Crows

by Charles Dickinson

  “All right.”

  Herm sat at the desk and picked through the papers that covered it in disorganized drifts. From time to time he sighed and shook his head. Under one stack he found a plastic hamburger shell, and inside it ants grown plump on dripped grease. He groaned and stood, putting his hat back on.

  “Aren’t you curious?” he asked.

  “About what?”

  “Your salary. A man becomes a big-­shot sporting goods executive, the first thing he’d want to know is how much he’s going to get paid.”

  “I figured Joe would tell me.”

  “Joe doesn’t do payroll,” Herm Branch said. “Joe doesn’t do much of anything except fuck Mrs. Marsh. He’ll quote you a figure when he tells you later—­don’t forget to act surprised—­and that is what Joe has been told you are getting paid. But in your mind add another $30 a week to that figure, and that’s what I’m really paying you. It’s almost exactly what Joe makes. He never sees your check, he won’t know.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “An investment?” he said, shrugging. “You’re a good worker. If things don’t work out with Joe, I want to cover my bets a little. I’ve told him to teach you to do the books, ordering, inventory. The works. After that, I’ll teach you the right way. None of this goes beyond you and me. Off the record, Mr. Sports Scribe.” He smiled broadly, but then it slipped away as he flicked out his hand and swatted Joe’s bandoleer.

  “And if you’re in charge one day you won’t wear something stupid like this, will you?” Herm said. “And you won’t need to have a code for the PA to warn you I’m in the store, will you?”

  Robert did not at first tell Joe Marsh of Herm’s visit. Joe was cocky and full of himself when he returned from lunch. No detail of his wife and their sex life evidently was too intimate not to be shared with Robert. For much of the afternoon Joe recounted the protracted and exceedingly lubricated events that had taken place while he was at lunch. Robert tried to get away, to make work for himself in the distant corners of the store, but Joe found him every time, his lewd monologue spilling forth in boastful profusion.

  Finally, Robert said, “Herm was here while you were at lunch.”

  Joe Marsh’s eyes lost their heated light and he picked a cigarette from his bandoleer and lit it. “Shit,” he muttered. “He wasn’t supposed to be here today. What’d he say?”

  “That he was in the neighborhood. That he was sorry he missed you.”

  “He times it so he’ll miss me. Aren’t I entitled to a lunch break?”

  “Sure you are.”

  “He tell you about your promotion?” Joe asked sullenly.

  “Promotion?”

  “You’re assistant manager. Herm made the decision himself. He wants me to teach you the finer points. But to go from seasonal help to assistant manager in just three months is unheard of in the annals of SportsHeaven.”

  Then Joe Marsh quoted a salary and in his mind Robert added $30 and the total was more than he had ever been paid to do anything in his life, even to be a sports scribe.

  SALT CRUNCHED LIKE nuts under his feet on the walk leading to Ara’s house. It was –11˚.

  Her house was a single story with dark shutters and painted white brick, and being white seemed freshly carved from the snow that surrounded it. The shrubs in front were shaped like urns and their caps of snow reminded Robert of overflowing ashes.

  She opened the door before he knocked. She wore a thick cream wool sweater coat belted at the waist, a turtleneck shirt, navy blue corduroy pants, socks, and slippers. The house smelled of smoke. It gave the impression of striving for tidiness; she might not have aspired to that state until guests were expected, and then she had too much ground to make up. A pile of newspapers in a stand by the fireplace leaked dust like radiation. The living room was packed with books on shelves to the ceiling, in stacks against the walls, on the mantel above the fireplace, and all these books seemed to be turning fractionally to dust at the edges. The air was dry. Heat clicked in the walls. When he turned to shut the door a blue kernel of static electricity jumped between his fingers and the doorknob, scaring him, angering him with the pain.

  Then Ara took his hand and another blue charge from her fingertips jolted him. He cried out, “Hey! Am I under attack?”

  “I’m sorry. The place is so dry. I sometimes think I will explode in here some day.” She directed him to the sofa placed before the fireplace. “Have a seat. Can I get you an Irish coffee?” Then she left before he could answer.

  She had been grading papers. An empty coffee mug and a full ashtray were balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa, which was a deep burgundy, the fabric worn in spots and stained darker in others. Wing chairs were set to either side of the sofa, but they were occupied with towers of books and papers.

  She returned with an Irish coffee for each of them. Whipped cream revolved slowly atop the liquid like the very peak of a developing thunderhead.

  Ara pulled back the fireplace screen and threw a log on the fire. She idly stepped on sparks that survived the flight through the air to the floor. The logs she used were made of newspaper soaked in combustible paste and rolled tight in a machine. When they burned, the printed words rose white on black for an instant, a last bid to be read before the fire consumed them.

  She positioned the fire screen again and wiped her hands. She lit a cigarette. Robert sneezed and the air at the corners of the room seemed to shift and resettle. Her house had a slovenliness he had associated with single men; he found this rather endearing, and knew it would become annoying.

  “How was work?” she asked. She had swept her papers into a pile and dropped it on the floor at her feet, then curled onto the sofa, legs tucked in, facing Robert.

  “I got a promotion today,” he said.

