Bird in a Box

by Andrea Davis Pinkney

  “That’s not advisable, Mrs. Weiss.”

  “Mr. Sneed, as far as I can see, any child with no parents has done nothing to deserve bad treatment. No child, whether an orphan or not, should be deprived of a good book, the company of all kinds of children, and some cheerfulness.”

  I beg my broom to keep sweeping so the bleach man doesn’t give me a second thought. This is better than Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio. All’s I really want to do is listen.

  “Mrs. Weiss, you are tenacious and opinionated. Can you use those virtues to work with the children here in a way that is best for them and for the overall good of Mercy?” Lila sets her pumpkin down on the rickety intake table.

  “Mr. Sneed, you’re the one who’s tenacious and opinionated. Can you just trust me enough to let me work with the children who live here in the way I want?”

  “Mrs. Weiss, by hiring you, I gave you an opportunity. Please don’t give me reason to regret my generosity.”

  “Mr. Sneed, I’ve always been grateful for the chance to work here, especially in these times. I find regret a waste of energy. So I’ll give you no reason to indulge in it.”

  I don’t know even half of the big words between Lila and the bleach man. But I know what hopscotch is, and Simon Says. And I sure know what it means to arm-wrestle. Lila’s gone wrist-to-wrist with the bleach man, and she’s won.

  The bleach man huffs off. He’s shut his trap for now. Lila sticks out her tongue after him, curling her hand around an army knife, just pulled from her apron pocket.

  She spreads pages from the Elmira Star-Gazette at the base of her pumpkin, and waves me over. The pumpkin’s a beauty, perfectly rounded and evenly colored.

  Lila pats the stool next to the intake table. I settle beside her.

  “That’s some pumpkin,” I say.

  “Halloween’s not far off,” says Lila. “The best way to keep spooks away from our doorstep is to present them with a jack-o’-lantern,” she explains.

  My eyes are fixed on the pumpkin.

  Lila gets right to work. She presses the knife’s tip firmly into the pumpkin’s top to make a jagged circle. As soon as she releases the knife, I’ve got both hands around the pumpkin’s stem. I yank off the lid with a single tug. I’m quick to look down in, eager to get the pumpkin’s surprise.

  “Seeds!” I say. “Let’s get the seeds.” And right away we’re taking turns scooping out the stringy globs of pumpkin flesh that are laced with the pumpkin’s goodness. Lila’s brought an empty canning jar for the orange slop.

  I slide a cotton hankie from my pants pocket and spread the square of white on the table in front of us. Embroidered initials are stitched onto the corner of the hankie, two proud letters in green: BR.

  “What lovely crewel work,” Lila says.

  “My ma made it,” I tell her. “It’s all I have left of Ma.”

  Lila motions with her chin. “Whose initials are those?”

  “Betty Rollins. That was Ma’s name.” I smooth the hankie on the table next to the pumpkin.

  “Ma loved dried pumpkin seeds. She used to set them out on the windowsill so they could dry in the sun.” I get to remembering, and it feels good. “Then Ma’d salt the seeds, fold them in her hankie, and bring them when we went to church, so we’d have a snack on the way home. Those salty, crunchy seeds sure are tasty. And the hankie makes them a special little gift.”

  We pick the seeds one by one from the jar and set them to dry on the newspaper. There are enough to make a small seed hill.

  “We’ll be crunching all day,” I say.

  Lila’s holding her army knife with a sure grip. She’s ready to carve the jack-o’-lantern’s face. “The more spiky the teeth, the better,” she says.

  I say, “Let’s give his nose a high point.”

  Lila sure can carve. I put the lid on the jack-o’-lantern’s head and step back from the table to look. “That pumpkin looks so happy. Who can he scare with a grin like that?”

  “He doesn’t look frightening to you?” she asks.

  I shrug. “Nope.”

  “Not all jack-o’-lanterns are meant to ward off evil, Otis.”

  “What are they for, then?”

  “Some invite happy spirits.”

  I wrinkle my eyebrow. I get to thinking. I ask, “Can this pumpkin invite Daddy and Ma?”

  Lila doesn’t answer. She’s quiet, is all, adjusting the pumpkin’s lid. She seems to be thinking, too.

