Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon
The following days were gray and cold, the hills around Zephyr brown as the grass on Poulter Hill. We entered December, the jolly month. Dad was around some days when I got home from school, and some days he was not. Mom, who suddenly appeared strained and tired beyond her years, said he was out looking for work. I hoped he wasn’t back on that boulder, contemplating the future in a mirror of black glass.
The mothers of my friends were supportive. They started bringing over covered dishes, baskets of biscuits, homemade canned goods, and such. Mr. Callan promised to bring us some venison from his first kill of the season. Mom insisted on baking everyone cakes in return. Dad ate the food, but I could tell it was killing him to take such obvious charity. Evidently the hardware store didn’t need a truck driver, nor did it need another man behind the cash register. Often at night I heard Dad up and about, rambling around the house. It started being that he slept much of the day, until eleven or so, and remained awake until after four in the morning. It was a night owl’s hours.
One Saturday afternoon Mom asked me to ride to the Woolworth’s on Merchants Street and pick her up a box of cake pans. I started out, Rocket easy beneath me. I went to the store, bought the cake pans, and started back.
I stopped in front of the Bright Star Cafe.
Mr. Eugene Osborne worked in there. Mr. Eugene Osborne had been in the Big Red One infantry division. And Mr. Eugene Osborne knew German curse words when he heard them.
This had been nagging at me, like a small little demon’s voice at the back of my head, since the night we’d gone to the Brandywine Carnival. How could a parrot know German curse words if its owner spoke no German? And something else I remembered Mr. Osborne saying: Wasn’t just cursin’, either. There were other German words in there, but they were all garbled up.
How could such a thing be?
I left Rocket outside and walked into the Bright Star.
It wasn’t much of a place, just a few tables and booths and a counter where people could sit on stools and jaw with the two waitresses, old Mrs. Madeline Huckabee and younger Carrie French. I have to say that Miss French got most of the attention, because she was blond and pretty and Mrs. Huckabee resembled two miles of bad road. But Mrs. Huckabee had been a waitress at the Bright Star long before I was born, and she ruled the cafe with an iron glance. The Bright Star was by no means very active this time of day, but a few people were inside drinking coffee, most of them elderly retired men. Mr. Cathcoate was among them, sitting in a booth reading a newspaper. The television above the counter was on. And sitting at the counter grinning at Miss French was none other than whale-sized Mr. Dick Moultry.
He saw me, and his grin vanished like a ghost at dawn.
“Hi, there!” Miss French said, offering me a sunny smile as I approached the counter. If it weren’t for her buck teeth, she might have been as lovely as Chile Willow. “What can I do for you?”
“Is Mr. Osborne here?”
“Sure is.”
“Can I talk to him, please?”
“Hold on a minute.” She went to the window between the counter and the kitchen. I noticed Mr. Moultry’s huge belly pressing against the counter’s edge as he leaned forward to get a look at her legs. “Eugene? Somebody wants to talk to you!”
“Who?” I heard him ask.
“Who?” she asked me. Miss French didn’t move in my circles, and I didn’t come into the Bright Star enough to warrant recognition.
“Cory Mackenson.”
“Oh, are you Tom’s boy?” she inquired, and I nodded. “Tom’s boy!” she told Mr. Osborne.
My dad, like the Beach Boys, got around. I felt Mr. Moultry watching me. He took a loud slurp of coffee, trying to get my attention, but I didn’t favor him with it.
Mr. Osborne walked through a swinging door. He was wearing an apron and a white cap, and he wiped his hands on a cloth. “Afternoon,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
Mr. Moultry was leaning forward, all ears and belly. I said, “Can we sit down? Over there, maybe?” I motioned toward a back booth.
“Guess so. Lead the way.”
When we’d gotten situated, with my back to Mr. Moultry, I said, “I was at Miss Glass’s house when you brought Winifred in for her piano lesson.”
“I remember that.”
“You remember the parrot? You said it was cursin’ in German.”
“If I know German, it was. And I do.”
“Do you remember what else the parrot was sayin’?”
