Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates
Aaron said he was coming. Be there as soon as he got his clothes on. By this time he was on his feet, and reasonably alert. Stone cold sober in ten seconds. Telling his aunt not to call any God damn cops or ambulance, Delray might get busted—“Like if they ‘commit’ him and he can’t get out like that time at the VA in Watertown, that almost killed him.”
His aunt had hung up. Aaron lost the receiver, it clattered onto the floor. It was coming back to him where he was. A familiar place made unfamiliar. In a shaft of light from the bathroom he saw something that made the short hairs at the nape of his neck stir—a snake? A snake in the house? In winter? Had to be more than just a garter snake it was thick-bodied, dark, lustrous as grease. Or maybe Aaron’s eyes weren’t focusing right, like his brain. If this was a meth high it had taken a malevolent turn. If this was just a drunk maybe he had D.T.’s. Another wrong thing was this wasn’t Aaron’s bedroom but a back room on the first floor of the house on Quarry Road, dirty old mattress on the floor and a filthy fiber carpet strewn with mysterious articles of clothing, shoes, stained towels, cigarette stubs and husks of dead insects, but—a snake? Maybe in summer, the back door has been left carelessly open, chinks and tears in the screens, possibly a snake could get in that way or through the cellar, crawl up the stairs to the first floor but this snake looked lifeless, or in a deep sleep. Cautiously Aaron approached it and dared to prod it with his bare foot: what’s it but a hair braid, dark shiny fake-hair, has to be ten inches long.
Fake hair! Showy-looking brunette braid must’ve been twined in with the woman’s own hair, shiny and sexy and the first thing Aaron had noticed about her but it’s fake.
Why you can’t trust women. Even young girls. Can’t know what the fuck they are thinking, can’t know what they are feeling, can’t know how they will surprise you except you know it won’t be a surprise you will like.
Drove to his aunt’s house on Dock Street. Viola hadn’t fully forgiven him for bringing the Diehl girl there, that night. And now, there was Delray. In a state of dread driving the utterly deserted late-night streets of Sparta suspended as an inheld breath thinking God don’t let my father die. Not like this he deserves better and as the van skidded on the icy streets thinking If he’s dead when I get there—whose fault is that? Aaron loved his father but frankly he’d been putting up with the old man’s bullshit for too long. Since Zoe was killed, and Delray a “suspect.” Since Zoe left the house saying sure she’d be back, give her a few months. A few months just to breathe Zoe had promised but Delray had never believed her.
Third time since New Year’s he’d been wakened from sleep to drive out and bring Delray back home. It was shocking, shameful, an ugly sight to see a man like Delray Kruller sick-drunk and helpless as a baby. There were guys his age with fathers like Delray that’d been alcoholics for longer than Delray, you get fed up with them, you’ve had enough of them, still they don’t go away, and they don’t die. A long time they hang on. God damn Aaron resented it. Wanted to keep his good memories of Delray—like his good memories of Zoe—what they’d been when Aaron was a little boy. Not like now. This wasn’t right.
It was a night of unnatural stillness, very cold. Not even a wind from the mountains, or the river. Smelly clothes he’d thrown on back at the house, bare feet shoved into boots. And there on Dock Street beyond a block of darkened store fronts and a shuttered A & P was the red-brick row house where Viola rented a second-floor apartment. In the driveway was what might’ve been a bundle of old clothes. A body carelessly tossed into the snow, unmoving. You could see where the body had been dragged in the snow a few yards toward the house as if despite what she’d said on the phone Viola had intended to get him into the house but given up and covered him with a blanket in a gesture of dismay and disgust hiding most of the man’s face so your first thought seeing him was this was a corpse.
Loudly Aaron said: “Pa? Wake up.”
Cautiously he pulled the blanket away from his father’s face. Wanting to think what you always want to think at such times This isn’t him!
