A Redbird Christmas (8 page)

Something New

A
S THE DAYS
went by, Patsy charmed everyone who met her. Even Oswald found that now when he went to the store he was looking forward to visiting with Pasty as much as anything else. As a matter of fact, after a while he realized much to his amazement that he was crazy about the little girl. She was the first and only child he had ever liked. He had mostly always been around boys, so he figured it must be because she
was
a girl, so tiny and frail. Or maybe it was that he felt a kinship with Pasty—and Jack, too, for that matter. They were all three handicapped in one way or another. He went up to the store one morning as usual and when he got there she was in the back office playing with Jack.

“How are you today, Patsy?”

“Fine.”

“What are you up to?”

“Nothing. Jack and I are just playing.”

She was busy pretending to serve tea to Jack and offered Oswald a cup of imaginary tea.

“Hey, Patsy, how old are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, when is your next birthday?”

She thought about it. “I don’t know. I don’t think I have one.”

“You don’t have a birthday?”

“No.”

He took another cup of imaginary tea from her and pretended to drink it. “You know what? You’re not going to believe this, but I don’t have a birthday either. I have an idea. Let’s you and I make one up. Then every year you and I will have the same birthday, OK? And we won’t tell anybody; it will be our secret.”

“OK,” she said.

He looked at the calendar on the wall. “How about Wednesday, three days from now?”

“Can it be Jack’s birthday, too?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“OK,” she said, and they shook hands.

The next day, Oswald asked Butch if he could get a ride over to Lillian. Never having bought a present for a child before, he was at a loss. He wandered around the general merchandise store in the small town, looking for something she might like. He didn’t know how to pick out a doll, or what kind of toys girls played with, but then he spotted a black beanie decorated with Dr Pepper bottle caps.

Wednesday came, and they had their secret birthday back in the office. He gave her the hat and she gave him two pieces of candy she had saved and wrapped up in brown paper and string. She was as thrilled with her hat as he hoped she would be. Oswald sat there eating the candy and drinking more imaginary tea and watching Jack peck away at his present of sunflower seeds. Then he remarked, “You know, Patsy, this is the best birthday I ever had.”

She sat across from him wearing her new Dr Pepper hat and declared, “Me too!”

After a while Oswald had another idea and went out to the cash register.

“Hey, Roy, do you have a camera?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I borrow it? I want to take a picture of Patsy.”

“Sure, let me put some film in and we’ll do it.”

After some time deciding where the best light was, they stood Patsy outside the front door of the store and took her picture, holding Jack and wearing her new beanie. A week later, Oswald brought the finished black-and-white photo and showed it to her. He had had three copies made, one for Roy and one for Patsy and one to keep for himself. Roy taped his photo to the side of the cash register so everyone who came in could see it. Across the bottom was written
Pasty and Jack on their birthday
.

A Dilemma

O
NE FEBRUARY MORNING
Roy came in the store and whistled for Jack, but the bird did not answer. He whistled again. No answer. He looked around the store and wondered what the crazy thing was into today when he suddenly saw a large man’s work glove walking across the top of the lettuce and across the lemons. During the night Jack had somehow gotten himself tangled up inside the glove and could not get out. Roy went over and pulled it off. Jack was all ruffled up and mad; he must have been in there for hours. He shook his feathers and stomped all over the lemons and slipped in between two of them and got even madder. Roy laughed at him. “You nutty bird, you.” Always getting himself in trouble. Last week he had caught him pecking holes in all the tomatoes and later that day when Mildred had come in she had screamed bloody murder. “There’s not one good tomato here!” she said. “How can a person be expected to make a decent salad as long as that horrible little bird is around?”

Jack responded by running around on his wheel and ringing his bells, almost as if he were laughing at Mildred. Roy thought it was hilarious but Mildred was not amused.

Oswald had recently started getting up at daybreak and was usually down at the store by seven to have a cup of coffee with Roy before going out on the river. But the next morning Oswald seemed flushed and was already banging at the window at six-thirty. Roy walked over and opened the door. “Oh, hell, let me in,” Oswald said, and ran into the store.

“What’s the matter?”

“Man, I’m in trouble,” he said, holding up an envelope. “Betty, Mildred, Frances, and now Dottie Nivens have all asked me to this Valentine thing over at the hall, and I don’t know what to do. Oh, man,” he said, wringing his hands. “These women are going to drive me to drink.”

“Well, which lucky lady are you going to go with?”

“It doesn’t matter. Whoever I pick, the other three are going to be mad at me.”

Roy thought about it. “If I were you I would explain it to Frances and let them fight it out among themselves.”

After he left, Roy had to smile. Oswald was certainly the most unlikely Lothario he had ever seen.

Oswald could not have agreed with him more. He had never been asked out on a date in his life, much less by four women on the same night. Reluctantly he explained the situation to Frances.

As it turned out, all four had invited him because they wanted to make sure he would not feel left out and did not know the others had done the same. And so it was decided that all four women were to be his date.

On Valentine’s night poor Oswald, wearing a red bow tie and even though he was a terrible dancer, had to dance every dance. He waltzed with Frances to a sappy version of “Dreamy Alabama,” jitterbugged with Dottie Nivens, did some odd tango thing with Mildred, and ended the evening being dragged around the floor by his six-foot landlady to the tune of “Good Night Sweetheart.”

ALONG THE RIVER

The Lost River
Community Association Newsletter

Oh, what a delightful evening was had by all who attended the annual Sweethearts dance! The melodious tunes that had all of our toes literally dancing inside our shoes was supplied by the ever-popular Auburn Knights Swing Band, and we were all mighty impressed by their musicality and wide range of repertoire, from the fox-trot to the jazzy idioms and interpolations of the bossa nova. But the highlight of the evening was the nimble Terpsichore of our own Fred Astaire in the person of Oswald T. Campbell, who if I may borrow a phrase was truly the belle of the ball!

