Fly Like a Bird

by Jana Zinser

  Justin’s corn-dusty eyes fluttered open and he gulped for air, his lungs hungry for life. Ivy held him in her arms and brushed the dust off his little face. Corn dust coated every part of his body. Justin looked like an old piece of furniture, forgotten in the attic for years.

  Ivy glanced at the empty streets around the town square. The shops were all closed, but she needed to get help. “Justin, you’re going to be okay.”

  Justin’s eyes blinked open, squinting in the bright sunshine. He coughed, and his thin lips quivered. He closed his eyes again.

  “Jesse, can you carry him to the Coffey Shop? It’s the only place that’s open and it closes pretty soon.” She looked up, still panting after her furious dig.

  Jesse shook his head. “Ivy, he’s breathing. He’s fine now.”

  “I can’t leave him.”

  Jesse looked toward the high school. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’m supposed to meet Coach at the gym. You shouldn’t get involved in everybody’s problems. It’s not your responsibility. It’ll suck you in. I’ve seen it happen to my mom. It’s going to smother you and you can’t get away.” Jesse turned, avoiding Ivy’s gaze. “I’ve got to go.” He jogged away and didn’t look back.

  Ivy looked down at Justin and picked him up. “Come on, Remmie. We’ve got to get help.”

  Ivy jogged toward the Coffey Shop three blocks away, carrying Justin. Remmie trotted beside her. All three were covered in corn dust, looking like ghosts.

  Kitty’s long, thin face appeared at the restaurant window as they approached. She hurried out the back door to meet Ivy. “Is that Miss Shirley’s boy?”

  Ivy nodded as she tried to catch her breath. “Trapped in the corn. Miss Shirley here?”

  “No. She went home. We’re closing pretty soon. I’ll call Dr. Kelsey and tell him to meet you at the clinic. Your Uncle Tommy’s here. He can drive you over. I’ll get him.”

  Ivy nodded. Sunday was the only day the clinic was closed. It stayed open late on Fridays and Mondays to allow the farmers to finish their chores and come in from the fields, but Dr. Kelsey and Matilda always came in for emergencies, even on Sundays.

  Kitty hurried back inside. She returned after in a few seconds, with Reuben following behind her.

  Ivy narrowed her eyes. “Uncle Tommy couldn’t pull himself away from his coffee to help, huh?”

  Reuben adjusted his John Deere cap, his big ears sticking out. “You know Tommy. Loves his coffee. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”

  Ivy cradled Justin in her lap and held Remmie’s hand as they rode to the clinic across town in Reuben’s truck.

  “You’re going to be okay, Justin. We’re almost at Dr. Kelsey’s.”

  Justin’s eyes fluttered open for a moment. His clear eyes shone like a cat in the dark.

  Wearing white pants and an aloha shirt, Dr. Kelsey, waited for them at the front of the clinic. The weather didn’t affect his wardrobe until the temperature dropped below freezing. He took the little boy from Ivy. The doctor’s sandals flopped against his heels as he hurried inside the clinic.

  Ivy helped Remmie out of the truck. “Thanks, Reuben.”

  Reuben tipped his John Deere cap. “You bet. Hope the little fella’s okay. He’s about the age of my brother when he died.”

  Ivy nodded. “That must have been hard.” She took Remmie’s hand and went inside the clinic.

  Ivy and Remmie walked down the clinic’s hallway. “Do you need any help?” Ivy asked the doctor as she pushed open the door of the exam room.

  Dr. Kelsey checked Justin’s vitals. “No, Ivy. Just rest. Miss Shirley and Thelma will be here soon. You saved his life.” He looked at Remmie. “And Remmie’s too, from the looks of it. Come on, I want to check you out, too.” The corn-dusty girl stepped into the exam room and the heavy door closed behind them.

  Ivy went back to the waiting room and collapsed on an orange, vinyl-coated chair. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Her hands shook, sprinkling tiny particles of corn dust on the carpet.

  A few minutes later, Miss Shirley’s old station wagon squealed into the parking lot with tiny Thelma in the passenger seat, her head barely visible above the dash.

  Ivy watched from the waiting room as Miss Shirley struggled to get her big body out of the car and bolted to the clinic door. Tiny Thelma trailed behind, sprinting to keep up with Miss Shirley’s long strides. Ivy held the door open as Miss Shirley and Thelma dashed past her into the waiting room. Miss Shirley wheezed as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Where’s my boy?”

