by Jack Cady
"Picked up weight." Uncle Willie has no right to talk. Not with that tummy hanging over his belt.
"Wearing a parka on top of a parka," Aunt Easy told him. "Janice is a lovely girl."
Janice is not a lovely girl. Janice is an adventuress. She wears her hair up at work, long skirts to hide long legs, and glasses that make her eyes look cloudy. The minute she visits the lab, though bearing cookies, the hair comes down, the skirt hits around the knees, and there’s just enough cleavage to knock a preacher put of a pulpit. No glasses. Lovely, my dear: I think not.
Once clear of town snow fences lining the road were banked high. Frozen lakes lay dotted with fishing shacks. Trees stood naked as windmills, and a polar wind scoured.
"Pretty day for a drive," said Willie, and quoted something out of Tacitus that made no sense at all. I mean, how often does it snow in Italy?
". . . maybe a pair of finches," Aunt Easy murmured. "Or a nice canary. I can’t handle another parakeet. Not just yet."
We all took a moment of silence. Parakeet-in-residence Harold had been somewhat adorable. For a bird.
The heater hummed, Maytag churned, and we finally got to the big city. We dropped Uncle Willie at a poolroom where, being adroit at the game, he figured to hustle wintering-over cheese farmers for a few bucks.
The sum of it was canaries: Aunt Easy bought one named Sylvester, and Murph bought some breeding pairs, especially a betrothed couple named Sally and Grogan. He also bought something that looked parrotish and South American. Uncle Willie won twenty bucks at pool and caught holy heck from Aunt Easy for sampling local brews. Murph drove faster going home than coming because he wanted to work with his birds. The subject of Janice did not reappear. We were all real happy, except for sweet sixteen, here, who was feeling strangely lonesome.
Things that winter got speedy, at least at the lab. Each day after work Murph committed science. Everything went fast and biblical. Grogan begat Jonathan and Jonathan begat Peter and Peter begat Cosroe, and Cosroe begat Clarence. Girl birds were involved, of course, mostly not biblical: Claudia and Shirley and Sandy and Tangerine. By the time ice began to break on the lakes, there were enough canaries singing through that lab to challenge the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
And there were women. Winter in Wisconsin makes people want to cuddle, bundle, stay close as paint on woodwork. That lab was infested with visiting babes wearing flimsy fashions beneath ski jackets, and not a stitch of underwear. Lady things jiggled beneath raw silk blouses. It was worse than the locker room for gym class.
"And Murph pays no attention, not a-tall," I told Uncle Willie, telling him about the floozies. We sat at the kitchen table where I did homework and Willie read the witticisms of Charles Sumner. Frost rimed the windows, and from his cage Canary Sylvester cleared his throat.
"You’re still a little young," Willie told me. "It’s the breeding season, but Murph is letting our species down. He pursues a sterner mistress. Murph is all confused with science." Willie paused. ". . . as for the ladies . . . young women hit a certain age and get compulsive about marriage." He looked toward the living room where Aunt Easy was doing something-or-other. "I think I’ll not go into it." He glanced uneasily out a window. A church steeple stood like a small blot on a flat horizon.
I understood. In this town everybody is Lutheran, except the few who are Methodists, or worse, Baptists, or worse, Presbyterian. In this town the only Internet service filters the crud out of everything, and the only movie features nothin’ but G-rated. This town figures it’s the only pure place on earth. This town thinks that Oshkosh is Sodom and Wasau is Gomorrah.
Things changed, though. Murph caused it, and didn’t even know it happened. When it comes to being a theorist, Murph is worse than Willie, and Willie is almost worse than anybody.
"My masterpiece," said Murph, as ice broke up on the lakes, daffodils sprouted, and he sat before a cage containing a chick, which sat beside a cage that held giant Hamster Janders. "Name of Clarence."
"Didn’t know baby turkeys hatched that big."
"Not a turkey. Might be a small mistake in there, someplace." Murph looked a little guilty.
"He’s got this look in his eye . . ."
"He’ll feather up," Murph said. "He’ll be buttercup yellow." Then Murph muttered to himself, something about "You got to train them young . . ."
Bird training. Oh, you bet.
