Birdie and Me

by J. M. M. Nuanez

  “Why is it green?”

  I don’t know how to explain it, about me and Mama and Birdie’s little dance and birthdays. “Um, Dr. Seuss?”

  Patrick’s covered in dirt and shoves his gloves into his back pocket and goes to the sink to wash up. “Why aren’t you in bed?” he says to Duke.

  “He likes the green eggs,” Birdie suddenly says. “Duke ate them right up. Mama used to make them for us. But Jack knows how too.”

  Patrick turns the water off and dries his hands.

  “That dog will eat anything,” he says. He goes to the fridge and grabs the last two slices of pizza. “Make sure to clean up the mess. And I’ll need your help again in the yard later . . . Come on, Duke.” Him and the dog and the pizza go out the front door.

  I guess there is the pizza Patrick and there is the green eggs Patrick. We probably shouldn’t confuse the two.

  * * *

  • • •

  After we’ve cleaned up, we hang out in Birdie’s room and now it’s my turn to watch Patrick at the window. There’s no way to sneak out without him knowing. Especially if he’s expecting us to help in the yard.

  Birdie puts his sunglasses and headband on and fixes them in the mirror. “We have to do something, Jack. We have to help Uncle Carl get those balloon tickets.”

  “I’m going to ask Patrick if I can go to town,” I say. “I had already agreed to meet a classmate at the library for a project. I was thinking of canceling on her, but I’m going to go. Because then I’ll figure out a way to visit Uncle Carl.”

  Birdie studies me in the mirror. “Are you sure? What if Patrick finds out?”

  “He won’t. It will be quick.”

  Birdie puts the glasses and headband away in a drawer. He’s back to grays, blacks, and blues. But he’s smiling.

  * * *

  • • •

  I find Patrick in the garage polishing some kind of metal pipe with an old rag.

  I tell him I have to meet a friend at the library. “It’s for a school project. For English class.”

  “Why don’t you meet her during school?”

  “Because it’s homework.”

  He twists the pipe and squints, looking off toward town and then down at the ground where Duke lies. The dog lifts his head at me, which is a first. But I don’t have any green eggs, so he goes back to his nap.

  “Who’s this friend?”

  “Her name is Krysten. I had already agreed to meet her before Birdie was suspended.”

  He puts the tool down and picks up another and begins polishing again.

  There’s no way I can mention seeing Uncle Carl. I know he’ll say no.

  Finally he says, “I’ll drive you.”

  A half an hour later, Patrick is dropping me off in front of the library. “Should I come pick you up? Or can you walk back?”

  I know what he’s really asking. He wants to know if he can trust me to not go “wandering around.”

  I say I can walk and he says okay.

  I don’t wait for him to pull away from the curb before I hurry inside. If I can finish up with Krysten, I’ll still have time to visit Uncle Carl.

  Ms. Perkins sits behind the reference desk helping a gray-haired man.

  I hope she won’t notice me. I still haven’t talked to her since the bus trip.

  Krysten is already at a table, reading a book and taking notes. She waves me over and as soon as I see the Elizabeth Bishop books, I remember that I was supposed to bring my book. The book that I don’t have anymore.

  “I forgot that I lost that Elizabeth Bishop book,” I say right away.

  “Oh—okay,” she says, surprised. I don’t think I’ve ever been the first to speak. “No worries, though. As you can see, the library has some.” Her eyes kind of sparkle as they roam over all the books on the table. “This woman is fascinating.”

  “Yeah?”

  “An unmarried woman! A lesbian!” I look around at the couple of heads that have turned our way. I think there are a lot of reasons why Krysten stands out in this town. “And she won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award! You really know how to pick ’em!”

  I have no idea what she is talking about, but I can feel the grin on my face. Krysten has one of those smiles, where it’s hard not to smile back.

  “Um, do you think Mr. Belling will let us pick her?” I ask, looking down at a black-and-white photograph on the back of one of the books. “She wasn’t on his list of suggested poets.”

  “He already said okay. I asked him yesterday, when you weren’t at school.”

  She stops talking then, I guess waiting for me to talk about why I was absent. My brother was suspended is what I want to say. But I can’t.

  “Did you already check all these books out?” I ask.

  “Yes, but you can borrow any of them.” She continues to look at me with her kind, blue-framed eyes. “Especially if you don’t have anything of your own.”

  “I used to have one. Really. But we had to move in with my uncle Carl and there wasn’t space to bring all my books and that was one I left behind. To be honest, I never really read it. I kind of regret that now.”

  She nods slowly.

  I can’t believe I just said all that.

  “That sounds awful,” she says. “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t keep my books. Even when we moved here from Sacramento, when I was in the second grade, I insisted on bringing all my books with me. I think my mom only let me because she felt bad that she was taking me away from my friends and the city to live in a small town.”

  “Yeah, talk about Nowhere, Northern California, right?”

  She chuckles and says, “Seriously.”

  I don’t even know why I’m trying to joke around. Maybe it’s just Krysten herself, who goes to my same school, who isn’t a tornado, but more like a clear blue sky, the kind of sky that stretches on forever and makes you grin.

