Gradle Bird

by J. C. Sasser

  He taped the letter to the box, eyeing the box the entire time as if it was questionable and alive. The letter read:

  This here’s A ChriSTiaN FOLk whAt Lives here. I WOULdN’t fuCK with YOUr GODDAMNED boX!!!

  YoUrs Truly,

  D-5 Delvis MiLes The LoNe SiNger.

  Gradle laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You,” she said.

  “Is funny bad?”

  “No, it’s good.”

  “Good.”

  “I brought you a steak dinner from the Western Steer. It’s somewhere around here,” she said, scanning the yard.

  Delvis’s eyes pinched together tight. “You didn’t trade one of your flying dragon scales in for it did you?”

  “No,” she said. She picked up the box from the ground and handed it to Delvis. “You hungry?”

  Delvis shifted on his feet and looked away out into the dark like he was nervous about something. “I got me a sore tooth. And I ain’t able to chew with it much. Been tryin’ to get it out. That’s why I’m talkin’ funny if you ain’t noticed. I ain’t been able to chew. An’ ain’t been able to sing right neither. And that’s a big hindrance in a songbird’s life. I got me some red willow bark I been suckin’ on,” he said, opened his mouth wide, and shone the flashlight inside for her to see. A wad of bark nested between his gums like a lug of chewing tobacco. “It’s a numbin’ tonic,” he said, and he closed his mouth. “That’s what I been doin’ inside.” He pointed to his shack. “I been tryin’ to pull it. If it was one of my front tooths, I could do it, no problem. I’ve got skills and trainin’ for that. But this’ns in the back, and I ain’t able to reach it good.”

  “I’ll pull it for you,” she said, swatting a mosquito from her shin.

  Delvis rubbed his hands down the front of his pants. “I don’t know if you want to do that. It might be a little risky.”

  “If it’s hurting you, I can help you get it out.”

  Delvis stood at the door, contemplating. He rubbed the lobe of his right ear. “Now Gradle, my house is a mess. Another tornado come through here the other day and tore the place up. So please excuse it.” He cleared his throat and spat off the porch. “And in addition, I also got a sore throat and some double back trouble and ain’t been able to straighten the house up. I’m sorry. It don’t bother me none, but for company’s sake it might not be the best—” he said, searching for the right word, “environment. Got that from the My Big Backyard magazine, too. Environment is what critters live in.”

  “If you knew the environment I lived in, you wouldn’t apologize about the mess yours is in.”

  “Well, enter at your own risk,” he said, opening the door.

  The light inside was so bright, it made Gradle’s eyes water. She counted forty-two lamps, all with their shades off and their bulbs burning bright. Extension cords and power strips snaked through the one-foot-wide alleys running and bending in sharp angles like a maze throughout the one-room shack. The alleys had walls that touched the ceiling and were made of stacked books, battery-powered clocks all set to different times, naked baby dolls, newspapers and magazines, empty shampoo and hairspray bottles all of the brand L’Oréal, hubcaps, leather shoes with no laces, glass jars filled with buttons and colored glass, and what looked to be solidified cooking oil or bacon grease. The walls were chaotically perfect in their construction. Everything had its place, had its own purpose in holding something else up. If one piece of it were removed everything would come crumbling down.

  Drawings hung throughout the house, along with spiderwebs abundant with paralyzed prey. In one corner of the shack, a stack of toasters, TVs, microwaves, and a jam box tilted precariously to one side. In another corner, piles of clothes stacked all the way up to the ceiling. The place was a study in confusion, yet there was an order, an art about it. Until tonight, Gradle had only been on the outside. But now she was in. Completely and radically in.

  “I like how you decorate,” she said.

  Delvis stopped wringing his hands and looked down at his feet. “I appreciate you saying that. It’s a bit humble. And like I said, a tornado come through here the other day, and I ain’t had time to straighten it.”

