Seven Crow Stories

by Robert J. Wiersema

  “Yeah, I—” The buckle slipped around the strap and I pulled it snug, with a sharp sense of relief.

  “Hop on,” he said, without looking back.

  It only took me a moment to straddle the motorcycle, hopping slightly on one foot to plant myself on the small seat behind him.

  “You good?” He turned partway, and I saw a glimpse of the garage through the right lens of his sunglasses.

  I lifted my thumb toward him. Cool, I thought.

  “Hold on,” he said, and I looped my arms partway around him, pulling in close to his back. He smelled of sweat and gasoline, aftershave and leather, and a high, kind of skunky smokiness. Bob didn’t wear a helmet, and his hair tickled my nose a bit.

  Gravel crunched under the tires as he turned the motorcycle in a loose curve, and we drove up the driveway, pausing for a moment—not really coming to a stop—before turning onto the road.

  “You . . . long way?” I couldn’t really make out what Bob was saying over the engine noise and through my helmet, but I risked another thumbs-up, my other hand tight to his side.

  Bob turned the bike away from town, and the gravel gave way to the smoothness of the asphalt.

  Oh, the long way.

  The wind pulled and tugged at my jacket, rough against the skin of my face as the bike picked up speed. I pulled a little closer to Bob, but not because I was scared or anything.

  I was the furthest thing from scared it was possible to be.

  I hadn’t been on the bike with Bob very often—just a few times in the couple of years since he had got it—but every time it felt the same. The wind, the speed, felt like a surging in the pit of my stomach, a rush that spread through my bloodstream, into my heart, then down to my fingers and toes. It felt electric, like that moment you lose control laughing, but extended, dizzying, for the entire length of the ride.

  And it wasn’t just the speed, the sense of flight; it was the way being on the back of the bike seemed to open a new window onto a world I thought I knew.

  I had spent my whole life in the fields that now zipped past us in a blaze of green and brown, individual rows of corn disappearing into a high emerald sea, gardens blurring into indistinct shades. I had spent my whole life on these roads, either walking along the crest of the ditch or riding my bike on the narrow shoulder. I’d even ridden my bike around the mountain once or twice on my own, budgeting a whole afternoon, pushing my bike up the hills, holding tight to the handlebars and touching the brakes to keep control on the downhills, conscious always of the sheer drop on one side, stopping at the old cemetery to mark the half-way point of the ride with a snack and a chance to catch my breath. But I’d never really felt the road itself, the gentle rolls and curves, the pebbly velvet of the asphalt surface.

  The world had seemed so big, so daunting, but on the bike the twenty-minute walk to the Hi Way Market was over in a blink. On Bob’s bike, the uphills seemed to disappear, and I whooped as we roared down the hills, the bike hugging the curves of the road. I didn’t pay any attention to the drop-offs. I trusted Bob more than I trusted myself. He would never let me down—that was one of the only things in my life that I was sure of.

  The old cemetery flashed by us in a blur, the slope a swath of green cut into the forested mountain side, and it was over. From here, it was all flat ground, straight roads, sharp corners to the fair grounds.

  I wanted to tap Bob on the shoulder, gesture that I wanted to keep riding, that I didn’t want that feeling to stop. I never wanted that feeling to stop.

  And then I saw the circus.

  I was born in Henderson. I grew up on the farm my father grew up on. Bob started taking me to 4H meetings when I was five, calling me his “little cousin” and referring to me as one of the “Future Farmers of Henderson” like the 4H sign said. I basked in the glow of his words like corn in a June rain.

  When he stopped going to the meetings, I stopped going as well. Mom and Dad offered to drive me, but I said no. It wouldn’t have been the same without him there.

  Nothing would be.

  The 4H meetings were held in the Livestock Pavilion, where they had bingo every Wednesday and Sunday, and roller-skating for the teenagers every Friday night. It was a huge building, full of echoes and the smell of old hay, on the back corner of the Agricultural Grounds.

