Gradle Bird

by J. C. Sasser

  Annalee inhaled the stale cigarette they’d been trading back and forth and blew smoke from her mouth. The cigarette was from the same box of Chesterfields they had first discovered when they were young, hidden in a sack of love letters written to Annalee’s mother, and penned by a man Annalee didn’t know. He remembered finding them that day. There had been a thunderstorm much like the one now that helped drown out any sounds of mischief their parents would hear. They had smoked half the pack until Leonard got dizzy and vomited in a box of bone china while Annalee laughed at him and finished off the rest of hers. Although they shared the same blood, hers was always more immune than his, and as he lay on the fainting couch staring at her in perfect peace he believed she had even fought off death.

  He pulled a tendril of moon vine through the collar of her dress and unleashed a stream of smoke that crept like a snake in the air.

  “That tickles,” she said, slapping his hand away and passing him the cigarette.

  He sat up, took a drag, and clamped hold of her wrists as his fingers peeked through the cuffs of her black dress, hoping to explore what she kept hidden.

  “I want to see the rest of you,” he said. He handed her the cigarette and slicked back his hair.

  “Why?” she asked, giving the cigarette a pull.

  “I want to see your collarbone.”

  “Is that all?” she asked. She blew out a breath of ice-cold smoke that chilled the sweat in his hair.

  “Do you have something else you want to show me?” he said, as he wormed the buttons at her neck through their tight little holes.

  Her frock came loose from her bones, but in places it stuck to her skin. He lifted the cloth away, careful not to rip her scabs. When it detached there came blood, tiny beads of it that he dabbed with his finger and tasted to prove it was real.

  Annalee pulled her dress off her shoulder and felt her collarbone. “It’s still broken.”

  Leonard rubbed his palm across her bone like a slat of wood and kneaded the spot where it had snapped with his thumb.

  “Remember when you dropped me?” Annalee asked.

  “You had on a purple dress,” he said, as his fingers filed down the splinters of her bone. “It had a rip in it from us sneaking out the window the night before. We were up here practicing the lift we were gonna showcase at Jimmy’s that night.” He pressed on her bone and hooked the broken pieces back together. “I threw you in the lift too hard and you went flying across the room.” He dabbed spit on his finger and stroked the break. “When I got to you, your bone was sticking out and cobwebs were in your hair. I promised you I’d never drop you again, and you smiled back at me like it didn’t even hurt. I remember.” He sanded the bone with his calloused fingertips until it was smooth. “There. All fixed.” He blew the dust from her bone, and a patch of new skin grew over what he had mended.

  “I liked it the way it was,” she said, smiling. She lifted her shoulder to look at the work he’d done, and her dress fell down to her waist.

  A hawk moth escaped from the cave of her chest and Leonard jumped back and ducked. He didn’t know what had frightened him most, the barreling monster of a moth or the ruin he was so afraid of finding by coming back here. He stared into her cavity and saw her desiccated skin, saw where rats had nibbled her ribs, and how the moonflower blossoms trapped inside her cage had rotted into a pool of stinking black slime. Annalee had not fought off death completely; she had just done a damn good job of covering it up.

  His vision blurred and his head grew dizzy. He felt he would vomit but shook the stars out of his head and pulled himself together.

  “I’m in need of more repair than you think,” she said, starting to cover herself up.

  He stopped her and stared through the hole of her heart at something that caught his eye. His fingers slid through her ribs and tweezed out from a tangle of green vine a piece of paper folded into a square. He unfolded the paper and slowly revealed a hand-drawn portrait of Annalee. Titled at the top in unusual letters were the words Portrait of. The artist’s signature hid along the scalloped hem of her dress. Drawn in miniature, in the sadness of her eyes, was a reflection of perhaps the artist. The portrait must have been drawn during the same age as her death when most women were ripe with womanhood. But here on the page, Leonard could see her premature withering and grey.

  “What killed you, Annalee?” he asked. He saw the fret in her eyes.

  She snatched the paper from his hand, folded it up, and put it back in her cavity. She gathered her dress, buttoned it to her neck, and fled to the attic window where she stared out into the rain.

