IV

 

The young man woke to squawks. Wiping the drowsiness from his eyes, he went to the cage and picked it up, stroked its head to

calm it, and left it to sit atop the cage. The bird rustled its feathers, then stretched out its wingspan. It turned the side of its head to the young man and focused on him with one glasson eye. An eye which reflected nothing of the surrounding light. With a single rotation, the eye turned towards the door and the bird trilled. In mutual understanding, the young man departed the room.

His bare feet on the cool wood floor sent a prickling chill through his toes. In the hours before sunrise, he found Michael

sitting at his work table hunched over a miniature of a mallard duck. His left hand held the fine brush as he tried to steady the shaking by supporting his wrist. The frail silhouette in the dim light made the young man pity him for a moment, just for a moment, with the type of sentimentality that crosses a youthful man’s conscience when witnessing an aged stranger stumbling across a street.

Such nostalgia dissipated with a memory. Any other day would have been uneventful. The sister and the old man would

practice some origami together and after becoming bored of it, would have played with the tin toys on the wood floor while grandfather and the old man reminisced. Grandfather excused himself to step out to smoke on the front porch. The young girl played, making noises to match the sound of the objects: rolling wheels, buzzing engines, clicking chickens Then the everyday quiet was ripped by her shouting, the hard smack of a tin toy against a set jaw, and then grandfather rushing in, cigar stuck between his lips, some of the embers falling to the floor, burning a minuscule round mark in the wood grain.

The young man’s inquisitiveness pulled him towards the commotion. Two backs faced him, blocking his view of the old man.

Grandfather a giant with an arm resting protectively over her shoulders. There was an argument that burned like a flare, quick to light and just as suddenly expunged.

The young man considered greeting him, but instead left him to his work, watching.

 "Why are you bothering with that flying rat?" The old man asked gruffly.

The young man, unsurprised, answered, “After Jasper died no one else would take it."
          "I don't blame them. A disease bag like that should’ve been left." He slouched, pulling the blanket with him. "But that was Ol' Jasper. Never did get why he cared about all those critters he picked up--most of them were too far gone to worry over."
         "Where would you rather die?" He snapped, upset at the man's lack of compassion. "Alone, in the cold, or warm and comfortable?"
The old man wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.
         "Ah, maybe you're right." He conceded. "But his house did have a stink."
          He chuckled, remembering a time when Grandfather insisted upon sheltering three grown turtles. Before then, he never expected that a stench like rotting wood and wet dirt could come from such an animal.

“You hungry?” Michael asked gruffly, almost as an accusation. “I could do with something. There’s cookies in the top

cupboard. Emma hides them from me--she knows I can’t reach--and the Old Crow on the counter.”

The young man accommodated the request, but when he returned to pour the drink for the old man, he was met with a

perfunctory “No.”   The old man waved at him to sit back down.

“There are still some things I can do: pour my own drink.” He grasps the bottle with two hands, stabilizing it as best as he

could while filling the cup. “And wipe my own ass.” He sets the bottle down with a groan, then gives a frustrated exhale at the sight of spilled puddles of alcohol on the tabletop. “But if you don’t want it spilling all over the damn place, you best pour yourself.”

            The young man smiled at the candor. He considered the man for some time, appraising the deep lines on his face, the unshaven stubble in places that were too dangerous to reach without a steady hand, teeth stained yellow from tobacco smoke, and white plaque buildup from years of dental neglect. This was a much-changed man from who he recalled through childhood memory and revisited photographs.

            “I wanted to talk abou—”

            “—About Jasper.” He glanced at the young man. “And that daughter of his, too, I’ll bet.” He drank, this time carefully to ensure he consumed as much as he was able. “Yeah, I know why you’re here. I expect it’s long past time for a confession.”

He pointed a shaky finger at the credenza below the window. "Fetch the album in there: bottom drawer."

The young man complied, opening the drawer of the rustic dresser. The dark cover met him where it sat amongst knick-

knacks; a wayward nail or two, half-used scotch tape, a pair of reading glasses with a loose rim. When he placed a hand on the album cover, he found it had an unexpected texture. Snakeskin. He nearly dropped it at the realization. Grandfather would have chastised him immediately for owning such a heinous item.