  I went with Bob to the Agricultural Grounds for those meetings once a week for years. The school bus drove right past them, before school and after. The Grounds, the Pavilion, the Agricultural Hall, on the front corner, closest to the road—I knew these places almost as well as I knew the farm.

  And I knew them, even when, once a year, everything changed. The third weekend of September, every year, was the Harvest Festival. After school on the Friday, everything would look the same through the bus windows. Maybe a few extra cars in the lot, but nothing out of the ordinary. But overnight, the Ag Grounds would be transformed, and on Saturday morning, when we would bring the car in early to get a good parking spot before the parade, there would be a midway, with a Ferris Wheel and a Zipper. There would be games and a haunted house. The stage would be draped with bunting and decorated with corn, ready for the crowning of the Harvest King, and a smaller stage would be set up next to a huge white tent, where the bands would play for the beer garden. They needed that tent to shade the people in the beer garden from the sun: it never rained on festival day.

  The midway, the sun—it was all just part of the magic of the Festival every year. And it wasn’t just me that felt it: for the whole week leading up to it, the whole school thrummed like the feeling you get in your chest when you touch an electric fence.

  It was the best day of the year.

  But even all that magic paled next to the very first glimpse I had of the circus from the back of Bob’s motorcycle.

  The fencing along the road had been covered in paintings, bright colour stretching as far as the eye could see, obscuring the lower edge of the vista with a make-shift mural of . . . what had the sign on the trucks called them?

  Marvels.

  I had to force myself not to react, not to squeeze any tighter with my legs, not to make a sound.

  But I wanted to.

  Oh, how I wanted to.

  Amid the swirling colours of the mural, a man with a black goatee slid a sword down his throat, his blue eyes glaring out from the paint. The mermaid’s eyes—green—were warmer, almost inviting. There was a fire eater, and a pair of trapeze artists. A little girl in what looked like a shiny silver bathing suit sat with her legs wrapped around her shoulders, while a wire walker balanced high above the center ring. A lion roared, his mouth so wet and red I almost thought I could hear him. There was a man with tattoos all over his face, and a mass of snakes that seemed to squirm as I watched them. And there were clowns everywhere, pale faces and bright mouths, lurking in the paint like they were hiding, like they might jump out at any moment.

  I wanted to keep going, like if Bob just kept driving, the murals would keep unspooling, an endless, constant revelation of colours, of wonders. All we had to do was keep moving.

  But with a sudden lean that made my stomach feel like it was going to slip out, Bob turned the bike into a gap between the images, into one of the driveways into the parking lot. The tires bit and spat gravel as we left the road.

  I had to hold myself in check as we crossed the parking lot. In the distance I could see the outline of trucks and structures, the crest of a tent bright against the sky. The air was laced with hints of music and popcorn.

  I had always been jealous of the way Bob walked, as slow and thoughtful as the way he talked, steady and cool, like nothing ever rattled him. Like nothing was worth rushing over.

  But some things were worth rushing for, and it was all I could do to slow down, to fight that desire to run.

  “You excited?” Bob asked, as if he could tell what I was feeling. His boots
crunched in the gravel.

  I had to actually look back at him to answer. “It’s all right, I guess.” I forced myself to slow down even more, to even my strides with his.

  “Oh, yeah?” A smile played underneath his moustache, there for an instant, then gone again. But I could see it in his eyes. “We could just skip it. Work our way through the rest of the To Do list your parents left.”

  “I guess,” I said, playing along. “But mom and dad did go to all the trouble of getting the tickets.” Trying to make my voice sound like I was reluctant, but willing to sacrifice myself in order to be polite.

  “I suppose,” he said, and the smile came back, for good this time.

  His grin broadened when we got to the gate.

  “John,” he said, slapping his hand into the palm of the man at the entry, shaking his hand vigorously. “How’d you get this gig?”