  “It’s perfect,” she said. She couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering over the room. Everywhere she looked there were little hidden treasures. A Remington noiseless sat on the floor with its ribbon spooling out of its head. Stuffed animals were tacked to the walls by their ears—a couple of puppy dogs, an elephant, and several dirty white lambs. Fake flowers and plants sat on the windowsills of boarded windows where natural light had never shone. Tiny figurines of dogs and cats were organized like soldiers on the doorframe’s lip. Christmas ornaments hung from the ceiling by fishing line, and lying across the back of a ratty orange chair was a snakeskin at least four feet long.

  She walked down one of the alleys and turned a tight right. In the corner sat a small twin bed covered with a red threadbare blanket. A cross made of Popsicle sticks kept watch from the wall above it. Atop the bed sat Delvis’s guitar, a pack of double-A batteries, a cassette tape, and a recorder.

  “I listened to the music you sent me,” she said.

  “Did you like it? If you don’t like it, I can do better. I got sore fingers and a frog in my throat. But I can do better.”

  “I think you are a true talent.” Her eyes tracked a cockroach, the young fast kind, across the wall. “My favorite song was the one about your dog.”

  “He was my best friend,” he said. “But now I got you.”

  “You ready to pull your tooth? So you can eat that steak dinner before it goes bad?”

  Delvis led her through an alley to the left where a small table sat with a pair of pliers, a cracked hand mirror, and a pile of tree bark on its top. He sat beside the table and shined the mirror in his mouth. “It’s that’n,” he said, pointing to his back-most tooth. He spat out the tree bark and handed her the pair of pliers. “You gone hafta squeeze ‘em real hard. ‘Bout as hard as you can. And then you just yank,” he said, making a yanking motion with his arm. “Don’t worry ‘bout me. I’m a professional at dealin’ with pain. Done this five times.” He shot up from the floor, reached into the alley’s wall, and retrieved a glass vial holding five of his teeth. “Here’s my collection,” he said, counting the vacant spots in his mouth. “One, two, three, four, five. Did ‘em all myself, ‘cause the dentist around here ain’t nothin’ but a crook and a cavity inventor.”

  “I’m not a professional.” She peered into his mouth, got queasy, and doubled over.

  “You got somethin’ ailin’ you?” he asked.

  “My stomach’s upset.”

  “Did the electric man make it mad?”

  “No, it’s nausea. I think I’m gonna vomit.” She felt beads of sweat form on her lip. The room went dizzy.

  “Let me roll some bark up in some paper, and you can take a few puffs of it. It’ll make your stomach feel better.”

  Delvis pinched the bark into tiny pieces, rolled it in a rolling paper, and handed her the cigarette. He picked a box of matches from a nook in the alley wall and rattled it to see if it was empty. She found amusement in the fact he knew exactly where the matches were, that he could reach into a wall of chaos and trash and pull out exactly what he reached in for.

  “How do you know where everything is?”

  “My IQ is off the charts. I was borned with an uncommon mind.”

  She took a few puffs from the cigarette and waited for it to take effect. Within seconds she felt better. “Alright, I’m ready,” she said, grabbing the pliers.

  Delvis lay down on his back, tilted his head up, and opened his mouth as wide as his jaws would stretch. He shined the mirror on his sore tooth and fisted his other hand. “Clamp the pliers on the tooth. And yank up hard. Don’t worry ‘bout me. Like I said, I’m a professional at pain management.”

  She reached in with the pliers, clamped them hard, and closed her eyes. On the count
of three, she yanked. She stumbled back and fell to the floor. She opened her eyes and found Delvis’s bloody tooth gripped between the pliers’s nose. “I got it!”

  The lights in the shack surged, and suddenly everything went black.

  “That damn bastard! He thinks I’ve fucked with the box!” Delvis hollered out in the pitch black dark.

  MORNING CREPT IN with pale grey light and the soft patter of rain. Annalee stood at the living room window looking out at the sad break of day, while Leonard lay asleep on the floor at her feet. He clutched onto her legs with a grip so tight, she wasn’t sure if he had ever fallen completely asleep. She had found him on the floor late last night, curled up in a catatonic C. She had picked the shards of television screen out of his hair, cradled, and rocked him like a child. He didn’t cry out or say a word, but she knew he desperately needed help. She listened to his silent transgressions. Her heart overturned with his. She had tried to offer him comfort and hope that he too could somehow be restored. The new morning though, with its early light and silence, made it all a bit bewildering that she had been the one offering solace to him, when this whole time—this lonely and limping time—she had been convinced it was her soul that needed saving.

