by Betsy Byars
“I’ve smelled it too.”
“I go back in the kitchen. I say, ‘Mom, how about this bottle of perfume?’ My mom doesn’t look up—she’s putting Decorettes on a cake in a Christmas tree design—but she knows the bottle of perfume and nods. She goes, ‘Fine, but don’t take the after-shave. I’m saving that for the postman.”
“I said, ‘I would hardly give a girl after-shave.’ Bingo, I was insulted.”
“Of course.”
“So, I go in—Mom keeps the wrapping paper and stuff on a card table in her bedroom and I wrap up the perfume and get a gift tag. I’m in such a hurry that I just initial the tag. ‘To: C. C. From: B. W.’ Like that.”
“Which said it all.” Bingo was tired and he wished he could go in the house and listen to the rest of this from a chair at the window, like a priest at confession, but he continued to stand where he was.
“And then I delivered it—Bingo, I couldn’t wait. I had to deliver it then and there. I don’t know why—something came over me. It was an—an urge.”
Bingo felt a twinge of sympathy at that. He was all too familiar with urges.
“I delivered it on my bike. Cici wasn’t there, so I delivered it to her mother. I rode home. I put my bike in the garage. I went in the house—” He was reciting the story now, as if he were on the witness stand and had to get every detail correct.
“My mom was rooting through the reject drawer, saying, ‘I know I had a bottle of after-shave—I know I had a bottle of after-shave—’
“Bingo, my blood turned to ice water—you know how it does in books? Like a soldier will be sitting there, thinking he is safe and suddenly he hears a faint click behind him, and he knows that someone just clicked off the safety on his semiautomatic? And his blood turns to ice water? You know that feeling?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, my blood turned to ice water because I knew I had given Cici the postman’s after-shave.”
There was a long pause. The Wentworths’ Christmas lights blinked on and off. In the on-off glow of the Christmas lights, Wentworth’s face seemed to be throbbing with pain.
Finally Bingo said, “These things happen, Wentworth.”
“I haven’t told you the worst.”
“There’s more?”
“It wasn’t just plain after-shave. It was Brut! I gave Cici Boles Brut!”
In his agony he turned his back on Bingo entirely.
“Look,” Bingo said, “well, listen. Go buy Cici a real present. Spend some money. Earrings. That’s what I got Melissa. I’ll lend you the fifty-nine cents. Take the earrings over and say, ‘Mrs. Boles, when I delivered Cici’s present, I got it mixed up. Here is Cici’s real present and may I please have the postman’s after-shave.’ She’ll give it to you.”
Wentworth was shaking his head.
“She will.”
More head-shaking.
“Come on. She’s a mother. She’ll have to.”
Wentworth said, “No.”
Then he turned and looked directly into Bingo’s eyes. A gorilla had once done this to Bingo at the zoo, leaving Bingo unsettled for hours. Only the gorilla had had a sort of human, intelligent look, while Wentworth’s eyes were those of a wounded animal.
“But you, Bingo,” he said in a pleading voice that didn’t go with the gorilla eyes. “She would give it to you.”
Midnight Tonight and Brut by Tomorrow
LISTEN, WORM BRAIN, I want that Brut by tomorrow—or else!”
“But it’s m-midnight. I can’t go over to the Boles’s at m-midnight.”
“You are not getting the message, Mush Mouth. I want the Brut.”
“I’ll honestly try, but—”
“You better honestly try, because if I don’t get the Brut—”
“You will—”
“Don’t interrupt. You know I don’t like to be interrupted. If I don’t get that Brut by tomorrow morning, then you’ll get one of these—” Zoink! “Followed by one of these—” Pow! “And a few of these—” Zap-a-zap zap zap!
Silence.
“And, remember, there’s plenty more where they came from. Now get up off the ground. Get up! What? You say you can’t get up? Then I’ve got a way of getting you up—up and into orbit.”
Bingo groaned.
“Get up, son,” another voice said.
Now two people were demanding that he get up. Didn’t they think he wanted to get up? But how many Zoinks and Pows and Zap-a-zap zap zaps could a body take?
“Bingo, wake up!”
“What?”
“Wake up, son.”
“Oh, Dad. Dad?”
“Yes. Bingo—”
“Oh, thanks, Dad, thanks. I was having a terrible nightmare. See, Wentworth was trying to get me to go over and get the postman’s after-shave from Cici Boles, and he lost patience—well, actually, he did much, much more than lose patience. This was more like losing control. He socked me here and here and four real quick jabs—”
“I haven’t got time to listen to that now, son. They’ve just taken your mom to the delivery room, and I’m going to the hospital to be with her.”
“What?”
“Get on some clothes, Bingo. I’m dropping you off at Grammy’s.”
“What happened?”
Bingo’s dad pulled back the covers and helped Bingo to his feet. “I’ll tell you on the way. Get dressed.”
“What time is it?”
“Midnight.”
“But I saw Mom just—like five hours ago and she was fine. She wanted fudge!”
Bingo’s dad handed him his jeans, and Bingo pulled them on over his pajamas. His dad helped him into his jacket and zipped it up.
