Bingo Brown's Guide to Romance (7 page)

“At least he got published.”

“Ah,” Bingo said.

The rest of the meal was eaten in silence, except for the sounds of Jamie attacking spaghetti.

Sometimes when Bingo watched his brother he wished he were little again and could find simple pleasure in slapping spaghetti or comfort in holding the end of a frayed blanket. Once he had even put Jamie's pacifier in his mouth, but he had taken it out as soon as he saw his reflection in the mirror.

In these moments, he tried to remind himself of the long and difficult road from where Jamie sat in his high chair to where he himself sat in a straight chair.

At last Bingo's father got up from the table. “That was good.”

“You hardly ate anything, Sam.”

“I'm just not that hungry.”

“You have to eat.”

“I'll put my plate in the fridge and heat it up later.”

When his father was gone, Bingo's mother hissed, “Why did you do that?” It was a hard sentence to hiss because it didn't have any s's in it, but she managed.

“Do what? What did I do?”

“Bring up writing.”

“I was lucky to think of it. Maybe you two can sit in silence for the rest of your lives, but I need sounds.”

“Your father was just beginning to come out of his depression. Now I have to start cheering him up all over again. Clean the kitchen.”

“Mom, I have got to read my book.”

“Do that after you clean the kitchen.”

“Bye-bye,” Jamie said.

“I wish,” Bingo answered.

He got up slowly. He glanced down at his shirt, at the red spaghetti sauce over his heart, and he began to clear the table.

When he finished the kitchen he took Jamie, wiped his hands, and went back to his book. He did something he rarely did—turned to the end.

There he read a wonderful sentence. “Listen to this,” he told his brother. “ ‘He felt a quiet manhood, not assertive but of sturdy and strong blood.' ”

He looked at the back of his brother's neck, a sight that always made him feel protective of his brother. “That's what I want to feel.”

Jamie yawned. Bingo felt a flow of affection as pure and uncomplicated as affection is supposed to be.

“And here's something else. ‘Scars faded as flowers.' Ah. ‘Scars faded as flowers.' Just between you and me, I have some scars that I wouldn't mind seeing fade as flowers.”

Jamie lay back against him. He put one hand on his head and began to rub his hair.

“Oh, and listen to this. ‘He turned with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks—an existence of soft and eternal peace.' ”

Bingo was prepared to take that sentence phrase by phrase, starting with a lover's thirst, about which he was something of an expert, but Jamie had already gone to sleep.

Quietly, Bingo took him to his room and laid him on his stomach in his crib.

“If I come to any other good parts that I think you'll enjoy, I'll read them to you tomorrow,” he said.

B
INGO WAS USED TO
facing unfortunate facts about himself. Only last week, before Melissa came, he had willingly, even good-naturedly, accepted that:

1. He was penniless.

2. He had only half a sentence on his essay for civics. “The study of civics is important because …”

3. He continued to gag every time he had to change a diaper.

4. Dark hair was growing on his toes. (And while he had used his dad's razor without permission a time or two, he was aware his dad would not want him to use it on his toes. He would not want to use his own razor, if he had one, on his toes.)

Now he was forced to add two new, even more unfortunate facts to the list, and he was not accepting them good-naturedly or willingly.

5. He was womanless.

6. He had a depressed father.

Bingo was aware he couldn't do much about number five. He felt Melissa was lost to him forever.

Yet he still longed for her and thought of her. She was the only perfect girl he had ever known.

Problem #8. Following a Perfect Love.

SUPPOSE THAT YOU HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH A GIRL WHO IS PERFECT, AND BECAUSE OF THIS, THE LOVE YOU SHARED WAS PERFECT. THAT LOVE IS NOW ENDED. WOULD IT BE CRUEL TO ALLOW ANOTHER GIRL TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU, WHEN YOU KNOW IT CAN BE ONLY AN IMPERFECT LOVE?

