Gradle Bird

by J. C. Sasser

  Left in the trash to die

  You trembled and shooked, growled and bit

  But you couldn’t keep me from tryin’

  We learned to trust

  With peanut butter and love

  I mended your wounds and you mended mine

  I became yourn and yourn became mine

  Rain! Rain! I carry your bullet in me, Rain!

  I know your runnin’ in heaven now

  But them outlaws made my life a living hell

  Rain! Rain! I carry your bullet in me, Rain!

  Rain! Rain! I carry your bullet in me.

  I miss your breath the most

  And the sounds you make in your sleep

  When I close my eyes I see your wet brown eyes

  Starin’ right back at me

  We’ll meet one day up high in the sky

  You can teach me to run like you

  But ‘till then I’ll pray and I’ll cry

  And I’ll carry your bullet in me.

  Rain! Rain! I carry your bullet in me, Rain!

  I know your runnin’ in heaven now

  But them outlaws made my life a living hell

  Rain! Rain! I carry your bullet in me, Rain!

  Rain! Rain! I carry your bullet in me.

  A tear shed from Gradle’s eye as he sang the chorus another time through. She turned to Ceif. His eyes were closed, and his head was bowed in prayer. Sonny Joe had stopped the truck. He stared out of the window at the gauzed moon that had risen significantly higher. He was alone in thought. They were all alone in thought, yet Gradle could sense their thoughts had fused. The day Delvis shot and killed his dog had permanently bound them together. And for the rest of their lives they would be inseparable, even if distanced by years and miles. If decades down the road they saw one another again, that day would be the first thing they recognized about each other.

  “Well Gradle,” Delvis’s voice cut through the heavy silence, “thank you very much for listening to these recordings. Always a true friend. I appreciate you coming by the other day. By all means do come see me again. And I still want a picture of you. I don’t want a picture just to say that’s my girlfriend. Uh, uh! I ain’t like that. I ain’t that kind of person. Well, I’m just gonna let this tape run out now. Again, this is yours truly D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer.”

  The tape went silent, except for the crackling of the recorder and the sound of a chair being dragged back across the wooden floor. The tape stopped, and there was a collective and deep breath among them.

  Sonny Joe ejected the tape and tossed it on the dashboard. “Are you as in love with him as he is with you?” he asked.

  “I believe I am,” she said. She slapped Sonny Joe against the ribs. “Can I have some more of that joint?”

  They pulled into the gravel parking lot of Jimmy’s Dance Club and passed a broken-wheeled kiosk advertising SATURDAY NIGHT CHURCH, $2 COVER and THUNDERBIRD SOLD GOOD AND COLD. The lot was full, and a bundle of barefooted and raggedy children fought each other for turns at the building’s only see-through window.

  Sonny Joe parked the truck in the handicapped spot in front of the club. A shiny cockroach scampered across the mint green cement blocked wall. It made its journey across a life-size silhouette of a couple dancing and on across two windows that had been boarded up long enough for the nails to rust.

  “Hand me my fighters,” Sonny Joe said. “I can always draw a crowd in this joint.”

  “Is there an age requirement at this place?” she asked, handing Sonny Joe the fish she had forgotten were in her lap.

  “Ain’t no requirements when you’re with me. Come on, Ceif. Let’s go make some money.”

  “The prince of darkness himself,” Ceif said, slamming the truck door.

  They walked around the side of the building and Sonny Joe banged on a handleless metal door until the same man with the lazy eye and misshapen head that sold him liquor at the drive-thru opened the door and greeted them with severely impaired speed.

  “Sonny Joe,” the man drew out his syllables through the music, while he kept his good eye fixed on something inside. “Ceif,” he acknowledged him.

  “What’s going on, Hammer?” Sonny Joe asked.

  “I ain’t seen nothing like it,” Hammer said. “Started up about thirty minutes ago, and don’t look like it’s gonna stop anytime soon.” The side of his face lifted in a smile, made by whatever he was looking at inside. “Your girl clean?” he asked.

  “She’s cool,” Sonny Joe said, skipped the cover charge, and led Gradle and Ceif inside.

