The Bumblebee Flies Anyway

  “It’s a long story, Mazzo, and we haven’t got time for details,” Barney said. “But trust me. You’re right, it’s not a real car, not a car that anybody’ll ever drive. It’s a car that flies, like a bumblebee.”

  “The Bumblebee,” Billy crooned again.

  “How the hell does a car like that fly?” Mazzo said, sounding as if he were about to cry, from disappointment and failure and exhaustion.

  Barney pointed to the skylight. And the platform. And the stairs. “Simple, Mazzo, simple as pie. We carry the car up to the platform, open the skylight, and launch it into space.”

  “Are you crazy?” Mazzo said, aghast. “Get me back to my room, Barney.”

  “Look, Mazzo, want to go out in that blaze of glory? Sixty miles an hour and then nothing? All done, all over? Okay, here’s your chance. The car’s not heavy at all, it’s made of soft wood, balsa wood. We get the car up to the platform, you and me. Not that big a deal. Ever see the roof on this place? It’s like a ski jump. The skylight’s at the top. We get in the car, Mazzo. And we sail off the roof. Six stories up and off we go. We fly. The Bumblebee flies and we’re in it and where it lands nobody knows and nobody gives a damn.” He found himself breathless and shaken now, the pain all over him, not inside now but outside, like a thousand bugs feasting on his flesh.

  Through the fever and the pain that ravaged his body, Mazzo looked and listened in his ruin and desolation, eyes bloodied, flesh glistening. And Barney saw a flicker of understanding in those eyes and realized Mazzo was seeing what Barney could see, sharing the vision with him: the marvelous flight of the Bumblebee, out into the night, soaring off the roof, a small soaring maybe but enough to set them free, joining the stars and the moon and the planets.

  “Jesus,” Mazzo said, his voice an awed whisper.

  “I want to go too,” Billy cried. “Is there room for me?”

  “You don’t want to go,” Barney told him.

  “You sure we can get it up there?” Mazzo said, measuring the distance between the car and the platform.

  “Listen, I got the car in here. From the junkyard next door. Took it apart piece by piece and got it up here. And then put it together again. Allie Roon and Billy here helped. And I didn’t do all that to stop now, Mazzo. The Bumblebee’s flying tonight, with or without you.”

  “Hey, Barney,” Billy called, and it was his turn now to be awestruck. “How come you’re going? You got nothing to go out like that for. You’re different than us.”

  “He joined the club,” Mazzo said. “He’s one of us, Billy.”

  “Aw, jeez,” Billy said, on the verge of tears. “Not you, Barney. Not you too.”

  “Let’s cut out the talk,” Barney said. “Time’s passing by. Somebody’s going to be checking your rooms any minute now. Maybe that monitor sounded an alarm and they’re already looking for us. Quit stalling, Mazzo.”

  “It is true, Barney?” Billy implored.

  “Yes, it’s true,” Barney said, in a hurry now. “I only found out a couple of days ago. I’ve been in remission.”

  Tears in Billy’s eyes. Barney didn’t want to see Billy cry. Turning away, he said: “What do you say, Mazzo? Put up or shut up.”

  “I’m going, too,” Billy said, face set, chin firm, determined.

  “There’s no room, Billy.” He tried to say it gently. “It’s a two-seater.”

  While Mazzo stood there studying the car. Or maybe the events of his life were passing before his eyes.

  “I can cram myself in the back,” Billy said. “I’ll find room.”

  A sudden sheet of pain overwhelmed Barney, lifting him almost on tiptoe, taking his breath away. Heart pounding, vision blurred. “Okay, okay. But let’s go.” Turning to the blur that was Mazzo. “You coming?”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

  Barney blinked, his vision cleared, everything in focus again.

  “I am, too,” Billy cried.

  “There’s no room for you,” Mazzo said.

  “Look, Mazzo, I helped Barney steal the Bumblebee. Didn’t I, Barney? And I deserve to go. Don’t I, Barney?”

  “It’s not a joyride, Billy. Do you realize what we’re doing?”

  “I know, I know. And I want to do it, too. You’re my friend, Barney. The only friend I’ve got. And if this is how it’s going to be, then this is how it’s going to be. What’s the big deal staying here, in this place?”

