The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (21 page)

“So you took the knowledge of my condition away.”

“The test was successful. With qualifications.”

“What do you mean—qualifications?”

“I mean that it was impossible to maintain complete control.”

“You mean you erased too much?”

Silence from the Handyman.

“Like my early life that I can’t remember? My mother’s face that I can’t recall sometimes? Where I lived before coming here?”

The Handyman’s face was like stone, gray like the side of a cliff.

While the plan proceeded beautifully, Allie Roon spitting and twitching and dancing and laughing, Billy the Kidney saying it was good to be on a caper again as Barney stole in and out of the Complex.

Timing was the key, avoiding the painters who were concentrating on the far end of the building, ducking Old Cheekbones, who seldom looked up from the papers that occupied her, but having close calls occasionally. Once at the elevator door, a maintenance man stepped out, pushing a floor waxer before him, regarding Barney curiously as he stood there behind the wheelchair loaded with automobile sections, the sections luckily covered with a sheet. But presenting a strange sight anyway. The maintenance man swerved quickly away and Barney was grateful for the thing about Section 12 that made people avoid it. The isolation of the section made the project go more smoothly, took away some of Barney’s apprehensions about discovery.

He looked up once to see the Handyman at the far end of the corridor. Barney had just stepped out of the elevator, pushing the empty wheelchair. Their eyes met, even at that distance, and held for a moment, and then the Handyman turned away. Barney wondered if the Handyman suspected what was going on, the Handyman who seemed to know everything. Or almost everything.

“I’ve been in remission, then?”

“Yes. They did not realize at the time of the first test that you were about to go into remission. Or did not anticipate that the test might induce remission. Remission has its peculiar mysteries. Emotions perhaps play a role.”

“How long will the remission last?”

“That is impossible to tell, Barney.”

“It could end ten minutes from now?”

“Or it may continue indefinitely.”

“Those aftermaths you always talked about, doctor. Were they really aftermaths or the thing itself?”

By thing, he meant the thing that was killing him. Slowly maybe, postponed for a while, but still killing him.

“Perhaps a bit of both.”

And now the car began to take shape beneath his hands as he sneaked up to the attic at all times of the day and night, when the coast was clear or everybody slept, timing again, flirting with discovery. When he had finally laid the car sections on the floor, they resembled the pieces of a toy bought for the child of a giant, waiting now for the giant to come along and assemble them. Barney felt like a giant as he began his work, whistling, chewing the insides of his cheeks, concentrating on the job, keeping his mind blank, the doors closed, his hands busy, busy hands are happy hands, like the sister in school said one time. What sister? What school? Didn’t know. Didn’t want to know at this moment. Didn’t want to think. But had to think, of course, impossible not to think, especially about the Handyman.

“Why did you pick the car as the screen? The car going down the hill?”

“The image required power, Barney. The power to block the truth about your condition. Emotional power. Fear, apprehension.”

“The girl in the screen? The one who stepped off the curb, whose face I never saw. Who was she?”

“You were meant not to see her face.”

“Why?”

“Because then she became every girl to you, every girl you might have loved or desired, or longed to love and desire. Thus, it did not matter who she was.”

“But there’s more to it, isn’t there?”

Pause. “Yes, Barney.”

“My parents. It was something to do with my parents.”

“Your parents died in an automobile accident, Barney. Not as in your screen. The automobile in which they were riding went out of control, struck a pole, overturned, and ignited.”

“So a car was linked in my mind with something terrible. Terrible enough to blot out something just as terrible. Or worse.”

“That is a simplification, Barney. But yes, it is the truth.”

“How old was I when they died?”

“Seven years and eight months.”

“Where did I live?” Somehow he knew.

“A series of foster homes.” Like Billy the Kidney.

“Is my name really Barney Snow?”

“Yes, Bernard J. Snow. J. for Jason. Your father’s name was Jason. Your mother’s name was Emily.”

“My mother’s bracelets. And her face that comes and goes. Are they screens, too?”

“The visual screens were supplemented with audio screens.”