  The rain grew heavier, and the ceiling began to leak. She heard raindrops spanking on paper. An envelope rested on the floor, its ink beginning to bleed into the rain. She pried her leg loose from Leonard and picked up the envelope. It was addressed to Gradle Bird. Its sender was D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer, who lived at Rural Route 1 Box 56-B. Annalee closed her eyes, put the envelope to her nose, and lifted the scent of carrots. She hid the letter inside her breast and ascended into the attic, leaving Leonard in an incomplete surrender to sleep.

  Back at the attic window, she opened the envelope and unfolded the letter. Inside was a hand-drawn heart creased in threes and a pinch of colorful sequins that fluttered to the floor like wounded birds. She read his words and confirmed what she had suspected. Her hand reached inside her heart and retrieved her hidden portrait. She compared the writer’s signature, D-5, to the signature that clung in the graphite lines that outlined the hem of her dress.

  The attic flap creaked open, and Leonard ascended the ladder as a tear rolled down her cheek. She hid the portrait and the letter inside her dress and turned to meet him face on.

  “Gradle’s run away,” Leonard said, rushing to the window. He looked down on the slick street.

  “I’m surprised she’s stayed this long,” Annalee said, wiping away her tear.

  “You want to pick a fight with me?” Leonard jerked his head around.

  “Why can’t you look at her, Leonard?”

  Leonard’s hands sprung forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. His eyes drilled into her. “I look at her all the time.”

  “And what do you see?”

  Leonard released her body and started down the ladder.

  “You’re avoiding the question,” said Annalee, who stood at the flap and looked down on him.

  Leonard clamped his jaw and climbed back up the ladder. He walked into her, and she back-stepped against the wall.

  Leonard turned her chin and made her look him in the eye. “Isn’t there a place people go when they die?”

  She jerked her chin away, and Leonard climbed down the ladder.

  She grabbed a coatrack and used it to smash the dollhouse to smithereens. There was a place people go when they die, and oh, how she had yearned for this merciful place. They say you see a bright light. When death finally fell upon her, after she had smiled at the beautiful rattle it made, she saw nothing but darkness. She rummaged and searched among it, looking for this beacon of Holy Light. Perhaps death had made her blind. But it didn’t take long for her to realize her eyesight was perfect all along, and that her new world was the same world she had left, except she was the only one in it. Her very own dark, private heaven.

  The front door slammed. She went to the window and watched Leonard walk through the yard, gripping his gun. He folded into the Chrysler and cranked it up. He wouldn’t know where to look, but Annalee knew exactly where Gradle was.

  She scaled down the knotted quilt ladder and walked down Spivey Street. A pale gray smoked the sky, and a peculiar wind ripped the petals off all the crepe myrtles in town. The petals swirled, drifted, and turned somersaults through the air in her wake. It was the middle of summer, ninety-something degrees, and there was flurry.

  She walked down the sidewalk and through the south edge of town, watching the crepe myrtle snow. Petals fell at her feet, swirling like tiny twisters that whispered icicles and spiders in her ears. The last time Annalee saw snow was in 1933 when she went up to that place for those five months, the place way up north where the cold pricks like needles and the snow is not made of crepe myrtle petals.

  The morning she left for that place, her mother flitted about the house, singing resurrection-themed church hymns like a songbird thrilled it was spring. Annalee hadn’t heard her mother sing in months, and although the two of them had been at odds since she slapped Leonard down the attic flap, it made Annalee happy to hear her mother’s measure.

  Annalee stood over her bed, doing what she was told, and packed a trunk for the trip. She folded three weeks’ worth of dresses, three flannel nightgowns, and her cold-weather coat. She took the white eyelet lace dress from her wardrobe and nestled it in her nose, hunting like a hound for Leonard’s trail. He was still there, his carrot scent, clinching tight to the woven threads of cotton. She held the dress against her body, stared in the mirror, and rolled the dress’s lap over the abundance in her belly.