Mr. Osborne leaned back in the booth. He cocked his head to one side, his hand with its U.S. ARMY tattoo on the fingers toying with a fork from the place setting. “What’s all this about, if you don’t mind me askin’?”
“Nothin’ special.” I shrugged. “It just got my curiosity up, that’s all.”
“Your curiosity, huh?” He smiled faintly. “You came in here to ask me what a parrot said?”
“Yes sir.”
“That was almost three weeks ago. How come you didn’t want to know before now?”
“I guess I had other things on my mind.” I had wanted to know, of course, but with the escape of the beast from the lost world and Dad’s losing his job, I hadn’t given it the highest priority.
“I don’t rightly remember what it said, except for the spicy words I couldn’t repeat to you without Tom’s permission.”
“I didn’t know my dad came in here.”
“Sometimes he does. He came in to fill out an application.”
“Oh. Gosh,” I said. “I didn’t know my dad could cook.”
“Dishwasher,” Mr. Osborne said, watching me carefully. I think I flinched a little. “Actually, Mrs. Huckabee does all the hirin’. Runs this place like boot camp, she does.”
I nodded, trying not to meet his steady gaze.
“That parrot,” he said, and his smile widened. “That blue parrot. Cursed a blue streak. Not surprisin’, though, is it? Since he belonged to Miss Blue Glass, I mean.”
“I guess not.” I hadn’t known any adults called her Miss Blue Glass.
“What’s this about, Cory? Really.”
“I want to be a writer,” I answered, though I don’t know why. “Stuff like this is interestin’ to me.”
“A writer? Like writin’ stories and all?”
“Yes sir.”
“Seems like that would be a hard row to hoe.” He put his elbows on the table. “Is this…like…research for a story or somethin’?”
“Yes sir.” I saw a ray of light. “Yes sir, it sure is!”
“You’re not writin’ a story about Miss Blue Glass, are you?”
“I’m writin’…a story about a parrot,” I said. “That speaks German.”
“Are you, now? Well, how about that! When I was your age, I wanted to be a detective or a soldier. I got my wish on one count.” He looked at his tattooed fingers. “I think I might’ve been better off bein’ a detective,” he said with a quiet sigh that spoke volumes about what real-life soldiering was as opposed to playing out scenes from Combat in the woods.
“Can you remember what else that parrot said, Mr. Osborne?”
He grunted, but his smile was still friendly. “If you’ve got to have determination to be a writer, you’re well on your way. Is knowin’ all this so important to you?”
“Yes sir. It’s real important.”
Mr. Osborne paused, thinking it over. Then he said, “It was all jumbled up, really. Didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“I’d just like to know.”
“Let’s see, then. Got to crank my mind back some. I’ll tell you a secret.” He leaned forward a little. “When you work with Mrs. Huckabee, you hear a lot of blue language.” I looked around for her, but she was either in the kitchen or the rest room. “I remember the parrot sayin’ somethin’ about—” He closed his eyes, bringing it back. “Who knows?”
“Can’t you remember?” I prodded.
“No, that’s it.” His eyes opened. “‘Who knows?’ That’s wha
“Who knows what?” I asked.
“Search me. Just ‘Who knows?’ is all I could get out of it. That, and what I thought sounded like a name.”
“A name? What was it?”
“Hannaford, I think it was. At least it sounded like it was close to that.”
Hannah Furd, I thought.
“I could be wrong, though. I only heard the name once. But I’m not wrong about the cursin’, believe you me!”
“Do you remember somethin’ Miss Green…uh… Miss Katharina Glass said about the parrot goin’ crazy when that song was played?” I tried to think of the name of it. “‘Beautiful Dream’?”
“‘Dreamer,’” he corrected me. “Oh, yeah. That’s the song Miss Blue Glass taught me.”
“Taught you?”
“That’s right. I always wanted to play a musical instrument. I took lessons from Miss Blue Glass…oh, I guess it was four years ago when she was teachin’ full-time. She had a lot of older students, and she taught us all that song. Now that you mention it, I don’t recall that parrot screamin’ around back then like he did that night. Funny, huh?”
“Strange.” It was my turn to correct him.
