Bells

Quasimodo hefts himself onto the handicapped bench of the cross-town bus,
then takes the newspaper crossword puzzle out of his backpack.

"This metal object has a tongue." 4 letters.
Quasimodo smiles and squirms in his seat because he knows this.
Bell!

"A set of tuned metal bells or tubes." 6 letters.
Chimes!
Quasimodo looks around to see if anyone has noticed his success.
No one has.

"Alexander Graham ____." 4 letters.
He doesn't know this one,
but he's arrived at his stop anyway.

At the Office For Americans With Disabilities,
Quasimodo has a desk. 
On it is a telephone which converts voice into text.

His friend Guy, at the next desk, waves at him.
Pointing to his phone, he signs "drunk asshole again."
Quasimodo's laugh is surprisingly pleasant, though of course, Guy can't hear it.

Quasimodo's phone lights up, indicating a call.
Guy has transferred the drunk dialer to him,
and can be seen hurrying off toward the break room with a bag of Doritos.

Looking at his screen, Quasimodo reads what the caller is saying:

Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
                     How it swells!
                     How it dwells
                 On the Future! - how it tells
                 Of the rapture that impels
             To the swinging and the ringing
                 Of the bells, bells, bells -
      Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
                     Bells, bells, bells -
   To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

"May I have your name?" Quasimodo types in.
"Eddie," comes the reply. 

That evening, at O'Brien's Tavern, 
Quasimodo and Eddie sit mooning over a pretty Gypsy girl.
"Go say something to her!" urges Eddie,
but Quasimodo just grins and shakes his head sheepishly.

At nearly two in the morning, Quasimodo hoists Eddie onto his misshapen back
and carries him back to the apartment he had mentioned.
All the while, Eddie mumbles rapturous boozy verse about the Gyspy girl.

Catching the last bus to the group home,
Quasimodo thinks of the girl, and of Eddie's beautiful poems.
"So...lovely..." he says out loud, but no one hears, 
not even the driver perched like a raven in his high seat behind the wheel.
_______

for Fireblossom Friday: mash-ups.  The quoted poem is, of course, by Poe.