Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny

Chapter 13

Bingo was sketching rooftops. These houses had been elegant once, but now the paint was peeling and the yards were weedy and cluttered with rusted wheels and car parts, and glass from the broken windows. A shutter hung down over a bush, and porch steps sagged. But white clouds rose behind the old Victorian rooftops and behind the oddly shaped chimney Bingo was drawing. Then suddenly the cloud formation shifted.

Shifted and changed, and in front of the cloud, standing along the hip of the roof, was Turnock.

His claws curved over the roof and his wings were poised for flight. His scales reflected the red of the chimney. He raised his wings higher so they cut the sun and made a shadow across the shingles. He looked directly at Bingo and his eyes shone silver.

Then he disappeared, and at the same moment Bingo felt someone watching him.

He lowered his eyes and glanced along the row of houses, then turned around to face those at his back.

There was a door standing open to the basement of a purple house. He wondered if someone inside was watching him; he thought of leaving, but instead he walked toward it.

The purple paint was faded, and the windows boarded over. The basement was dim, but he could see a girl inside, wearing a short flowered wrapper. Her hair, piled on top her head, was ratty and unkempt. She was standing at a table with her back to him, doing something so that her arms moved gently.

Was it Crystal? And had she been watching him and turned away, or had he imagined that?

He went quietly up the walk. The basement door was lower than the ground, with four steps leading down to it. He stood on the top step and looked in at her. His throat seemed frozen shut. He wanted to speak her name, but he could not.

She was so thin the hard lines of bones showed in her arms and legs. The tilt of her head was Crystal’s; the curve of her neck was the same. But she stood differently, as if the slight weight of her thin body tired her.

He tried to speak, but he could not. He thought of going in and touching her. The concrete walls of the room were painted purple and the exposed pipes on the ceiling were dark red.

He was about to go down when she turned away from the table and went through a rough wooden door, shutting it behind her. As she turned he saw the side of her face. It was Crystal.

He moved through the room to the door and stood staring at it, then listened. He heard a soft scuffing inside, then it stopped. He stood trying to foster the courage to follow her. He was not afraid of Crystal, but he was afraid of whoever else might be there.

It was so quiet.

He turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open.

The interior of the house had been gutted into one huge room, the inner walls torn away, leaving jagged pillars of splintered wood and broken plaster. There was no one there. In the center a stairway rose through a rough hole to the upper floor. There were no banisters, no railing, just a jagged hole. He heard no sound; cautiously, he started up the stairs.

As his head rose above the upper floor he could see that this level too was gutted. The fragments of walls that remained were still covered with wallpaper, so the patterns ran together one room to the next. A door frame stood alone without walls or door, its hinges hanging crookedly. The fixtures of an old-fashioned bathroom had been left against one wall; the bathtub was filled with crumpled food cartons and empty cans. There were mattresses on the floor with hunks of plaster, rags, and piles of boards. The back windows were not boarded over, and those at the sides only partially so, with streaks of light coming through. Crystal was standing there, looking out. She turned around slowly, so her back was to the light and her face in shadow. Her wrapper was open, she made no attempt to close it.

He went silently toward her and when he stood by the windows she closed her wrapper and tied it. Her movements were slow and mechanical. The mocking sexiness of her face was gone, the liveliness was gone. Her face was grayish and coarse, her eyes red-rimmed, her expression dull. He did not know what to say to her; he stepped closer and touched her arm clumsily.

She looked down into his face, but her stare was almost vacant. “Where is Mama?” she asked haltingly.

He tried to put his arms around her. She held him clumsily. “Where’s Mama?” She smelled of stale sweat. She pulled back and stared down at him. “Where’s Mama! She went away and left me!”

“She’s waiting for you. Mama wants you to come home.”

“She went away.”

“She wants you to come home with me now.”

She drew away and scowled at him.

“We’re going to live in a little house with a yard,” Bingo said. Crystal grew gentle again. She gave him a smile like a small child’s, then took his sketchbook from him and held it in her arms as a little girl might hold a doll. Then she opened the book. But the drawings seemed to upset her; she looked confused. She turned the pages slowly until she came to the drawings of the stone dragons. She looked at these for a long time and when she glanced up again her expression was sly. “It’s always you and Jenny,” she said petulantly. She tore the page out and stuffed it in her pocket.

“It’s us three,” Bingo said. “It’s the three of us. Crystal, you can come home with me now.” He put his arm around her, hoping he could lead her like a little child.

But Crystal turned abruptly and went to sit on a rumpled mattress, her knees drawn up tight and her arms hunched around them.

Then a step on the stair made Bingo turn; a man climbed the stair and stood at its top surveying them. He had greasy blond hair hanging to his naked shoulders, and his naked chest and arms were shiny, as if he had oiled them. He was wearing tight striped pants stained on one leg. Across the matted hair of his chest hung a necklace made of yellow bones. His eyes looked yellow and filled with some unhealthy lust. He observed Crystal without changing expression. “What’s this, baby? What’s all this? You hustling children now, you dirty whore? You hustling children?” He paused and thrust two fingers into his greasy hair and scratched. “What’s the rate for children, baby, you selling it for roaches?” This amused him.