The overhead light seemed unusually bright—it always did at midnight, and Bingo shielded his eyes with one hand.
“Shoes, son, where are your shoes?”
Bingo knelt and pulled them out from under the bed. He didn’t bother with socks, and the insides of his shoes were cold and gritty.
“Grammy will bring you back in the morning for whatever you need. Let’s go!”
Bingo ran after his father. “But, Dad, listen, Mom was saying that if she could just hold on for three more weeks the baby would weigh over five pounds.”
“Well, she couldn’t…”
Bingo had to pause to retrieve a shoe—he hadn’t had time to lace them up so they wouldn’t stay on—and when he got to the garage, his father was already in the car with the motor running.
Bingo slid in beside him. “So, what happened?”
“I didn’t get all the details. She started having pains about an hour ago.”
“But she had pains before and they stopped.”
“This time her water broke—that’s the bag that the baby’s in. Once it breaks, they want mothers to deliver within twenty-four hours.”
His father went around a corner too fast, and the wheels of the station wagon squealed in protest. Bingo reached for his seat belt and clicked it into place.
He glanced at his father. He said, “Seat belt, Dad.” His parents, like an endangered species, were taking on new value.
His father fastened his seat belt without slowing down. His profile was sharper than Bingo remembered, maybe because his mouth was set in a straight line that was unfamiliar to Bingo.
“So, go on about Mom.”
“Where was I?”
“The bag had just broken.”
“When that happens, the barrier between the baby and the outside world is gone and is open to infection.”
Bingo slumped in his seat. He felt as if the same thing had happened to him, as if the barrier between him and the outside world was gone and he was open to anything.
“How long is this going to take?” he asked.
“Well, you took eight hours.”
“So sometime between eight hours and twenty-four hours we ought to know something.”
“We ought to.”
The car pulled up in front of his grandmother’s condo.
She must have been watching for them, because she opened the door immediately and stepped out under the porch light.
Bingo turned to his father. “Call me, Dad.”
“I will.”
“Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
“Dad—”
“I’m in a hurry, Bingo. What is it?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Bingo got out of the car.
“Give her my love!” his grandmother called, waving from the porch.
Bingo’s dad waved back and drove off in the direction of the hospital.
With his shoes flapping forlornly, Bingo started up the walk.
BO from the Coop
BINGO WAS DRINKING HIS first cup of coffee—ever. After the first bitter sip he had thought he would not be able to get the whole thing down, but now he was beginning to like it.
It wasn’t that he liked the taste—no one could like that. What he liked was the feeling of companionship that came over two adults when they sat drinking a basically bad-tasting liquid together. The two adults were Bingo and his grandmother.
Bingo’s grandmother had just about spoiled the companionship by telling him, “Actually, Bingo, this isn’t real coffee.”
“No? Then what is it?”
“Sanka.”
“Does real coffee taste any better?”
She smiled at him over the rim of her cup. “One tastes just about as bad as the other. You ought to put some milk and sugar in it.”
“That would be childish.”
Bingo put down his mug, but he kept his hands around it for the warmth.
He said, “You know, Grammy, I was feeling very successful yesterday evening. That’s what a good day does for me.
He lifted his mug with both hands and looked at her through the steam. “You want to hear all the good things about yesterday?”
“I would love to hear some good things about yesterday.”
He put down his cup so he could count off the triumphs. “Well, first, I acted quite manly on the telephone—see, this girl called me that I didn’t want to talk to and she had called me before, which was how I knew I didn’t want to talk to her, but I did talk to her and very politely.” He broke off to say, “Look, maybe I won’t go into each one in detail, I’ll just list them, all right?”
“All right, but we have plenty of time.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Well. One—I acted manly on the phone. Two—I had a nice visit with Mom, and she was hopeful about the baby. Three—I went out to eat with you and I didn’t spill anything. Four—I caught this big boy looking in my window and when I went up to him, I startled him and he turned around with his arms up like this in a karate stance, and I did not flinch.”
Bingo looked deep into his Sanka. “That may not sound like much of a day to you, Grammy, but for me, well, it was practically the highlight of December.”
“I think it sounds like a fine day.”
He sighed. “And then…”
“Then what?”
“This! Mom! The baby! The baby is coming and it doesn’t weigh enough!”
“We don’t know that.”
“Well, I know it. Mom said four pounds, and four pounds isn’t enough.”
“Four and a half pounds.”
“Well, all right, but have you ever seen four and a half pounds of hamburger? It’s—”
“It might not have been enough in the old days, but today they have special care for premature infants. They can work miracles.” His grandmother paused before she continued. “You know what I was thinking about while I was waiting for Sam to drop you off?”
“What?”
“I was remembering the night you were born.”
Bingo stopped and waited. Although he wasn’t through expressing his concern over the baby’s weight, he found this new topic appealing. Bingo enjoyed hearing his grandmother tell stories in which he had played an important part.
He couldn’t resist. “What was so special about the night I was born?”
“Oh, it was a beautiful night—full moon. It was so bright you could see the mountains.
