Crows (10 page)

“You're Robert Cigar,” Joe Marsh said, offering his hand.

“Yeah. How're you doing?”

Joe Marsh spread his big hands. “I'm king of this joint. I'm hardly in a glory phase.” He wore a thick leather bandoleer across his striped chest, the bullet loops filled with pens, pencils, grease pencils, dried sausage links, a tire gauge, a penlight, cigarettes.

“You still writing sports? I don't see your name anymore,” Joe said.

“The paper folded,” Robert said, wondering if he was being rude.

“Yeah, too bad. I've got all the clips about me. Ninety-­nine percent of them have your name on them.”

“I was busy in those days,” Robert said.

“How come you never talked to us?” Joe Marsh asked. “You talked to the coach, who was a dolt, but never any of the players. And never to the
best
player.”

Robert thought of those days, the close air of the locker room, the racing heat sound of the showers, the players naked and happy, or naked and sad, caught in the vacuum left by the end of the game. They had been sucked empty of emotion by the totality of their effort. Robert always felt apart from them. He felt he would be intruding, asking them to replay the game. He asked the coach questions because he, too, had not played, and therefore was at a level of understanding closer to Robert's. Sometimes a player would catch Robert's eye, but he never went to him with a question or a remark. Joe Marsh would sit at his locker, breathing deeply and easily, idly fondling himself, waiting already for the next game. But Robert never had any questions for him.

“I didn't think you guys wanted to be bothered,” Robert said, pained by the memories; he could have been so much better at what he did.

“Shit, we were dying to talk to you,” Joe Marsh said. “A bunch of hams. We'd kill to talk about ourselves. That other guy—­the red-­headed, bushy-­haired guy?”

“Al Gasconade.”

“Yeah. He was
always
talking to us. He practically ignored the coach.”

Robert envied Al Gasconade for his ease with the players, the way they became chatterboxes at the sight of him and his notebook.

“Al was like that,” Robert said.

Joe Marsh, dreamy-­eyed, sighed. “But that was yesterday. You're going hunting tomorrow? I wish I could go with you. The last time I went hunting was for my wife. And she wasn't hard to bag.”

SportsHeaven offered a selection of records, each with a crow in combat with a mortal enemy. Available were a crow and hawk, crow and osprey, crow and cat, crow and wild turkey, crow and eagle, crow and dog, and crow and owl, which the boys had instructed Robert in advance to rent.

The theory was simple. The hunter played a record of a crow in combat with an owl or a hawk and other crows would arrive to help. Joe Marsh had said the phonograph battery was freshly charged, good for twelve hours' continuous use.

Duke put the record on the turntable and switched on the machine. The turntable spun and Duke set the needle in place. Buzz's back was to them, his eyes scanning the sky.

Out of the speaker came a scratchy emptiness, then a raucous song of battle. The record was primarily the sound of an angry crow. The owl's infrequent “Hoop!” struck Robert as phony, some guy in the studio hired especially to do an impersonation of an owl. The battle lasted less than two minutes, then the scratchy emptiness returned.

Duke started the record again. It played through and he started it a third time. Robert sat next to Duke and they took turns moving the needle to the beginning of the record. It was warm there on the hill in the sun. Insects stubborn enough to survive the night's cold whirred and ticked all around them.

But no crows came.

“Maybe,” Robert said in a stage whisper to Duke, “the owl on this record sounds like such a pushover the crows in the neighborhood won't even bother to come help.”

“They've been fighting for twenty minutes,” Duke said. “This owl is no cinch.”

Buzz said angrily, “Would you two shut up?”

“No crows here,” Duke said. He started the record again. Robert stood up.

“We ought to be closer to a town,” he said. “Crows nowadays live near civilization. Why live in the wild when humanity will feed you for a minimum of effort?”

“A good point,” Duke said.

Buzz walked over to them. “It's that lame record,” he said. “All the fucking crows are laughing too hard to fly.”

“The guy promised it was a real crow and owl fighting,” Robert said. The record ended. Duke tried to start it again, but Buzzard said, “Don't bother. A waste of time.”