The parade of cookies dropped off as spring progressed and Clarence grew. And grew. And grew. Fewer cookies was good. I stopped gaining pounds and growing zits.
Janice still showed up, though. It was either Janice or Uncle Willie who ran off the other babes. A rumor circulated through town. Rumor said that Canary Clarence was only bred for practice. Rumor said that Murph had a contract from the Marines. He would breed a race of giant warriors. The babes, who had more-or-less taken the huge Hamster Janders for granted, took one look at that massive Canary Clarence. They thought of marriage, and of carrying a kid seven times bigger than a wheel of Limburger, and opted out.
Meanwhile, training progressed. Flight school for Clarence. Murph enticed him from one end of the lab to the other using huge chunks of birdseed.
"He’s sorting through his genes," Murph explained. "He’s too doggone big to flutter, but flutter is what canaries do. He’s gotta rise above it."
". . . got a pleasing voice," I muttered. Clarence did not have a pleasing voice. For one thing, he could sing loud enough to shake plaster from the ceiling. For another thing, he was a baritone.
"I built in just a tad of duck persuasion," Murph explained. "When he hatched I was right there, waiting. I was the first thing he saw, and now he’s fixed on me . . . thinks I’m his mama."
"For why?"
"So when he flies, he’ll still come back to the nest. I’m his flock."
There’s nothing anyone sane could say to that, but sanity is not real big around here, anyway. When word about the duck persuasion got out, Murph was denounced from every pulpit in town. The Lutherans thundered that Murph played at being God. The Methodists yelped about building flight paths to heaven. The Baptists whimpered over the Book of Revelations, and the Presbyterians claimed Murph was predestined for the hot-squat. Uncle Willie, with a Rosicrucian point-of-view, tried to keep a straight face but was constantly caught giggling. "Clarence bothers members of societies for suppressing things," Uncle Willie said. "I find that charming."
The public appearance of Clarence pretty much stunned the entire town, plus dairy farmers for a radius of forty miles. On a day of sun, and above green, green fields, Clarence rose buttercup-yellow on a summer breeze. He cruised the town. He swooped around city hall. He flapped like an eagle, coasted like a gull, and drifted high above, hovering like a vulture checking out the action. He was a huge yellow streak as his shadow flirted with chickens in farmyards, chased a red-tailed hawk in gyrations through the sky, and seemed searching for the best way to be obnoxious. It is gloriously recorded that he succeeded.
Because Clarence, with no spiritual training at all, chose the highest steeple in town for a perch. He was a buttercup-yellow vision of enthusiastic feathers, and as the sun went west he cast a real long shadow. He sat up there for the best part of a late afternoon singing, and trying to flutter, and warbling, and pooping. You think a goose can poop? Well, a goose can, but don’t show me a goose when I’m talking about Clarence.
And loud? Bull horns are more quiet. Loudspeakers are mere whispers. That bird could make more noise flapping his wings than a Piper Cub racing its engine. On the best day of his life, Caruso would have sounded like a whisper next to Clarence. Clarence made a name for himself that day, and by the time he came home at dusk he had also made a name for Murph.
There are those who have always doubted Murph. The Ladies Aid could not stand the thought of an eligible bachelor remaining eligible, when so many solid Lutheran girls were lonesome. The Temperance Union felt that owning lab equipment is evidence of a still. And Janice (who could have her pick fro
m most of the married men in town) was wondering if Murph was actually male.
"I am drop-dead gorgeous," she confided to Uncle Willie, "and I make a tolerable cookie. What’s wrong with him?" Janice sat at the kitchen table and dealt with Willie. I sat beside Willie and dealt with algebra.
"The depth of the human psyche, about which we know so comfortably little . . ." Willie began.
"Don’t go there," Janice told him. "Just give me your take on the problem."
"You work in a library," Willie told her, "but Murph works in a bank."
"So?"
"You wanta work in a library all your life?"
"A girl could do worse."
"You wanta work in a bank all your life?"
"I think I’m catching on." Janice looked alarmed but hopeful. For a moment I almost liked her.
"Dear, dear Janice," I said.
"Ah, youth," she said. "Drop by the library and I’ll introduce you to Krafft-Ebing."
The likable moment passed.
"Murph doesn’t want to be stuck in a bank," Willie told her. "If he marries, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance he’s stuck."
