The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (3 page)

“That telephone,” Billy said, sad and wistful.

“Jeez,” Barney said. “Who would you call if you had a phone? You said yourself there’s nobody out there to even write a letter to.”

“I got a lot of calls I can make,” Billy said. “A lot of people I can call. There’s a whole bunch of people to talk to.

Barney didn’t reply. He didn’t want to find out anything personal about Billy. And vice versa.

“I had a phone at my disposal last year at this other place I was before coming here,” Billy said, still not looking at Barney and his voice whispered and confidential. “The phone was in a small office that nobody ever used and I discovered it by accident. I’d sneak in there and make my calls.

“I’d call, oh, the local radio station and make a request for a song, although I didn’t have a radio—the station had a request number in the phone book. Or I’d call the police station downtown and tell them I was new in town and ask the location of a street, like I wanted to visit there. Then there were the Dial numbers.”

Billy’s voice grew dreamy now. “The Dial numbers were nice. I found them in the phone book. Dial-A-Prayer and you’d hear a pretty good sermon. Or at least a voice, even if it was recorded. Then there was Dial-A-Diet. That was operated by the board of health, I think, and they gave you menus for certain kinds of diets if you had a disease or a special physical condition or something. The diets
sounded terrible, but it was nice hearing a girl or a woman talk. They always picked people with beautiful voices. Then there were the wrong numbers.”

Billy shook his head in fond remembrance. “Those wrong numbers. See, I’d pick any old number from the phone book and dial it and somebody would answer and I’d try to fake them out, you know. Pretending I was trying to find my Uncle Louis, say, who used to live at that address, and I’d sometimes get a conversation going. I was pretty good at it, too, Barney.”

Barney thought of Billy the Kidney sitting in a hospital trying to make contact with the outside world. Dial-A-Diet, for Christ’s sake.

“You didn’t make one of those obscene phone calls, did you, Billy?” Barney asked, joking, keeping his voice light, wanting to keep everything light and bright.

Billy looked at him in dismay. “I’d never do anything like that. I didn’t take advantage of the phone, either. I never made long-distance calls. I always kept it local. I just wanted to hear some voices at the other end of the line.”

Stop it, Barney thought. I don’t want to start feeling bad for anybody, not Billy the Kidney, not anybody. He knew tricks about not thinking certain things, but you couldn’t control what other people thought or said. Tempo, rhythm.

“Listen, Billy, if you want a phone so much, then why don’t you ask the Handyman to put one in for you?”

“No money,” Billy said. “I checked the Handyman. He said you need money for everything extra here. He said the grants don’t even cover operating expenses. I don’t have any money. But Mazzo’s loaded. His family is rich. They can afford a phone.”

“I don’t have any money either,” Barney said, puzzled suddenly. Why is it that some people have money and others don’t? Why aren’t Billy the Kidney and I rich like Mazzo? Some things he knew, and he knew he wasn’t rich, knew he was as broke as Billy the Kidney.

“Let’s see,” Barney said, snapping his fingers, rhythm, tempo, but keeping his voice low. “If you can’t have a phone of your own, there ought to be a way to get you the use of one.”

Billy perked up, eyes shining, not the flashing of pain but something else, expectation.

“There’s got to be a way,” Barney said.

“You think so?”

“I know it. Let me work on it, Billy.”

Billy sighed, the spell broken, the brightness gone. “Hell, Barney, how can you get a phone, even the use of one?”

“Look, Billy, how long have I been here in the Complex?”

Billy frowned, thinking. “Four or five weeks, I guess. I remember the day you came. It was raining cats and dogs. End of March or first part of April. You ran like a bat out of hell from the car to the door. Know why I remember?”

“Why?” Barney asked, curious about how other people saw him. You see yourself only in mirrors, and mirrors don’t show everything.

“Because everybody arrives here in an ambulance. On a stretcher. With IV’s and things. But not you. Not Barney Snow. You got out of this big black car and you ran into the place. You actually ran.” Billy fooled with the controls of his wheelchair. “Jesus, Barney, for a while there I really hated your guts. Nobody is supposed to
run
into this place, like he’s warming up for the Boston marathon.”

“But you learned to love my terrific personality, right, Billy? Even though …”

“Yeah,” Billy said. “Even though.” Voice flat, gone dead.