  Dr. Kelsey opened the door of the examining room. “In here ladies.”

  They hurried into the room and the door shut. Miss Shirley’s booming voice, muffled but cracking with emotion, yelled from inside the room, “God bless you, Ivy. God bless you, my child. You saved my boy’s life.”

  Ivy smiled. She sat down in Matilda’s chair at the receptionist’s desk, the tension in her body easing up.

  A few minutes later, Thelma came scurrying out with Remmie in tow, rushing past Ivy at the receptionist’s desk. Thelma’s fuzzy mustache twitched. “Don’t expect me to thank you. You’re just a white do-gooder.”

  Remmie reached up to hold Ivy’s hand. “We were goners.”

  Ivy smiled and reached out to touch the little girl’s hand but Thelma, the evil pixie, grabbed Remmie’s hand and dragged her out the clinic.

  “Bye, Ivy,” Remmie said.

  After the door slammed shut, Ivy used the receptionist’s phone to call Grandma and tell her what happened. Ivy picked up a pen lying on Matilda’s desk and doodled as she talked.

  “Thank God you saved that sweet boy,” Grandma said as tiny sobs escaped between her words.

  Ivy doodled a flower on a pad of paper. “I’m going to stay here for a few more minutes, and then I’m going to jog home. I think I need to run some of the adrenaline out of me.”

  Still shaking, Ivy fumbled to hang up the phone and dropped the pen. It fell into a file drawer that was partly open. Ivy opened the drawer to retrieve the pen, but it had fallen between the patient files. She started pushing them aside one by one, when she saw the names of her parents on files. Without thinking, she pulled out the two files. Scrawled in big letters across the top of the old medical files, it read: “Confidential.” An official-looking note was stapled to it: “Not to be opened without the written consent of Violet Taylor.”

  Ivy’s hands sweated and her heart pounded in her ears. Why all the secrecy? What were they trying to hide? She glanced down the hall. The door to the examination room remained shut. She opened her father’s medical file. She knew she couldn’t just take the files because someone might notice they were missing, but she could make a copy. No one would know.

  She turned on the copying machine behind her and freed the old medical pages from the long metal clips. The machine hummed as she fed in the sheets. After the first two copies, the machine jammed. She opened the copying machine. Her dusty hands trembled as she freed the stuck paper. She finished copying her father’s file and returned it to the drawer. Then she opened her mother’s file. The folder contained only three pages.

  Down the hall, the door to the examination room opened. Ivy pulled the pages out of the metal clips and stuffed them in her gray sweatpants along with the copy of her father’s records. She put the files under a pile of papers on the desk.

  Dr. Kelsey’s sandals clicked and his aloha shirt flashed bright colors as he came down the corridor. “Ivy, you still here? I thought I heard something. You okay?”

  Ivy felt the medical records pressing on her leg. “Yeah, I just wanted to make sure Justin was okay.”

  Dr. Kelsey patted Ivy’s shoulder. “He’s going to be just fine, Ivy. You can go on home. Those kids were lucky you came along when you did.”

  When the doctor’s door closed again, Ivy pulled out her mother’s records. She quickly made a copy, put the originals back in the file, and closed the drawer.

  Ivy tucked the copies
in her sweatpants, along with the others, and left the clinic. Her legs wobbled as she jogged down Coffey’s empty streets. Her parents’ medical records settled at the bottom of her sweatpants. She could feel the papers brushing against her leg as she ran.

  Instead of going home, Ivy jogged to Beecher Pond. Her aching muscles and ragged breath were a reminder that Justin and Remmie were alive. Drowning in corn would have been an unbearable tragedy and it reminded her how unexpectedly life could end, just like it did for her parents.

  She hiked around the pond toward Uncle Tommy’s and Reuben’s duck blind, pushing past the pussy willows that grew silky gray catkins resembling tiny cat tails. It had been a long time since she’d visited Uncle Tommy’s duck blind. Ivy opened the rickety plywood door, making sure the hinged boards that passed as windows were closed.

  She sat in Uncle Tommy’s broken recliner and pulled out the medical records stuffed down her sweats. What was in these files that required permission from Grandma to examine them? Having copied the confidential records, she would never be able to ask Grandma or Uncle Walter about them. She wished Nick was with her. He was good at taking risks.

