by Nash Summers
****
Rust
The brisk afternoon felt different— cooler, with a pang of worry filling the air and thickening it. Heaven was quiet, and while that was a usual occurrence in the small town, that day felt different. None of the usual birds were sitting in their trees when I first arrived at the field, and there were no mice scurrying on the ground around my feet.
School that day had been difficult, but that hadn’t ignited my sour mood. Even as I stood in the field between our houses, my favorite place on the entire planet, I didn’t feel happy.
Unsure of what else to do with myself, I plopped down next to the large pine tree I usually sat below, and pulled my schoolbag off my shoulders. I took my notepad out of my bag, along with the first pencil I could find, and began writing. I wrote letters to anyone and everyone I could think of: Napoleon, the inventor of the Ritz cracker, the boy with the red bike who rode past my house every Tuesday. I wrote to them snippets of my feelings, tales of adventures I planned on having in my life. I wrote about my father’s work, the animal bones he let me keep, and the critters in the field that I talked to. I wrote about the strange boy with the black hair and sad eyes, and I wrote about the way my insides turned upside down whenever I looked at him.
As I continuously pushed my hair out of my eyes, I managed to sit and write letters and poems and stories for hours without noticing that time was slipping away from me. The setting sun in the distance had hushed and let me write in peace, not once giving me a clue that night was about to come.
As my fingers began to cramp, and the sunlight was tucking itself away, I realized I hadn’t seen Ancel walk past me that day. The overbearing feeling of gloom that I’d felt earlier that day was suddenly back and pressing down heavily on my shoulders. I reached inside my collar and pulled out a small, silver necklace of a feather that my mother had given me years ago for my birthday. Holding the cool metal between my fingers, I stood and looked around the field, hoping the mysterious boy would spontaneously appear right before me.
But he didn’t come. Normally, hours prior, he’d have walked home from school just minutes behind me. Then, sometime after dinner, he’d come outside with his German shepherd and walk her through the fields. When he was walking her, it was the only time I’d seen him do anything remotely close to smiling. He called her Daisy and would pick up a stick from the dirt on the ground and toss it to her. I’d sit under the large pine tree with my notebook and watch him. I would pull my small knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around my legs and watch him play with his dog.
I sat and stared at his gate. I could see the kitchen light on in his house. The wind chime that hung lazily from his back porch was slowly dangling in the wind, barely moving. When I closed my eyes and listened real hard, not to the wind whistling through the tall grass and the pinecones in the trees, or to the gentle buzz of the street lamps in front of my house, I heard something else. It was a sound I knew, but I wasn’t familiar with. It was the same sound I heard when my mom and dad fought quietly at night when they thought I was tucked away in bed. That same heat, same unease, filled the air.
The gate to Ancel’s yard swung open into the field, with him thundering close behind. He stared up into the sky like he was expecting it to fall. His dad stood out on the back porch and screamed at him, but Ancel didn’t turn around. He just kept looking up into the sky. Maybe it really was about to fall.
Ancel was only wearing a black T-shirt and a ripped up pair of jeans with his sneakers. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and trudged out into the quiet field, leaving the gate door open behind him. His dad slammed the back door to the house, and soon afterward, Daisy ran out of the yard.
As Ancel walked nearer to the tree I was sitting under, I wondered if he knew I was there. I felt like I was imposing, stealing sneak peeks at his private moments with his father. But as he came closer, I completely forgot about myself. All I could see were the black and blue blooming flower patterns that were covering his arms. Some were dark and yellowing around the edges, while others were lighter and more blended in with the tan color of his skin. A few of the marks were up around his neck, just barely sneaking past the line of his T-shirt collar. They looked like dark-blue and black watercolor paints that had been dipped into a bucket of milk.
How could this have happened? How could he have been so careless? Didn’t he know how precious he was— how important it was that he keep himself safe? He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever dreamed about, and yet he was covered in angry patterns that reminded me of how very human he was.
I stood up.
His eyes were instantly on me.
The moment our eyes met, I went to him. We were attached by thin, invisible strings that tied each piece of us together. They were wrapped tight around me and shrinking smaller and smaller by the second.
The big, orange sun was setting in the distance, and the last few strands of light it left us with danced against his black hair and his cold blue eyes. It floated against him like he was a foreign object that even the bright sun didn’t know what to do with. He was a pillar, unmoving and unyielding, even against nature and all her gentle touches.
“It’s you.” His voice was like that of stones and long, starless nights.
I pressed the tips of my fingers against his cool, bruised skin. He didn’t flinch at the feeling of my hand running up his arm. His unblinking eyes bore down into me even as the intensity forced me to look away.
The sleeve hem of his dark shirt was frayed, the loose threads moving gently in the wind. He smelled like black licorice, and stale cigarette smoke clung heavily to his clothing. Strands of his hair whipped across his face, partly shadowing his eyes from me.
Something passed through me then, and it felt similar to what I’d felt the first day I’d laid eyes on him— a miracle. But this was deeper. It felt heavier, more weighed down by his terribly cool stare and the fine hairs on his arms. It was something intangible that I couldn’t have put a name on if I tried.
