Gradle Bird

by J. C. Sasser

  “They think throwing firecrackers at people is fun,” she said.

  “It ain’t funny,” he said, as his eyes tracked a blue-tailed skimmer darting past.

  “You see that little helicopter that just run through here?” he asked.

  “That’s not a helicopter. That’s a dragonfly,” she said.

  “They spying on me. It’s a helicopter in disguise,” he said, pointing to the insect pulsing its abdomen on the leaf of a bright coral geranium that hung from the porch in a basket. “Why you think they call ‘em dragonflies?”

  “Because they’re predators and migrate over oceans,” she said.

  “How’d you know that?” Delvis said.

  “Strange Stories and Amazing Facts. It’s a book I memorized.”

  “You ever seen a real dragon fly?” Delvis asked. He twisted his ring around his pinkie.

  Gradle picked a piece of skin from her toe. “A real dragon?”

  “Yes, one of them that breathes fires. I seen ‘em all the time. But they hard to see. They kinda skittish. And they don’t come out unless there ain’t no moon and no stars ‘cause they real shy and don’t want nobody takin’ pictures of them or studyin’ them ‘cept me. I’m the only one in the universe that’s ever seen ‘em ‘cause I got special sneakin’ up abilities and laser vision in my eyes.” He pinched one of his lids wide open, scanned the yard with it, and then shut it closed. “I ain’t braggin’. Just the facts. And around ‘bout this time they start sheddin’ their scales. They on different schedules than most sheddin’ animals. I go up to the dump where they nose around for food at night and I collect the scales ‘cause I can get a good price for them in various regions of the state. In fact,” he said, holding up his pointer finger, “one flying dragon scale can get me a steak dinner at the Western Steer if I had a good mind to eat up there.”

  “You got any you could show me?”

  His ears drew back, and with them came his head skin, shiny and taut. He jumped from his chair, and his eyes looked like they had caught fire. He paced his porch while he kept watch of his front door.

  “I hafta go inside to get ‘em. I’ll git ‘em, but you cain’t come inside. A tornado come through here the other day and turned my house upside down. I ain’t been able to clean it ‘cause I got double back trouble. ‘Cuse me,” he said, sucked in his gut, and slid through the door.

  She waited on the porch and heard him meddling in his house. Something heavy crashed on the floor, and in an instant, Delvis slid back through the door with a wooden box in his hand.

  He pinched the knees of his pants, sat down on the metal chair, and opened the box. A breeze stirred the Coca-Cola whirligig into a spin. In the box, mixed with fingernail clippings, was a collection of vibrant colored sequins.

  He picked a green sequin, rolled it between the tip of his thumb and pointer, and squinted one eye shut while the other studied what glimmered between his grip. “Like I said, this one could get me a steak dinner at the Western Steer if I had a good mind to go up there and eat.” He shoved the box under Gradle’s nose. “Pick out your favorite color.”

  Gradle pressed a green sequin into the tip of her finger, and he violently closed the box shut.

  “I better go hide these back.” He stood and scouted his junked-up yard and stared the stand of pine up and down. “If anybody finds out I got flying dragon scales, them outlaws liable to raise their bounty price on me and get me killed. Liable to kill you, too.” He turned and knelt down in her face. “Me and you’s connected now.”

  He slid through the door once more and was back on the porch before Gradle could swallow. Thunder rumbled in the east and rain broke through the mass of clouds sending down drops that pelted the tin roof like rocks.

  “Gradle,” he raised his voice over the rain, “there’s some things you need to know ‘bout me.” He wiggled in his chair. “I’m a wanted man. People all over the universe want me dead.”

  “Why do they want you dead?” she asked, moving her feet out of the rain.

  “They just jealous,” Delvis snapped. “You see, I’m famous in many areas. Guitar pickin’, singin’, songwritin’, and art. I ain’t braggin’. Just the facts. I got twenty-one contracts from music firms, and I ain’t hired none of ‘em. I can do love, gospel, country-western, rock ‘n roll, or mixed my style of rock ‘n roll. My type of rock ‘n roll is diff’rent. I have my own original songs, invented my own original style, and they all want my stuff, but I got to copyright them in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., before I hire any of ‘em. You gotta protect yourself ‘cause they’s a lot of crooks out there.”