  “You act like you’re proud, Annalee,” her mother said, as she entered the room. “Most women earn this right, and you, my dear, have not.” She walked to the bed and rummaged through the trunk Annalee had packed. “You need more nightgowns. In a month you’ll be too big for any of these.” She threw out the dresses one by one. She stood behind Annalee and stared with her in the mirror. “You won’t need this one either,” she said, removing the eyelet dress from Annalee’s body. “It’s horribly out of season and needs a wash.” She balled the dress in her hands. “What is it with you and this dress?”

  A tear went down Annalee’s cheek. Her mother would never, never know. She would never understand. It was her engagement frock, her wedding dress, her conception gown. She snatched the dress out of her mother’s hands.

  “Oh child,” her mother said. “Don’t be so dramatic. All of this will soon be over. And we can resume our normal lives.” She pulled Annalee’s hair past her shoulder and cupped it into a ponytail. “You used to have such a pretty smile. Where did it go?” She dropped Annalee’s hair against her back and exited the room, singing a song about life’s wondrous ways, as if she didn’t care at all to know the answer to the question she just asked.

  On the ride up, Annalee stared out of the window while her father drove and her mother sat in the passenger’s seat, crocheting and commenting on trivial things like her pound cake recipe and what kind of vacation to take next summer. Her father sat behind the wheel silent, nodding and providing replies when needed, ones that didn’t require him to open his mouth. He had not spoken a word to Annalee since he found out what had happened that day in the attic with Leonard, nor had he given her a proper look. When forced to pass each other in the hallways, he looked down and fiddled with his watch. At the supper table, he bowed his head toward his food and asked her mother to pass what he needed, when he had always asked Annalee in the past. And the unwanted times when he caught her eye by mistake, he quickly turned away as if Annalee was too blinding and too bright.

  There was a moment though, on the ride up to that place, when their eyes met. Annalee didn’t know how long he’d been looking at her through the rearview mirror, but it was long enough for him to catch water in his lids. They stared at each other, and the look was all Annalee needed for her to know that she had succeeded at crushing his heart.

  They dropped her off in front of
that place, its three-story façade and its great big door looming behind her, like a monster with its mouth open, waiting to eat her alive.

  “Nobody ever will know,” Annalee’s mother said, reaching her hand out through the window. She grabbed Annalee’s wrist in a poor attempt at goodbye. Her father drove off, and her mother’s hand slipped through her fingertips.

  Annalee brushed the crepe myrtle petals from her shoulder as she turned down a country road, making it through the worst of the flower storm. She survived that place. She had survived the vacant walls and cold cement floor, the metal beds lined up like victims of a firing squad. She had survived the endless sadness and shame, the wailing and weeping, the excruciating pains of labor and the unwanted result. She had survived it all because of the diamond ring she kept under her tongue. It was the bullet to bite on and the constant reminder of what always protected, always trusted, always hoped, and what always persevered. No, that place hadn’t killed her. What killed her, what sent her spiraling toward death, was where she went and what she did after she left that place.

  And here she was, she had arrived at the very spot where she did it. It hadn’t changed much since. The junk pile had grown in size and the weeds tangling throughout the throwaways were alive and green. Back then they were dead and brown from the winter. There were three more dumpsters. Back then she remembered only one. A pack of wild starving dogs picked among the garbarge, two of them mothers, their teats swollen and raw.

  She remembered back all those years and how she had ended up in the very spot in which she stood now. This was the place that had killed her. To tread on it now might kill her again, if it was possible to kill somebody who was already dead. She remembered the change. It had been sudden, like a strike of lightning, and she felt it charge through her immediately after giving birth to that beautiful blue-eyed boy. The final scream fled her body, she unclenched her jaw, and released the diamond ring from her teeth the moment she heard him crying and saw his hands grabbing in every direction for her. She reached out to hold him, but the woman in white with a face too hardened to wrinkle swaddled him in a blanket and took him away.