  Her father’s records showed the usual illnesses, vaccination records, and allergies. It also contained a copy of his death certificate, signed by Dr. Kelsey, who had recorded the time of Robert’s death at 9:22 p.m. It listed the cause of death as extensive hemorrhaging from severe head injuries due to a car accident that threw him through the windshield.

  Ivy felt queasy. The loss of her father swept over her. A loving father she never knew. The tragic ending to her family before it barely began. She ran her fingers over the papers, smoothing them out. Her hands trembled as she picked up the file belonging to her mother. Barbara Taylor’s medical records only contained information regarding her pregnancy, nothing more. There was no mention of the cause or time of her death. The good doctor had forgotten to include her mother’s death certificate in her files, as if her tragic passing was uneventful. As if her life was insignificant.

  Ivy folded the papers and leaned back in the old recliner. On the opposite wall of the blind, Uncle Tommy had taped up newspaper clippings of his bowling triumphs and hunting feats. A picture from the Coffey Gazette hung in the center of the wall. It showed Uncle Tommy proudly displaying a dead buck beside him. The once powerful stag slumped exhausted and empty, its life extinguished for a trophy. A thick line of dark blood oozed from the deer’s temple. Unfortunately for the once mighty buck, Uncle Tommy was a very good shot. Ivy shivered.

  At the end of the wall, almost buried by the other taped-up news stories, was a small black-and-white snapshot she had never noticed. Ivy pulled the old picture off the wall, recognizing Grandma’s handwriting below the photo. “Robert and Barbara.” She stared at the young couple, strangers bound to her with the interwoven strings of family. Ivy kissed the picture and added it to the folded pile of medical records. She stuffed them back down her pant leg. With all this stealing, she thought, maybe she and Luther had more in common than she knew.

  She shut the door to the duck blind. It was time to go home. Grandma and Uncle Walter would be waiting.

  Chapter 19

  WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM

  Every October, the high school seniors collected the dead wood from Hawks Bluff Park and made an enormous bonfire for the pep rally the night before the homecoming football game. Then they ceremoniously burned an effigy of the Stilton Buffaloes, their rival team.

  The day before the pep rally, Ivy and her friends loaded branches onto a lowboy wagon pulled by Reuben’s tractor. When it was full, they drove it to an empty lot next to the football field at Hawks Bluff Park and dumped it.

  Nick threw a huge branch on the growing pile of wood. “I’ve decided we’re not making a dummy this year. We’re going to get Luther Matthews to steal the Stilton Buffalo for us.”

  The Stilton mascot, a real stuffed buffalo, stood on the stage in the Stilton school gym. The huge beast with matted brown fur was the pride of the school.

  Ivy brushed the bits of wood and bark off her Coffey High School sweatshirt and looked skeptically at Nick. His wild antics and fearless view of life sometimes scared her. He always seemed so close to the edge which made her feel uncertain and off balance, like she was going to fall. She needed someone more stable and secure; a sure thing like Jesse.

  That night, a little before nine o’clock, Ivy, Maggie, Nick, Raven, and Jesse arrived at the Blue Moon Bowling Alley and Bar. They waited in the snack bar for Luther Matthews to show up like he usually did on Friday nights.

  Nick, Maggie, and Raven ate nachos while Ivy and Jesse walked over to watch Uncle Tommy and Reuben bowl. The jukebox played “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain and Tennille. Reuben swung his blue bowling ball into position and performed his elaborate wind-up dance. He brought the ball up to his chin to aim and crooked his leg high in the air like a major league baseball pitcher. He shook his body, bent down, and released the spinning ball down the lane.

  “It’s just a blue streak of lightning,” he said, jerking his arm back with his fist clenched. “STEE-RIKE!” The ball hit the pins dead center.

  Ivy clapped. Reuben turned around and bowed. “Thank you very much, ma’am.”

  The bell above the door to the Blue Moon rang, and Ivy turned to see Luther saunter in. Nick quietly spoke into his fist like a megaphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, the handyman is in the building.”

  Ivy laughed. Jesse rolled his eyes and pulled her toward him. They followed Nick to an empty pool table beside the snack bar. Nick picked up a pool cue.