  Barney felt like swearing. He was responsible for himself, and Mazzo was old enough to make his own decisions, but Billy the Kidney was another matter.

  “Maybe you’d better not come,” Barney suggested, gently, making himself patient while all the time he wanted to get on with it, do it, before somebody hit the elevator button and decided to investigate.

  “I’m dying too, you know,” Billy said, sniffing. “I probably been dying longer than you have.”

  Christ, Barney thought, and wasn’t sure whether he was swearing or praying.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “But don’t take chances helping us with the car. Wait till we get it up there on the platform, then I’ll help you climb the stairs.”

  Billy let out a whoop of delight, and Mazzo gave Barney a baleful sour look.

  “Let’s go,” Barney said, with a whoop of his own.

  Like slow motion.

  Or moving underwater, walking on the bottom of the sea.

  Barney and Mazzo moving the Bumblebee, picking it up and walking with it between them—Barney walking backward holding the front of the Bumblebee and Mazzo bringing up the rear—sharing the burden that wasn’t a burden really, not heavy, something that linked them together, finding as much support from the Bumblebee as they gave it. Stumbling a bit over the naked studding, swaying and wavering at times, they faced each other as they went toward the stairs, letting the sweat drip down their faces, crinkling their eyes to prevent the moisture from blurring their vision, concentrating so much on this marvelous event, this great undertaking, that there was no place for pain or anything else. Arms and legs moving in unison, as if Barney and Mazzo had been rehearsing this for weeks, shifting weight and balance as they went along. While Billy the Kidney cheered them on, shouting encouragement but not really shouting, whispering the shouts, Billy underwater, too, so that you expected to see bubbles coming out of his mouth and float toward the ceiling.

  They finally arrived at the stairs.

  Exhaustion overcame them now. They set the Bumblebee down carefully across the floor studs. Barney did not realize how heavy it was until released from its weight. His arms were light and airy, felt almost transparent.

  “Steep,” Mazzo said, squeezing out the word between ragged breaths as he looked at the pitch and height of the stairs.

  Barney nodded, incapable of speech, conserving his strength. Even talking required effort. Funny, no pain suddenly, a dull aching that enveloped his body but no more sharp knifelike pains.

  “Wow,” Billy called from the doorway, “you guys are really doing it. Halfway there, Barney, halfway there.”

  Barney looked back at him, managed a wan and weary smile. Even his lips seemed tired.

  Gasping, Mazzo said: “Can’t stop now.” Pausing, blinking sweat out of his eyes.

  Barney said: “Sixteen steps.” Wiped his forehead with a trembling hand. “We lift the car.… I go first.” Better for Mazzo to push from below, less awkward for him, easier. “Three, four steps at a time.” Barney knew he’d have to climb the stairs backward and crouch uncomfortably to carry out his part, but he knew nothing could stop him now, nothing.

  “Let’s get going,” Mazzo said, impatient, eager to get on with it.

  “Okay.”

  This time it wasn’t walking on an ocean floor but a grunting, groaning ascent, climbing a wooden slatted mountain while they tugged and shoved and pushed the Bumblebee between them. The wooden stairs creaked under their weight. Barney strained to maintain his balance as he mounted the stairs backward and crouched forward to tug the Bumblebee
upward. If he relaxed his grip on the bumper, the entire weight of the car would rest on Mazzo down below. The weight of the Bumblebee seemed to have doubled since they had carried it across the attic floor. Barney felt the muscles in his shoulders and back straining against the weight. Sometimes his foot slipped as he raised it blindly to find the next step in the ascent. He’d compensate with the other foot, shifting his body perilously, risking loss of balance.

  Billy didn’t cheer anymore. He stood in stupefied wonder, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Barney paused once to look at Billy, and dizziness caused his head to spin and he almost lost his grip on the Bumblebee. Mazzo’s strength astonished him; he kept thrusting the car upward relentlessly, silently, calling up his reserves, the discipline of his athletic years maybe paying off. Barney wanted to call encouragement to him, to tell him that he was doing fine, but he didn’t dare—he had to save his own strength and energy for the task at hand.