“Your mom had told me, ‘Now I’m not going to call when we go to the hospital because I don’t want you to worry.’ But I kept after her and kept after her. I said, ‘I want to worry. It’s the kind of thing I like to worry about.’ So finally she said, ‘Well, when we drive by your condo’—which was right on the way to the hospital—‘When we drive by your condo, I’ll give you a honk. When you hear the Coop, you can start worrying.’ ”
“The Coop?”
“At that time your mom and dad were still driving a car we’d gotten your mom in college. It was an old Chevy and your mom called it the Coop. ‘I’ll pick you up in the Coop,’ she’d tell her friends. One summer she took seventeen girls to the lake in the Coop.
“Anyway, Bingo, the Coop had a very distinctive horn. It was like a foghorn. This was before your time, Bingo, but there used to be an old commercial for deodorant, and a voice would go, ‘B—O.’ The O was lower. ‘B—O.’ Like that. Back then BO stood for body odor.”
“It still does.”
“So in the middle of the night, I heard the Coop’s horn go ‘B—O.’ And I knew you were on your way into the world.”
“Grammy, you never told me that before.”
“I was saving it.” She eyed him. “Bingo, aren’t you getting sleepy? Don’t you want to lie down for a while?”
“No.”
“It’s going to be morning before we have any news.”
He shook his head.
“Want me to heat up your Sanka?”
Bingo hesitated only a moment. “Please.”
When his grandmother put the steaming mug before him, he wrapped his hands around it again. He liked the warmth of it better than the taste.
“Go on about the night I was born.”
“Well, I rushed to the window, but the Coop was already out of sight. So I woke up your grandfather and said, ‘James, did you hear the Coop?’ Because I thought I might have dreamed it, I wanted you to be born so much. He said, ‘Yes, I heard the Coop and so did everybody else on the block who was trying to sleep. Now get back in bed.’ That was just the way your grandfather talked. He was as excited as I was.
“So, I got back in, but I…”
They were still talking about the night Bingo was born when the phone rang.
The Perfect Ten
BINGO’S GRANDMOTHER HAD A wonderfully hopeful way of answering the phone. “Hell-o!” She sort of sang out the word, as if she knew in advance someone was calling that she really wanted to talk to.
This time, however, she said, “Sam?” It was a hopeful “Sam,” but it was anxious too.
Bingo stood up. He and his grandmother were looking straight at each other while she listened. Then she shook her head. She mouthed the words, “Not yet.”
Bingo lowered himself back down into his chair.
His grandmother listened and said, “Well, keep us informed.” She listened again. “And give her our love.”
His grandmother came back to the table. “Your dad says that things are progressing, but slowly. Your mother asked him to call so we wouldn’t worry.”
“I’m still worried.”
“I am too. But your dad’s in the delivery room with her. They used to not allow that—they made the dads look through a little round window on the door and they couldn’t see anything.”
A silence fell over them. It had been possible to divert themselves with Bingo’s birth for a while, but not even that interested Bingo now.
Dawn was breaking, and somehow he had expected the baby to be here by now. The only thing he really knew about babies was that they were always born at night—at least everybody he knew had been. It was a nighttime activity.
The realization that dawn was now breaking, that the stupid sun which had never waited for anyone or anything in its whole life, was poking its stupid head—
Tears came to Bingo’s
eyes and he quickly rubbed them away.
“Bingo, why don’t you stretch out on the sofa.”
“I don’t want to miss anything.”
“What could you miss? Sitting at the table with an old woman!”
“Where’s the old woman?” Bingo asked gallantly. This was a standing joke between them. “I don’t see any old woman.”
This caused them both to smile and Bingo said, “All right, I’ll lie down if you promise, promise you’ll wake me when the phone rings. Even before you answer, you have to wake me.”
“I promise.”
Bingo went in the living room and lay down on the sofa. His grandmother covered him with an afghan she had crocheted using sixteen different colors of yarn.
“Remember, you promised to wake me.”
“Yes.”
Bingo closed his eyes, and fell immediately into a deep sleep. It was such a deep sleep that when he awakened, four hours later, he was still lying on his back, still covered by the afghan, arms still at his sides.
The only thing different was that the taste of Sanka in his mouth had strengthened or soured or done something to make his entire mouth taste—he searched for the right word—fetid.
Bingo was always pleased with the use of a new word, particularly when no other word would do. Sanka left a mouth fetid. Enough said.
Bingo could hear his grandmother doing something in the kitchen, and he came to his senses. He remembered what he was doing in this condo, on this sofa, under this afghan.
He threw off the afghan and went to the door. “You didn’t wake me!”
“Bingo, there was nothing to wake you for.”
“Dad hasn’t called yet?”
“No.”
“But it’s—” He looked at his watch. “It’s after ten o’clock!”
“I know. Want some Sanka?”
“No, I’ve sworn off that stuff.” Bingo slumped into a chair.
“Well, how about some bacon and eggs or some cereal?”
“Not right now. I’m not awake yet.”
He combed his hair with his hands and left his fingers in the tangles. He looked up.
“Grammy, do you remember how I acted when I first found out about the baby?”