The Songbird Page #2

• Fiction

								

 
He went outside to smoke, and I remembered the second mortgage we took on the house so we could build a pool for him to swim in to strengthen his legs and lungs. I watched through the window as he shifted up his sagging jeans over his bone-thin frame, and I thought of the meals I had planned so he could digest them, and the supplements I had coaxed into him so he’d put on a little weight.
 
I had held the baby close and tried to force the life into him. His first word had been “light.” His second word was “mello”, short for marshmallow. Finally, he had said, “Jell-O.” He was nearly three before “Mommy” came easily, and only if he was afraid.
 
I paid the bill, and included an extra few dollars for the waitress, who had left us alone except for refilling my coffee cup. He was leaning against the hood of the car, waiting for me and talking to himself.
 
“Did you get enough to eat?” I asked him.
 
“Sure,” he said.
 
I stood beside him. “You look better than you did,” I told him.
 
“I’m sober,” he said. 
 
“You’re not as thin. You look stronger.”
 
“Thanks,” he said. “Maybe I’ll buy a computer book. Computer people make good money.”
 
I thought of the six computer books I had purchased for him the previous year, and just said, “Yes, they do.”
 
He smoked, and we both leaned, our bodies angled to take in the sun. The strip of grass between the parking lot and the sidewalk began to hiss with the automatic sprinkler heads that turned on low. Little rainbows formed, and a few ragged birds walked stiffly from the asphalt towards the sound.
 
“Those are Mexican grackles,” he said. “Technically they’re songbirds. Can you believe that?”
 
“Really?” I said. “How do you know that?”
 
“Public television,” he said. “They have a whole range of calls, but nobody really pays attention.”
 
“Why not?” I asked.
 
“They’re messy, they’re ugly, and they look a lot like blackbirds which are pests. So nobody cares that a Mexican grackle can sing.”
 
I watched the birds parade through the water, and puff and shake, trilling and calling to each other. “They are trying to attract mates,” he told me. “But all they’ll get is more grackles. All that singing and dancing, and it’s still going to be grackles. People can call them songbirds if it makes them feel better. But a grackle is still a bird nobody cares about.”
 
He took the last cigarette out of the pack, crumpled the paper and cellophane, and handed it to me to throw away later. 
 
“I’m the human version of a grackle, Mom,” he said. “Ever try to buy a grackle feeder? Ever wonder where they go in bad weather?”
 
He looked sharply at me, and then said, “Well, maybe you would. But you’re the only one.”
 
He patted his pockets for his cigarette pack, and then remembered that he was out. “Can you spot me for a box of cancer?” he asked.
 
We went to the gas station, and he went inside with money I gave him. Returning, he said, “It’s my lucky day. It’s two for one on a brand that actually doesn’t suck.”
 
I drove him back to his apartment, and noticed a figure in the deep shade by the wall in the parking lot. It moved quickly back, like a ghost or a stray dog. My son had seen it, too, but said nothing for awhile.
 
“Mom, can I have another $20? It’s really important.”
 
I knew somehow that whatever was in the shadows had something to do with his sudden request. I said, “Here’s $40. Pay that guy what you owe him, and buy some food.”
 
He nodded, and punched another button on the radio. He said to me, “What day is it?” 
 
I replied with the only answer I knew for certain, “It’s a Tuesday.”
 
 
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