  “Congratulations. To what?”

  “Assistant manager.”

  “I’m good luck,” she proclaimed. “My merest touch conveys it.”

  “Think so?” he asked, uncomfortable with the certainty she gave her statement. If she was good luck, why was Ben dead?

  She listened as Robert told her of Herm’s visit.

  “It seems sneaky,” she said.

  “I thought so, too. He’s unhappy with Joe, but I think he feels responsible for him. He’s brought him along this far. Joe was sort of a hero to Herm once, and now he has to face the fact his hero is not very good at his job.”

  “He’s not a good businessman if he works that way,” she said.

  “I’m no judge of that.”

  “Stick with me,” she said in that same assured manner, “and you’ll be manager.”

  “I’m not sure I want to be.”

  “You don’t want to be boss?”

  “No,” he said. “I only took the job to avoid being kicked out of the house. I got a job in order to appear that I would be leaving sometime in the future. And by working—­and donating to the family fund—­I have put an end to overt calls for my departure.”

  “Calls from who? Ethel?” Ara asked.

  Robert was startled to hear the name. He said, “Sure, you probably know Eth.”

  “Ben talked about her. We spoke a ­couple times on the phone. We never actually met.”

  “Yes, Ethel is the one who wants me out,” Robert said. “She long ago came to the conclusion that Ben made a mistake in inviting me to live there in the first place. Ben has been gone more than two years now. She honored his wishes—­his memory—­that long, but now that’s over, I think. If I hadn’t landed this job I’d be out in the street.”

  He had finished his drink and she took the cup, letting it swing by the hook of her finger. It wound down like a clock, until it stopped and she tapped an ash into it.

  “You came for a crow tale, didn’t you?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “
That is all that lured you here tonight?”

  He studied her. A pale, curious smile turned her mouth up at the ends. Her gray eyes rested carefully on him; in the eye toward the fire a papery light danced.

  “A crow tale is why I came tonight,” he said. “Homage to Ben.”

  “If you miss him you can talk to me.”

  “I’ll remember that.” She had made him wary, and he felt the need to inspect carefully for echoes and ramifications everything they said.

  “Did he ever talk about me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Robert said, but uncertain exactly when. “He knew he was a bother to you. He talked about so many things.”

  “Did you ever really listen to his voice?” Ara asked. “He could seduce crows with his voice.”

  “You know, I sometimes barely remember what his voice sounded like,” Robert said. “I only remember segments of what he said. I never—­”

  “See?” she challenged. “You’re letting him get away.”

  “I can’t help it,” Robert said, alarmed. “It’s just memory.”

  “But if you let him get away, and I do, and his family does—­pretty soon, Ben is gone.”

  Robert said, careful of a deepening to the gray in her eyes, like a cloth staining from behind, “Ben is gone.”

  “Not if we’re careful.” She spun his cup on her finger, and those few drops he had not drunk and her ash fell in her lap when the centrifugal force set them free.

  He was looking for a way out then, a way home. The crow tale had even lost its hold on him. Ara, living alone, seemed to be caught still in a deeper phase of mourning Ben. She worked every day in his old office, surrounded by him, his icons, then returned at night to an empty house. And she made a point of keeping Ben fresh in her mind; he was the only company she could count on.

  “There is nothing wrong with forgetting things about Ben,” Robert said gently.

  “Maybe you’d rather I didn’t tell you a crow tale tonight,” she said, threatening him, but with a pain of exclusion in her voice. She would miss the tale as much as Robert.

  He covered his eyes. “I don’t know, Ara. I don’t know what to say to you. You’re the first person I’ve met since Ben where I didn’t know everything I needed to know about them.”

  Ara laughed softly. “Don’t say another word. Once upon a time there was a crow. And he—­”

  “Don’t make fun of it, Ara.”

  “You’re right. I won’t. Ben told every crow story as if he was relating verifiable scientific data.”

  “It was always the truth,” Robert said. He heard Ben’s voice.

  Ara hooked her hair behind her ears. Something had come to rest within her. The fire burned like a man slowly reading.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wounded Wing

  A CROW, ARA said, was shot through the wing in flight and began to fall to the ground. The crow was able to control his fall only to a slight degree, and this sense of helplessness in the air frightened him more than the pain in his wing or the flash of light from the ground that barely preceded the bullet.

  As the crow tumbled out of the sky he searched for the best place to land. A thicket in the distance promised good cover and possibly food, for the crow understood by the uselessness of his wounded wing that he would be grounded for quite some time. The crow also saw ahead a marsh he would be careful to avoid. And nearby was a large expanse of green grass upon which the crow would stick out like blood on snow. That must be avoided at all costs, for crows in perfect health had few friends, and a wounded crow caught in the open was almost certain to die at the feet of an enemy.

  The crow, half falling, half flying, tried to make it to the thicket. But the air was full of sharp currents and a wind blew him far off course until the thicket rolled out of sight over the horizon behind him.

  The wind pushed him toward the ground like a flat, slapping hand. The crow had no control over his flight as he neared the earth, and though he squawked in fear and beat his good wing, the action only tipped him on his side and the landing was brutally painful, scraping the bird’s head, tearing black feathers loose.