“Is this snakeskin?” He asked reproachfully when he rejoined the man, placing the album on the table.

“Oh, that.” He tapped his finger against the cup, meeting the young man’s face. “You can put that face away! I know, I know.

I’ve  gotten an earful of it from him.”

“So, why do you have it?”

“It was a gift—a retirement gift, actually. It’s an ugly thing, but there you go.”

He pushed the cup aside, bringing the album closer, turning the cover. There were pictures, arranged in no clear

chronological order. Baby pictures next to ones of him as an adult. There were mementos slipped over a few of the photographs. A concert stub, a piece of knotted red string, a scrap of patterned fabric. The old man seemed lost, he was silent, his mind stolen from the kitchen and absorbed into the photographs. The young man waited, knowing better than to interrupt an elder in the midst of a reverie. He had seen Grandfather in a similar state more than once, reminiscing over faded time.

When he finally spoke, he took a shuddering breath as if holding back from crying. “You know, I haven’t looked at these in a

very long time.” He then smiled and tapped twice on a picture of two young men sitting in a truck flatbed eating fast food tacos.

"Your grandfather and me was close as brothers, really. We were the only small boys in the neighborhood, so we had no one

else to rustle with. It was tough getting by, so the older kids worked. We must've been, oh, about six or seven, so we were sent out in the day. Both our mothers worked at the textiles factory and the only one left to watch us was his big sister who did the washing for the neighborhood, earning about three cents a pound—”

“—three cents?”

He stretched his leg out under the table. The joints popped, and he massaged the knee with both hands.

“Three cents was better than zero. Anyway, she was home but always working so we snuck away to play or something while

she got on with the washing."

"That must have been hard on her."
"Oh, yes! But she said to us that if we were too lazy to be useful, we might as well get out the house. So, that's what we did.

Now, we weren’t always useless. Once a week, we’d go down to the freight trains when they’d be loaded up and when the men wasn’t looking, we’d grab some of the fruit or greens to bring home.”

His mouth opened in slight surprise, making the old man laugh at his innocence.

“It was hard-going; if you had to skip meals or eat only every other day because there wasn’t enough food for everyone,

what would you have done? Besides, we weren’t the only ones doing it. And his sister liked apples, so we tried getting as many as we could.”

Whenever the glasses neared emptying, the old man filled them to the brim. Not wanting to be out-drunk by this man, he

took a draught whenever the old man did, at once relishing the acceptance it brought and regretting the bitter taste once it soaks his tongue.

“So, we were good chums all through school. After that, well, things happened. Jasper went into the peace corps for some

years—here,” he flipped a few pages to an official picture of Grandfather amongst palm trees and sand, wearing a pair of scrubs and smiling, “meanwhile, I stayed back here, trying to find work. This place was smaller, then. Too much gossip went around, and it was tough to find someone who’d give me work.”

The young man looked at him questioningly.

Michael shook his head in dismissal. “Just some rumors about a girl. My fiancée, until her parents talked her out of it. I tried

to keep her. Sent her cards, flowers, chocolates—the expensive kind—and they thank me by getting a restraining order.” His face grimaced, the bitterness still fresh. “Anyhow, I didn’t see Jasper again until some years after. By that time, I finally got a job in a warehouse. It was good to see him. I hoped we’d have fun like we did before, but he came back to settle with his wife. She was nice enough, I guess, but always suspicious. I didn’t like how she looked at me. She made a racket when I wanted Jasper to come out to drink.” He paused, swallowing to dampen his throat which became dry from conversation. “Her opinion of me rubbed off on him over time. We spent less and less time together. Then he had a baby and I hardly saw him anymore.” His shoulders tensed.

“It’s a sick feeling when your best friend stops talking to you. And because of all the rumors, and then what happened after,”

Here he pressed his lips together into a thin line, accentuating the wrinkles around the edges of his mouth. “I could hardly leave the house. He was all I had, and he left me.”

Rumors. Gossip. Projecting the blame. The creature chittered at the thoughts.

The young man  reached into his pocket. He puts the folded paper unceremoniously into the old man’s open palm. The

edges soft from age, gold accents faded.