  He walked up to her back and reached for her. The sound of feet climbing the attic’s ladder made his hands freeze on her cold, stiff shoulders.

  “Was that you laughing?” Gradle asked, poking her head through the attic flap.

  He let go of Annalee, shook the last cigarette from the pack, lit it, and took a long drag.

  Gradle appeared by his side and drew back a piece of his hair to unblock her view. Her eyes were blinding and blue.

  “You know every cigarette you smoke takes seven minutes off your life?” she asked, as she swiped the cigarette out of his mouth. She parted the curtains and tossed it through the break in the window. “That man I wrote to wrote me back,” she said, reached inside her dress, and showed him a letter. “His name’s D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer.”

  Annalee swiveled her head around and stared at the letter Gradle held. The air in the attic shifted, took on a new charge.

  “I’m gonna go visit him. Apologize for throwing firecrackers at his house,” she said. “Don’t worry if I’m not home before dark.” She folded the letter and put it back down her dress. “You got any comments?” She gave him some time to speak before she kissed his cheek and descended the ladder.

  He relaxed and let out the breath he’d been holding onto. Smoke ran out of his nostrils and dissipated in Annalee’s hair.

  “What is it about her that scares you so?” Annalee asked, hooking the lace curtains back. She looked down on Gradle who appeared through the broken glass in a flash of flinching green.

  Gradle threw a washtub in the Chrysler’s backseat and slammed the car door like she was rushed and enraged. She sat in the driver’s seat, placed her hands on the wheel, and bowed her head. She looked just like Veela. Just like the day she tried to run away.

  Leonard left Annalee at the window, hurried down the ladder, and ran out to the porch.

  “Where you think you’re going?” he said, as he marched down the steps into the rain.

  “Do you have dementia or something?” Gradle cut into him with eyes full of tears, eyes that dared him to look at her.

  No matter how hard he tried not to, he couldn’t help but see Veela, to see her and her teary eyes sitting behind the Chrysler’s wheel on what should have been one of the most special days of a girl’s life. He remembered that day and heard the thread passing through the chiffon as he finished up the hem of her green prom dress, the one he’d cut patterns out of newspaper to make, the one he’d designed especially for her. It was Veela’s first date, he was nervous as a housefly, and a portion of the hem ended up a bit crooked because of it. Maybe Dot would have done a better job, but she’d been out in the yard all day getting drunk.

  “Veela,” Dot called from the front door. “Your little date’s here.”

  Leonard helped Veela with her dress, zipped up the back, and kissed the top of her head as butterflies hatched in his stomach. He escorted her to the door and found Dot, holding her drink and using the boy’s shoulder to keep her balance.

  Dot’s mouth dropped when she saw Veela walk into the room. “Who in the world did your hair?” she laughed. She pulled Veela’s ponytail like it was a tail of a dog.

  “Daddy did it,” she said.

  “Aren’t you too old for that?” Dot asked.

  The boy walked past Dot and tried to pin the purple orchid corsage on Veela’s dress, but Dot snatched the flowe
r out of his hand and gave him her drink.

  “Your Daddy never takes me on dates,” Dot said, poking Veela with the pin as she tried to fasten the corsage.

  “I can do it, Mama,” Veela said. She reached for the flower, and Dot slapped her cheek. She knocked her glasses off, and they slid across the floor.

  “Can’t you see I’m trying to help you?” she said, throwing the flower in Veela’s face.

  “I don’t need your help,” Veela said. “Wait!” She yelled after her date, who was already out of the door, rushing back to his car. The boy didn’t stop. He got into his car, put it in reverse, and skidded out of the driveway.

  Veela ran to her room, locked the door, and crawled out of the window.

  Leonard saw her from the window streak across the side yard and climb into the Chrysler’s driver seat. He ran through the house, jumped the backporch steps, and caught her in the drive.

  “Where you think you’re going?” he asked, leaning his head in the window.

  “Away from here,” Veela said, put the keys in the ignition, and over-cranked the car.