Even though I’m not going to die but you are. And the others, too: Little Allie Roon and poor Ronson in the Ice Age and Mazzo, the bastard.

“Is that why Mazzo hates me so much?” Barney asked.

Billy squirmed in the wheelchair. “What the hell, Barney. Mazzo’s not the greatest guy in the world. But he’s rich and handsome and had everything going for him. He was a star athlete. And now he’s …”

“I know,” Barney said. “He’s going to die.” But me, not rich and not handsome and not much going for me, I’m safe. Barney used his old trick and turned off the thoughts, not wanting to dwell on who was going to live and who was going to die because sooner or later he would have to confront the fact of Billy’s death and he didn’t want to do that. “Let’s get back on the track, Billy. What we were talking about? I’ve been here exactly six weeks tomorrow. And in that time, Billy, have I ever conned you? Ever lied? Ever been a phony?” Maybe with other people but never with Billy.

“Not that I ever found out,” Billy said, becoming aloof now and not going all the way with Barney. The talk of Barney’s arrival here, the running, had brought out the difference between them. I’m still the alien here, Barney thought, almost an enemy.

“Okay, then, let me tell you this: I will get you a phone. A phone at your disposal. That’s a promise. And Barney Snow does not break promises.”

“Ah, you don’t have to promise anything,” Billy said.

“I know, I know. But I’m promising anyway,” Barney said, wondering why he was doing it.

Mazzo’s voice interrupted them: “Who’s out there?” Whining and querulous. “I know somebody’s out there. Who’s out there spying on me?”

“Who wants to spy on you, you bastard?” Barney yelled back.

“Is that you, Barney Snow? Is that you out there spying on me? Eavesdropping?” A spoiled, little boy’s voice.

Barney looked down at Billy. “Want to see that telephone up close? Hold it in your hand? Hear the dial tone?”

Billy grinned, sheepish but eager, a child’s grin. We’re children here, Barney thought, we’re all children. Orphans, in fact. Stripped down, nothing guarding us but our skin. And skin no protection at all. “Come on, Billy. Let’s pay Mazzo a visit and see that telephone.”

They went into Mazzo’s room, Barney pushing the wheelchair. Christ, but Mazzo was handsome, and the thing that was killing him had not diminished his beauty. In fact, the disease seemed to heighten it, accenting the line of his jaw, emphasizing the delicate structure of his cheekbones and forehead, enhancing the startling blue of his eyes, even more striking with the fever dancing in them. His flesh was splotchy, blotches like healed burns scattered on his face and forehead. His blond hair was thin, limp with perspiration, scalp pale and scaly. But through it all shone his unaccountable beauty. Despite the disease and its ravages. And his rotten disposition.

Mazzo eyed them suspiciously from the bed. Barney forced a smile. “Hi, Mazzo.”

“What do
you
want?” Mazzo asked, nasty as usual.

Barney paid no attention to Mazzo’s attitude; it was par
for the course. “Just thought we’d drop by and say hello.”

Mazzo directed his attention to Billy. Billy was staring at the telephone, eyes wide with enchantment. The instrument hung on the wall above and to the left of Mazzo’s bed, within easy reach. One of those one-piece jobs, the dial imbedded in the receiver itself.

“Hey,” Mazzo said, catching on. “That’s why you’re here. You want to see my telephone.”
My
telephone. Just like he always said
my
room,
my
bed. As if he owned the whole world.

“It’s a beautiful instrument,” Barney said admiringly. “I was telling Billy about it. My father worked for the phone company and told me all about them. This one you’ve got is a beautiful piece of work. What they call a self-contained dial.” He was making it all up, of course, spinning his wheels, marveling at his ability to lie, to improvise at short notice.

Mazzo looked at the telephone, studying it as if he had never seen it before. “A telephone is a telephone,” he said finally.

“No, this one’s different,” Barney said, stepping forward and lifting the phone off its hook. The dial lit up as he held it in his hand. He could hear the dial tone, a thin strand of sound connecting them with the rest of the world outside. “Here,” he said, handing the phone to Billy. Startled, Billy reached up and pressed the instrument to his ear.

“Put it back on the hook,” Mazzo commanded. “It’s a goddamn telephone, not a toy. It’s to call people up on, not to play with. You look stupid with that phone on your ear without a call to make.”