  Gradle’s eyes cut through the fog of smoke and saw what had kept the raggedy children at the window fighting for their turn and what had captured Hammer’s good eye. In the middle of the dance floor, all by himself, was Grandpa. He was dancing so hard the crowd received his sweat, and when he kicked his leg out to the side, a penny flew from his loafer and skated across the floor.

  Leonard led Annalee into a tight fast spin. Her dress bloomed out in scalloped waves like the moonflower pinned to her chest. She spotted his eyes with each turn, and each time she came around, her face grew younger and younger as if he was spinning her back in time. He spun her out of his arms into the captive crowd. Her hair was sweaty, her cheeks flush, and her eyes sparked as Leonard signaled to her he was ready. She sprinted across the dance floor and jumped with wild abandon through the air. He caught her by the waist and lifted her high above his head. She was light as air. He could feel nothing but life in her. He lowered her down his body and found her completely restored to the beautiful first cousin he had fallen in love with so many years ago.

  Leonard didn’t want to let her go. He feared he would lose her. He feared she would revert, but the crowd was clapping them on. He swung her to the left, and then to the right, and as he swung her through his legs, he saw through the crowd and haze of cigarette smoke, a familiar flash of green. Near the entrance, Gradle picked up the penny he had just danced from his loafer.

  Gradle moved through the crowd alongside two boys. The tattooed boy led her to a table where he sat with two bags of fish and lit a cigarette. The crippled boy sat down with a Bible on his lap and rested his cane atop a chair while Gradle stood staring out at him, perhaps too stunned to sit.

  Leonard grabbed onto Annalee and twirled her across the room, dancing harder and faster in hopes he could dance Gradle out of his mind.

  The crowd began to talk.

  “Maybe he’s nuts.”

  “But look at him dance!”

  “Must be the goddamn heat.”

  “But man he’s got rhythm!”

  “Is he hallucinating?”

  “I want some of what he’s got.”

  “Maybe he’s got an imaginary friend.”

  The crowd talked louder. Whispers became shouts. They began to point and laugh out loud.

  “Freak!”

  “Go get your head checked!”

  “Go back to the chicken coop!”

  “Get a clue, old man! There’s nobody there!”

  Leonard ignored the hollering and banter. He didn’t skip a single beat as he kept bunny-hugging Annalee because no matter what anybody said, no matter what anybody thought, Annalee was there, and he could see her plain as day. He dipped her low until her hair brushed the floor, and when he pulled her up she was no longer there. All he could see was Gradle standing in her place.

  Gradle held out her hands for him to take. “Dance with me, Grandpa.”

  The music stopped. The crowd collectively gasped.

  “Take my hand,” she whispered. “People are laughing.”

  Leonard’s eyes traversed the room. Not a single soul was laughing. They were all staring at Gradle with their hands over their mouths, as if they were powerless in witnessing a tragedy, like a car about to roll off a cliff.

  “Grab my hand, Grandpa,” she said.

  He began to shake. He clutched his fists, closed his eyes, and went back to the night Gradle was born and he kept tel
ling himself the exact same thing as he watched Gradle’s tiny hands rise up, her little arms flail in the air, her little fingers ball up in red little fists, fighting for breath.

  “Take my hand, Grandpa!” Gradle yelled.

  His eyes snapped open, and he gulped in air.

  “We don’t have to dance,” she said. Her cheeks were slick with tears. “Just take my hand.”

  A new song started. The crippled boy rose from his chair and hobbled across the dance floor assisted by his cane. He grabbed hold of Gradle’s outstretched hands and gently pulled her away. He wrapped his arms around her waist, nudged her cheek down on his shoulder, and led her into a slow and awkward dance.

  Leonard walked off the dance floor and went out through the door, leaving Gradle in the arms of a crippled boy who knew how to love her better than him.

  Leonard sat in the living room in the dark staring at the TV. His chair was pulled a foot from the screen, and he was lost in an all-night showcase of Star Trek episodes. A cat screamed next door and made him rise from his chair. He stared through the front door’s beveled glass, switched the porch light on, and went back to his chair.

  As he watched the Enterprise crew battle a mysterious contaminant that caused symptoms of alcohol intoxication, the front door slammed. Gradle stumbled into the living room and squeezed between him and the TV. She was drenched in rain and smelled like liquor and smoke.