“You mean there are bracelets somewhere in that room upstairs?”

“The bracelets exist only as sounds on a bit of tape.”

“Did my mother really wear a lot of bracelets?”

“There is no evidence to indicate that she did.”

“But you had to invent something to link me with her?”

“For your protection, Barney.”

“What about her face? The face I see sometimes. Is that someone else’s face?”

“No. A photograph of your mother was enlarged.”

“And flashed in front of me?”

“Projected on a screen.”

“So that it burned itself into my mind?”

The Handyman nodded.

Barney did not want to hear any more. The emptiness of not knowing was better. Here and now was better. In the Complex. With the car. A mission to carry out.

Sometimes he ascended the wooden stairs and threw open the skylight, resting his chin on the sill, letting the wind assail his face, studying the outside world, the bleak landscape of abandoned buildings and the distant cemetery. He looked at the junkyard and thought of the resemblance between the junkyard and the Complex, both filled with busted and broken things. A door opened in his mind: He was going to die. He looked down the slanted roof and pondered how easy it would be to tumble over the sill and let himself plunge below. But he pulled back, dazed and numbed. He had a job to do first. Later. Maybe later.

Billy the Kidney began to regard him suspiciously, studying him keenly, eyes narrowed, thin face taut. Barney tried to avoid him, busy in his comings and goings. Until Billy trapped him as he emerged from the elevator.

“Hold it a minute, Barney.”

“I’m in a hurry.” Avoiding Billy’s eyes.

“What’s the matter, anyway? Is something wrong, Barney?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“You’re a liar,” Billy said, eyes flashing, flashing as always with the pain but something else in the flashing now. “Did something happen to the car?”

“The car’s fine. Coming along beautifully.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

Stubborn Billy. Better play the game with him. “Okay. I’m kind of tired. Feel lousy. All that work, maybe. And I can’t sleep at night.”

Billy’s eyes were watchful, still suspicious. Then he relaxed, face softened. “I wish I could help, Barney.”

“You’ve already helped, Billy. Listen, it’s almost finished. Then I can take it easy.”

He was telling the truth. The car was growing as if by magic in his hands and Barney felt like a creator, fitting the pieces together, watching it take shape once more, the crimson catching the skylight sun and spinning it before Barney’s eyes. He swore sometimes when the work didn’t go well, when he dropped the screwdriver or it missed its mark and gouged his hand. The screwdriver tore into the webbing of his left hand, bringing blood, and he had no handkerchief or Kleenex and the blood mixed with the color of the car and he smiled at the thought, his own blood staining the car, becoming a part of it. But the blood started the thoughts coming, seeping into the compartments.

“We can send you away, Barney.”

“Where would I go?”

“A place more comfortable than this, since your tests have been terminated here. We are not designed for comfort here. There are places more cheerful than this, staffed by knowledgeable people who can provide the best of all possible care. This facility is nothing more than a huge laboratory.”

Barney was silent.

“Think about it,” the Handyman said.

Barney thought about it and knew that he could never leave the Complex. This was the only home he could remember, and the only people in his life were here, Billy the Kidney and Allie Roon and Mazzo. And, most of all, Cassie. Cassie who had brought beauty into his world, and love and brightness. He also had this mission to complete, the building of the car and Mazzo’s last ride. And Cassie, too, was a part of all that.

How could he ever leave this place?

*  *  *

His visits with Cassie were more precious than ever now. Basking in her nearness, inhaling the clean soap smell of her, he was able to deny what the Handyman had told him. He didn’t feel like the others when he was with her, not like Billy and Allie Roon.

Sometimes she looked unhappy, weary, when he gave her his report about Mazzo and realized, guiltily, that although these visits were a pleasure for him, they were difficult for her. He tried to spare her the truth about Mazzo, that he seemed listless now, drifting away, almost uncommunicative. During the entire adventure of the car, his biggest fear was that Mazzo might never take that last ride. He checked his room constantly, made inquiries of the nurses, and stole into his room sometimes and whispered to Mazzo, lips close to his ear: “Hold on, Mazzo.” So he faked it a little in his reports, becoming expert at it, fooling her, and he also talked to her on another level in which he did not use words or even whisper, telling her silently what he could not say aloud: I love you, Cassie. I’m dying, Cassie.

