Fly Like a Bird Read online

  “Well, the birds talk a lot, but they don’t tell me everything.” Grandma smiled and absentmindedly arranged the stuffing in her bra. “Something changed between the boys when your father died, but sometimes, we’re best off not knowing. You see, some secrets are safe in the telling, and some secrets are safe in the keeping.”

  Goosebumps tingled on Ivy’s arms. Her throat felt dry. Grandma guarded the secrets of her family very well.

  “Now, go on,” Violet smiled. “You better skedaddle. You’re going to eat all my jam before I get it put away. Uncle Tommy’s expecting you.”

  Ivy stole one more lick of jam before she rushed outside, hoisted the bag of birdseed into her bike basket, and pedaled the few blocks to Uncle Tommy’s house.

  Uncle Tommy, a big gruff man, worked at the Coffey Sewage Treatment Plant. He lived with his wife Hattie and their two children, Angela who was fourteen and Russell who was thirteen. Ivy tried to fit in, but she shared little in common with her older cousins.

  That morning, Ivy greeted Uncle Tommy and Aunt Hattie on the back porch as they ate breakfast by themselves. Her cousins weren’t there, probably still asleep. She sighed with relief as she dropped the birdseed on the porch by the door, biding her time before she could go to Uncle Walter’s trailer.

  Ivy pointed at Uncle Tommy’s breakfast. “Why do you eat the same thing every day?”

  Uncle Tommy slumped in his chair. He wore a sleeveless white undershirt, jeans, and black cowboy boots. He set his coffee cup on the metal TV tray next to him on the porch and clicking his tongue against his teeth, he sucked out bits of food. He pushed up his black-rimmed glasses. “I guess I’m just a man who knows what he likes.”

  “But don’t you get sick of having an egg sandwich and black coffee every morning?”

  Uncle Tommy tapped the pointed tips of his black cowboy boots on the worn porch floor. He scratched his chest. “Heck, no. I like my coffee naked.” He grabbed the crotch of his jeans. “And my eggs covered.”

  Ivy grimaced and looked away.

  Aunt Hattie slapped the arm of her chair. “Tommy, for the love of Pete.”

  Laughing, Uncle Tommy pulled a bag of salted sunflower seeds still in their shells from his pocket and popped a few in his mouth. He shucked them with his tongue and spit out the soggy, empty shells.

  Aunt Hattie was a short, intense woman, with reddish-brown, frizzy hair that framed her round face. The buttons on her ragged housecoat stretched across her soft middle and she nodded her round chin. “Your uncle is a man of ungodly habits.” She tipped her face heavenward. “Lord, have mercy on his dark soul.”

  Uncle Tommy turned to Aunt Hattie and stopped tapping his boot. Sunflower seed shells catapulted out of his mouth. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly like a bird, trilling low and high. Aunt Hattie put her hands over her ears, pressing her curls to her head as she gritted her teeth until he stopped his shrill whistling.

  Uncle Tommy pointed to his disapproving wife. “That’s bird-talk for ‘Shut up, holy lady.’”

  “You’re as useless as those stupid birds you feed,” Aunt Hattie said as she crossed her arms. “And now you’re talking to the birds like your mother and you’re almost as goofy as your brother.”

  Uncle Tommy snorted. “Nothing wrong with birds.” He started tapping his cowboy boot again. “And no one’s as goofy as Walter.”

  Ivy sat down in the chair next to Uncle Tommy. “Do you hate Uncle Walter because my dad died?”

  Uncle Tommy’s head jerked toward Ivy. A sunflower shell shot out of his mouth, just missing her. “Why’d you say that?”

  “Because Grandma said that’s when you stopped talking to each other.”

  Uncle Tommy sighed and settled back in his chair.

  Aunt Hattie sniffed and twitched her little ski-jump nose. “Why don’t you ask your . . .”

  Uncle Tommy sat up and whistled his shrill bird call again, drowning out Aunt Hattie’s words. Aunt Hattie’s eyes narrowed to two angry slits.

  Uncle Tommy leaned back and shook his head. “I just got dadburn tired of Walter’s view of life, that’s all. It was the last straw when he stole my pastrami sandwich at Robert’s funeral potluck. Haven’t missed the conversation none neither.”

  A slight breeze blew the sickly scent of Uncle Tommy’s aftershave across the porch. Ivy sniffed and turned away, breathing in fresh air.