“What's your idea?” Robert asked.

“We move on.”

“No, Buzzer. I'm not going any deeper into the woods with Duke. You don't know a good crow location from a bad one.”

“You said to go where there's garbage.”

“Where's that?” Robert asked. “I don't even know where we are. Let's not press our luck.”

Duke put the needle on the record. This time, when the fight commenced, it seemed to come through deep water, or from another dimension, and soon the turntable took nearly a half minute to make one revolution.

“Some twelve hours of playing time,” Robert complained.

“Maybe he said twelve plays—­not twelve hours,” Buzz said. Then something jumped in his eyes and he brought the shotgun smoothly to his shoulder; he led a target that was behind Robert and Duke. Robert turned to look and the discharge went off near his ear, a roar like the explosion of something brutal and contained.

Buzz had shot at a bird a good half mile off. A winged speck passing easily over distant woods, it did not fall or flinch or turn its long-­necked head at the shot. But before it passed out of sight Buzz jerked off another round.

“Motherfuck!” he shouted, and kicked a stone.

Robert took his hands from his ears. He waited a moment, then snatched the gun from Buzz's hands. The two shots had made the air jump; the space all around slowly regained its order.

“Are you nuts?” Robert asked heatedly. “For one thing, that wasn't a crow. For another, you couldn't hit it from here with a bazooka.”

Buzz, oddly, smiled agreeably. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I just
had
to fire the damn thing.”

“Those shells run almost a quarter each,” Robert said.

“I've just been itching to fire the gun,” Buzz said. His eyes were dreamy with relief. “Cleaning it. Taking care of it. Practicing my aim, my lead. I just had to let it go.”

Buzz's words recalled for Robert the only time he had gone hunting with Dave. The details of their being out in the fields that day were always unclear to Robert; but he was twelve years old and had begun to feel a drift in his life away from his father. More and more, Dave seemed an awkwardness in Robert's life, an embarrassment to be avoided. He ran a store that changed lines like a hockey team, yet he was the favorite of everyone, and he maintained over Robert's mother a baffling hold that she reveled in. The hunting trip, as much as it excited Robert, he recognized as one of his father's blunt lunges for togetherness.

They borrowed guns from somewhere and went into the fields and woods just north of Mozart. It was a warm, early autumn day, full of swirling insect dots and birds like streaks breaking out of the woods and crumpled corn, too fast to draw on, to lead, or to shoot.

Robert remembered that his father talked too much. Dave's voice seemed to run ahead like an overeager dog, flushing game before the hunters were ready. Robert wanted to take a position of silence and wait for the game to come to them. But his father craved meandering and talking, ignoring the fact his son was not responding; or perhaps being too keenly aware of that, and rushing to fill the gaps Robert tore in their thin bond.

Dave carried a small shotgun in the crook of his arm. It was unloaded, and he may even have forgotten to bring any ammunition for it at all. Robert's memory of his own weapon was only of a heavy rifle, a telescopic sight affixed to it. He remembered the sight best, because the single clearest image of that day was caught and printed on his memory in the perfect-­circle, cross-­haired field of vision that scope provided.

As their hunt wound to a close, Dave walking a little slower, complaining about his sore feet and the sunburn on his neck, Robert grew increasingly frustrated by the absence of anything to shoot at. After the first hour, when the sky was thick with scurrying birds and the fields shivered with fleeing rabbits, the day's heat had flattened the earth into a dazed, tan stillness upon which nothing moved.

Up ahead, Robert saw where Dave had tucked their car out of sight from the road. The seats would sting where the sun had been hitting them. His father would start the car and they would drive off, the weapons' barrels cool with disuse. Robert pulled up, taking his rifle off his shoulder.

They were on a ridge that bordered a pounded cornfield. Surely there must have been a crow nearby. But as he looked all around, nothing moved, until a flick of color caught his eye in its searching revolution.

It was a blue jay on the uppermost strand of a fence fifty yards down the hill running away from the ridge. The bird was just a finger of blue from that distance.