  John Horvath—that’s who it was—smiled just as broadly. “What, you didn’t run away and join the circus?” He was tall, wide-shouldered, a small black apron with heavy pockets loose around his hips.

  “Nah,” Bob said. “Who’s got time for that?” Obviously a dig, but a friendly one.

  John nodded like Bob had said something smart. “I got ya, I got ya.” He glanced toward me. “Nah. I was at the Triple Crown the other night and this guy came in, asking if anybody wanted a day’s work, cash on the barrelhead.” He shrugged. “I was gonna give you a call, but his list filled up pretty quick.” He sounded apologetic.

  Bob shook his head, shook it away. “So what they got you doing, taking tickets and stamping hands?”

  John grinned and reached into the main pocket of his apron, pulling out a single-hole punch, like the ones we had at school. “You know it,” he said, clicking the punch closed and open a couple of times.

  “That’s quite the responsibility.”

  “Screw you,” John said, but you could tell he didn’t really mean it. “That’s just now,” he added. “They had us in at first light, setting up the grounds, hanging the posters—” and he gestured toward the fence, that endless row of paintings, “—putting up the tents.”

  As he spoke, I lifted my gaze above his head. There was a temporary wall behind him, painted with the Zeffirelli logo, that blocked the view, but over the top of it I could see the tops of several tents, bright, multi-coloured, rounded peaks, several smaller ones surrounding a single huge tent.

  My heart felt like it was going to explode in my chest.

  “It looks like someone’s excited,” John said, and when I lowered my eyes, he was staring right at me.

  “This is my cousin,” Bob said.

  “Course he is,” John said, then he extended the punch toward me. “You got a ticket?”

  I had a momentary panic. Had we remembered to bring the tickets? What if they were still on the fridge? Would we have to—

  But Bob reached into his back pocket and pulled out the two orange cardboard rectangles, passing me one. “Here you go.”

  My face started to go hot as I extended my ticket toward John.

  “Let’s see here,” he said as he took it from me. “Mr. Zeffirelli told us we had to do this exactly right.” He slid the ticket between the jaws of the hole punch, squinting a little and biting his lip.

  “There’s really a Zeffirelli?” Bob asked. I didn’t understand the question; of course there was a Mr. Zeffirelli. Who else would—

  “Of course there is,” John said. “He’s the ringmaster.” John gestured toward the murals, toward the man with the goatee and top hat. “That’s him.”

  The hole punch clicked closed, and open again, and a small orange fragment fluttered to the ground.

  “There you go,” he said, handing me back the ticket. A star-shaped hole had been punched out of the very middle of the circle of the logo.

  John was grinning, like this was as exciting for him as it was for me. “You can get a stamp if you want to leave and come back.”

  “Thank you,” I said quietly, clutching the ticket.

  He tipped an imaginary hat at me before turning his attention to Bob. “So, are you going in?”

  Bob nodded, cocked his head toward me. “His folks asked me to keep an eye on him while they’re away.”

  I could hear a shrug that Bob didn’t really give, and my stomach fell between my shoes.

  “Right,” John said, and took Bob’s ticket. “Hey, listen, when do you head out?”

  I looked at the ground. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the click of the hole punch.

  Bob glanced at me. “Next Sunday,” he said.

  “Not gonna have much use for your bike on the prairies all winter,” said Bob.

  “I’m not leaving it with you.”

  They laughed.

  The gravel was thin, pressed hard into the earth, littered with cigarette butts and the fragments from the tickets. A few feet away a dried clump of dog shit had been kicked off to the grassy edge.

  “You’re not gonna have much time for riding anyway.”

  “I don’t figure so.”

  “Hitting the books pretty hard.”

  “That’s the way it’s done, I hear.”

  “Well, listen—” At the shift in his voice I looked up. John was looking at the ground now, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “If I don’t see you . . .”

  Bob shook his head. “You’ll see me. Before I leave.” He nodded, as if to mark the words. “I’ll be around.”