  A black cat, trying to sneak across Uncle Tommy’s backyard, drew their attention as it danced on its paws hurrying across the yard. Uncle Tommy grabbed the gun leaning against the porch wall. “Dadgum cats scare the birds.”

  He raised his gun and shot. Ivy cringed and looked away. She hated when he did that. Uncle Tommy reached into his jeans and got out his pocketknife. “The best way to stop a varmint is to shoot him in the head before he knows what hit him. Got ten points for that one because it was big and black, like Miss Shirley.”

  He laughed and cut a mark on the peeling back porch post. The pockmarked post proved Uncle Tommy’s shooting accuracy.

  Ivy fumed. She liked Shirley Roberts, the flamboyant black woman who cleaned houses for many of the wealthier families in town and lived next door to her friend Maggie. “Why don’t you like black people?”

  “Because they’re black.” Uncle Tommy scratched his head. His hairline showed signs of a surrendering retreat.

  “The Bible says their skin was turned black to punish them,” Aunt Hattie said. “The word of God brings me great comfort.”

  Uncle Tommy rolled his blue eyes. “Jack Daniels brings me great comfort.”

  Aunt Hattie made the sign of the cross with her stubby fingers and held it out at her husband. “I’m tired of trying to live a holy life with God, while you live an ungodly life with your friends. Mark my words, your day of reckoning is near, Thomas Taylor. Jack Daniels won’t save you from the end of the world.”

  Uncle Tommy tipped his head back and pretended to guzzle out of a bottle. “No, but I’ll have a heck of a going-away party.” He mimed, wiping his mouth.

  “This November when the Holy Rapture comes and me and all the other truly righteous souls ascend to heaven, I’m leaving you with nothing.” Aunt Hattie snatched up the empty breakfast dishes and marched inside the house.

  “What? You plan on taking all this with you?” Uncle Tommy gestured around the porch.

  Aunt Hattie slammed the door behind her.

  “That ought to wake up the kids and ruin my peace and quiet this morning.” He spat a shell into the backyard, then looked up at Ivy and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Hasn’t been all that quiet anyways, I reckon.”

  “But what’s wrong with being black?” Ivy asked again.

  “Oh, for crying out loud. Not again. Why you asking me? I don’t know. They’re just black, that’s all. Okay?” Uncle Tommy peered down at Ivy over the top of his glasses. “Why don’t you go bother somebody else? Go have your little touchy-feely talks with your Uncle Walter. I don’t have time for your silly questions.”

  Ivy stood up. She’d rather be at Uncle Walter’s anyway. “Okay.” She jumped down off the porch, forgetting Grandma’s earlier warning. “I got to go anyway. Luther’s building Uncle Walter a shelf for all his cookie jars today.”

  “Crazy Luther’s building Walter a shelf for his cookie jars? Now, that’s a good one.” Uncle Tommy leaned back and laughed.

  Ivy hopped on her bike and started pedaling, relieved to get away from Uncle Tommy and Aunt Hattie. She couldn’t wait to get to Uncle Walter’s place.

  Uncle Walter was two years younger than Uncle Tommy. He lived in the Prairie Hills Trailer Park. A collection of cookie jars in the shapes of vegetables filled his trailer and an odd assortment of lawn ornaments, including a deer, a turtle, a chipmunk, and an ugly gnome sitting on a mushroom, guarded the narrow strip of lawn between his and Bertha Tuttle’s trailer.

  Uncle Walter loved the tidiness of having everything he needed within the confines of his small trailer, and since
he lived alone, nothing was ever out of place. Uncle Walter’s need for precision and order gave him satisfaction and pride in sorting the mail which made him good at his job as a letter carrier at the Coffey Post Office. He delivered his route on foot because he liked to walk—in fact, he didn’t own a car—but his knees often ached by the time he got home.

  Uncle Walter worked every weekday and every other Saturday. On that particular Saturday, he had hired the local handyman, Luther Matthews, who had been in the same class at school as him, to build a shelf around the top of his trailer’s living room and kitchen to display his favorite vegetable-shaped cookie jars and relieve the clutter on his counter.