  Gradle side-cocked her head, and as she tightened her ponytail, her eyes snared a small wooden cross with a lei of flowers out beyond the vegetable garden.

  She stood up and grabbed Delvis by the arm. “Can I wash your feet?”

  He stared into her eyes but only for a flash. He stared down at his grimy fingernails and tried to hide them in his palms. “They stinkin’ bad?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I want you to forgive me for making you shoot your dog.”

  “I done forgave you,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “So I can forgive myself.”

  “You cain’t,” he said, sat down in his chair, and wrung his hands. “I ain’t got no runnin’ water.” He bowed his head and stared at his feet. “But I’m gettin’ some next week. Runnin’ water and some electricity. I been life savin’ for it.”

  Gradle walked into the rain and turned over the washtub she had dropped in his yard. She stood in the lightning until the tub grew sufficiently full. She set the tub beside Delvis’s feet and unlaced his sneakers. His knees began to bounce, and his hands trembled as he tried to figure out what to do with them.

  She grabbed Delvis’s hands and placed them atop his knees. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” she said, as she gently rolled off his socks. She lifted his feet by the heels, placed them one by one in the tub, and sprinkled them with water. She scrubbed the black off his soles, and in between his toes, and after she finished, she dried them off with the skirt of her dress.

  Delvis bent down and stared into her eyes. He dipped his hand in the water and cradled her chin. She jumped back, startled by his touch, and knocked her head against the porch rail.

  “I ain’t gonna hurt you either,” he said, and with his thumb he cleaned off the mud Sonny Joe had slung on her cheek.

  LEONARD COVERED HIS face to defend the sun as it ripped through the living room drapes like a cleaver of flames. His mouth drooped from the weight of drool, and two feet in front of the wingback where he sat, the television sizzled in a rapid boil. He didn’t know what day it was. All he knew was that it had been a while since he’d seen light.

  “You’re stinking up the house,” Gradle said, swarmed through the living room, and split a pair of drapes.

  He shriveled up from the sudden rush of sun, raked his hand down his face, and clutched onto what had become beard.

  “You got any pressure sores yet?” she asked, splitting another pair of drapes.

  He curled into a cannonball.

  She grabbed him by the hair and shoved him down the hall, through the front door where she had a chair set out for him on the porch. A green anole skittered across the rail, froze, and fanned his ruby throat. A Schick disposable, scissors, a pail, and a bottle of White Rain set out like surgeon’s tools blocked the lizard’s way. The lizard barrel-rolled around the rail, leaped into the moon vine, and disappeared into its green.

  Gradle shoved him down in the chair. “You need to clean up.” She poured the pail of water over his head and soaked his clothes.

  He sucked in his breath and let it go, feeling electrified and alive.

  She tilted his head back, dolloped his hair with White Rain, and massaged her fingers deep into his brain. He closed his eyes and let her work.

  “How’d that dent get in the car?” he asked.

  “I wrecked it on my way to Delvis’s house.�
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  “I guess I ought to teach you to drive.”

  “I’m already pretty good at it.”

  “I can tell,” he said as suds tingled his scalp. “Tell me about this D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer character.”

  “What you want to know?”

  “Where’d he come up with that name?”

  “It’s code,” she said, scratching his head like a dog.

  “What does the code mean?” he asked. He opened up one of his eyes to take stock of where she was.

  “Nobody knows. Not the FBI, the GBI, or the sheriff,” she said, rinsed the shampoo out of his hair, and began to rake it flat with the comb.

  “D is the first letter in his first name Delvis. Five is the number of letters in his last name. D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer.”

  “You’re talkative today,” she said, grabbing the scissors.

  “You must be holding your mouth right,” he closed his open eye shut. “Don’t take too much off.”

  “I know.” She positioned the scissors at his jaw and snipped off a half-circle of hair.

  “What about The Lone Singer part? What’s that about?”

  “He’s a musician. And I suppose he’s lonely.”

  “Were you able to apologize for throwing firepoppers at his house?”

  “I washed his feet,” she said. She lathered his face with shampoo, scraped the razor down his face, and flicked the hair off the blade.