  I say, “Daddy had an army knife like that one you’ve got there.” Lila holds the knife out in her palm to give me a better look.

  “Daddy could carve all sorts of things—toothpicks from a twig, checker pieces, even wooden whistles,” I say.

  Lila sits back in her chair, listening.

  My little smile is starting to grow. I like sharing these memories with my friend. “My ma carved our pumpkin every year, then dried the seeds.”

  A chuckle finds its way out from me. “Daddy did all the crunching,” I say.

  Lila folds her knife and tucks it back in her apron pocket.

  Then she does something that sneaks up on me. She takes both my hands in both of her hands and gently keeps them there.

  “Good memories are for holding,” she says.

  HiBERNiA

  WHEN I WAKE UP AND SEE THE FROST ON my window, I thank heaven for the favor. A cold day means I can wear my woolen coat without a question from the reverend. It’s the perfect cover-up for the Sunday dress I’ve got on underneath.

  I’ve hot-combed my hair and slicked it with NuNile. With the wind blowing the way it is, I wear my plaid kerchief. The kerchief surely won’t give me away, and it’ll keep my hair in place.

  If the reverend bothers to look at my legs, he’ll know something’s different about me. I’m wearing a pair of stockings from Roberta Wilkins.

  I have never wanted a Saturday like I want this one. Today Smooth Teddy Wilson, one of the swingingest piano players and bandleaders in all of New York, is holding auditions for a lead singer. As the reverend would say, the Lord has blessed me with a divine co-incidence. Smooth Teddy Wilson’s tryouts are at the fairgrounds, in the central pavilion, just across from the relief truck, which comes to the grounds every Saturday at dawn.

  As good timing would have it, I go to the relief truck every Saturday, anyhow, to gather food rations for parishioners who are too old or too sickly to stand in line. So, to the reverend, today is no different from any other.

  But this morning I have a plan. I will gather up my food rations quickly, then head over to the pavilion to show Smooth Teddy Wilson that Hibernia Lee Tyson means business.

  The reverend’s got his nose stuck in his newspaper.

  “I’ll be back before noon,” I say, pulling at the tails of my kerchief that hang under my chin.

  The reverend doesn’t even look up. “Get some scrapple,” is all he says, and I’m out the door. Like always, I bring my wagon so I can carry home a new hunk of government cheese and a fresh block of Oleander butter.

  Today my wagon seems heavier somehow. Even empty, it’s harder to pull. It could be the frost crunching beneath its wheels that slows it down. Or it could be the wind, or the clouds that have turned the sky to dirty mop water.

  Or maybe it’s my conscience that’s heavy. Telling the reverend a half-truth is like carrying a sack of sand.

  The food lines here in Elmira snake from the relief truck’s tailgate to the edge of the fairgrounds. Today I’m one of the first in line. The only folks ahead of me are those who sleep on the grass the night before the truck pulls onto the muddy patch where it parks.

  When I get to the truck, I’m behind a mother and little boy and two toothless hobos. After me, the line grows and grows as people gather.

  Mr. Haskell, who drives the truck and rations the food, is always glad to see me. Today his truck hatch is already open when I walk up. Mr. Haskell is sitting on top of a cheese crate. There are barrels and boxes all around him. He smiles big at the sight
of me. “Well, look at you, Hibernia Lee Tyson.” He notices my stockings. I don’t give the stockings any attention. I just act natural.

  He loads my wagon with three crates of cheese, two tins of Oleander butter, and enough scrapple to feed all of True Vine for seven Sundays. Then he adds four cans of condensed milk and a burlap bag of Liberty sugar. “Here’s something extra for the sweetest girl in town,” he says, securing the sugar between the crates of cheese.

  I do my best to be grateful, but I’m cursing the extra stuff that’s weighing me down. When I move off the line, my wagon will hardly budge. I tug at it with all my muster. I get the wagon to turn its wheels, but it’s slow going.

  The central pavilion is up ahead. There’s a line of people winding off the front, a line double to what is trailing the food truck. Even from far away, I can see that it’s mostly women waiting to meet Smooth Teddy Wilson.

  If it weren’t for my wagon, I’d be in that line quick. But it’s taking me three forevers to get to the pavilion. It doesn’t matter that there’s frost under my feet. I’m panting like a dog in the desert.