  Ivy rode the few blocks over to Uncle Walter’s trailer. She knocked, and she could hear Uncle Walter unlocking the many locks on his door. She hurried inside and followed her uncle to the kitchen counter where the cookie jars sat side by side next to a neat line of Dr. Pepper bottles. Uncle Walter was much smaller than his big brother, Tommy. He hummed “Sentimental Journey” as he lined up his cookie jars on the counter.

  Ivy handed him the carrot cookie jar. “When’s Luther coming?”

  “Hard to tell. He sort of works on Luther-time.”

  “I don’t think Uncle Tommy likes Luther very much.”

  “Well, your Uncle Tommy’s not much of a judge of character. Luther’s suffered some hard knocks. His father was a mean drunk. He basically raised himself after his father was poisoned by mushrooms. You know they can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. After that, Conrad Thrasher tried to get the county to take Luther away and put him in the county home for boys. If you ask me, Conrad just wanted to get his hands on Luther’s land. It was your grandmother who promised to look in on him. She talked the county folks into letting Luther live by himself and finish high school. Eventually, Luther found a way to get by. He learned to fix things.”

  A short knock announced Luther’s arrival. He entered the trailer wearing an old sweat-stained handkerchief on his head like a cap, tied in knots at the four corners. His long, uneven hair jutted out like stubby cornstalks beneath his homemade hat.

  He got to work quickly and began cutting the boards. His worn-out Levi’s jeans fell below his waist as he sawed a board on Uncle Walter’s patch of lawn. The sawdust flew as Luther talked to his saw. “Okay, Old Toothless Joe, do your stuff.”

  Ivy pointed in front of Luther. “Hey, look out for the gnome.”

  Luther jerked and looked up. Uncle Walter’s decorative garden gnome rode motionless on top of a brown mushroom. “That’s not a gnome. That’s an evil pixie.”

  Ivy nodded. The gnome’s tiny painted, disapproving face looked as if it accused the mushroom of unknown atrocities.

  “You know, I’ve never liked mushrooms much,” Luther said.

  A thud sounded. Ivy looked up at the trailer next door. Bertha Tuttle, a secretary at a law office and the town snoop, watched them from her window. Bertha lived alone in the doublewide trailer next to Uncle Walter ever since her husband ran off with the dime store clerk.

  Luther followed Ivy’s gaze and pointed with his chin toward Bertha, who was an old classmate of Uncle Tommy’s. “Looks like Bertha’s nose is stuck to the window again.” Luther turned his head and winked at Ivy. “That’d hurt, don’t you think?”

  Ivy covered her mouth and giggled. She kicked the sawdust on the ground. “Hey, Luther. Did you know my mother?”

  “Not much. She moved here after high school to work in the office out at the packing plant, I think.”

  “You mean where they kill the cows?”

  “Yeah, you know down by the sewage plant where your Uncle Tommy works.” He scratched his neck. “Yeah, she sure was pretty though. You look a lot like her.”

  Ivy blushed. She lifted her sweaty hair off her neck for a second. “I wouldn’t like a job at the packing plant.”

  Luther rested his hands on his tool belt which held a hammer, screwdriver, nails, knife, and a tape measure. “Knew your father though. Nice guy. Real nice guy. Too bad what happened. Tommy used to be pretty decent himself in the old days. I remember one day, your mom’s dad, that’d be your grandad I guess, came to the plant and dragged her out of there. Wanted to take her back home. But she didn’t want to go. Put up quite a fuss, they say.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, I heard Tommy came out of the sewage plant and told him to leave. There might have been a skirmish, but whatever happened, the guy left, and your mom went back to work.”

  Ivy bit her lip.

  Luther nodded. “Your Grandma, she’s good people. Don’t come much better. I’d do anything for her. She saved my life when Thrasher tried to have the county take me away. Now, Thrasher, there’s a bad guy.”

  “But he’s the mayor and he goes to church all the time.”

  “The Good Lord ain’t fooled. You know, I think your mother used to be friends with Mildred, his wife. Would see her going over to the Thrasher place from time to time.”

  Ivy kicked at the grass. “You know his son, Weston? He’s mean, too.”

  Luther blew sawdust from the board. “Mean dads are kind of hard to live with. Might make you do mean things.”

  When Luther finished the job late that afternoon, Uncle Walter examined the completed shelf. “It looks great, Luther.”

  “I’m here to help. But you better thank Old Dan Tucker here.” Luther tapped his hammer in the palm of his hand and slid it back into his tool belt. Then he pointed at the new lock he had just installed on Uncle Walter’s front door. “Hopefully that’ll keep your brother out.”