Crystal sat with her hands on her knees and looked at Bingo. Her face was not childlike now. Now her expression was coarse. “The kid came in off the street, Runga. Tell him to get lost.”

Runga moved forward and Crystal rose and pushed at Bingo. “Get lost, you little scum!” Her eyes told him to run.

But Bingo could not move. Runga slapped at Crystal so she cowered on the mattress like a dog. He grabbed Bingo by the arm. There were sores under his hair, and he smelled. His hand on Bingo’s arm was like steel. “You want to shoot up, you suckin’ baby?” His eyes glinted.

“Get him out of here, Runga.”

Dragging Bingo, Runga stepped over her and looked down at her threateningly. “What’s he doing here?”

“He walked in off the street, he thought the house was empty.”

“Who left the door open?”

“I did,” she said sullenly.

He hit her across the mouth, then stared into Bingo’s face. He twisted Bingo and shoved him across the room so Bingo fell into a pile of boards.

Bingo’s glasses had fallen off. He could see the blurred shape of Runga bend over Crystal, then he heard Crystal cry out. Bingo felt around frantically over the jagged boards, tore his hand on something sharp, but could not find his glasses.

“We’re getting out of here,” Runga growled, “The narcs got Flick, all right.” Then he came at Bingo like a hazy, lurching animal. Bingo tried to crawl away, but Runga flipped him over onto his back, then forced his mouth open and stuffed something into it. “Swallow it or I’ll cut you,” Runga said hoarsely.

Bingo choked, spit out the pill. Runga slapped him across the face, drew a knife from his pocket, and held the point of the blade beneath Bingo’s chin. “Pick it up and swallow it.”

Bingo felt around in the dust. “I can’t see it without my glasses.”

Runga’s hand came close to his face holding a green capsule. “Swallow it.” He pressed the knife so Bingo could feel the blade pull at his skin.

“What will it do to me?”

Runga forced the knife harder.

Bingo put the capsule in his mouth, pushed it far back in his throat and swallowed it, gagging.

Runga began stuffing something into a canvas bag; Crystal was kneeling beside Bingo, there was a scuffle, and then the room was wavering.

*

When Bingo woke he was aware of nothing at first but the pain in his head. He rolled over and the boards jabbed his aching body. It was dark; he could see some streaks of light, and darker shapes, but he could make nothing of them. He tried to sit up, and felt dizzy. His mouth was dry. Finally he got to his hands and knees and began to crawl forward.

Suddenly his hand came down on air. There was empty space in front of him. He pulled back, terrified. Then he remembered the hole in the floor. He backed away, and sat in the darkness trying to make sense of his surroundings.

How could it be night when he had left the library at four? The dark tall shapes must be the broken walls. Or could one be Runga, standing silently? Fear swept him, and in panic he felt along the edge of the broken floor until he found the steps. He sat there shaking and sick. He had no glasses, he remembered he had lost his glasses.

Finally he felt down the steps with his hand, then began to back down them on his knees. He almost backed off the edge once, the shock of his foot in mid-air made him lose his balance.

When he reached the lower floor he pulled the door open quickly. The purple room was dark. He bumped against the table, and scraped his hand on the concrete wall. Then he touched the wooden door, found the knob, and turned it.

The night sky was black, the air cold and still. A street light was burning halfway down the block. All the houses on the street were dark, silent. The loss of time confused him, so that he was not even sure of his direction. He stood hesitantly, then wondered suddenly if Crystal had been in that room watching as he crawled away, perhaps unable to cry out.

He knew he must go back. If she was there, he could not leave her.

He left the doors wide open and began to climb the stairs; but then he knew he must search the lower floor. He called out softly to Crystal. There was no answer. He scuffed carefully to the closest wall and felt along it with his hands, reaching out with his foot to touch whatever lay in front of him. Twice he thought he felt a body, but it was only debris. He was very frightened, and the pain in his head made him uncertain. He crawled back and forth across the floor until he was convinced he had covered it all, and then he climbed the stairs. Here, the vague glow from the street light slanting between the boards helped him see. He felt over mattresses, fearful of what he might find. He searched the room carefully, and when he knew she was not there he escaped quickly. His head throbbed.

He started home, walking fast in the cold air, seeing by the street lights.

He had gone three blocks when a car drew to the curb. In panic he looked for a place to hide.

But it was a police car. He almost tore the door off getting into it. The officer shone a light on him and grinned. “Would you be Bingo Middle?”

“Yes, sir!”

“There’s been a report out on you since eight o’clock. You want to tell me where you’ve been?”

“What time is it?”

“One-fifteen.”

“I think I swallowed a Mickey, I feel kind of hung-over.”

“You’d better tell me. What did you take?” He was a heavy, gray-haired officer. “You’re pretty young to be dropping pills, son.

“I didn’t want to take it. It was a little green capsule.”

The officer looked at him with surprise. “Your head hurt?”

Bingo nodded.

“When did you swallow that thing? Let’s hear about it while I run you out to central receiving.”

“No, I want to go home.”

But he was taken to the hospital. When he arrived, Jenny and Georgie were waiting for him.