  “Do you love me?” she asked. She stumbled to the side, knocked the TV antenna and her glasses askew, and dropped a Styrofoam box of food on the floor. He wondered if she had been infected by the same contaminant as the Enterprise crew, but after he caught a whiff of liquor on her breath, he knew her intoxication was real.

  He stared through Gradle’s dress, past her bony silhouette, and fixed his eyes on the TV’s flickering light.

  “You gonna sit there and stare at nothing?” she asked. She pushed the TV on its side.

  The light in the room vanished and reappeared as sudden as it went. She had knocked the Star Trek episode out of the TV, and Leonard stared at the black and white horizontal lines traversing the screen.

  “Why can’t you look at me?” she asked.

  “Let me be,” he mumbled. He rose and pushed her out of the way with a force that knocked her to the ground.

  She crawled on the floor, grabbed him by the hair, and shoved his face into hers. “Look at me.”

  Leonard stared at her. He focused deep into her eyes and found infinite patterns of blue and saw who he always saw every time he looked at her. He saw Veela on her sixteeth birthday, drunk and crawling through the wet grass in her green chiffon dress.

  He had come home late from work, and as he wheeled the car into the drive the headlights cut through the rain and shone on Dot and Veela who slouched on lounge chairs in the front yard. A half bottle of Maker’s Mark sat on a little table between them.

  “Look what the cat drug in,” Dot said, dressed up in her honeymoon frock with a Palmov cigarette hanging from her mouth. She took a sip from the tumbler that looked like it was going slip from her hand.

  Leonard slammed the car door shut and saw that Veela was asleep. Her head was slumped, and the straps of her dress hung off her shoulders and showed her bra.

  “Where you been, Leonard?” Dot yelled, as if the rain was louder than it was.

  “I had some work to finish up,” he said. Moths fluttered by the porch light and made eerie shadows against the house.

  “You sure do love to work, don’t you?” Dot said. She sauntered toward Leonard and didn’t stop until her nose touched his. “Why don’t you ever work on me?” she asked, her breath sour and gamy from the Maker’s Mark.

  “You wouldn’t remember it if I did,” he said.

  Dot leaned in to kiss him and nuzzled her smeared red lips against his. When he didn’t respond, she bit hard down on his bottom lip.

  “You’re sick, Dot,” he said, shoving her away. Dot tripped over herself and fell down in the grass. Her tumbler rolled and hit the lounge chair where Veela slept.

  “Why are y’all all dressed up?” Leonard asked.

  “It’s Veela’s birthday. Sixteen, Leonard,” she said, looking around for her glass. “So we decided we’d get all dolled up because certainly you were gonna take us out to celebrate. But we waited and waited. We didn’t have anywhere to go and nobody to take us.”

  Dot crawled over to Veela’s chair and jerked Veela’s chin from side to side. “Wake up Veela, Daddy’s finally home,” she slurred.

  “How much did you give her?” Leonard asked.

  “I don’t know, Leonard. I lost count after two,” Dot said. “I found out real soon she can’t hold her liquor.”

  “She’s sixteen for Christ’s sake.”

  “I know, and she’s not even bleeding yet,” Dot said, laughing.

  Veela’s eyes started to wake. Dot slapped her cheek. “Go on, Veela. Kiss your Daddy hello.”

  Veela opened her eyes fully, and as her beautiful blues focused on him, she reached out her arms and fell over with the lounge chair. She got on her knees and crawled to Leonard’s shins.

  Leonard knelt down, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he carried her toward the house. She looked up at him, her eyes not quite all there.

  “You forgot my birthday,” she said. Her eyes closed shut.

  Leonard felt a quick sting against his face that brought him back to the infinite blue patterns in Gradle’s eyes.

  “Look at me!” Gradle slapped his face again. She got in his face and forced his eyes on hers. “Who do you see?”

  “Veela,” he whispered.

  “My name is Gradle,” she said, backing away. She shoveled the food into the Styrofoam box and slammed the front door.

  Leonard raked his hand down his mustache, grabbed the fire poker, and murdered the maimed TV.