“What happened to your hands?” she asked.

Barney looked down, startled, saw the scratches on his flesh, small cuts from the screwdriver and the torn web between his thumb and index finger. He looked back at her, lost for an answer, couldn’t tell the truth. But what could he tell her?

“I’m doing some mechanical work.” Stupid answer.

“What kind of mechanical work?” she asked, curious, of course.

“On a car.” Damn it.

“A car?” Surprised, skeptical. “They’ve got a garage here to work on cars?”

“No, not a garage. But a place to work on a car.” He was getting in deeper and didn’t know how to get out.

“Where’s it located?” She seemed genuinely interested.

He responded to that interest, beginning to glow. For once they were talking about him, not Mazzo.

“In the attic.”

“The attic?” she asked, voice curling in surprise, or maybe disbelief. “This place has an attic?”

“Sure, a big one. Floor’s not finished, but it’s safe to walk on.”

“Let me get this straight,” she said, the tough-guy huskiness in her voice again. “You’ve been working on a car in the attic of this place?”

“Yes,” he said, getting fidgety, sorry he’d brought up the subject, knowing how ridiculous it all sounded.

“How did a car get up into the attic?” she asked, patiently now, as if she were addressing a small child.

“Well,” he began lamely. He should have kept his mouth shut. Now there was no way out without telling her everything. Well, almost everything. “It’s not a real car. It’s sort of a model car. You know, like the ones that come in kits?”

“Oh,” she said, relieved, as if that explained everything.

“But it’s life-size,” Barney said, telling himself to stop talking, drop the subject, but unable to do so. “I mean, it’s the size of a regular car.”

“And it came in a kit?” Something about her eyes, as if she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. “That must be some kit.”

“No, not a kit,” he said, hastening to correct that impression. “I stole it.” Pause. “From the junkyard next door.”

“You stole it?” Incredulous now.

So he told her about it. How he’d spotted the fake car and decided to steal it. How he had taken it apart and brought it into the Complex and then sneaked it up into the attic in the freight elevator. How he had almost completed assembling it. How Billy the Kidney and Allie Roon had acted as watchdogs. And all the time he talked, he knew that when he finished the explanation, he would face the big question she would ask. Unless she decided she was dealing with a madman and ran screaming out of this place. He ran out of words, finally, studied his hands, wishing he could hide them someplace.

And she asked the question.

“Why?”

The word hung on the air and he squirmed in his chair.

“Why did you do all that, Barney?”

As usual, his name on her lips warmed him, the warmth spreading through his body like balm and benediction.

He knew he had to be careful now, had to play it safe.

“To take a ride in it.”

Her earlier expression of incredulity returned. The look that said: I am talking to a maniac.

“I mean …” He groped for proper words. “I mean take it out into the corridor or maybe down to the cellar and give it a push and jump in and take a ride.” Looking sharply at her, knowing how crazy it all sounded. “In a place like this, you have to do something.” And yet, he found that he didn’t want to apologize for what he had done, crazy as it seemed. Explain, yes, but apologize, no.

“I don’t even know if the wheels will turn,” he said, unable to stop himself again. “I’ve got nobody to push me. It wasn’t built to be driven.”

“Like the bumblebee,” she said.

“What bumblebee?”

“Any bumblebee,” she said, voice light again, speaking
to him in normal fashion now, not as if he were a child or a madman. “A bumblebee isn’t supposed to fly. The law of aerodynamics or something. Its body is too heavy and it’s the wrong shape. The wingspread, too, is wrong for its size and shape. That makes it impossible that it should fly.” Amused now, shaking her head. “But know what? The bumblebee doesn’t know about the laws of aerodynamics. So it goes ahead and flies, anyway. And, they say, manages to make a little honey every day.”