  As Luther gathered his tools, Uncle Walter and Ivy placed his cookie jars in alphabetical order on the new shelf. “Wait. My eggplant’s gone. Why is Tommy always messing with my cookie jars? He knows how hard it is to find a purple vegetable and that one already had a broken lid.”

  Ivy looked at Uncle Walter. “Is he still mad about the sandwich?”

  Uncle Walter stared at Ivy. “It wasn’t his sandwich.” He turned away and began straightening the cookie jars on his new shelf.

  “That must have been a really good sandwich.”

  Uncle Walter didn’t answer.

  Chapter 3

  THE COOKIE JAR VIOLATION

  That night, Uncle Tommy and Reuben Smith, a local farmer, bowled and drank rounds of beer at the Blue Moon Bowling Alley and Bar. The corrugated tin structure with a flickering blue neon crescent moon included a bar, ten bowling lanes, and three pool tables against the wood-paneled wall by the snack bar. Charlie Carter, the deputy sheriff, joined them. There wasn’t much of a need for police in such a small town as Coffey and since Charlie lived there, he became the only law enforcement in town. At Conrad’s insistence, the town gave Charlie an office in the bottom of the courthouse with a couple of cells.

  Uncle Tommy put down his beer mug and rubbed his balding head. “I heard Walter had Luther build him a new shelf for his dang cookie jars today. He’s over at my mother’s playing cards tonight.” He stood up and slapped his hands. “Let’s go mess up his veg-ta-bles.”

  Reuben Smith drank the rest of his beer and wiped his foamy mouth on the short sleeve of his green and yellow bowling shirt. He wound up, hiking his leg up like a pitcher on a baseball mound, and threw his bowling ball down the lane. It hit the center pin.

  “STEE-RIKE!” he shouted. His sunburned ears stuck out beneath Reuben’s John Deere cap. “I’m right behind you.”

  Charlie Carter, who was an old high school buddy of Reuben and Uncle Tommy waved them off. “You go on. I think I’ll stay put and keep your seats warm for you at the bar.” He sniffed. “Can’t be involved in such mischief, considering I am the deputy sheriff and all.”

  “You never cared about the law when you were a kid,” Tommy said.

  Charlie’s jowls lifted in a smirk. His bristly dark hair showed an unusual solitary patch of white hair starting at his forehead like a thin streak of lightning through the middle of his head. Aunt Hattie calle
d Charlie’s patch of white hair “the mark of the devil.” The sheriff scratched the snowy patch of his crewcut. “Well, come back and let me know how it all comes out.”

  When they got to the trailer Reuben took out his pocketknife and picked the lock that Luther had installed on Uncle Walter’s door that very morning. The drunken intruders staggered into the tidy trailer. As Reuben stumbled toward the shelf of cookie jars, he tripped on a mousetrap concealed under the skirt of the avocado-green recliner.

  He hopped around the trailer trying to shake off the mousetrap snagged on his boot. His wild jumping made him dizzy. The mousetrap flew off and he fell into Uncle Tommy, who fell into the flimsy paneled wall. The bump shook the small trailer. The zucchini cookie jar tumbled from the newly built shelf and shattered into tiny shards of green vegetable ceramic.

  He shook his head and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Walter’s got so many dadburn vegetables, he won’t notice if one’s missing.” Uncle Tommy flipped his finger at the broken cookie jar and wrinkled his nose. “What was that green thing supposed to be anyway?”

  Reuben hooked his thumbs around his overall straps and kicked at the broken pieces with his big farmer’s boot. “Zucchini. My zucchinis won first prize over at the county fair two summers ago.”

  Reuben liked to tell Ivy how he’d been a farmer all his life. He grew abundant crops of corn and soybeans and had a big garden with all kinds of exceptionally large vegetables which won blue ribbons every year at the McKinley County Fair. The extraordinarily large crops grew in the fertile fields directly behind his house. He swore his high-yield crops resulted from his expert farming methods, but many local people believed that his crops grew so large because dead bodies lay buried beneath his fields. The fact that the Weeping Willow Cemetery at Deadman’s Woods was a short distance away only added to the spooky rumors.

  For decades, he had farmed the acreage that belonged to his family. But the family line stopped with Reuben. As much as he wanted them, he and his wife had no children.