After Oswald read that first paragraph and later when Roy and Claude started calling him Belle, he decided that all of this female attention was making him a nervous wreck. He had so many dinner invitations he had to write them down.

He needed to get to an AA meeting fast.

Butch Mannich knew a lot of people in the nearby towns, so the next time Oswald saw him walking up the street he stopped him and asked if he by any chance knew anyone in AA.

Butch brightened up. “Yes, by gosh, I sure do. I know a man over in Elberta who belongs. I didn’t know you were in that, Mr. Campbell.”

“Yes,” said Oswald, “but it’s not something I’m particularly proud of, and I would appreciate it if you could sort of keep it under your hat. I don’t want anybody to know, especially Frances.”

Butch nodded and conspired in a whisper. “I understand completely, Mr. Campbell, and I don’t blame you, but don’t you worry. Your secret is safe with me. I won’t say a word to anybody.” Butch glanced around to see if anyone was looking and quickly wrote a name and number down on a piece of paper. He looked around again to make sure no one saw him and then slipped him the piece of paper on the sly.

Oswald called the number that afternoon, and a man answered.

“Is this Mr. Krause?”

“That’s me.”

“Mr. Krause, I was given your number by Butch Mannich over in Lost River.”

“You mean Stick?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, any friend of Stick’s is a friend of mine. What can I do for you?”

“Uh . . . I understand you are in AA, and I wanted to ask you when the next meeting was.” Mr. Krause told him there was a weekly meeting at eight o’clock on Friday nights at the Knights of Columbus hall in downtown Elberta and to please come. “We will be glad to have you. We are always happy to have new members. Where are you from?”

“Chicago.”

Mr. Krause was impressed. “Ah, Chicago. I bet there are a lot of great meetings up there. We are just a small group over here. Are you a beginner, Mr. Campbell, or have you been at it for a while?”

“No, I’m not a beginner, I have a few years, but I haven’t been to a meeting in quite a while and you know once you stop going it’s hard to start all over in a new town.”

“You got that right, Mr. Campbell. You have to keep coming or you get out of practice. But don’t you worry, we’ll get you right back in the swing in no time.”

“By the way, is this a men’s meeting?” Oswald asked.

“We have one or two women but mostly men.”

Good, thought Oswald. It would be a nice break for him.

Friday night Butch said he would be glad to drive Oswald over to the meeting. He had some people he needed to see anyway, so they drove over before dark. Elberta was a small German farming community about ten miles to the east, and the houses had an almost Bavarian look to them. Butch took him to the Elks Club where he was a member and introduced him around to a few friends. Around seven-thirty after they had eaten hamburgers at the lodge, Butch drove him downtown, parked on a side street, and furtively glanced around in all directions to make sure the coast was clear before he let him out. “I’ll be back to get you in an hour,” he said.

Oswald asked if he could give him an hour and a half. “Since this is my first meeting here, I’d like to try and get to know some of the fellows.”

“No problem,” said Butch. “And don’t you worry, Mr. Campbell, mum’s the word.” And with that he sped off into the night.

Oswald went inside the large Knights of Columbus hall and found a sign that said
ALABAMA AA
with the arrow pointing upstairs. A heavyset man in suspenders greeted him with a big beefy handshake and a pat on the back that nearly knocked him down.

“Mr. Campbell? Ed Krause. Welcome to our little group.”

Oswald looked around the room. There were already six or seven other friendly-looking men sitting in wooden chairs, smiling and nodding at him.

Mr. Krause led him to a chair. “Where’s your instrument, Mr. Campbell?”

Oswald was not sure what he had heard. “I beg your pardon?”

It was only when he looked around the room again that he noticed that all the men were pulling accordions out of the cases beside each chair.

When another man walked by with a big black case and carrying an armload of sheet music, Oswald suddenly realized that he had walked into an Alabama Accordion Association meeting!

He turned to the man and said, “Ah . . . I tell you what, Mr. Krause, I believe I’ll just listen tonight. My instrument is sort of on the blink.”

“That’s too bad,” said a disappointed Ed Krause. “We were looking forward to a little new blood.”

Oswald went over in the corner and sat and listened. He sat through quite a few polkas and one pretty lively version of “The Poor People of Paris” before it was time for Butch to come and pick him up. Outside, Butch asked how the meeting went and he answered, “Just fine.”

On the way back home, Oswald thought about it and wondered which was worse, being an accordion player or being an alcoholic. He figured it was a toss-up.

He was sorry there were no AA meetings around, but Oswald figured he was doing pretty well just hanging out on the dock and meeting with the birds every day. It seemed to keep him calm, and it was certainly interesting. He was not bored. There were plenty of them to see. One day when Oswald was sitting there on the dock busy watching the birds, a great blue heron stared right back at him, and it suddenly occurred to him that they might be busy watching him as well. He wondered what they thought he was, and how would they identify him.

His
Birds of Alabama
book had given him guidelines as to how to identify birds by size and color and by location, so he decided to look in the book and figure out what the birds would write down for him. He searched for himself up under
LOCATION:

PERMANENT RESIDENTS:
Live in the same geographic region all year long.

SUMMER RESIDENTS:
Breed and raise their young in one geographic region, then leave to winter in warmer regions.

WINTER VISITORS:
Come to a geographic region only during winter months after their breeding season.

TRANSIENTS:
Pass through a geographic region only once or twice a year during their spring or fall migrations.

ACCIDENTALS:
Birds not expected in a particular region and, therefore, are surprise visitors.

As he read on, he decided that according to the book, he was definitely a medium-sized, redheaded, nonbreeding accidental. At last he knew what he was, and it amused him to no end. He was a rare bird, after all.