  “You wanna go on a date?” he said, as he wiped her tears with his thumb.

  “You wanna go fishing?” she asked.

  Leonard grabbed his camera, loaded the car with fishing poles, and let her drive down highway 23, over Griffin Ferry’s Bridge, and down the dirt roads that led to the sugar white banks of the Ohooppee River. He made her pull over once on the way so he could pick wildflowers for her new corsage.

  They drank cold Coca-Colas, strung red and yellow-breasted bream on a string, and stopped a man in a canoe to take their picture. They fished until the whippoorwills started up and twilight set in. Leonard packed up the car with the fish and poles and leaned against the hood as he watched Veela sitting alone on the sand looking up at the stars. He turned on the Chrysler’s radio, took Veela in his arms, and danced with her barefooted on the river’s barking sand. And as he spun her under a glitter of stars, she rested her head on his shoulder and made him believe it was the most special night of her life.

  Leonard came to when lightning cracked near his ear. Gradle stared at him with her broken blue eyes like he was the one who broke them. He leaned in the driver’s window and wiped her tears away with his thumb.

  She turned the ignition and threw the car in reverse. “I’ll see you later.”

  She backed out of the drive, rammed the Chrysler’s rear end into a crepe myrtle, and shook its purple flowers down like confetti. “And go put on some clothes!” she hollered out of the window.

  The tires squealed from burning up rubber. He ran after her, but she locked the car in drive, swerved down the road, and sent flowers flying off the hood.

  He stood in the road and let the rain beat him down as he watched the purple wounded flowers float past. He thought about Veela, stuck his index finger in his ear, and fished around for leftover river sand.

  Gradle turned onto the dirt road leading to Delvis’s house when the rain stopped. The Chrysler’s wheels couldn’t find their grip and fishtailed in the mud. She rolled down the windows to dry out her tears and get a whiff of the glowing green tobacco fields. She rested her bare foot out the window and wondered how long the grasshopper that landed on her toe would hold on.

  She rounded a bend and came head to head with Sonny Joe’s growling silver truck. She slammed on the brakes. The Chrysler’s hind end whipped forward and T-boned the truck. She slid across the seat, and the grasshopper landed in the bloodstain Sonny Joe had given to her dress.

  Sonny Joe revved his engine, threw the truck in reverse, and spun mud all over the Chrysler’s windshield. He drove the truck up to Gradle’s window. Ceif tipped his hat her way as Sonny Joe took a swig from his brown paper sack and chased it down with cigarette smoke. His glassy and bloodshot eyes stared at her with same kind of hurt they had after she pushed him off of her in the alley.

  “You ruined my fucking dress!” she yelled at him and showed him the stain.

  “Were you a virgin?” Smoke slithered out of his half-cocked smile.

  “Would that make it easier on you?” she asked.

  “It was pretty easy,” he said. He lit a firecracker with his cigarette and tossed it through her window.

  Flaming shrapnel exploded in the floorboard around her feet. She hopped out of the car and rushed toward Sonny Joe. He gunned the truck and slung bullets of mud across her face. “Asshole!” she yelled, grabbed a handful of mud, and threw it at his tailgate.

  She walked around the car to inspect the damage. A dent the size of a watermelon gouged the passenger’s door. She spat on her hand and tried to rub away the silver spray paint from Sonny Joe’s truck, but it wouldn’t come off. She wondered what Grandpa would say about it, how long it would take for him to notice. Since it was something she had done, perhaps he would never notice.

  She climbed back into the car and straightened it on the road. It had quit raining, but the sky continued to growl and a ring of buzzards soared in thermals high above the pines. She propped her foot in the window and drove real slow until she reached Delvis’s house.

  Rocks popped under the tires, and she turned off the car without putting it in park. Everything was quiet except for the sound of electricity running through the insects. She pulled her glasses down her nose and stared at the firecracker shreds littering Delvis’s porch. She grabbed the washtub from the backseat and started toward his steps.

  Delvis exploded through the door wearing plaid flannel pajamas and a ratty hat with a brim too short to shadow his rabid eyes. He reached down his side and pulled a pistol from a holster. The metal barrel flashed like a star.