"I can fix it," Janice said, and she sounded dreamy. "Gotcha." And she was out of there.
Janice moved quickly, but not as quick as the Ladies Aid whose members demanded that Murph be fired from the bank. That happened while the Temperance Union hounded the sheriff. The Temperance Union wanted someone arrested, and didn’t much care who, although Murph didn’t make the cut. Three things came to pass:
A new rumor floated through town. It said that Murph had caught on to the critter-construction business. He would build a Guernsey who could yield ten gallons of milk from a mouthful of grass.
The Rotary then jumped to Murph’s defense. The Rotary knows what is good for the cheese business, and what ain’t.
A sharp and nasty dust-up between Aunt Easy and the Temperance Union ended in red-hot letters-to-the-editor, and revelations about shortcuts in cookie recipes. A fearful number of American mothers were involved.
Meanwhile, Murph kept Clarence on a tight rein. No more outdoor flights. After the church steeple debacle it seemed best if Clarence dropped out of sight.
Other rumors surfaced. Murph could quadruple tourist traffic because he would build a real Babe, Paul Bunyon’s Great Blue Ox. Rumor had it that Murph had invented a way to make all mosquitoes disappear from the face of the Earth, a real big selling point in Wisconsin.
While all of this went on Murph fielded questions from bank customers, denied everything, and hurried home each evening to play catch-up in his lab. I felt obligated to help. He was obviously a hunted and very lonely man.
By then the lab had burgeoned into canary land. There were enough birds, and many of them strange, to fill an aviary. There was a giant hamster porking up through a lack of exercise. Clarence occupied a perch, like a bird of prey, and shouted down other boy birds that started to sing. It was bedlam, and beyond. Clarence was becoming obnoxious.
Hamster Janders wasn’t much better. When I tried to train him to leash he wasn’t having any part of it. It took him exactly two seconds to chaw through the leash. He headed for Aunt Easy’s garden where he grazed on all of the cabbage. Janders is no bigger than a Great Dane, but he isn’t a whit smaller, either.
"I’ve created a monster," Murph confided, and he didn’t mean Clarence, and he didn’t mean Janders. "The birdseed bills are killin’ me. I get no work time, what with cleaning cages."
"You’ll think of something." But I didn’t believe it. Instead I checked in with Uncle Willie.
By then June had turned to July and July to August. On a Sunday afternoon when lawns were fried brown and even the trees seemed to pant, Willie lay crumpled in a hammock sipping cream soda and reading Petronius. As I approached, so did Janice.
Janice looked at Willie’s book. "In Wisconsin?"
"At my age it’s the best I can do."
I have to admit that Janice looked pretty good. Her long hair kind of fluffed around her face, and her blue eyes did not look like members of any religious sect. They looked downright ornery.
"I’m taking one last shot," she told Willie, "and if it doesn’t work I head for a job in the big city." She didn’t look like someone ready to take a last shot.
She dressed casual, in slacks, and no cleavage.
"Seduction doesn’t work," she told Willie. She turned to me. "Take a lesson." She turned back to Willie. "I’ve set it up. I got enough success rumors running to promote investment. I can put together a Murph corporation that gets him loose from the bank."
For some stupid reason my heart sank. If Murph was a success, and risk capital built him a real lab, and if he could hire real lab assistants . . .
"Don’t do it," Willie told Janice. "Worst thing in the world."
"For why?"
"Ah, youth." Willie rocked gently in his hammock. "Take up the violin. Write poems. Inscribe the story of your life in pictographs. Study astronomy." He scratched himself behind one ear and blinked upward at tired leaves of an oak tree. The tree sort of rustled.
"Science and art have lots in common," Willie told her. "Scientists and artists expect to fail. They know they’re gonna fail. Our boy Murph is a little of both."
"This better be about something." Janice looked toward the house, where, in the basement, Murph cleaned canary cages and whispered cuss words.
"Because they go for the big picture," Willie explained. "They go for a grand statement and only end up, with maybe, something like the Mona Lisa. Great, a little grand, but not the big one." Willie also looked toward the house. "Scientists the same . . . put together the theory of relativity, then spend fifty years trying to dope out what it means."
