Bingo Brown and the Language of Love (9 page)

“We look stupid,” Bingo said bluntly.

“Sometimes you have to risk looking stupid to get what you want,” his father answered in a mild way. “More people have lost out on more good things because they were afraid of looking stupid. …”

He rang the bell twice.
Ding dong! Ding dong!

Bingo passed the time alternately hoping that his mother would come to the door and that she wouldn’t. He wanted to see her and he didn’t want to see her. He found he couldn’t remember exactly what she looked like.

Bingo shifted his weight to the other hip. He sighed. He felt that an unfortunate pattern was being established in his life.

“Is this what it’s like when you go on dates?”

“What?”

“Is this what it’s like to go on dates? You know, standing out here and not knowing if she’s coming to the door, not knowing if you even want her to come, wondering if you’ll recognize her, wondering if she’s hiding in the closet, waiting for you to leave, wondering if you’ve got time to run and hide in the bushes.”

“At first, I guess.”

“Then I shall never go on dates.”

“You’ll change your mind when you fall in love,” his father said, punching the bell again.

Bingo rolled his eyes up into his head at this parental blindness.

“Actually, it was worse in college.”

Bingo glanced quickly at his dad. “How could it be any worse than this?”

“Well, they had a loudspeaker system at Catawba. So they’d call up to your date’s floor and say, ‘Sam Brown to see so-and-so,’ and you’d be standing there all dressed up, obviously expecting to go out, and the loudspeaker would come back with, ‘Sorry! So-and-so’s not here.’”

“How cruel!”

“Even if it didn’t happen to you, you were always aware it could.”

“Maybe I won’t go to Catawba College after all,” Bingo added thoughtfully. “Did Mom ever do that to you?”

“No, your mom was in love with me. Half the time she’d be waiting for me outside on the steps.”

Melissa would have been waiting for me like that, Bingo thought regretfully, that is, if my love had lasted till college.

His father rang the bell for what Bingo sincerely hoped was the last
ding dong.
He glanced down at his casserole.

His father gave up. “We’ll just leave the flowers on the stoop, if that’s all right with you.”

“It is.”

“I’ll write a note.”

His father clicked open his pen. They had not thought to get a card, so he had to write on the top of the box.

Bingo wanted to tell his father that something called the language of love might be needed here, ordinary words that portrayed extraordinary emotions.

Bingo’s dad finished. “You want to sign it?”

Bingo read it. The note said, “We love you and miss you and want you to come home. Sam.”

Well, they were ordinary words, that was for sure, but Bingo couldn’t detect a trace of the language of love.

He took the pen and added:
“Cook at 350 until hot and bubbly. Your faithful son, Bingo Brown”

His father laid the box of roses on the stoop as solemnly as if he were laying a wreath in a cemetery. Bingo put his casserole on top.

Then, together, they walked in silence to the car.

B
INGO’S GRANDMOTHER WAS, AS
he knew she would be, in front of the convenience store. There were eight other women, one with a baby, and two men. His grandmother was the only one in an appropriate T-shirt. Two weeks ago, in happier times, Bingo had designed it himself. It was one word, “SMUT,” with the “not allowed” sign printed over it.

He had also helped his grandmother make the two signs that she now held so proudly.

One of the signs read:

CLEAN AIR

CLEAN WATER

CLEAN MINDS

CLEAN EARTH

The other:

UNLESS WE LEAVE THE WORLD BETTER THAN WE FOUND IT, THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR OUR EXISTENCE.

“The letters will have to be real little,” Bingo had warned her as he blocked out the second sign.

“I don’t care. It’s my motto in life.”

“People won’t be able to read it from across the street.”

She had held up her red T-shirt with the huge unallowed “SMUT” on it. “Well, they’ll be able to read that, won’t they?”

She had looked critically at herself in the mirror, with the T-shirt against her. Bingo had watched.

After a minute she had said, “I will do anything, including make a fool of myself, to make this world a cleaner, better place.”

Bingo loved his grandmother. She was almost exactly like his mother. They both wore their hair pulled back, they both wore the same size clothes, they both wore Pure Watermelon lipstick. The only things different were that his grandmother was a little bit more wrinkled and that she had no faults whatsoever.