I wondered if he felt it too.
Daisy circled our ankles, barking excitedly and wagging her tail.
Just as I was about to speak, to tell Ancel my name, a holler echoed through the air. Ancel’s father was yelling for him again. The sound must’ve broken whatever spell he was under, because he pulled his arm back away from me hastily and looked at me as though I’d done something wrong. As if I were something wrong.
He turned and walked away from me, Daisy following close at his heels.
I felt stinging moisture pool up in my eyes like a half-frozen river in the spring about to flood over the shores.
I wanted him to stay with me. I needed him to stay with me. I wanted to tell him my name, and how beautiful he was, and how since the first moment I saw him, I hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
As the back of him disappeared through the gate to his yard, I knew he’d never be mine. But I knew just as well that I’d always be his.
Turning back to collect my bag from under the pine tree, I bent over and scooped up my belongings—a discarded pencil, a notepad, a few sticks I’d found on the ground. As I was about to turn away, I heard a startled sound. It was quiet, but recognizable. I knew it to be a bird. It was crying softly, begging me to find it. Lowering onto my hands and knees, I searched around the base of the tree, looking for the source of the sound. After a few moments of searching beneath large piles of leaves and broken tree branches, I found it. It was a crow, crying and squawking as it leaned up against a rock near the outer branches of the tree. When I was close enough to look down at it, I could see that its wing was badly broken. I knew the chances of a bird surviving after having broken its wing were very slim, but as I looked down at the hurt creature, it stopped its crying and just watched me silently with its glassy, tar eyes. Reaching out carefully, I softly touched the tiny black feathers on top of the crow’s small head. As I peered down at the smooth, black feathers of the crow, I knew that I had no choice but to try
to keep it alive.
I pulled my arms out of my cardigan and carefully took the crow into my arms, keeping it wrapped safely in the fabric. It cawed as loud as its tired lungs would allow as I dashed across the field and then through the back gate to my yard.
By the time I made it into the house, my mom and dad were both there looking terrified, probably because I’d been screaming since getting into the yard. They both looked down at the tiny bundle of feathers I was cradling in my hands, and then back up at me. Something in my expression must’ve given me away, because my mom instantly wrapped her arm around my shoulder and kissed the top of my head.
“It’s okay, Son,” my dad said as he reached out toward me. “I’ll take it.”
I turned away from him but kept my eyes locked on his face. “We have to keep it alive. I want to fix him. I need to fix him.”
“I know, Rust, I know. I’m just going to look. I promise I’ll be careful. Is that okay?” he asked.
After a few moments of thought, I nodded slowly. My dad reached out and took my cardigan and the crow that was still bundled inside. Setting the crying bird down on the kitchen table, he pulled back the sides of the cardigan to get a better look at the poor creature.
My mom pulled me into a tight hug, pressing my face into her stomach. She patted my head and whispered softly to me, telling me that everything would be okay, and that I’d done well bringing the bird home.
“Maybe Rust should go into his room and wait,” my dad suggested kindly.
“But I found him like that,” I protested. “I should be there with him. He might get scared.”
“Rust,” my mom said. “He’ll probably get too worked up with this many people in here. Let’s go into your room, and you can tell me what happened, okay?”
I felt the moisture in my eyes swell and spill over the edges. Nodding down at the kitchen floorboards, I took my mom’s hand and let her lead me into my bedroom. Once there, she sat next to me on the bed and wrapped me in her arms.
“What do you think happened to him?” I asked with a shaky voice. “I mean, how do you think he got hurt?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied, pulling me a little closer. “He might’ve been hit by a car, or flown into a window. The important thing is that you found him and brought him home. Your dad will do the best he can. You know that, right, Rust?”
“I know, Mom.” I couldn’t keep the tears from streaming down my face. “I know Dad might not be able to save him, but I had to try.”
“You have such a big heart.” My mom leaned down and kissed my forehead.
After a few moments of near silence, with the only sounds being from my gentle sobs and the distant screeching of the crow, I turned to my mom.
“Mom?” I said.
“Yes, Rust?”
I paused for a moment before continuing. “If something or someone is hurting, I can always bring them to you and Dad, right? And you’ll try to fix them, right?”
She pulled back and looked down at me. I didn’t look up from the spot on the floor I’d been staring at, but I knew she was looking at me.
“You can tell me or you father anything, Rust. Anything. And we will always do whatever we can to help, you, or anyone else. What’s going on?”
“Well,” I sniffled, “I think someone might be hurt. That boy who lives across the field— Ancel— I saw him today. His dad was mad and yelling at him. He had black marks all over his arms.”
My mom put her hands on my shoulders and turned me so I had no choice but to look at her. “Rust, are you sure? This is serious. If it’s made up…”
Without knowing it was coming, I burst into tears. “Yes, I’m sure. I want to help the crow and Ancel. I don’t want them to hurt anymore.”
The strength of my mom’s hug was almost unbearable, but I welcomed it. I wrapped my arms around her and cried into her shoulder like the end of the world was coming. I wasn’t sure how long she held me, but at some point I drifted off into a dark, restless sleep.