The old man’s face was battered, swollen. It looked like a football that has been kicked too much. The graying hair Aaron remembered used to be glossy-black Delray had worn with a headband like a Comanche warrior to strike fear in the hearts of Caucasians was now thinning at the crown and matted and messy and his jaws were covered in whiskers sharp as an animal’s quills. Delray was only forty-eight—forty-nine?—Aaron wasn’t sure which but looked a decade older, or older than that, bruises under his loose-shut eyes and mouth slack as a dead fish’s. There was some mangy old Seneca death-mask Aaron had seen in a museum display, hollow eye-sockets, mouth in an open O and owl’s wispy feathers in the headdress and God damn if Delray didn’t resemble that death-mask the kids had laughed at, trooping through the dusty museum displays. The Indian kids in a tight little band had laughed hardest, harshest.
Looked like Delray been beaten, kicked. This wasn’t just falling-down drunk. Aaron guessed that all over his father’s body he’d soaked up considerable hurt.
From a doorway in the row house came a woman’s voice. Aaron’s aunt hunched inside an overcoat calling to him, “Just get him out of here! I can’t take more of this! He’s killing himself, God damn he is not going to kill me.”
But seeing Aaron struggling with Delray, Viola relented and came to help him. The two of them grunting as they tried to lift the heavy man, managing finally to heave him—now he was part-wakened—to his feet. “Hey Pa, you can’t sleep here, see? Freeze your ass? It’s me, and Viola. C’mon wake up.”
Viola slapped snow onto Delray’s bruised face which helped to revive him. Aaron slung an arm around him to hold him up. Jesus, the old man had put on weight! Like a sack of potatoes. No taller than Aaron but outweighed him by thirty pounds at least. Delray was muttering as if incensed, indignant. Shoving at Aaron not seeming to know who Aaron was, and he meant to help. Aaron pleaded, “Jesus, Pa, come on. I got to get you home before the cops come by.”
This kind of serious drunk, it’s like brain damage. Nothing funny or jokey about it. Delray’d been drinking vodka lately to take him to a place where, just maybe, he would not come back from.
Where you could see him, at a distance. A vapor in the shape of a man fading the harder you peered at him.
With Viola’s help Aaron managed to walk Delray to the van, lift and shove him inside where he sprawled across the front seat groaning and cursing. Viola was laughing in exasperation, her face wet with tears. She’d had enough, Viola said. Delray was her big brother she’d looked up to all her life and Delray had taken care of her at crucial times in her life—when her first husband had gone kind of crazy and tried to kill her—before he’d been incarcerated at Potsdam, where he died—and some other times—but now, this was a new turn, this was more than Viola could handle.
Among the Krullers it was openly said Delray is headed for hell, after her.
Her meaning Zoe. Who was already in hell.
Viola said: “Take him to Watertown tomorrow, the VA hospital. They’ve got his files. They have to take him. Get him into detox. Another night like this, Delray will be dead.”
Aaron said O.K., he would. Aaron said he’d see how things were in the morning.
Viola said sharply: “I said take him. Commit him. Fuck how ‘things are in the morning.’”
Aaron said O.K. He was frightened of his aunt’s anger, a woman’s anger has a way of translating into claw marks on your face if you aren’t vigilant. Thinking how seven years after Zoe had been murdered—seven years!—his mother was still to blame. Whatever was happening in their lives now, a consequence of what Zoe had started. Headed for hell, after her.
Aaron drove out to Quarry Road slowly. Cautiously. His drunk old man could start flopping like a fish, puking or fighting him—a drunk in such an extreme state is dangerous, like a meth tweeker. Aaron’s own adrenaline high had peaked and was now ebbing. His head began to pound with pain as if the veins and arteries inside
Ahead, a Sparta police cruiser was turning onto Post Road. Aaron slowed the van. Didn’t want to attract the attention of law enforcement officers tonight. He was pretty sure he was sober by now but earlier that night he’d been drinking and if cops stopped him and made him take a Breathalyzer test maybe it would show alcohol in his blood and he’d be charged with driving while “impaired”—lose his driver’s license and then what? Can’t live without a driver’s license.