  GRADLE WALKED THROUGH the darkest dark she had ever seen. There was no moon or stars to light her path, but she didn’t need them to find her way. She made a right down the dirt road leading to Delvis’s house and knew she was near after the smell of tobacco turned to honeysuckle. She made another right at Delvis’s mailbox, and as she topped the hill, she could see light in the distance. Delvis’s house was lit up like ball of fire, like some sort of sun rising.

  She stepped on his porch and automatically felt safe. Light pierced through the seams in the door and stabbed through the floor like swords. She knocked on the door three times so he would know she was a real true friend.

  “You from the electric company?” Delvis asked from behind the door.

  “No,” she answered.

  “Back up!” Delvis yelled.

  She backed up. Maybe the “three times” code only applied to car horns.

  “You think I’m gone mess with that box? You think I’m a crook?”

  She turned to run but found her feet tangled in rope. The string pulled taut and hammered down a bent fork that pressed the button of a Polaroid camera duct-taped to the porch rail. The camera flashed and spent a square of film from its mouth.

  Delvis kept hollering through the door. “I got a Ruger pistol in my hand! A six-speed handgun point-three-five-seven magnum! And it’s powerful!”

  She had never heard anyone sound that mad. She wanted to run, didn’t care if she had to return to all that dark, but the rope had tied a knot around her ankle.

  “I’m a volunteer undercover agent! If you want to challenge me to a shoot-out, you know me, D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer accepts all challenges! I will not refuse any challenge! I can draw and shoot within two seconds, ninety-seven percent accurate on target each and every time. If you want to wrestle instead, I’ll knee lift you and beat you with an inch of your life. Back up from the door!” he yelled.

  The door clicked. She ran down the steps and ripped out the camera and its rig. It trailed behind her like a bumpy ball on a chain. The door opened, and a beam of light shone on her back, so bright she could feel the temperature change. His shadow
was a black giant as tall as the stand of pine beyond.

  “Don’t shoot!” She crouched to the ground, preparing her back to take a bullet.

  “Gradle Bird?” Delvis jumped off the porch and ran at her.

  She covered her head. “Please don’t shoot!”

  “Why would I shoot a nice girl like you?”

  “I didn’t honk three times?”

  “Them crooks from the electric company done made me mad. There’s somebody up there thinks I’m gonna tamper with his box,” he said. “I ain’t gone shoot you.” He bent his knees so he could be level with her. His eyes were protective and sincere. “You my friend, Gradle. I ain’t gone hurt you.”

  “I’m sorry if I bothered you,” she said, unwrapping the rope from her ankle. “I know it’s an odd hour.”

  “I ain’t bothered. I’m glad you come to see me. I’m nocturnal,” he said, “like the locusts and the deer and the alligators. Nocturnal. N-O-C-T-U-R-N-A-L. Got that word from the My Big Backyard magazine. I got my electricity today, and they already done made me mad. Them fools think I’m gone tamper with the box.”

  “What box?” she asked.

  “The electric box. Let me go get my flashing-light, and I’ll show you what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. I got a letter to put to ‘em anyway. Wait for me on the porch.”

  She untied the rope from her ankle and pulled the developing Polaroid from the camera’s mouth. The photo had captured her profile, like a sideways mug shot. She wondered why he’d use a camera as a boobie trap, but now understood it was rigged to capture evidence. She was crazy for being here, especially in the dark at this hour. He could’ve shot her, mistaken her for those fools from the electric company.

  Light beamed from the inside of Delvis’s shack and assaulted her eyes as he walked through the door and onto the porch. He held a letter and rattled a flashlight in his hand until he could get it to click on. Moths fluttered in the light, their shadows tossing and spinning like disco balls.

  “They put the box on the side of the house,” he said, leading her to the side of his shack. He shined the flashlight on the electricity meter. “See here.” He pointed to the verbiage written on the meter. “It says, ‘Do not tamper with this box by penalty of law code 89786.1 section 45A’. That electric man who come up here and installed this, he thinks I’m gonna tamper with the box. He told me he’d be up here every now and then to take a readin’. Next time he comes, I’m gone have some words for him. And if he wants to fight I won’t refuse. One thing you need to know about me, Gradle, is I will accept every and all challenges.”