  “What’d you do that for?” he asked. He sensed her freeze, and for a while there was no movement, no sound.

  He opened his eyes and found her staring at the postman who was stopped a ways down in the middle of the sidewalk, staring frightfully back. She dropped the razor, jumped the porch steps, and ran out to meet him. He handed her a package, and she ran back, sat on the porch swing, and tore it open.

  Leonard picked up the razor and walked her way. “Are you gonna finish?” he asked, but all of her attention was dedicated to a letter written by the unmistakable hand of D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer.

  His thumb and pointer made an upside-down U above his lip, and he shaved around it, cutting out his mustache, as he watched her transport into a different world, one of which he was clearly no part.

  He splashed water on his face, and let it air-dry as he walked back into the house and pulled the attic flap down. He climbed the ladder and found Annalee staring out of the window. She was in the same spot he’d left her however many days ago it had been since he’d found her hidden portrait and they’d gotten into a tiff. She had always been so dramatic, lived her life in a display of symbols and signs. Her blatant silence and disregard proved to him nothing had changed since her death.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Leonard asked, as he hugged around her back. “I want to take you on a date,” he whispered against her neck.

  “You’ll look peculiar, Leonard. Going out with an imaginary friend.”

  He removed her hands crossed over her heart and turned her from the window. “I’m already peculiar.”

  “I have nothing to wear,” she said, turning back to the window.

  Leonard opened the wardrobe and catalogued the brittle clothes, boas, and feather-pricked hats he and Annalee played dress-up with when they were young. He dusted mold from a plaid madras suit, changed into the pants, and fastened them with suspenders. He slipped the blazer over his sweaty undertank and topped his head with a straw, red-banded fedora. He stared in the wardrobe’s mirror and shook his shoulders to settle the suit. With his clean cut and shave, he had to admit he looked pretty spiff. He spat on his loafers, shined them with his thumb, and flipped their pennies after he was done.

  He shopped through the wardrobe for Annalee and stopped on a white dress. He unhooked its hanger and pulled out the eyelet dress she wore that rainy summer day they made love. He drowned his face in its fabric and drew in a whiff. After closeted all those years, it still smelled like them.

  “Wear this,” he said, and hung the dress on a nail beside her.

  Annalee turned from the window and looked at the dress. “I’m too old for that,” she said, turning her back to him again.

  “I’m sure you’ll look beautiful in it,” he said, as he gathered quilts from the hopechest and knotted them together end on end.

  “Look at me.” She whipped around and yanked out a patch of her hair. “Are you blind?” she said. She threw her hair at his face.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her in front of the wardrobe’s mirror. “Look at yourself,” he said.

  “I’m dead, Leonard.”

  “There’s still life in you,” he shook her shoulders.

  “How do you know you’re not just seeing things?” she asked.

  Leonard tore open her frock, and it puddled in a pool of black at her feet. He led her out of it and slid the white eyelet dress up her legs. He kissed her wrists and threaded them through the sleeves, pinched her rear, and zipped her up. He clipped a moonflower with his fingernails and fastened it to the right of her heart.

  He squared her in the mirror and watched the bald spot where she had ripped out her hair disappear under shiny thick locks of new growth.

  “Maybe I am,” he said, and he threw the knotted quilt ladder out of the window for them to escape.

  GRADLE SWUNG ON the porch swing with Delvis’s package in her lap and her nose deep in the letter he had written. In the package, there were three envelopes, numbered in sequence. When she had opened envelope #1, sequins in a variety of colors fell out like confetti in her lap. She read the contents of envelope #1 for the third time through.

  HellO GRaDle,

  THaNK you for washiNg my feet. THEY sqeAK AND CLeaN. I FORGave you LoNg back. KNOW your forgiveN cause YOU are a REAL TRUe frieND.

  I HopE I didN’t SCARE yoU or MaKE YoU mad Or NoTHINg. SOMe peoplES scARed Of ME buT That’s because THEy aiN’T real TRUE frIENDs.

  TheM OUTlaWS hadN’t BeeN BY here Lately. SO they MuST have hEARd About MY pistol Skills.