  I’m not even halfway there when icy raindrops land on my knuckles. I try to pick up the pace, but the crates and butter and burlap hold me back. The raindrops call all their friends and soon it’s a downpour.

  My hopes droop faster than Roberta’s stockings. I’m soaked before I can think on what to do.

  The reverend has said that all true prayer is asking. But my thoughts are so jumbled, I don’t even know the right questions. I start chewing at my thumbnail.

  Should I leave the wagon behind? Or should I forget my dream and go home?

  My kerchief comes loose. The NuNile in my hair starts to drip. The rain even finds its way into my pockets. My poop-colored shoes are one with the mud that is turning them a whole new shade of brown.

  At the pavilion I see a parade of umbrellas. If I can just get to the line, maybe someone will share. I turn my back to where I’m going and pull the wagon hard with both hands.

  My wagon’s gone stubborn on me. It’s stuck. The mud’s got us glued to the center of the fairgrounds at the wide-open place between Mr. Haskell’s food truck and Smooth Teddy Wilson’s tryouts.

  I am no crybaby, but right now all I can do is cry. My tears don’t even seem to wet my face, which is dripping with rain. My kerchief has become a limp collar around my neck. The stockings are a puddle all their own. I bite off two fingernails at the same time.

  I’m drenched from my bangs to my toe jam. I’m crying so much, my shoulders shake. I sniff hard to keep from bawling, but a loud uhhhrrroooeee! howls from someplace in me that’s cracking open. Before I can stop it, one uhhhrrroooeee follows another—fast, then faster. Uhhhrrroooeee! Uhhhrrroooeee! Uhhhrrrooooooooooeeeeee!

  The only dry patch on me now is my sheet music, pinned to the lining of my coat.

  When I finally make it home, I slink quietly in the back door. The reverend calls from the parlor, “Bernie, is that you?”

  I manage to call back the one thing I know will keep the reverend in the other room. “I got the scrapple.”

  WiLLiE

  IT’S LONG PAST BEDTIME. ONLY LIGHT there is coming onto the ward is from one bulb hanging on a wire in the latrine. That bulb’s got a yellow face and is shining just enough for me to see Otis’s radio, which is turned way, way down.

  “Where you get that?” I whisper.

  Otis answers real soft. “From my daddy.”

  “It’s a Philco, ain’t it?” I know radios.

  Otis nods. “You want to hold it?”

  I sit up on my cot.

  “Just don’t let the bleach man see it.”

  Otis’s talking like he’s warning me about something. He tells me how he nicknamed Mr. Sneed.

  “You sure named him right, Otis,” I say. “He’s just like bleach—stings your skin, strips away anything colorful, is pale as a pillowcase.”

  When Otis settles his radio onto my lap, that brown box sure do feel good resting on me. It’s all warm. Got quiet voices rising out from the little speaker holes. I’m running my hand over the radio’s case. Even with the twists of skin that cover my fingers, I can feel the heat of Otis’s radio.

  Otis pushes his chin toward my lap. “Go ahead,” he says. “If you turn the dial, you can get the Jack Benny show.”

  I’m thinkin’, My blasted hands.

  I say, “Can’t turn no dial—my fingers won’t—”

  Otis, he don’t waste no time. He’s quick to help. He turns the radio dial for me. He gets Jack Benny right away.

  “My daddy loved Jack,” Otis says.

  Jack Benny’s voice is coming from the speaker holes. “So I go to the doctor, who tells me to lay off the cigars. The doctor insists that if I keep puffing, my life will become unmanageable. I say, ‘Doc, cigars relax me. If I don’t keep smoking, my wife will become unmanageable.’ ”

  Otis’s shaking his head and laughing. The radio’s hum grows on my lap. It sends a good feeling through all of me.

  Jack Benny is on to a new joke, another one about a doctor. “Do you know why the bumblebee went to the doctor?”

  A second man’s voice comes out of the radio. “No, Jack,” he says, all lively, “why did the bumblebee go to the doctor?”

  Otis and Jack Benny say the answer to the joke at the same time. “Because he had hives!”