“Yeah. Well, I’d best get back to work.” He’d seen Mrs. Huckabee emerge from the rest room, and she was dragon enough to scare a soldier. “Does that help you any?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’m not sure yet.”
Mr. Osborne stood up. “Hey, how about puttin’ me in that story?”
“What story?”
He looked at me oddly again. “The story you’re writin’ about the blue parrot.”
“Oh, that story! Yes sir, I sure will!”
“Say somethin’ nice about me,” he requested, and he started toward the kitchen door again. Some man in a brown uniform was on television, raising a ruckus.
“Hey, Eugene!” Mr. Moultry hollered. “Get a load of this jackass!”
“Mr. Osborne?” I asked, and he gave me his attention before he looked at the television set. “Do you think Miss Blue Glass would mind playin’ that song again, with the parrot in the room? And maybe you could listen to it and see what it was sayin’?”
“I think that’d be kinda difficult,” he said.
“Sir?”
“Miss Blue Glass took that parrot to Dr. Lezander a couple of weeks ago. It had a brain fever or somethin’ birds get. That’s what the doc told her. Anyhow, the parrot kicked the bucket. What is it, Dick?”
“Lookit this guy!” Mr. Moultry said, motioning to the man snarling on the television screen. “Name’s Lincoln Rockwell! Sonofagun’s the head of the American Nazi Party, if you can believe that garbage!”
“American Nazis?” I saw the back of Mr. Osborne’s neck redden. “You mean I helped beat their butts over in Europe, and now they’re right here in the U.S. of A.?”
“Says they’re gonna take over the country!” Mr. Moultry told him. “Listen to him go on, it’ll split your ribs!”
“If I could get hold of him, I’d split his ugly head!”
I was on my way out, my mind heavy with thoughts. Then I heard Mr. Moultry—whom ex-Sheriff Amory had said was a member of the Ku Klux Klan—laugh and say, “Well, that’s one thing he’s got right! I say ship all the niggers back to Africa! I sure as blazes wouldn’t want one in my house, like a certain somebody invites that Lightfoot nigger right into their front door!”
I had caught this remark, and I knew who it was aimed at. I stopped and looked at him. Mr. Moultry was grinning and talking to Mr. Osborne, the man on the television screen going on about “racial purity,” but Mr. Moultry was watching me from the corner of his eye. “Yeah, my house is my castle! I sure as blazes wouldn’t stink my castle up by askin’ a nigger to come in and make hisself at home! Would you, Eugene?”
“Lincoln Rockwell, huh?” Mr. Osborne said. “That’s a hell of a name for a Nazi.”
“Seems like some people would know better than to be friends with niggers, don’t it, Eugene?” Mr. Moultry plowed on, baiting me.
At last what was being said got through to Mr. Osborne. He regarded Dick Moultry as one might look at rancid cheese. “A man named Ernie Graverson saved my life in Europe, Dick. He was blacker’n the ace of spades.”
“Oh…listen… I didn’t mean no…” Mr. Moultry’s grin was pathetic. “Well,” he said as he struggled for his dignity, “there’s always one or two gonna have the brains of a white man instead of a gorilla.”
“I think,” Mr. Osborne said, clamping that U.S. ARMY hand on Mr. Moultry’s shoulder and putting some muscle into his grip, “you’d better shut your mouth, Dick.”
Mr. Moultry didn’t make another peep.
I left the Bright Star, and the brown-uniformed man who was being interviewed on television. I pedaled Rocket home, the cake pans in Rocket’s basket. But all the way I was puzzling over the blue parrot—the recently deceased blue parrot, that is—who spoke German.
When I got home, Dad was sleeping in his chair. The Alabama game on the radio had ended before I went to the Woolworth’s, and now the radio was tuned to a country music station. I delivered the cake pans to Mom and then watched my father sleep. He was curled up, his arms gripped across his chest. Trying to hold himself together, I thought. He made a soft husking noise, his mouth on the verge of a snore. Something passed through his mind that made him flinch. His eyes came open, red-rimmed, and he seemed to stare right at me for a couple of seconds before his eyes closed again.