Bingo's Answer:
I AM NOT QUALIFIED AT PRESENT TO ANSWER THIS, HAVING NOT EXPERIENCED IMPERFECT LOVE PERSONALLY, BUT I WILL GET BACK TO THIS, FOR, LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, IT WILL PROBABLY BEFALL ME.

Bingo couldn't do much to hurry the imperfect love along, but there was something he could do about his father.

His mother had left for the afternoon. She had to be at the opening of some new town houses. But she had left specific instructions. “Listen for Jamie, and don't do anything to upset your father.”

As soon as her car was out of sight, however, Bingo went to his parents' room. His father lay on the bed in his usual position, with his freckled hands folded on his chest.

“Dad, are you asleep?” Bingo asked from the doorway.

“Not quite.”

“You want some company?”

“Oh, I don't know. Like who?”

“Me. Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Bingo came in and stood awkwardly beside the bed. He recalled that often his father had come into Bingo's room and stood this way as Bingo lay on his Smurf sheets. His father usually said, “Is there something troubling you, son? Is everything all right?”

But that wasn't Bingo's way. Bingo blurted out, “I know your manuscript got rejected.”

There was a silence. Only the refolding of his father's long, freckled fingers showed that he had heard the statement.

Finally his father said, “I was going to get around to telling you.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I know how it feels.”

“Oh?”

“I sent one of my manuscripts off.”

“I didn't know you'd ever finished one.”

“Well, it wasn't finished. It was only one paragraph. It was the one that started out, ‘At eight-thirty the earth beneath the city began to move. The tremor measured nine on the Richter scale. People thought it was an earthquake. The animals knew better. The animals knew that what had moved beneath the city was alive, alive after four thousand years of sleep! It was alive and it was coming up!' ”

“You sent that off?”

“Yes, and I asked if they wanted to see the rest of the manuscript—I didn't mention the fact that I hadn't finished writing it, of course.”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing. They just sent a printed slip of paper thanking me for sending it but saying they couldn't publish it. Later I discovered I had misspelled
Richter,
and of course that might have had something to do with their reluctance to publish.”

“Perhaps. Have you sent off other things, Bingo?”

“No, that's the only one. I felt like my science-fiction story that takes place in Mau Mau really wasn't long enough.”

“I've forgotten that one. Refresh my memory.”

“ ‘Something was stirring deep within the volcano on the island of Mau Mau, and it was not lava.' ”

His father seemed to control a smile. “It
is
sort of short.”

“But I make every word count.”

“I'll grant you that.”

“If I can get a couple more paragraphs, I'll probably go ahead and put it in the mail. You need to send yours off again, Dad,” Bingo said.

“I guess.”

“You have to! I would send mine off a hundred times if I believed in it.”

“You would, wouldn't you?”

“Yes.”

“It's probably not so much that I wanted this manuscript to be published—although I did want that. I wanted a new way of life, Bingo. I wanted to stay home and write, but I can't do that if I can't justify it. If I can't sell something—if I can't make a living—then I can't sit around all day at the word processor.”

“Send it off again.”

“Well, I will. I need to read it over—maybe I can make it better.”

“You want me to read it?”

“Oh, no, no, I think I've got to make my own decisions on this. I know you wouldn't want me fiddling with your Richter-scale monster. By the way, what is that thing that's coming up after four thousand years of sleep?”

“I don't know. When I figure it out, I'll let you know.”

“You got anything else in the works?” his father asked.

“Well, I have two other science-fiction stories started, but lately I've been working on—”

He broke off as he thought of his
Guide to Romance.
He was, he thought, like a child who had briefly waded in the ocean attempting a book about swimming the Pacific.

“I've been working on something sort of personal.”

“Anything you'd care to talk about?”

“Not really. But Dad, you know how they're always saying write about what you know?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I was writing about what I thought I knew, only I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Some of my answers seem, well, less than perfect.”

“That's hard to believe.”

“It happens. Are you working on anything else, Dad?”