At the Grotto he’d been drinking with his friends after work. Two guys from Delray’s garage, older married guys reluctant to go home to their families. And there was this girl—woman—a few years older than Aaron—named Sheryl?—Shirl?—she’d given Aaron some kind of speedball, wanting him to get high with her, no damn good getting high alone she said, and Aaron said O.K. like doing drugs was some special thing for him, at age twenty-one, she’d be the one to turn him on. Now it was coming back to him, a little: Sheryl with the tight-braided hair she’d swung like a horse’s tail, and a quick panting breath in his face like hissing steam. In the parking lot behind The Grotto the two of them fumbling and grunting and later he’d taken her home guessing that Delray wouldn’t be there—which Delray was not—and whatever happened between them at the house, in that back room, Aaron wasn’t sure.
Except she’d left the shiny fake hair-braid behind, like a taunt.
The worst possibility was, he’d hurt her, or insulted her in some way unknown to him, she’d reported him to the cops and they’ve got a lookout for him right now checking the license plates of vehicles and with sick-drunk Delray sprawled in the seat beside him Aaron will be pulled over, his driver’s license examined, van registration, check the computer and for sure Kruller, Aaron is in the system, Aaron has a juvenile record for fighting at school, “assault” and misdemeanor offenses, under New York State law this record is sealed but still his name would be in the Sparta PD data base and you had to suppose that Kruller, Delray would be in the system too. Drunk-and-disorderly, impaired driving, resisting arrest Delray Kruller’s driver’s license suspended for six months back in 1987.
But it would be the connection with Kruller, Zoe that would trigger the cops’ interest most.
“Pa, chill it. We’re almost home.”
Delray had begun thrashing about in the passenger’s seat. In the confined space of the van’s cab he smelled strongly of alcohol and vomit and his body. Demanding to know where in hell Aaron was taking him, and why he wasn’t driving—this was his van, wasn’t it? Aaron said, “Pa, I picked you up at Viola’s just now. Some friends of yours dumped you in the driveway, you could’ve froze to death if Viola hadn’t been awake.”
Adding, “See Pa, I’m taking you home. You need to get to bed.”
Need to get to bed. As if that was Delray’s greatest need.
Aaron was thinking what a wrong thing it is, taking care of your father like this. Like he’s a baby. It was unnatural, supposed to be a father takes care of his children.
You can’t help being resentful. Like with Zoe who’d stopped loving him in that special way. Like a mother loves you no matter what and will always forgive you except one day this love can wear out, you’re on your own. He’d gotten too big for her, maybe. How was this Aaron’s fault! Love ya sweetie and your father too it’s just that I want my own life now some place I can breathe.
It was a cruel joke, then: strangled like she was. So the breathing ended.
Past 4:30 A.M. when Aaron turned the van into the lane leading to the house he’d lived in for all of his life he could recall. Old farmhouse Zoe had had painted peach-color which was a pretty color but weatherworn now it more resembled dirty concrete, and since she’d left more than seven years ago the shutters were faded, and some of them rotted loose. Flower boxes Aaron had helped Zoe attach below the windows, where she’d planted bright red flowers—geraniums?—until she’d lost interest, and these window boxes too were rotted. Neither Delray nor Aaron saw the house only just lived in it the way shell-creatures live in their shells except sometimes Aaron took notice, what a sad wreck it was getting to be, how sad Zoe would be to see it, a beaten-up ship drifting in some remote sea.
Oh honey! How has this happened! I never meant for anything like this to happen.
Sure she still talked to him. More than he talked to her. Almost he could feel her hand touching his wrist. Almost he had to stop himself from turning to her desperate and yearning Mom? Where are you?
“…never touched her, Aaron. Your mother.”
“O.K., Pa. Right.”
“You know that, don’t you? Aaron?”
“Sure.”
Grunting and cursing he managed to maneuver Delray out of the van and into the house. Not an easy job without Viola to help and the old man too drunk to cooperate and inside the house Aaron led him into the back room—no question Delray could be walked upstairs—where a few hours before Aaron had brought the shiny-fake-braid woman Sheryl, or Shirl. Let Delray sink down onto the dirty bare mattress, tugged off Delray’s boots, Delray’s filthy wool socks, vomit-splattered sheepskin jacket. Delray tried to assist by lifting his arms, lifting his legs, apologetically now mumbling, “…loved her. You don’t believe me but I did. A kid like you, you don’t understand these things. I loved your mother….”
