign Bing can’t read can take it. He says, “God bless.”
Rosemary says, “Yeah, right.” She rolls her window back up quickly. “Did Turk say why you should listen to him and not me?”
“He said he is my father.”
The light changes and Rosemary turns off the boulevard onto the side street that leads to the Rose of Sharon circular drive, but instead of going on to the extended stay facility she pulls into a parallel parking slot. Bing can see the intersection beggar watching them, wondering why they stopped.
Rosemary shifts around so she is almost facing Bing. “Turk told you he’s your father, as in he’s the one who impregnated your mother? You know what impregnated means?”
Bing nods. “Impregnated happens often at the zoo. It’s all the animals have to do.”
“And?”
“Turk says he’s my spiritual father. Spiritual father doesn’t need impregnated mothers, I think. Spiritual father means boss.”
Rosemary starts the car again and pulls back into the street. She drums her long fingers on the steering wheel. “Turk Palisades is a teacher. A wise man, a mystic, hell, he’s a genius. But he cares first about his network and second about his network. Do you understand?”
Bing throws the pickle out the window. This isn’t what he wants when he wants food. He says, “It’s love. He cares about the happiness of Centered Soul instead of human people.”
“That is correct. Turk will use you and me both if it helps the ratings. Ratings mean more than people.”
“He thinks more of ratings than Sarah?”
“You got it.”
Bing looks down at the pickle stain — which is shaped like the Virgin Mary — on his shirt, although that is not really what he’s looking at. He’s trying to figure out Outies. “How does this make him wise?”
Rosemary thinks. She never looked at it quite that way before. Would Jesus or Bill Clinton or Curt Cobain or any man she admires put popularity over the personal relationship? Probably. World savers tend to be lousy family members.
Rosemary says, “Just don’t let him make a clown out of you. You are a person, not entertainment.”
“Some days we have clowns at the zoo, in the Safari Base Camp.”
“You are out of the zoo now.” Rosemary pats his leg. “How about if I do some research? Maybe we can figure out who your birth parents are.”
Bing wipes his juicy hands on her wrist on his leg. “That would be interesting.”
She pulls up to the Rose of Sharon verandah. “You’re okay here while I go back to work?”
Bing unfastens his seat belt. It is his newest skill for dealing with the outside world. “I like Sarah. She reminds me of my mother.”
Rosemary has no idea how to take that. “Now I am confused.”
“My mother at the Park. Betty.” Bing opens his door and gets out.
Rosemary says, “Sarah is like a female bonobo?”
Bing leans down to look across the seat at Rosemary. He nods. “Bonobos are more alive than humans. Sarah is not like other humans. Neither are you.”
“I’ll have to think about that one.”
59
Rosemary’s Centered Soul cubicle is the same size as the other cubicles in the building because the free-standing eight-foot high walls bought in bulk from Home Depot are all standard length. Each cubicle is a square — an actual cube — and the walls are covered by a dark green material, mostly cotton with some Dacron thrown in for texture. Rosemary’s walls are dominated by large twelve-month calendars. Really large. Many of the day boxes have writing in them. Today’s date reads: CAT WHISPERER. CLEOPATRA. This indicates to Rosemary that the two guests she is in charge of producing today are a cat whisperer and a woman who used to be Cleopatra. The word CLEOPATRA shows up five or six times a year on Rosemary’s calendar. It’s the second most popular reincarnation, after Elvis Presley.
What makes Rosemary’s cubicle unique compared to other nearby cubicles is not its size or the texture of its walls, it’s the window. One wall is actual, permanent, and midway across this wall is an inset window overlooking the employee parking lot, which isn’t great shakes as a view, but what makes it great shakes is that it lets in natural sunlight. That window has been the object of much inner-office intrigue over the years. It causes rampant envy among the spiritual workers who gossip that you have to sleep with Turk to ge
t it. To Rosemary, the window is worth suffering through the jealousy. She loves her window.
There are three photos of Sarah on the desk next to Rosemary’s computer: a close-up of her face, a hugging a Scottish terrier shot, and a drinking Dos Equis photo in which Sarah’s arm is draped over an obviously soused Rosemary.
Rosemary nips and tucks from web site to web site, writing down pertinent information in a notebook, the paper kind, not a small computer. Every so often she leans back in her chair and tugs at her right earlobe in silent contemplation. After a half hour of this, she leans forward to peer into the computer screen. She breathes out. “Jesus.”