I didn’t like the way his face looked in sleep. It looked sad and starved, though our food was plentiful. It looked defeated. There was honor in being a dishwasher, of course. I’m not saying there’s not, because every labor has its share of honor and necessity. But I couldn’t help thinking that he must be on despair’s front porch, to have to walk into the Bright Star Cafe and apply to be a dishwasher when assistant foreman of the dairy’s loading dock had been so very close. His face suddenly twisted in the grip of a daymare, his mouth letting loose a quiet groan. Even in sleep, he couldn’t escape for long.
I walked into my room, shut the door, and I opened one of the seven mystic drawers. I brought out the White Owl cigar box, lifted its lid, and looked at the feather under my desk lamp.
Yes, I decided, my heartbeat quickening. Yes.
It could be a parrot’s feather.
But it was emerald green. Miss Blue Glass’s German-cursing parrot had been turquoise, not a speck of any other color on it except for the yellow of its beak.
Too bad Miss Green Glass hadn’t been the one with the parrot, I thought. That way it would’ve been emerald green for—
—sure, I thought. And suddenly I felt as if I’d just leaped off a red rock cliff.
Something Miss Blue Glass had said when Miss Green Glass refused to feed the parrot a cracker for fear of losing her fingers.
Three words.
I.
Fed.
Yours.
Your what? Parrot?
Had both Glass sisters, who lived their lives in a strange agreement of mimicry and competition, each owned a parrot? Had there been a second parrot—this one emerald green and missing a feather—somewhere else in that house, as silent as the first was raucous?
A phone call would tell me.
I gripped the feather in my palm. My heart was pounding as I left my room, headed for the telephone. I didn’t know the number, of course; I’d have to look it up in the slim directory.
Before I could get to the Glass number, the phone rang.
I said, “I’ll get it!” and picked it up.
I would remember for the rest of my life the voice that spoke.
“Cory, this is Mrs. Callan. Let me speak to your mother, please.”
The voice was tight and scared. Instantly I knew something was terribly wrong. “Mom!” I shouted. “Mom, it’s Mrs. Callan!”
“Don’t wake your father!” Mom scolded when she came
“What is it? What is it?” I asked. Dad came in, bleary-eyed.
“Yes, we will,” Mom was saying. “Of course. Yes. As soon as we can. Oh, Diane, I’m so sorry!” When she returned the receiver to its cradle, her eyes were full of tears and her face bleached with shock. She looked at Dad, and then at me. “Davy Ray’s been shot,” she said. My hand opened, and the green feather drifted away.
Within five minutes we were in the pickup truck, headed to the hospital in Union Town. I sat between my folks, my mind fogged with what Mom had told me. Davy Ray and his father had gone hunting today. Davy Ray had been excited about being with his dad, out in the winter-touched woods on the trail of deer. They had been coming down a hill, Mrs. Callan had said. Just an ordinary hill. But Davy Ray had stepped into a gopher hole hidden under dead leaves and fallen forward, and as he’d fallen his rifle had gotten caught up beneath him, aimed at his lungs and heart. The rifle had gone off on the impact of body and earth. Mr. Callan, not a man in the best physical shape, had picked up his son in his arms and run a mile through the woods with him back to their truck.
Davy Ray had gone into emergency surgery, Mom said. The damage was very bad.
The hospital was a building of red stone and glass. I thought it looked small to be such an important place. We went in through the emergency entrance, where a nurse with silver hair told us where to go. In a waiting room with stark white walls, we found Davy Ray’s parents. Mr. Callan was wearing camouflage-print hunting clothes with blood all over the front, a sight that knocked the breath out of me. He had daubed olive green greasepaint on his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. It was smeared, and looked like the most horrible bruise. I guess he was in too much shock to even wash his face; what was soap and water compared to flesh and blood? He still had forest dirt crusted under his fingernails. He was frozen in the instant of disaster. Mrs. Callan and Mom hugged each other, and Mrs. Callan began to cry. Dad stood with Mr. Callan at a window. Davy Ray’s little brother Andy wasn’t there, probably dropped off at a relative’s or neighbor’s house. He was much too young to understand what a knife was doing inside Davy Ray.