  Otis repeats the joke’s funny part. “Because he had hives!” That gets me to start laughing.

  Jack comes back with another joke. A second one like a riddle. And more about going to the doctor.

  “Hey,” says Jack, “did you hear about the steak knife who went to the doctor?”

  Otis, he starts laughing all over again. Uh-huh, his whole bony body’s laughing. If a whittle stick had a twin, Otis’d be it. The widest part of him is his mouth when he’s laughing. All full of beaver teeth pushing past lips too small to hold ’em back. A two-door gate pressing partway open. He got a skinny head, too, topped off with an acorn’s-cap of hair.

  Otis finishes Jack’s joke before Jack can even say the part that’s gonna make us all be laughing.

  “He had to go—he was all cut up!”

  Something about the way Otis’s giggling with his throat catches onto me.

  I say, “ ‘All cut up’—uh-huh!” Now the two of us, we snickering together.

  “You sure know some jokes,” I say. “How you get to be faster than Jack?”

  “From my daddy,” Otis say.

  Them other kids from the ward stir on their cots. Otis turns the radio down to a low growl. All we can hear now is Jack Benny coming through as a mumble. I can still feel every time Jack’s telling a joke. Something in his joke-telling voice makes the radio’s sound roar up on my lap.

  Lila, whose shift ends soon, peeks onto the ward from the hall. “Boys—hush up!” she whispers loudly.

  Soon happy band music’s leaping out from the radio. Then comes a man’s voice, telling us to buy Genuine Jell-O with the extra-rich fruit flavor. Telling us our satisfaction is guaranteed. Then more music’s coming. The Jell-O man say, “With Genuine Jell-O, you’re in gooood taste.”

  Otis reaches behind his pillow and slides out what looks like a little croker sack made from a hankie.

  He unties the bundle, folds open my warped-up fingers, and drops in a bunch of something.

  “Pumpkin seeds,” he explains.

  I put my hand to my mouth. Throw in them seeds.

  Them seeds are crunchy, pumpkin-sweet. I’m chewing and nodding and smiling, all at the same time.

  “Tastes good,” I say.

  Otis, he do like me. Takes a handful of seeds and chews ’em up.

  Lila, she back again, filling the doorway.

  Otis empties the last of his seeds into my bent-up palm.

  His whisper is quiet as Lila’s shadow. “Gooood taste.”

  HiBERNiA

  IF THERE’S ONE THING I CAN’T STAND about the holiday season, it’s that the reveren
d insists his church be clean from top to bottom. So here I am, dusting, making sure the reverend’s leather-bound Bible is properly positioned on the pulpit.

  My dust rag is wrapped tight around my fingers. I go for every crevice. The Reverend C. Elias Tyson is a stickler for cleanliness.

  I even dust the Bible’s back cover. When I flip through the book’s pages to unsettle any dust there, I come to a picture of a beautiful lady tucked in the Bible’s gutter. The picture is nestled at Luke 2:1–20, the story of the birth of Jesus, the passage the reverend draws from every year for the sermon he gives the Sunday before Christmas.

  There’s an inscription on the picture.

  It says:

  To C. Elias—

  Honey doesn’t get much sweeter than you.

  Love and kisses,

  Pauline (Your Praline)

  July 10, 1923

  My face gets hotter than a straightening comb, and I’m curling my toes inside my shoes.

  Honey? Sweet? The reverend?

  I know right away I’m looking at something that isn’t meant for my eyes. Yet here are the eyes of Pauline Tyson, my mother, looking back at me. They’re the same eyes as mine, dark pennies.

  I don’t know whether to smile, or cry, or curse the reverend.

  I have asked him about my mother a trillion times.

  A trillion times the reverend has said, “She’s gone, Bernie. No need knowing about her.”

  A trillion times I have asked for a picture of my mother.

  A trillion times the reverend has said, “All Pauline left behind was her memory.”

  The photograph is dated the year before I was born and is signed on the reverend’s birthday, July 10.

  This picture is more than a memory. It’s a secret the reverend has been keeping from me. In finding the reverend’s private birthday gift, I am meeting my mother for the very first time.

  Mama’s hair is pressed and styled, and beautiful. It is the soft petals of a rose curling in around delicate cheekbones.