“Ah.” He says finally. An acknowledgement of the long overdue answers that he was obligated to provide regardless of the

pain it would cost to speak them. “I used to do origami.”
He nods once, stretching out his left arm on the armrest until his elbow makes a low pop and then relaxes his forearm, settling into his chair. Michael crossed his brows at the object, skeptical of it at first,  as if it would flourish open and confess his secrets.

“What were these rumors?” He asks, raises his eyebrows, inviting him to conversation. After running the tip of his tongue

against the front of his teeth, considering how best to begin. In other instances, he might not say anything at all, but the way the young man looked at him with his soft russet eyes. his amenable disposition made him feel safe.  His body swayed from drink, and his eyes drooped, but that didn’t stop his agitation.

“It was a trick. A trick! I was showing her how to make the bird. She liked the origami. She was flirting and then she yelled for

him. Lying, saying I did things I didn’t do. I thought Jasper would know better.”

“She couldn’t have been flirting. She was twelve.” The young man said factually.

“Old enough to know how.” He retorted.

The young man focused his gaze in judgement.

“Enough nostalgia,” Michael said, “how about we play cards?”

"I don't think—"

"—come on, are you a man or not?"

It would not be long before the old man is buried, so the young man indulged this whimsy.

"Ah!" The old man exclaimed, "there's a good man!"

He shuffled the cards slowly; his fingers numb and unable to move as his mind commanded them. He cursed at his cards,

moving to pick up the glass to drink, his hands shaking more violently as the spirits took hold, spilling alcohol on the tabletop and on himself, causing him to curse again and laugh, then take a drought and put it down, the liquid swirling in the glass until the bottom sits on the tabletop, settling flat.

"What?"

"Hit or stay?" He repeated.

"Aw, hell," he lets out a small burp, "hit."

He turns over a card carefully, revealing a jack of clubs.

"Christ." He spits, "hit me again."

A five of spades.

"Oh!" He slaps the table, "s-stay!"

He drinks again, managing not to spill as much on himself this time.

His turn. In three draws, the young man slaps his cards down, "bust." To which the old man exalts in his failure by laughing

and filling their cups, using two hands on the bottle, the young man joining in by chuckling along with him.

“You shouldn’t drink so much.”

At that, he laughed, and seemed to pour an extra ounce out of pride.

“Why not? Because it’ll kill me?”

He lifted his glass as if to cheer and said, “Been drinking’ so long, it doesn’t even taste good anymore. This is all I need.”

When he swallowed, he made a repulsed face as if he sucked on a rotten lime. Still, he inhaled deeply. He did not speak for

some time, instead sitting in quiet reprieve. Sitting in silence with the elderly man reminded him of Grandfather. That death was kinder, with a heart light from joy, and family to whisper farewells.

 The young man thought the old man had dozed, until he finally spoke.

“I know I’m a drunk, but I’m not an idiot. I know why you’re here. You don’t have to use that rat as an excuse.”

The young man responded with a nod and removed the covering from the cage, presenting the creature inside.

A sleek, white feathered, black beaked ibis.  Its eyes pinned on the old man as the door opened, letting the bird free. It

stepped out proudly, and in the open air stretched out its wings, raising its head in front of the young man so that at once it seemed merged with his metamorphosed body. With the head of a bird and his outward flesh darkening, growing hair, appearing as a black dog, the young man plucked a white feather from the plumage, holding it in a fist, and presented the other hand, palm upwards, waiting.

The old man felt a puncture in his chest and a blow that made his breath cease. Eyesight blurred, but through his distorted

vision he saw the ibis with his heart in his beak. Blood dripped like treacle, rolling over pure down. The bird held the bruised purple and crimson mass, tilting its head to judge the warm organ, scrying the surface. In an unceremonious movement, the heart was dropped into the young man’s open palm, leaving the appearance of red drool streaming from the bird’s beak. The shadow of a man held the bodily objects, weighing them against each other. The old man felt the fading strength that signals death as the heart fell heavy against the feather.

Two palms as scales.  The beak became the mouth of a crocodile. Ivory teeth smiled at him as the scaly jaw opened, ready to

consume the bloody mass.

The old man pointed an unsteady arthritic finger towards the inquisitor as the black eyes and white feathers ushered death.