  ENclosed is a CAsSETTE tape of my OWN origiNal soNgs. ©COPYRIGHTED. BEFORE YOU PLAY THE TAPES REVERSE THEM so the taPes woNt BE LOOSE & taNgle up OK. I WOULD like your OPINIoN ABOUT THEM. GOOD or Bad. WONT mAke me mad if you DONT like them. I HAD My picTUre made for You. I would aPPreciate a PICture of you by yourself. I DO NOT SHOW off PICTURES. I GUARANtee I will treat your PICture with 100% RESPECT.

  GRaDle I had a dream last Night ME aNd YOU was walkiNg iN saNdy road = but I woke up before the dreaM. ENDED. GRAdle I WANT NEVER forget about you. YOU IS a Nice persoN: I wish you would COME by to see me. I have a uNbelievable TRUE story of HAPPeNINGS. A REAl shocker. ITS true.

  By by ♥ a REAl TRUE frieNd.

  YoUrs Truly,

  D-5 Delvis MiLes The LoNe SiNger

  POST SCRIPT: SiNCe You LiKE them FLYiNg DrAgoN SCalES so MuCH. I SENt SOMe mORE. EvERy COLor theRE is. BUT sHHHHH. DoN’T tell Nobody. YOU LIAble to Get KILLED for em. THIS Is miNe aNd yours sECRET.

  She read the letter again and studied the realistic eyes that dotted every i and the flowers, hearts, and butterflies he had drawn along the paper’s border. It must have taken him hours to write the letter and produce its accompanying art, and it made her feel special that he would invest this kind of time in her. She moved on to envelope #2. On its front it read:

  A PiCTure Of. ME. D-5 Delvis MiLes The

  LoNe SiNger. RuRal RouTe 1 Box 56-B.

  JaNesboro, GA 30431.

  PICTURE eNclosed.

  She turned the envelope over, and on the flap, written in tiny letters, were the words: Under the words, he had drawn a heart with a cursive letter L in the middle of it. She opened the flap and retrieved a Polaroid of Delvis standing on his front porch in his white cowboy hat, clean and shiny and posing with his guitar. His ears stuck out from his hat, and his eyes were soft and blue. He looked humble and proud.

  She wondered how he had taken the photo, what kind of rig he must have made to capture his moment. She suspected he had no friends to take it on
his behalf, that she was his only friend.

  She placed the Polaroid in her lap and read the front of envelope #3:

  ITS yoURS TO keEP.

  MAKE a COPIE

  Of this Tape

  AND p.s.KEEp This TapE. TIL I CoME FOR it.

  NO returN THIS

  KEEP IT ITS YOURS

  Tape please thaNks D-5 T.L.S.

  She pulled a black cassette tape from the envelope.

  ALL rights © rEServed for D-5 Delvis MiLes The LoNe SiNger, libRary of cONgreSs WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Thunder rumbled behind a dense pleat of clouds. The sky darkened, gesturing rain and signaling the moon vine to tremor with bloom. Preoccupied with Delvis’s letter, she didn’t hear him coming, nor did she hear him hobble up the porch steps until Ceif pushed a bundle of swamp lilies under her nose.

  She folded Delvis’s letter and placed it by her side. Her eyes rolled over Ceif. His Bible rested in the crook of his arm, and he leaned on his cane, placing favor on his right leg. His clothes were sopping wet and three red blisters trimmed the leather of his worn-out shoes.

  “Did you walk here?” she asked, as she smelled the lilies.

  “I don’t have a car. And it’d be a sin to steal Sonny Joe’s.”

  “You walked all this way to bring me flowers?”

  “And apologize for the other day.” His voice cracked, and he smiled an uncertain smile, then slapped and scratched his wrist. “Watch out, that moss might have chiggers in it,” he said, pointing to the bundle of swamp lilies and the wet moss he’d wrapped them in to prolong their zeal.

  “Did you walk to Delvis’s house, bring him some flowers too?” she asked.

  “Bringing a man flowers wouldn’t go over too well,” he said. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit the end.

  A loud rumble came from down the street and drew their attention its way. At the stop sign, Sonny Joe sat in his truck. His tailpipe knocked and rock music blared out through the rolled-down window. He peeled out. His tires squealed and blew smoke, and the silver Chevy came down the wrong side of the road toward them, hunting like a hammerhead shark.