Dave walked back and stood beside Robert. He had not seen the bird, nor did he understand his son's intent. Seeing the car had reminded Dave of the day's end, as much as it had his son. He wanted to delay that termination; he felt that for all that had been said, something had failed to be imparted. His son, already taller than his father, taking after his mother, also seemed to have risen above him, borne aloft on a cloud of contempt. Dave felt powerless to speak any words that would bring his son back.

“Can I shoot it, Dad?” Robert asked, eyes on the jay.

Startled, Dave looked around. “Shoot what?”

Robert pointed down the hill. “The bird.”

Dave had to squint to see the blue jay. It had moved two inches down the fence strand. His son had the gun up, his eye to the scope, awaiting the drop of his father's arm. The eagerness in the boy's form hurt Dave with a clean stab of dislike for his son. Dave headed for the car. “If you want,” he said, and at his back he heard the crack of the shot.

Robert, on the warm stone beside the record player, remembered that bird's head enlarged in the scope. Its eye was glossy black, perfectly round, and marked the mouth of the tunnel the bullet opened. Robert clambered eagerly down off the ridge, kicking up a storm of grass, dust, and stones. The bird had not fallen from the fence. The speed of its death had left its talons curled tight on the wire and it hung there as if it had fallen over in its sleep. He heard his father start the car, then tap once on the horn to hurry his son along. Robert left the bird where it hung; it might be hanging there still. He suspected that was why no crows had appeared to help their own; his killer smell was so strong. His father did not say a word all the way home, while Robert prayed for any word at all to free him from his shame.

A point was reached in the late afternoon when it was accepted no crows would appear. They collected the debris from their stand there on the hill. It was getting cold again, the sun fading, it would be dark long before they returned home. Duke held the shotgun.

“There are three shells left,” he said to Robert, who understood where Duke was leading. “We can each fire the gun once.”

“That's silly,” Robert said. “A waste of money. An affront to nature.”

But Duke already had the gun to his shoulder. He squinted down the blue barrel at some imaginary beast. Robert and Buzzard covered their ears. The kick from the shot wrenched the gun from Duke's grasp and sent the boy flying backwards off his camouflaged crutches. Robert saw the gun spinning in the air like a deadly baton and turned (in his mind's eye in slow motion) his back to where it would hit, expecting the blast that would kill him or one of the boys. But Buzz knew there was no danger; the next shell had not been pumped into the chamber. He laughed at Robert's hunched fearfulness.

Again the air reshaped itself. Duke had an egg growing on the back of his head to match the soft, sore mound on Robert's forehead. A mark like a burn flamed on Duke's jaw where the gun stock had scraped.

Buzz emptied the gun without firing it and they headed for home.

T
HEY STOPPED AT
a Good-­Ee Freez on the highway for cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes. Robert almost expected to find Olive working there, but they were well north of Mozart. This outlet seemed old, sad, and dominated by litter blown into swirls by the chilly wind. The place lacked the picturesque vacation feel of Oblong Lake. When Robert paid for their food the counterman said they were likely the last customers of the summer, that he would close soon for the day and the winter.

Robert and the boys noticed the crows waiting on the power line above the parking lot.

“Just one shot,” Buzz whispered. But he was smiling and took it graciously when Robert refused him.

“They'd see the gun before you had it loaded,” he said, “and be gone.”

In the morning the crows would move on themselves to look for winter food, a place to stay. It took no memory to understand winter.

Driving home they saw crows everywhere, in the road, on fences, on signs.

“Did your dad ever tell you about crow trials?” Robert asked. He looked over at Buzz, who would not meet his eyes; Duke was silent in the shadows of the backseat.

“It seems this crow was charged—­”

“Dad told you this?” Buzz interrupted.

“Yes.”

“He wouldn't spin that sort of bullshit.”

“Shut up, Buzzard. Let him talk,” Duke said.

“It seems this crow was charged with a crime—­”

“What crime?” Duke asked.

“Crows have no morals,” Buzz maintained. “So they'd have no sense of right or wrong. So what's the point of a trial?”