Bingo called her Grammy, like the award.

Grammy was a person, Bingo thought now, who would never run away from her child and husband, no matter what misfortune befell her.

For a moment Bingo remained in the shadows of Video Village, watching his beloved grandmother. Video Village had been picketed by CUT! in the spring, and they now displayed a sign in the window saying, “We no longer carry X-rated films.”

His grandmother’s head was turned toward the store, but as a car went by, she swirled and, face bright with hope, began to lead a cheer.

Two, Four, Six, Eight

It’s smut we hate!

Two, Four, Six, Eight It’s—

Slowly Bingo crossed the street. “Harrison!” His grandmother broke off her cheer. She was the only person in the world who called him by his real name.

She embraced him so vigorously that her protest signs flapped around his ears. “Are you joining us? Are you going to help us protest?”

“Not really, Grammy,” Bingo said. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Here, hold this while we talk.” She pressed the Clean Air sign into his hand. “You can look as if you’re protesting even if you aren’t. We need some young people.”

“I’ll be glad to.” Bingo took the sign, but it drooped. He held it as if he intended to hit a golf ball with it instead of protest.

“Now what did you want to talk about?”

“Did Mom get my casserole last night?” Bingo asked. “I had to leave it on the front stoop. I was afraid a dog or cat might—”

“She got it.”

“I guess you were out, since you didn’t come to the door.”

“Yes, we went out for pizza.”

“You didn’t eat the casserole?”

“We’re saving it for tonight.”

“Oh. Did Dad’s flowers do any good?”

His grandmother hugged him with her free arm. “Every act of kindness does good, Harrison.” She smiled. “Your mother needs your support right now.”

“Well, I need hers. Doesn’t she know that?”

“She knows. Sometimes a person needs a little extra support.”

“You can say that again.”

She hugged him.

“Grammy, will you let her know that I forgive her for what she did?”

“Harrison …” Her voice was low, as if she were chiding him, but since she had never chided him before in his entire life, that could not be possible.

“I forgive her even though when this baby is my age, I’ll be twenty-four.”

“So what? I’ll be seventy-four.”

His grandmother broke off the conversation. A car was turning into the 7-11 parking lot. His grandmother moved forward to take her place at the head of the protesters.

Inspired, the others broke into a new chant:

Smut no more! Smut no more!

Starting with this convenience store!

Smut no more! Smut no more!

Bingo’s grandmother signaled the driver to roll down his window. She did this with a gesture worthy of a highway patrolman.

“What’s going on here?” the driver asked.

“Sir, we’re asking the people of Townsville to boycott this store until the manager agrees to remove pornographic magazines from the shelves. Will you help us?”

The man hesitated. “I was just going to get a loaf of bread.”

“Yes, but that loaf of bread can make Townsville a better place for your children.”

The driver shifted gears and, with a sigh, circled the gas pumps and drove out of the parking lot, accompanied by cheers. Even Bingo raised his sign … “When’s Mom coming home?” he asked.

“I’m working on it.”

“Do you think it’ll be tonight? Because I’d like to fix something special. That casserole last night, that was just something I got from
The Three Ingredient Cookbook.”

“Probably not tonight.”

“You could come, too. Grammy, I just realized you’ve never tasted my cooking.”

The lady with the baby had stepped up beside Bingo, and Bingo felt a light tap on his shoulder.

He glanced around and saw that he was being patted by the tiniest hand he had ever seen in his life. He had not known hands came that tiny. This baby—of all people in the world—this baby, a stranger to him, this baby had sensed the depth of his anguish and had reached out. It was like a message of hope from the future.

He hadn’t known babies brought comfort! He only thought they had to be comforted, changed, pacified. This was a whole new concept.

“Harrison, hold your sign up!”

“What?” The tiny hand was holding his shirt now. Bingo could not move. He was held in place as surely as if the hand that held him was made of iron.

“That’s the WAXA television truck. It’s turning in! We’re going to be on TV!”