Billy handed Barney the telephone with regret, and Barney replaced it on the hook. What a bastard Mazzo
was. But he got away with it because of his beauty. Nurses hovered over Mazzo, despite his grunts and groans, as if they wanted to preserve his beauty as long as possible, as if his beauty was so rare and radiant that the world would be left desolate by its going.

Mazzo smoothed the sheet with long, thin fingers. Artistic fingers. Barney’s were short and blunt. “I didn’t even want the phone,” Mazzo said. “The goddamn thing is no use to me.”

“You made a big production out of it when it was installed,” Barney said.

Mazzo smiled, an astonishing thing, giving an additional sparkle to his eyes, softening the jawline. “That was for your benefit, Barney.”

“Well, what have you got a phone for if you don’t want it?” Barney asked.

“My mother, that’s why,” he sneered. “She wants me to have a phone so she can call me. I won’t let her in this lousy place, so she wants to call. She’s already called once, but I didn’t answer the damn thing. I let it ring. I hate the sound of the thing but I let it ring. I don’t want to talk to her.”

Barney winced at Mazzo’s remark, recalling his own mother. Or trying to recall her. Since he had begun taking the merchandise, he sometimes found it hard to concentrate. Like now, when he tried to summon his mother’s face and couldn’t. Or when you are blinded momentarily by a flashbulb, and able to see everything but that bright spot left by the flash. That’s the way it was now as he thought of his mother, unable to summon her face clearly but remembering how she always wore a lot of jewelry, junk jewelry, and she made music when she walked, you
could hear her coming a mile away. But he couldn’t bring back her face at this moment. One of the aftermaths. Which was why he was glad he wasn’t having any more merchandise for a while.

“Okay, you guys, now that you’ve seen the phone, get out of here,” Mazzo said, dismissing them, closing his eyes as if that would make them disappear. Barney realized for the first time how much Mazzo’s eyes contributed to his beauty. With eyes closed Mazzo seemed ordinary, good-looking maybe, but nothing special. Some people, babies especially, are beautiful when they sleep. But not Mazzo. Did the nurses wake him up at three in the morning just to see those eyes light up his face?

“Listen, Mazzo, can we do anything for you?” Barney asked. “I mean, is there anything you want?”

“In return for a phone call?” Mazzo asked, sarcastic, eyes still closed. Mazzo was not so dumb.

“I mean it, Mazzo. If there’s anything I can do, name it.”

Barney knew his words sounded ridiculous. What could he do for Mazzo that nobody else could do, that Mazzo couldn’t do himself with all that money?

The telephone rang, surprising and startling, out of place here in the hospital room. Billy leaped in the wheelchair. Mazzo grimaced, pulling the sheet up around his neck. Instinctively, Barney’s hand went to the telephone. A phone rang, you answered it, like a law of nature.

“Don’t touch that phone,” Mazzo said, his voice flat and deadly.

The ringing continued, loud, insistent, shrill. Rang and rang. “She knows I’m here and she knows I can’t get away and that’s why she lets it ring,” Mazzo said, eyes closed again.

The hell with it. Barney picked up the phone. “Cinemas One and Two,” he said, singsong fashion, into the mouthpiece.

The sudden silence left a small echo ringing in Barney’s ears. And out of the echo he heard a sigh and then a sound he couldn’t identify. Somebody crying maybe? He was sorry now that he had picked up the phone, but he couldn’t stop for some reason. “Cinemas One and Two,” he said again, with rhythm this time, tempo. “Want to know what time the movie starts?”

A small click and then the dial tone buzzed in his ear. Barney replaced the receiver on the hook. He didn’t look at Mazzo and he didn’t look at Billy the Kidney, either. He looked at the floor, wondering why he had answered the phone, for Christ’s sake. Don’t let it ring again, Barney thought, because there is nothing I can do to help.

The telephone did not ring. Without saying anything and still not looking at Mazzo, Barney pushed Billy the Kidney out of the room and down the corridor. It wasn’t until he arrived at his own room that Barney wondered why Mazzo didn’t simply leave the phone off the hook.

Barney stared at the words, uncertain about how to answer.

Again Barney waited, studying the words on the video screen, wondering what was normal, after all. He knew that the question would be repeated exactly twenty-five times, and if he still didn’t answer, the screen would grow blank, setting off an alarm somewhere, summoning either the Handyman or Bascam or someone else as if a state of emergency had been declared.