  “Okay,” John said, nodding himself. “Here you go, then.” He handed Bob his ticket. “Welcome to Zeffirelli’s.”

  Bob brought his hand down on the back of my neck, squeezing it gently.

  “Shall we?”

  I didn’t say anything as we went through the gate.

  The first thing I noticed about the circus was the smell: the high, sharp rank of shit. Growing up on a farm, in the country, I was familiar with the cloying sweetness of pig shit, the warm musk of cow, the clear force of horse, even the sharp, ammonia smell of chicken. I had grown up with those smells. They smelled like home to me. This was something different, something foreign. Something new.

  I wrinkled my nose and Bob caught my eye as I glanced around, trying to figure it out.

  “Lion?” he asked, grinning. “Tiger? Bear?” He wrinkled his whole face, as if suddenly overwhelmed with the smell. “Oh my.” He waited for me to react, to say something.

  I forced my face to stillness.

  “Listen,” he said, stopping, forcing me to stop. “I know you’re not happy about me leaving.”

  I focused on looking at the rough upper edge of his beard, low on his cheeks, almost but not quite making eye contact, almost but not quite looking away.

  “It’s not forever,” he said. “I’ll be back for the Harvest Festival. That’s less than a month. Then Thanksgiving. And Christmas.” He reached out and touched my shoulder, held his hand there. “You’re gonna be all right,” he said, leaning in toward me. “And hey, maybe you can come see me at school.” He tried to make it sound exciting.

  I tried not to react, but he must have seen something in my face.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he said. “I can’t stay here my whole life. There’s such a big world out there.” He looked up, and around, and his motion forced me to do the same. “It’s a world of wonders,” he said, and it sounded like something caught in his throat. “You’ll see,” he said. “When you’re older.”

  I shook my head sharply. “Don’t do that,” I said, before I could stop myself. “Don’t make it sound like I don’t get it because I’m just a kid. Don’t make it sound like I don’t understand things.”

  He looked at me like he couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. I couldn’t either.

  “I know you need to get out of here,” I said, giving up on even trying to st
op myself. “I know that school’s just an excuse. You just want to leave.”

  His eyes flickered.

  “And I know you’re not going to be back for the Harvest Festival, or Thanksgiving. You’re not gonna drive fifteen hours to spend a night here before you have to turn around and go back.”

  He looked like he was doing what I had been doing, forcing himself not to react.

  “Maybe you’ll come back at Christmas, maybe not. You’re gonna make friends at school. You’re gonna disappear.”

  I had seen it happen before. When people left, they didn’t come back. Sure, they might come out for the Harvest Festival, or to see their folks, but that was it. My babysitter, Chantelle, had promised to come back, the same way Bob was. I’d only seen her twice in the three years since she had graduated and moved away.

  People disappeared. They left, and they didn’t come back. They promised, and they lied.

  “Everybody disappears,” I said. “Nobody tells the truth.”

  He shook his head. “Hey, that’s not—”

  “What are my mom and dad really doing?”

  He stopped, and his mouth and eyes widened.

  “I know they’re not on vacation. If they were on vacation, we all would have gone together. So, what? They’re gonna come back and tell me that they’ve decided they don’t want to be married anymore? That Dad’s not going to live with us anymore?”

  The expression on his face, shocked and sad, told me that I was right. About everything.

  And I had wanted so desperately to be wrong.

  “So don’t tell me I’m too young to understand things. I under-stand things just fine.”

  I stalked away, and I knew he wouldn’t follow.

  There were people. Lots of them. People everywhere. I hadn’t really noticed them while Bob and I were talking, but once I walked away, it was like I was swimming upstream, bumping and jostling with every step.

  I had scurried away from Bob as fast as I could, without breaking into a run. I didn’t want to call any attention to myself; I didn’t want anyone to notice me at all. I kept my head hunched low, my body in a tight bundle, my eyes focused on the crushed brown grass, the ruts already worn where people were walking back and forth.