Mitchell fills the open doorway. There is no door, only a doorway. Turk doesn’t encourage closed doors.
Rosemary says, “What?”
Mitchell comes into her cubicle. In his yoked shirt and cowboy hat, he’s too big for cubicle proportions. When Mitchell is in a room, there isn’t much space left over for air. This time, it’s not only Mitchell. His ham-sized hand is wrapped around the upper arm of a tall woman in green Army pants and a shapeless white turtleneck. Her hair is cut-short gray. She wears glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. She has a tan you rarely see outside the California desert or Arizona.
“This woman’s been roaming the halls,” Mitchell says. “Says she is looking for you.”
Rosemary and the woman stare at one another in distaste. At least, the woman stares with distaste. Rosemary stares with curiosity that intends to turn to distaste as soon as possible.
Rosemary says, “I’m assuming you are Dr. Lori.”
The tall woman blinks, once.
Mitchell says, “Should I remove her from the building?”
Rosemary glances down at the website on her screen, as if confirming information. “That’s okay, Mitchell. Let her stay.”
Mitchell doesn’t want to leave. “The Bing disciples have been sneaking in all day. I caught one pretending to deliver a pizza to Turk’s office. Pepperoni.”
“Turk would starve before eating pepperoni.”
“That’s how I knew the guy was fake.”
Dr. Lori shows no interest in this exchange. She’s not impatient. She’s not amused. About all you can call her is haughty.
Rosemary says, “Dr. Lori and I have things we need to discuss.”
Mitchell releases his hold on Dr. Lori’s arm. “Call out if she turns whack job on you. I’m close by.”
“Thank you, Mitchell.”
Mitchell huffs off and the old woman and young woman observe a period of silence, as if waiting to make certain he isn’t hovering before ripping into each other. Or perhaps it’s that span of silent measuring before an Old West gunfight.
Rosemary breaks the impasse. She nods at her computer screen. “There’s no Dr. Lori working with primates at the San Diego Zoo Safari. No Dr. Lori anywhere out there. I’ve got a first name Laurie in concessions and two Lauras in the ticket booths. A Larry the clown in the Frequent Flyer Bird Show, but no Dr. Lori.”
Dr. Lori advances into the room, her eyes behind the glasses on scan, checking out the calendars, taking note of the Sarah photos.
“Everything you’ve ever told Bing is a lie,” Rosemary says. “Even your name. You knew he would talk someday and you covered your butt.”
“Where is my boy?”
Rosemary puts her computer to Sleep. “He’s with my sister.” She nods toward the photos. “They take care of each other while I’m here.”
“I had hoped to speak to you anyway.” Dr. Lori moves over to the desk and stands towering over Rosemary. The desk faces a moveable wall, as desks tend to do in cubicles, with the window on her left, and Rosemary has no second chair to offer. She realizes Dr. Lori intends to intimidate from on high. There’s not much Rosemary can do but arch her neck backward and look up.
“And I’ve been looking forward to talking to you. Tell me, Dr. Lori.” She puts a touch of smirk on the words Dr. Lori. “How did you come to take possession of Bing?”
“That is none of your business.”
“Fair enough.”
“He was hidden in a crate from Zaire, in with a female bonobo and her offspring.” Dr. Lori’s nostrils quiver as she stares down at Rosemary. “The box contained a note: The baby’s name is Bing.”
Rosemary absorbs this. It’s fairly close to her wildest theory, although the details are too strange to actually buy. “And you didn’t report this to anyone?”
Dr. Lori turns and walks the two steps to the window. She stares blank-eyed out at the employee parking lot. “There was no point.”
Rosemary is extremely glad Dr. Lori moved out of her personal space. The staring up at nostrils thing was hard to maintain, but looking away would have been a sign of failure.
“Most people would not see it as pointless,” Rosemary says. “Most people who find a baby tell someone.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Did you research the crate? You must have known who sent it, couldn’t you ask why they dropped a child inside?”
Dr. Lori turns from the window, her arms held tightly across her basically breastless chest. “Mobuto’s army was slaughtering all the whites south of Congo River. I believe his parents put Bing in the box before they died.”
“You believe?”
Dr. Lori shrugs.