She grabbed Bingo’s arm and thrust it high into the air. He quickly repositioned the sign over his face and hid behind it.

The baby let go.

B
INGO ROUNDED THE CORNER
slowly. His cheeks still felt hot from the strain of participating in the protest.

Although he had tried to hold the Clean Air sign directly in front of his face the whole time the TV truck was there, he might have—in fact he was pretty sure he had—peered around the sign twice. He might—in fact he was pretty sure he would—be on the evening news.

And worst of all, it had been the side of his face without the new clipped eyebrow! From now on he would have to be as careful about which side of his face was photographed as a movie star.

He looked up at his house and stopped. His lower jaw dropped in astonishment. Billy Wentworth was on Bingo’s porch, putting something in Bingo’s mailbox. What was going on here?

Bingo moved closer. Then he saw that Wentworth was not putting something into his mailbox! He was taking something out!

Billy Wentworth was stealing their mail!

Silently, moving in a line so straight it could have been drawn with a ruler, Bingo closed the distance between himself and Wentworth. Now he, Bingo, was Rambo, and Billy Wentworth the hapless victim. Now Billy Wentworth would know what it was like to be ambushed!

Wentworth never heard a sound, never suspected a thing. He was staring at the envelope in his hand as if he were hypnotized, as if he couldn’t believe what he saw.

Bingo said in a loud voice, “Stealing people’s mail is a criminal offense.”

At that Wentworth spun around. He had the grace to look momentarily embarrassed.

“This isn’t mail.”

“It was in my mailbox.”

“It still isn’t mail—no stamp.”

Wentworth turned the envelope around so Bingo could see for himself.

“If it’s in the mailbox, it’s mail,” Bingo said coldly. In a lightning-quick gesture he whipped the envelope from Wentworth’s fingers and went into the house.

Wentworth opened the door and started to follow, but Bingo gave him a cool glance and a quick raise of the new eyebrow. Wentworth stopped in place.

“Look,” Wentworth explained. “That girl. Remember?” He swallowed and said hoarsely, “Cici? Well, I saw her over here, putting a letter in your mailbox, all right? And I thought maybe she’d got our houses mixed up and the letter was for me. I just wanted to make absolutely sure the letter was for you instead of me.”

“All right, you’ve made absolutely sure.” Bingo looked at the envelope. He took a long time to read his own name. “Mr. Bingo Brown. Yes, I believe that’s me.”

“What does the letter say?”

“Well, I would have to open it to find that out, wouldn’t I?”

Bingo slid the envelope into his back pocket with a deliberate motion.

Wentworth swallowed again. Bingo thought he was working up the strength to say the emotion-filled word “Cici” again, but Wentworth was getting ready to come up with an even harder word, one Bingo was not aware was part of Wentworth’s vocabulary.

“Please.”

Bingo looked at Billy Wentworth while time ticked away. Then, like an actor, still looking into Wentworth’s rapidly blinking eyes, Bingo reached into his back pocket.

Wentworth tried to move closer to Bingo so they could read the letter together, but with a quick lift of the black-belt eyebrow, Bingo stopped him.

He opened the envelope slowly. “From the desk of Cici,” he read.

He read the next few lines to himself.

“Would you mind reading it aloud, please,” Billy Wentworth said.

Bingo read:

“Dear Bingo,

I know now that you got Melissa’s letter! The reason I know is because, like, she got yours!

She freaked out at me for writing you, and she told me she didn’t want to be my best friend anymore. She goes, ‘With a best friend like you, I don’t need any enemies!’”

Bingo paused, and Billy Wentworth made a rolling gesture with his hand, indicating he would like to hear more.

“I doubt if it gets any better,” Bingo said, “but if you want to hear it …” He shrugged and read on.

“Please write Melissa! Tell her
nothing happened
between us.

If you want to talk to me about this, you can come over to my house right away. I will be waiting! Or you can call me at the number below!

Sincerely (and hopefully),

Cici”

“What does this mean?” Wentworth pointed with one dirty finger to the line, “Tell her
nothing happened
between us.”

“It means for me to tell Melissa that nothing happened between us.”