  “Damn outlaws makin’ my life a livin’ hell!” he yelled. He shut his eye and pointed the gun at Gradle.

  She dropped the washtub, sprinted back to the car, and tripped over a piece of barbed wire rolled out in her path. Her face hit the dirt and left the imprint of her glasses in the mud.

  “I’m your friend!” she yelled over her shoulder. “I wrote you a letter!”

  Delvis snapped the cylinder open, thumbed it into a spin, and snapped it back shut.

  She rushed to the car, flung the door open, and honked the horn three times. “I’m a real true friend!” she yelled. She honked the horn three more times.

  Delvis cocked his head and squinted his eyes. His pistol lowered, and he disappeared through the crack in the door, fast like a skink.

  She caught her breath, and three more times she honked the horn.

  The door of Delvis’s shack creaked open, and he appeared as a transformed man. He wore a white cowboy hat, perfect around the edges, a blue polyester suit, and a pair of worn-out K-Swiss sneakers with fluorescent green laces. In place of the pistol, he held the neck of a guitar. He tipped the rain out of a rusted metal chair, sat down, and tuned his instrument.

  Gradle ripped a strand of mud-caked hair from her cheek and watched the man clear his throat and sing, “You Are My Sunshine.” She eased toward him, unsure if she should keep moving his way or turn back to the car and blow the horn three more times for good measure.

  She climbed the first porch step and crept up the second one, smoothed her dress and sat below his feet. He didn’t seem crazy at all. There was something real sweet and real humble about him that made her feel safe.

  Delvis played the song two times through. He stopped when he hit the high note of “happy” and cleared his throat. “‘Cuse me,” he said. He spat off the porch. “Got a frog in my throat. Went down there last month and ain’t been able to get him out.” He propped his guitar against his chair. “That’s the first song I learnt to play. Learnt it on a one string fiddle.” He cleared his throat again. “‘Cuse me. That frog come back,” he said. He spat off the porch again. “Stuff they writin’ these days ain’t fittin’ to sing. Sounds like a bunch of racket.”

  “I’m D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer.” He held out his hand for her to shake.

  Gradle stared at his huge hand and the fake
gold ring that adorned his pinkie and stained it copper-green. There was something familiar about him. She felt like she had seen his eyes and the dimple in his smile a million times. He looked like he was in his sixties but the K-Swiss sneakers and his scent of too-strong cologne made him seem younger.

  “My name’s Gradle Bird,” she said, as she shook his hand. “I’m sorry about your dog.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said, lifting his hat. His hair was skinned dangerously close to the scalp, and blood dried in a razor nick above his right ear.

  “D-5’s my code name. Ain’t nobody been able to break the code since I invented it. The FBI, the GBI, the police, and the county sheriff. Ain’t none of ‘em been able to break it. It’s my special code. Solid, clean, impenetrable code. And if somebody falls into some luck and figures it out, I got it copyrighted up there in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. So if they do break it, ain’t nobody can ever copy it.”

  “What do you want me to call you?” she asked, wiping beads of sweat from her upper lip.

  “Delvis. Real true friends call me Delvis.”

  “Why do you need a code name, Delvis?”

  He pinched up the knees of his pants and spat off the porch. “People got all kinds of bounties out on me. They all over creation tryin’ to kill me, ‘cause I’m a lethal weapon. You may think I’m jokin’, but I ain’t.” He paused to clear his throat. “Men and women from California, Tennessee, Alabama writes me about bounties on me. Got some in Paris, France, too. I’ll put a stop to ‘em. I’ll send ‘em the same message I sent to the two that dropped their bounty price on me seven months ago.” He spat out what he’d been saving in his mouth. “Look ‘a here.” He pointed to the firecracker trash all over his porch. “Outlaws were just up here tryin’ to provoke me. But they in the same business as monkeys. ‘Cause I ain’t never read anything in the newspaper about nobody gettin’ killed by a firepopper. I taught myself how to read and write, and I can read everything in the newspaper except foreign names.”