"You’re talking about success," I told him, not a little sarcastic. "No wonder you’re confused . . . all those books . . ."
"And when they don’t even get a Mona Lisa, or relativity, they crash in flames." Willie reached over and patted Janice’s hand. The pat was grandfatherly, teacherly, and he looked like everybody’s papa. "History is filled with great men who fail, stare at the cold idol they pursued, the idol with dead eyes, and end up weeping while kneeling before a woman and clasping her knees. Great women generally just fall into the arms of a man. You want love? Court failure."
"Gotcha." Janice looked ambitious.
"You court it by doing nothing," Willie told her. "Right now Murph is sure-fail. Don’t disturb the balance." To me he said, "Stay out of it. Study basketball or candle making. Adopt a cat. Learn to play harmonica." But, he grinned when he said it.
If failure was what Janice needed, then success would block it. "Garage sale," I told Murph. "Sell canaries. Sell cages and toss in a canary. Start a canary society. Sell memberships. I’ll handle the whole deal."
I printed a sign for the front lawn. We sold three canaries, with cages, for a tenth the cost of the cages. I thought my idea had gone west, failed, flopped. I searched for a new idea. Before I came up with anything, we hit big.
Of the canaries we sold, one turned out scandalous. A preacher’s wife bought him and waited for him to sing. Instead, he started to cuss . . . real stinky little mouth . . . something in the genes, something about Murph installing a dash of parrot. Murph got a little overboard on that one.
The preacher’s wife sat cage and bird outdoors while she opened windows to air the house. She even washed the walls. When a mildly inebriated Swedish person passed down the alley, she sold him the bird and made ten bucks on the deal. The Swedish person took the bird to the town’s only tavern where, even today, it charms the customers. Very popular, that bird. Name of Oscar.
Word got out that Murph’s canaries were sleepers. We sold out, except for a breeding pair, Jimmy and Cleopatra. Jimmy has a tuft of feathers on top of his head and a confused look. Cleo lives up to her name.
The lab returned to normal. One oversize hamster, one oversize bird, plus white mice and other varmints.
"Don’t do that again," I to
ld Murph. I might as well have been whispering in a hurricane. He was already looking dreamy.
"County fair," he muttered. "I can regain my reputation. Blue ribbons. Yes, indeed."
I could sense that failure was once more in the wind, but felt helpless.
"What do girls do," I asked Aunt Easy, "when guys don’t listen?"
She smiled and looked around a happy kitchen where Canary Sylvester sang. Aunt Easy motioned toward the living room where Uncle Willie diddled with a radio. "Ignore them," Aunt Easy told me, "but stand by to pick up the pieces when they crash." She smiled, even happier, and anyone could tell she was actually fond of Willie. "The dears have to be good at something. At crashing they are experts."
"Even Uncle Willie?" I was astounded.
"Especially Uncle Willie." Aunt Easy looked both sweet and tender. "He spent twenty years researching and writing a history of Wisconsin. When the book was published he was blacklisted by the State Historical Society."
"Because Uncle Willie lied?"
"No, dear, because he told the truth . . ."Aunt Easy is such a nice lady. She looked at me with real concern. "You’re growing up. You’ll soon have a birthday. And, oh Lordy, I’m afraid you have talent."
Yeah, well, talent for getting into messes.
Autumn covered the land and Murph’s crash, plus the big Janice victory, happened at the county fair. On a day of changing leaves, but with lots of sun, Murph sat Clarence on the front seat of Maytag and put Janders in the rear. About the best you can say is the two critters put up with each other. There were accusations but no fights.
Autumn lay across the land. Oak leaves were going brown, the last cut of hay was in, and the farm implement dealer displayed snowmobiles. Birds were flying south, churches held "harvest home" services, and the Ladies Aid quietly bragged of canned beans, canned corn, cherry preserves, and freezers stuffed with beef. Woodpiles rose high as chainsaws roared, and chimneys were cleaned. Yet, in the middle of all this wholesomeness dwelt something rancid.
That rancidity came from the Fin, Fur, and Feathers Division of the Brotherhood of Exalted Beagles. That elite division of gun toters was known, far and wide, as the best justification for the existence of the Temperance Union. The Beagles were generally a red-nosed lot, often glassy-eyed.