  Luther set his beer on the table and slung his ragged brown bomber jacket across the back of an orange plastic chair near the pool tables. Ivy waved. “Hi, Luther. How’re you doing?”

  Luther straddled the chair backward. “Okay. Little tired.” He jerked his head toward Reuben. “Fixed Reuben’s furnace today. His ghosts did a number on it. Screwed it up pretty bad. Poor Reuben. Those dang ghosts make me a lot of money.”

  Ivy’s friends joined her at Luther’s table. Luther took another gulp of beer, and unsuccessfully tried to lick off the white foam from his whiskery upper lip.

  Raven wrinkled her nose and ran her fingers with bright red nail polish down her tight jeans as if she was wiping something away. She leaned over to Nick and spoke in a loud whisper. “He’s gross.”

  Ivy glared at her.

  Luther looked at them suspiciously out of the corner of his eyes. “Okay. So, what’s up?”

  Nick slid a bowl of peanuts over to Luther and waved the pool cue in the air. “Nothing, Luth. Just hanging out and playing a little pool.”

  The kids all walked over to the pool table next to Luther’s table. Nick turned to Ivy. “Hey, you know what, Ivy? I think we ought to try and steal that ugly buffalo mascot from Stilton for the pep rally.”

  Ivy picked up a pool cue and hit a striped ball in the side pocket. “Nah, nobody could steal that thing. It’s huge.”

  Nick thumped the side of the pool table. “How hard could it be? It’s on the stage in their gym. In and out the side door. Gone.”

  Ivy glanced over to see if Luther was listening. Luther threw peanuts into the air, catching them in his mouth. Jesse pushed up the sleeves of his letter jacket and folded his muscled arms across his chest.

  Maggie gestured. “Wouldn’t it be great to have that buffalo at the homecoming bonfire?”

  Nick nodded. “Yeah, it’d be cool to steal that wily beast.”

  Maggie walked over and stood next to Nick at the pool table. “But nobody could do that.”

  Luther looked over at the kids and smiled. Ivy could see Luther wasn’t fooled. He lobbed another peanut toward his mouth but it missed and bounced off his chin. He ignored it and took another drink. Some of the beer dribbled down his unshaven chin.

  “He’s disgusting,” Raven said under her breath as she moved away from Luther and huddled against Jesse. Her blue eye shadow made a deep hazy arch over her brown eyes
.

  Maggie handed Nick the pool cue chalk. “Nobody’s got the guts to steal that thing.”

  Nick chalked his cue stick and lined up his shot. “You’re right. That would take a genius.” He hit a ball in the corner pocket. “Too bad. It would have been the greatest prank since someone took Stilton’s plastic Holstein cow from their Ag class and put it in with Conrad Thrasher’s herd.”

  Luther dropped his handful of peanuts back into the bowl. “Hey, how’d you know about that? I was in high school.”

  “Some legends never die,” said Nick.

  Luther took a long drink of beer and wiped off the white-foam mustache with the back of his hand. His shoulders heaved up and down in a big sigh. “There’s so few challenges anymore.”

  The next night, an hour before the bonfire, Jesse, Raven, Maggie, and Maggie’s dog King, crowded together on the benches in the back of Nick’s Monstrosity to check out the bonfire woodpile. Ivy sat up front next to Nick on their way to Hawks Bluff Park. Nick kissed his fingers and touched the dashboard.

  As they rounded the corner towards the football field. Ivy saw Ellen, Nick’s mother, walking aimlessly. “Look, Nick, it’s your mom. Should we give her a ride?”

  “She likes to walk. She says it helps the sadness evaporate.” He sighed. “But it doesn’t really. Even when I’m with her, she’s sad.”

  Ivy nodded. “She can’t really help it, can she?”

  “No. It’s her life’s curse.” Nick said as he made a sharp turn toward the football field. “She’s sort of like a ghost mother.”

  “So’s mine,” Ivy said.

  The Monstrosity peeled to a stop in the gravel parking lot at the back entrance to the field. The kids stared out the crooked windows of the camper, squinting at the strange sight in front of them. A huge, hairy animal grazed by the pile of bonfire wood.

  Jesse shook his head in confusion. His hair bounced and fell exactly back in place. “What the heck?”

  They opened the doors of the camper and jumped out. Nick threw his arms in the air. “It’s the wily beast!”