  “We only moved here because my mom grew up here and got a job at the clinic. She’s a gynecologist. She also serves a couple of the nearby Native American reservations.”

  “And you said you still feel like the new girl even after five years?”

  “Yeah. But maybe that’s because there’s only one other black family in like a hundred miles. It’s like being a human island.”

  I had no idea she felt this way. She always seems so connected at school.

  She looks down at an Elizabeth Bishop biography. “I think that’s why my dad stays in Japan.”

  “Your dad lives in Japan? Are your parents divorced?”

  “No. It’s just a complicated job situation he couldn’t get out of. He’s supposed to move back next year, but I want to visit him first. Maybe this summer.”

  “My mom always wanted to go to Japan,” I say.

  “How come you don’t live with her anymore?”

  “She passed away almost a year ago.”

  All of a sudden I have this feeling of being on a roller coaster and I’m coming over the top and gravity is pulling me down down down and I’m going incredibly fast, and there’s absolutely no way to stop it.

  “We wanted to scatter her ashes in Japan,” I keep going. “But there was no time or money. So we had to scatter them at a lake near our old house up in Portland. But I kept a tiny bit of her ashes so I can go someday and eat fresh soba noodles by the sea just like she always wanted to and scatter them there. I have them in an old Skittles bag.”

  I haven’t thought of this since I stood on the shore of the lake, shoving the last few Skittles in my mouth, and secretly replacing them with a pinch of the ashes. Neither Birdie nor Mrs. Spater saw. I did it without thinking, and I still have the Skittles bag, taped shut, inside a plastic bag, that’s inside another small pouch, which I have hidden in an old pair of socks. I shoved it in there ten and a half months ago
and haven’t looked at it since.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” says Krysten. “We scattered part of my grandfather’s ashes in San Francisco over the summer and the other part in Atlanta, Georgia, which is where he’s from. I like the idea that he’s in more than one place. It’s almost like he has special powers now.”

  Krysten is probably the only person in the world who sees nothing wrong with keeping a bit of your mom’s ashes in a Skittles bag. She spins her pencil along her fingers.

  “I’m sorry about your grandpa,” I finally say.

  “Oh, thank you. Sorry to hear about your mom.”

  I nod at her. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet another island.”

  “It is. And hey, we’re an archipelago now,” Krysten says. “A chain of islands.”

  * * *

  • • •

  On my way out of the library, I forget to check for Ms. Perkins. She catches me outside, in front of the doors.

  “Jack!” she says. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” Her eyes are serious. “We were all very worried for you and Birdie during your bus ride. And I hear he’s been in a bit of trouble at school.”

  “He was suspended for fighting,” I say, not wanting to explain everything in such a public place.

  “I can’t imagine Birdie fighting.”

  In a flash, my eyes start to sting. “I know, neither can I.”

  “I saw you working with Krysten. That girl knows her stuff, but let me know if you need anything. All right?”

  I nod and she shoos me off in her normal Ms. Perkins fashion, acting like I was the one who interrupted her. But I smile as I watch her march back into the library.

  * * *

  • • •

  I run into Uncle Carl coming out of the Stop-and-Go in a hurry, coffee and an unlit cigarette in his hands.

  “Uncle Carl!” I yell.

  “Jackie-O! You won’t believe it!” He puts the cigarette behind his ear and takes a long drink from his mug. He sees me looking at the cup and says, “From Juan as a special de-stressor.”

  “De-stressor?”

  “Things have gotten intense, this proposal.”

  I start to apologize for not coming sooner, but he just holds up his hand. “No explanation needed. I know you live with the goat. Anyway, I got the balloon tickets. It’s all set. One week from today, me and Rosie will be high in the sky!”

  “Oh my gosh, really?”

  “Really, really. Except now I have a problem—the ring. There’s just no money for one and I’m going to have to do something drastic to get it.”

  “Drastic?” I say.

  “Well, let’s just say an opportunity has come my way, and I think I better take it, for my Rosie.”

  “An opportunity? Uncle Carl, what are you talking about?” My voice sounds weird—higher than normal.

  But he holds up his hand again to stop me. “No way. If I think about it or talk about it too much, I’ll freak myself out and it won’t happen. If it hadn’t been for Juan, that exact thing would have happened with the balloon tickets. No. I’m on my way to meet the guy now and that’s that.”

  “What guy?”

  “Never mind, Jackie-O. You can’t help with this part. Sometimes something drastic is what needs to be done and I have to do this myself. But come by tomorrow! I’ll need your help with the ring! And we can finish planning the landing party. The last pieces to this Rosie puzzle.” He downs the rest of his coffee and straps the empty mug to the rack behind his bicycle seat.

  “But Uncle Carl, I might not be able to–”

  But Uncle Carl cuts me off. “It’s a plan! See you tomorrow! Wish me luck!”

  Then he gets on his bike and pedals off around the corner, headed for whatever drastic thing he feels he needs to do.

  **Observation #784: Islands

  Maybe everyone is an island, even if we can’t see the water all around.