  Barney finally made it to the platform, swinging one leg onto it and then holding on desperately to the car as he swung his other leg upward. In doing so, he relaxed his grip on the car and it dropped a bit, only a few inches or so but with enough force and weight to cause Mazzo to cry out in anguish. Barney took hold of the Bumblebee and held on for dear life. With Mazzo pushing and shoving, doing the job by himself now as Barney lay panting and fighting for breath on the platform, the car nosed up to the platform. Barney grabbed at it, pulling and hauling furiously, while Mazzo struggled to obtain a foothold and pulled himself up by sheer determination, veins on his forehead bulging like worms beneath his skin.

  Now: The two of them on the platform with the Bumblebee between them, both triumphant, exhausted, grinning at each other, but the grins terrible, lacerated by pain and fatigue, Mazzo’s flesh gray as if the flush that always tinted his skin had been wiped away with a cloth.

  “Can I come up?” Billy called from below.

  Barney risked moving, looking down, dizzy, lungs bursting as if he’d been holding his breath too long. He heard his voice saying: “Not enough room … wait.” It was like somebody else’s voice, raspy, coming from far away.

  Mazzo pointed to the skylight.

  Barney nodded. Couldn’t stop now.

  He reached up and unlatched the skylight, pushed at it with all his strength. The skylight swung open, up and away, and Barney secured it with a steel rod that kept it from swinging shut. He raised himself and glanced out, saw the night for the first time from this vantage point, the sweep of sky spinning with stars, the moon radiating silver, turning the sloping roof into a glittering ski slide, the lights of Monument center glowing in the distance, staining the sky with gold. The wind caught at Barney’s mouth and he swallowed it hungrily. Suddenly he simply wanted to stay there, drinking in the night, bathing in the wind. Didn’t want to go any further, do anything more. But knew he had to.

  Reluctantly, he hauled himself up, leaned against the sill for a moment, then swung himself up onto the roof, arms and legs in a furious scrambling, his body pushed to the utmost. In his final desperate effort to gain the roof, he felt something break inside of him, not bone or ligament, but a fracture of something deep within, never to be repaired or restored. He clung to the roof, feeling the sandy shingles pressing against his body, his hands clutching the sill.

  “Here it comes,” Mazzo called.

  Barney was astonished at Mazzo’s effort, heaving the car upward from inside so that Barney saw the car’s bumper and hood lifting up like a ship raising its prow in the air before the final plunge to the bottom. The front of the car hovered above the sill, poised perilously, and Barney gritted his teeth, getting ready to catch it as it swooped down. The car fell heavily and brutally, like a tree crashing to the ground, Barney absorbing its weight on his shoulders, holding on, past pain now or even fear of sliding off the roof, embracing the Bumblebee, wet cheek pressed against the glistening wood. Looking up, he saw that the car was being supported on the roof by the two rear wheels, which were still inside the skylight, hooked against the sill. Big test now: letting go of the car to see if the rear wheels would continue to keep it from rolling free. Barney pulled away from the car, releasing it from his grip, held his breath. The Bumblebee did not move, remained in position, pointing downward, ready for flight.

  Raising himself up, scrambling to his knees, he peered inside the skylight and came face to face with Mazzo, eyes inches apart, both still grinning those terrible crazy grins, exhausted, spent, bodies singing with the ache of all that exertion but triumphant in this desperate beautiful moment.

  Barney motioned to the night and the sky, and Mazzo boosted himself with a mighty effort onto the roof, leaning against the trunk of the car, looking out at the night, shaking his head in disbelief. Raising his face to the sky, he laughed, the sound so startling and musical that Barney, caught by surprise, almost lost his balance as he leaned back to look at Mazzo. Mazzo glanced down, face radiant in the moonlight, and Barney saw, for a blazing moment, Cassie in his face. Cassie and the melting eyes. Cassie and that husky tender voice. Mazzo laughed again, the sound like silver coins in the night.

  Barney thought of that marvelous moment when Cassie had looked at him with such admiration, making his life golden for a precious moment. She had made him see the sweetness of living, made him look with awe at blossoms on a tree branch, gave him a sense of life going on, from one person to another, from trees to flowers, from one season to the next. Dazzled by the thoughts, groping for their meaning, his love for Cassie singing inside him—a hopeless love, maybe, but bringing beauty to his life—he reached out and touched the Bumblebee, this impossible object he had stolen and taken apart and re-created with his own hands. Looking away to the golden glow of the town on the rim of the sky, he knew that he didn’t want to die. He wanted to cling to life and breath. Didn’t know why but knew he must. Maybe because Cassie inhabited this strange and terrible world. It was the only world he knew, and he was tired of the unknowns.