His father smiled. “Not anything I'd care to comment on.”

“But you do have another idea?”

His smile remained. “I might as well admit it. I do have another idea.”

The literary discussion was interrupted by a wail from down the hall.

“Well, I better go. That's Jamie. I told Mom I'd listen out for him.”

Bingo's dad threw his long legs off the side of his bed.

“I'll get him. I've been sort of ignoring Jamie lately. You go on out and take the afternoon off.”

B
INGO LAY ON THE
grass, listening to Billy Wentworth read
The Red Badge of Courage
aloud.

Bingo's eyes were closed.

Wentworth was not a good reader. “ ‘Hear th' news, boys? Corkright's crushed th' hull rebel right an' captured two hull divisions.' ”

Wentworth stopped. “I wonder what a hull division is.”

“How is it spelled?” Bingo asked without opening his eyes.

“
H-u-l-l.
”

“I think he means
whole
—whole division,” Bingo explained.

“
Hull
is whole?”

“The character has an accent.”

“I get it, but I don't like it. You get a lot of accents in Gifted and Talented?” he asked curiously.

“Enough.”

“Then I'm glad I ain't gifted and talented. Where was I? Oh, here. ‘I tell yeh'—
yeh
is
you,
right? I'm catching on to this. ‘I tell yeh I've been all over that there ken-try.' Ken-try.” He kept trying the word. “Ken-try.”

“Country,” Bingo said.

Bingo didn't understand how he had come to be lying on the grass, allowing Billy Wentworth to read aloud to him.

He had come into the backyard with
The Red Badge of Courage
under his arm. He had thought that a change of scene might help him concentrate. Certainly he was unable to concentrate on his Ninja Turtle sheets.

There was a tree in the backyard where Bingo, in his carefree younger days, had sat and read. He remembered pleasantly the rustling of the leaves around him, the comfort of the sturdy old tree limbs that seemed to envelop him, Disney-movie-like, as he sat high above the neighborhood.

That was the place to read.

It had not taken Bingo long to climb up to the favorite limb of his youth. He could almost have stepped up onto it. For a moment he could not believe he was on the correct limb. His feet had actually touched the ground.

How long ago had he sat here? Four years? Five? The tree could not have shrunk. He must have grown!

He had sat for a moment, enjoying the awkwardness. It was like being in a booster chair when—

“Hey, Worm Brain!”

Bingo had looked across the yard. It was Wentworth, of course.

“What you doing—playing Tarzan?”

“I've got to read this book.” Bingo had given a helpless shrug, gesturing with the closed book as he stepped down from the tree limb.

“What's it about?”

“War.”

“War?”

“Yes.”

Wentworth had looked interested. “Nam or Gulf?”

“Civil.”

“Civil? Hey, let me see that book. Are there any pictures?”

“No.”

“Give it here anyway.”

And before Bingo knew what was happening, Wentworth was reading aloud and he, Bingo, was lying there on the grass, listening to him.

“That's the end of the dialogue for a while,” Wentworth was saying. “I'm glad about that, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“I don't see how actors stand it. I could never be an actor.”

“No.”

Wentworth picked up the narrative. “ ‘A shell, screaming like a—' ” Wentworth paused to sound out a word. “Ban-shee. Who ever heard of a ban-shee? I swear that's what it says. You can look if you don't believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“What will they come up with next. ‘—screaming like a banshee went over the huddled heads of the reserves. It landed in the—' ”

Suddenly Wentworth stopped reading. Bingo waited, thinking he was getting ready to sound out a word, but he heard the sound of the book being slammed shut.

“Hey, I almost forgot what I came over for,” Wentworth said. “Am I getting stupid or what?” He slapped the side of his head as if to activate his brain.

Bingo didn't answer. He had pushed his new glasses up on his forehead, but now he pulled them down and looked at Wentworth. Wentworth didn't look much better, but Bingo liked to have an excuse—however feeble—to push his glasses up and down.