  The crow had landed in a deep square pit of cold stone. It was the worst place the crow could have possibly imagined. The walls were much too high and sheer for the crow’s good wing to carry him out, though he tried to fly clear until the effort and pain exhausted him. It was nearly dark. He allowed himself a short nap.

  When the crow awoke the moon was in the center of the night sky. He had nearly forgotten where he was and how he had come there. But the pain of movement in his wounded wing brought the awful details of the past hours clearly to him. The crow understood that he was trapped. He would have to manage until his wing healed or some other means of escape presented itself.

  Sleep and a long flight (he had been halfway home when he was shot) had left the crow with a huge appetite. He began to search the stone pit for food. There were shadows everywhere, cast by the moon, and the crow had to look hard into them for long periods of time to gauge their harmlessness. This made the search for food a long and tedious process. An hour was spent just searching along the base of one wall of the pit. The crow found a small mound of straw along this wall and he took the feathers that had fallen from him and buried them deep inside, where hawks would not see them from the air, and owls would not smell them in their night passings.

  Living in the straw were numerous tiny red mites and the crow devoured them almost without thought. Their taste was bitter. In minutes a burning grew in his chest. In the cracks of the wall he found a half dozen small land snails. He speared three with his beak, the cracking of their shells echoing off the walls. He left three for later. Their taste was almost earthen; they were the color of dirt.

  In another corner of the pit was a patch of water no more than a centimeter deep. The crow saw the moon in it. The water tasted faintly dusty, but cool and delicious, and he drank deeply to put out the heartburn of the red mites.

  He began to work along the next wall. He ate a daddy longlegs spider, and a cricket that survived all the way to the crow’s stomach; he heard it in there chirping. But all this insect food did not ease his hunger. It only depressed him, calling attention to his troubles. His bad wing ached terribly. Spots of dried blood on the back of the wing shone in the moonlight. He came upon more straw along the third wall. It was crawling with red mites, but the crow ignored them. He hopped up onto a stack of wood and by poking with his beak into the cracks between the lengths of wood he found and ate more spiders and a cockroach.

  At the far end of the stack of wood the crow found a paper bag. He tore through the paper in seconds. Delicious smells roared out of the tear in the bag to strike the crow nearly senseless. Inside the bag were more bags of clear greasy material and the crow had a little more trouble with them, but one at a time he tore them open.

  In the first bag were cookies shaped like boats and covered with powdered sugar. The sweet taste made the crow’s eyes water. He broke one cookie into bits with sharp blows of his beak, then ate the sugary crumbs. He finished half a cookie, with four entire cookies to go, when he made a decision that would increase his chances for survival. He would save the cookies, indeed he would save everything in the bag, so he would have something for later.

  In another clear bag was a sandwich of dry white bread and two thin pieces of spicy meat. The crow ate a shred of the meat, loved it, but forced himself to save the rest. In a third bag were potato chips. Their salt was delicious to the crow but made him so thirsty he had to hop back to the shallow mirror of water for a drink.

  The fact this was the only water in the pit was not lost on the crow. He could die of thirst if he was not careful. All the food in the world meant nothing. If it did not rain he would be in trouble; if it rained too much he would be in trouble.

  These thoughts depressed him afresh. They seemed to squeeze his
wounded wing like cruel fingers. He hated relying on forces outside himself.

  The final item in the bag was an orange. Its skin was bleached yellow in the moonlight. The orange had a weight and health to it the crow found reassuring. He was tempted to tap its skin with his beak point and let the juice run into him and extinguish the mite fire in his breast. But he was not at a point desperate enough to require that moisture. The orange was the only thing he had that held that liquid. It was his sole treasure.

  The crow pushed the ripped bags and their contents into the corner formed by the wall and the stack of wood. He made a check of the fourth wall of the pit and found nothing except a haphazard pile of spikes. In amongst this inhospitable jumble was a lone red mite, perhaps having mistaken the bed of nails for a pile of straw.

  A great deal of time had passed by then. The moon had shrunk and paled and rolled out of the center of the sky. Stars, once icy and firm, were melting away. Soon birds would begin to call. The day would begin and the crow would have to confront a fresh danger.

  In the daylight he would be an easy target in that deep pit open to the air. If he wasn’t discovered by an enemy—­a hawk or prowling cat—­that day or the day after, it was only a matter of time before his position and condition were known.

  The fact of his wounded wing would sweep over the countryside. Crows might come to help him, but they would not outnumber the predators, or those with just the simple desire to see a crow come to a bad end.

  Therefore, in the last hour of darkness, the crow searched for a place to hide. He made a quick inspection of the piles of straw, but they barely hid the red mites. Hiding all day among feverish insects did not appeal to the crow. And he would be required to remain motionless, lest the straw covering him be jostled loose, and thus ineffective.

  He returned to the pile of wood. The top boards had pivoted slightly on the boards beneath, touching the wall while the bottom boards did not; a long, narrow cavern, damp and smelling of spiders and pine sap, had been formed. The crow lowered his head to look into the cavern mouth. There was not much to see, nor much room. The crow would have to back in, there being no room to turn around once he was inside.