  “Barney.”

  His name on Mazzo’s tongue was a sound with a wound in it. Mazzo began sliding down the roof, slowly, inching toward Barney, arms clutching at the air. The wind rose, stiff and biting, as Barney rose up to grasp him. Mazzo trembled as Barney gathered him in his arms, supporting him, preventing him from slipping any farther. Mazzo was heavy as he rested against Barney, face turned away. Mazzo his enemy and now his friend. Mazzo who wanted so much to die. But I don’t want to die, Barney thought. I thought that I was one of them, Mazzo and Billy the Kidney and even Allie Roon, but I’m not. Even though he was here on the roof with this absurd car he called the Bumblebee. Maybe he was absurd, too, taken apart and put together by the Handyman like some kind of Humpty Dumpty. But he was still Barney Snow. And he wanted to shout out at the night: I’m not resigned the way the Handyman says everybody here is resigned. Not willing to accept it all without struggling, fighting.

  Mazzo’s voice in his ear, a hoarse whisper: “I don’t think … I can make it … into the car.” Words faint, like ghosts. “Won’t fly … can’t fly.”

  “The Bumblebee’s going to fly,” Barney said, lips close to Mazzo’s ear.

  Mazzo’s face was sour, the old Mazzo face of bitterness and scorn. And then his eyes softened. “But we got here … didn’t we … Barney?”

  Barney nodded. We got here. And he realized that getting there had been the important thing. Not the flight, although the Bumblee could still fly. For them. Hey, Mazzo, the Bumblebee is going to fly and we don’t have to be in it. The Bumblebee will fly for us and we’ll be a part of the flight because we made it possible, you and me, me by building it and you by giving me a reason to build it. We’re all mixed up in it—you and me and Billy the Kidney and Allie Roon and, yes, Cassie, too. He knew he was hysterical, barely coherent, didn’t know whether he was talking or shouting or just thinking these thoughts, didn’t know whether Mazzo could hear him or not but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the Bumblebee and the flight.

  “B
arney.”

  Mazzo’s voice again but this time something strange in it, a difference in the tone and timbre now, like the last strokes of a bell lingering in the air.

  He turned Mazzo’s face toward him and cupped it in his hands, saw Mazzo’s mouth move in an effort to speak again. But no sound came. Mazzo’s eyes were glazed, like specimens in a jar, not looking at him, not looking at anything, unseeing. Mazzo’s body was suddenly still against him, the way a stone or a rock is still.

  “Mazzo,” Barney whispered, his own voice now with a bruise in it.

  He knew Mazzo couldn’t hear him, couldn’t hear anything. Wouldn’t ever hear anything again.

  From far away Billy the Kidney’s voice shouted his name. He looked up to see Billy not far away at all but peering out at him.

  “What’s going on?” Billy asked, eyes wide and wondering.

  “The Bumblebee’s about to fly,” Barney cried, but still not knowing whether he was talking out loud, whether he could still make his voice heard.

  “What do you want me to do?” Billy asked eagerly.

  Good old Billy the Kidney.

  “Lift up the rear wheels,” Barney called, pronouncing the words precisely, enunciating them slowly and carefully, knowing that he probably didn’t have the strength to repeat them.

  “Right,” Billy said, rubbing his hands together.

  “Get the wheels onto the roof,” Barney gasped, still holding on to Mazzo but shifting his body now so that he could stretch his legs under the front wheels of the Bumblebee to prevent it from plunging downward as soon as the rear wheels touched the roof. He wanted to do this correctly, properly. He heard Billy grunting as he lifted the wheels over the sill. And then felt an immediate crush of weight against his legs, so heavy and sudden that he didn’t know whether he could hold the car back. Or hold himself from rolling off the roof.

  The Bumblebee and he and Mazzo on the roof. Digging down for whatever reserves of strength remained in him, using even the broken thing deep inside of him, Barney managed to make his legs rigid, keeping the Bumblebee stationary, blocking its descent.