  B/c if Krysten is an island, then so is Janet. A neon-colored island in an ocean of small-town boredom.

  If Janet is an island, then so is Rosie. A compassionate & smiley island in a sea of double-continental responsibilities.

  And that means Uncle Carl is one too. & Ms. Perkins & Mrs. Spater. What oceans do they swim in?

  Drastic ones? Busy ones? Lonely ones?

  Of course that means Mama was an island, the brightest island floating in a dark & ordinary ocean.

  & maybe the most obvious island is Patrick, the uncle who put himself out to sea.

  CHAPTER 13

  A DRASTIC THING

  Birdie crawls onto my bed Sunday morning and says, “I’m worried about Uncle Carl’s drastic thing.”

  “Birdie,” I say with my eyes closed. “It’s six thirty. Please go back to sleep. We don’t have to be up for another hour.”

  “Is that all you can think about? Sleep? Aren’t you worried?”

  “Yes, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. Especially from under a warm blanket with my eyes closed.”

  “Patrick’s already up.” Birdie leans toward my ear and whispers, “Again. Now we can’t sneak out.”

  I sit up, rubbing my eyes. “Is that still the plan? Sneaking out?”

  “Well, how else are we going to go help Uncle Carl? I don’t want our plan to go up in smoke, you know.”

  “I’m going to ask Patrick for a ride again.”

  He looks at me with excited eyes. “You think he’ll actually let us go?”

  “I think he’ll let me go.”

  “That isn’t fair.” He tugs at his sweatshirt collar again.

  “Birdie, nothing about living here is fair.” I spit the words out before I can stop myself.

  Birdie slides off my bed and walks toward the door. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  “You want my Honey Bunny Bun?” I call after him as he leaves my room.

  “No. I’m going to go make some toast!”

  He doesn’t ask if I want any.

  * * *

  • • •

  At eight o’clock we go into the backyard. Patrick comes from the side of the house and hands me two pairs of gloves. These ones are smaller and brand-new.

  “Those should fit better,” he says as he looks out over the backyard. “Today you guys are going to carry more stones. We’re going to mark out some garden beds.”

  Patrick shows us where he’s tilled up a bunch of dirt. We’re supposed to lay a stone border down to make four garden beds. He also wants stones around the four smaller trees—apple, apricot, and two cherry—which he says have been there for forty years.

  I want to ask if they grow any fruit, but Patrick says, “Well, let’s get to it,” and then he goes to the other side of the yard where the tiller is. It bursts on with a bang and the opportunity for questions is gone.

  We work for two hours and when Patrick turns off the tiller for good and goes inside, we sit on the old bench.

  “When are you going to ask Patrick for a ride?” Birdie asks.

  “Soon.” Approaching Patrick is like getting close to a wild animal—no sudden movements and the timing has to be just right or he’ll bolt. So I change the subject. “Did Patrick ever talk to you about learning how to fight?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure he’s only said like five sentences to me since we moved in.”

  I wish I could say that this isn’t true, but he’s probably right.

  “At least the garden looks good,” says Birdie. “I like the dark dirt and the light-colored stones together.”

  “But I bet we’re gonna have to come out here and water a lot,” I say. “I miss Portland rain.”

  “Yeah, and even with all that rain, it still felt sunnier than here.”

  Patrick comes out with a mesh sack of flower bulbs in one hand and a plate in another. “A litt
le snack,” he says as he sets the plate down between us. It has some of his thickly sliced homemade bread with something white smeared on top. It almost looks like cream cheese or butter, but not as smooth.

  “It’s cheese,” says Patrick. “Just a soft house cheese I make sometimes. Goes well with the bread with a little honey on top. It’s not strong tasting.” He holds up his slice of bread and cheese to show us. He doesn’t smile, but his hat is pushed back again and his eyebrows go up and down like Uncle Carl’s do sometimes when he’s excited.

  Then he looks out onto the garden and takes a bite.

  I do too.

  It’s creamy and soft, and saltier than cream cheese. It’s delicious.

  Birdie tentatively takes a bite.

  A minute later, all three of us are quietly eating, looking out onto the garden.

  Birdie is right. The nearly black dirt sparkles under the sun, and the contrast with the stones and bricks makes the yard look like the beginnings of an actual garden. The sun is warm and it feels like a good day.

  “Patrick?” I say, after finishing the first piece of bread. “Birdie and me want to go see Uncle Carl. Could you please drive us?”

  He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t look at us. He looks down at the flower bulbs.

  “It would just be for a couple hours,” I add. “Not long. We just haven’t seen him in a while.”

  Suddenly, I remember the long stretches of time we didn’t see Patrick when we lived with Uncle Carl. Days, weeks, even. Mostly only when he came to help Rosie with the Quesadilla Ship’s engine trouble. Only twice did he come to Uncle Carl’s apartment.

  We never asked Uncle Carl if we could see Patrick.

  I wonder if Patrick thinks of that time.

  “All right,” Patrick suddenly says, crumpling up his napkin. “But I’m picking you up before dinner.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Patrick doesn’t come in with us. He just drops us off at the curb and watches us walk up the stairs.