“Pa, I know. Sure.”
Aaron squatted loosening his father’s trousers, this was an awkward procedure that made him ashamed, couldn’t look the old man in the face. Going then to get a wetted cloth from the bathroom to wash roughly at Delray’s battered face. Maybe Delray looked worse than he was. Boxers who bleed easily always look worse than they are. Or anyway, the serious injuries are not visible. Blood is not a serious injury. Playing lacrosse a guy can be bleeding from a half-dozen cuts but stay in the game. It’s a matter of pride staying in the game. Aaron was determined to stay in the game. Some guys, friends of his living out on the Seneca reservation, they were giving up, enlisting in the army. That was the way out—the army. But Aaron Kruller would not. He was going to hang on here in Sparta, help his father at the garage and one day clear his name. This was not a mission Aaron ever spoke of to anyone. Certainly not to Delray.
Examining now his father’s big-knuckled hands, seeing with a smile sure the old man’s knuckles were skinned, must’ve been he’d been in a fight that night and had hit somebody, hard. Maybe Delray had provoked the fight, he’d brought this onto himself. “Who were you with tonight, Pa? Just, I’d like to know.”
Delray didn’t seem to have heard. Delray grabbed the wash cloth from Aaron and pressed it against his eyes, moaning softly.
Saying after a moment: “…believe me, don’t you? About your mother? Yeh?”
“Pa, sure. Never mind that.”
“You would not ever in-form on your own father, would you, Aaron? Right?”
Aaron laughed uncomfortably. This was not a new subject between them. “Why’d I ‘inform’ now, Pa. I never ‘informed’ then.”
Better back off now, Aaron thought. Let his father sleep it off. Maybe that’s all Delray needs is to sleep it off, by the time he wakes around noon Delray will have forgotten this episode and Aaron means to forget, too.
28
THAT NIGHT. Only afterward would he think of it as that night.
In fact Aaron had not been home until late that night himself.
Meaning the night when Zoe died. The night when Zoe was murdered. That night everything changed. And I had no knowledge of it until hours too late.
It was their pattern now. The pattern of their lives. Living together in the house on Quarry Road after Zoe moved out. After school—this was before he’d been expelled as a chronic troublemaker—Aaron worked at his father’s garage. He pumped gas and was learning auto repair taking instruction from Delray and when Delray wasn’t there from Delray’s right-hand man Mitch Kremp. In the tow truck he’d ride with Mitch and assist him and after the garage closed at abo
Turning up the lane to the house he’d see a single light burning in a downstairs room. Though knowing better—for sure, Aaron knew better—he’d feel his heart leap with the thought this might be Zoe returned. Though probably Aaron had left the light on himself, that morning.
That night which was February 11, 1983. When Aaron’s life was struck in two. He’d hung out with some guys he knew at the reservation, out North Post Road. There was a crossroads community there lacking a name, a 7-Eleven store where the older brother of a friend of Aaron’s bought the guys six-packs, cigarettes. One of the older guys drove into Sparta where he had a contact at the train depot, to score nickel bags of weed. Aaron was one of the younger guys but reckless, hopeful. Any crazy thing that came up, Aaron volunteered. They’d been looking to break into cars at the mall behind Sears but came away with kids’ toys and women’s crap like towels, underwear, socks in shopping bags they tossed away in disgust. Anything expensive, people had enough sense to lock in their cars and it was more than they dared risk, to break the window of any car. Must’ve been noisy entering the mall at the CineMax in the wake of some high school girls eyeing them but the CineMax manager must’ve alerted security, there came a guard to chase them away. This is private property boys. This is not a public place. One of the guys overturned a trash can, shattered glass and the fat-faced guard couldn’t chase them more than a short distance into a field where Aaron and his friends were running like dogs in a pack excited and aroused whopping as their feet broke through the ice crust and the guard shouted after them in disgust Cocksuckers next time you’re gonna be arrested. Get the hell back to the fucking rez where you belong.
Laughing together but the feeling drained away like air hissing from a slashed tire, Aaron wanted to get the hell home.