Rosemary says, “Bing was wondering who his birth mother might be one night recently. He didn’t mention the slaughter part of the story.”
“He doesn’t know. What good could come of him finding out his parents were killed?”
Rosemary stares at Dr. Lori. Her hair is cut like a wrestler Rosemary dated in high school. A total control freak, she really hated that guy.
Dr. Lori takes her glasses off and lets them drop on her chain. “I want you to send him back to me.”
“Send him back? Like a dress that makes me look fat?”
A black cloud appears to settle on Dr. Lori’s already too-tan face. She looks capable of violence. “This is a game to you, but you’ll destroy Bing and then go about your merry way without a trace of guilt.”
“I’m taking care of Bing.”
“He’s a child. He will always be a child. Are you prepared to take care of his needs for his entire life?”
Rosemary would love to stand in righteous anger, but there isn’t room in the cubicle, not without risk of contact. “He’s a child because you kept him a child. There’s nothing wrong with Bing’s brain or body. You forced him to remain the way he is, so he would need you.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about.”
“So tell me. Tell me why Bing knows more about genetics than I do, but he can’t read. Why he’s never heard words like love and God. Explain to me why it’s for Bing’s own welfare to keep him locked in a zoo.”
Dr. Lori starts forward, then she turns back to look out the window again. She sees a white dog peeing on the back tire of a pickup truck. She sees two of Bing’s disciples smoking a crack pipe. She speaks without looking at Rosemary.
“Have you ever seen an exhibit animal turned loose? Of course you haven’t, but maybe you’ve read about it. Every so often some well-meaning idiot opens a cage.”
Dr. Lori makes her voice go pitiful. “Wild animals must be wild. We must rescue the tigers and gorillas.”
She spins to glare at Rosemary. “Most stay put, but the animals who escape have a life expectancy in hours. Not days.”
Rosemary runs through any number of comebacks she could say or should say, starting with, “If every parent felt like you they’d handcuff their kids to their beds,” and going on to more forceful yet biting comments. She doesn’t say any of the things she could say. Rosemary instinctively knows that biting sarcasm bounces off this woman.
“Bing is not an animal,” Rosemary says. “He’s human.”
Dr. Lori uncrosses her arms. Something other than barely controlled fury shines in her eyes. It’s almost as if she is pleading.
“Bing is a precio
us child, with gifts you cannot fathom. Living outside will destroy all that is good and pure in the boy.”
She steps toward Rosemary who recoils. “You care about him,” Dr. Lori says. “I can tell. I trust you care about him enough you don’t want to see his life ruined.”
Rosemary holds her hands in her lap. She lifts her chin just a bit, and says, “I’m not ruining Bing. I’m setting him free.”
60
Sarah lies in an antiseptic hospital bed with the guardrail up on her left side so she won’t roll out in her sleep. The rail is down on the other side. Maybe no one thinks she’ll roll right. It would be difficult on account of the IV tether running from her left arm to bags of saline solution and morphine drip, so if she rolled right she’d have to tear out the IV needle taped to her wrist.
Her bed machinery is set so her head is up, in theory so she can eat her tray lunch. The reality is that between the pain and the morphine, Salisbury steak is the last substance in the world Sarah wants in her body.
Bing leans in over the bed to study her face from extremely close up. “Your eyes are not how eyes ought to be.”
Sarah picks up a hand mirror from the bedside swing-in table, next to her untouched tray. They keep the mirror nearby to encourage her to take pride in her looks. The head of the facility once wrote an article for an extended care magazine that connected pride in appearance with not giving up.
When Sarah views herself in the mirror, she sees pale, dry skin with flake splotches. She sees cheekbones that weren’t visible a year ago.
Her voice is so soft Bing has to lean forward to hear. “What’s odd about my eyes?”
“The black hole in the center there. Dark makes it big and light makes it little, but your hole is tiny small. It should only be that small if you’re looking at the sun.”
She sees what he means. “It’s the medicine. I don’t understand why, but morphine makes your eyes think you are staring into the light.”
Bing draws his face to within an inch of Sarah’s eyes. He first studies the right, then the left eye. He notes that the whites are boiled egg white white. Between the black pinprick hole and the whites, her eyes are blue, as opposed to Rosemary’s green. He’s always thought birth sisters should have eyes that match.