Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates
Past 11 P.M. when he returned to the house. Now that Zoe was gone seemed like nobody gave a damn how late Aaron stayed out or if he cut classes at school or failed to show up at school at all. If he had meals to eat, or ate like an animal foraging what he’d find in the refrigerator—leftovers, take-out Chinese and pizza, hoagies. All Delray kept in stock was beer and ale.
That night. Delray had not been home when Aaron returned nor did Delray return while Aaron was watching TV, drinking beer from a can and finishing off a stale hoagie from the refrigerator sprawled on the sofa but there was no question, Aaron would believe Delray when Delray claimed he’d been with a woman at that time, whose name he could not reveal because she was still married to her husband and desperate not to lose custody of her children. This woman’s name would not be revealed to Aaron but it seemed that she lived in Star Lake, not in Sparta, and so Delray was driving forty minutes or more, all this sounded plausible. No question, Aaron believed his father swearing to him he had not been in Sparta, he had not been anywhere near West Ferry Street, he had not seen Zoe that night.
Saw in his father’s bloodshot eyes the sincerity of his father’s words Did not commit bodily harm against my wife Zoe I love to this day you believe me Aaron don’t you?
Sure. Aaron believed.
Questioned by police where had Delray been on that Saturday night and in the early hours of Sunday morning Aaron had said, “My dad was home, with me. We were home together.”
Sullen-faced kid, evasive eyes. Under duress Aaron looked dark-red-skinned, that singed-looking skin of the Native American though he’d had a blond Caucasian mother.
“All that night? That night and into the early hours of Sunday morning, you were in your father’s presence? That’s what you’re telling us, Aaron?”
Yes. That was what Aaron was telling them.
The older detective—his name was Martineau—suggested in a mock-sympathetic voice maybe Aaron was lying to protect his father? That it?
For a long moment Aaron did not speak. Dark blood beat heavily in his face. But he would not be baited, he would say only no he was not lying. His father had been home with him, the two of them together all that night.
“In the same room? In the same bed? All that night?”
The detective spoke sneeringly. Still Aaron would not be baited but sat stubborn, impassive. He was not lying. He did not think of it as lying. If Delray had sworn to him that he had not hurt Zoe, that he had not been at 349 West Ferry Street that night, Aaron believed him.
You know I would not lie to you son. This is the utter truth I am telling you.
Questioned further, Aaron told the detectives in a slow halting near-inaudible voice yes it was so, that night had not been a typical Saturday night for his father. Or for him. Some nights Delray was gone all night, two or three days Delray might be away somewhere, and Aaron wouldn’t know where, but the night of February 10 had been different: Delray had been home. Maybe he’d had some kind of flu, he’d gone to bed early. Aaron had stayed up watching TV. So he’d been home, and his father had been upstairs in bed, Aaron could swear that. He would swear that in court if necessary.
And in the morning his father was still in bed when Aaron left the house, he was sure. He’d decided to drop by the house where his mother was staying with a woman friend, she’d asked him to come and pick up a Christmas present she had for him before she left on some trip—Aaron thought it was “an airplane trip”—“auditioning” at some nightclub. No, Aaron didn’t know details. It was like Zoe to speak of her plans yet remain secretive about details.
But she’d wanted to see him, Aaron said, before she left on this trip, it had seemed important to her.
How frequently had Aaron seen his mother, since she’d moved out of the house on Quarry Road, Aaron was asked. Aaron shrugged saying not too often.
“Not too often’? When had you seen your mother, before that morning, son?”
Son. A sour taste filled Aaron’s mouth, he’d have liked to spit out onto the table.
Not too often, he said. But Zoe called him, at the house.
“She said she had a ‘Christmas present’ for you? Where is this ‘Christmas present’?”
Aaron shrugged. He had not given the Christmas present any thought until this moment.
“And your mother didn’t mention who was taking her on the ‘airplane trip’? And where?”
Aaron shook his head, no. She had not.
“Did you have any ‘premonition’ something might have happened to her? That’s why you went to see her?”
Aaron shook his head, no. He had not.
The word premonition was new to Aaron. But he knew its meaning.
So he’d gotten a ride into Sparta with some Quarry Road neighbors going to church. This was around 9 A.M. Bright winter mornings he’d wake up early.
“And your father was still there? In bed? Asleep?”
Aaron shrugged. As far as he knew, yes.
The detectives exchanged looks of bemused skepticism. Aaron understood that they thought he was lying but would not be baited into speaking insolently to them.
The younger detective Brescia said: “Now you’re sure, Aaron? You’re telling the truth and not lying to protect your father—you want us to believe that?”
Believe that bullshit almost the detective had said. Aaron felt the sick sour tarry taste in his mouth, stronger now.
Aaron shrugged. Aaron smiled. Yes. He was sure.
In these first weeks of the investigation, Sparta detectives had to acknowledge that they hadn’t been able to find any physical evidence linking Delray Kruller to his wife’s murder. Of the fingerprints of numerous individuals discovered at the crime scene like flyspecks scattered throughout the shabby row house the fact was that not a single print identified as a print of Delray Kruller’s would ever be discovered.
No witnesses in the neighborhood would claim to have seen Delray anywhere near 349 West Ferry that night, as they would report having seen one or two men including Eddy Diehl in his shiny black Olds.
Which didn’t surprise Aaron. He’d known that Delray had not lied to him. Just Delray swearing to him, Aaron would have staked his own life.
Eddy Diehl was the name most often heard, in connection with the Zoe Kruller murder.
Eddy Diehl had been Zoe’s lover, who’d been seen at the West Ferry Street address.
Eddy Diehl, a married man with children. Known for his quick temper, his heavy drinking.
PUSHING OPEN THE DOOR, that was slightly ajar. In that instant seeing what lay in the bed. Part-naked female body falling out of the wrecked bed and one bloodied arm sprawled on the floor as if beckoning.
A cry erupted from him, his throat. The cry of a wounded animal, that scraped his throat.
He would not cry Zoe but Mom.
Many times he would cry Mom Mom Mom both at this time and at subsequent times through his life.
Recalling how in this first terrible moment something seemed to rush at him, at his face, shaped dark as a bat, as if to smother him. He’d begun to black out—his knees lost all strength—he was on the floor on hands and knees gagging.
Hot-acid vomit. Spilling and leaping out of his mouth.
What dead means. If you are meat you are going to rot. That is what dead means.
He’d smelled her, he thought. He was sure.
Despite the freezing-cold air. He was sure.
It would not be publicly revealed in the media, what Aaron did in the next several minutes.
He had not run from the room, as another person would have done. He had not run downstairs screaming for help. For not a moment did he give a thought for the danger he might be in, if the murderer or murderers of his mother had still been in the house.
He had done none of these things. He had managed to get to his feet and went to his mother where she lay battered and bloodied in the wrecked bed, and he’d grunted with the effort of pulling her back onto the bed, and lifting her stiffened arm from
Someone had opened the window partway. Snow had blown inside. Aaron stumbled to the window and forced the window open as high as it would go.
Why? Why take time to do such a thing?
Were you crazy Aaron? What was going through your mind?
Like Zoe’s bed, the room had been wrecked. You might be led to believe that it had been systematically, deliberately wrecked. A frenzied struggle had taken place here. Everywhere on the floor were fallen things. Aaron stumbled over a woman’s high-heeled shoe. A torn lamp shade, a cracked ceramic lamp. A woman’s underwear, stockings. A soiled sweater, inside-out. A torn brassiere flesh-colored and gauzy as cobweb. Outside the window the February sun was blinding-bright reflecting new-fallen snow. The grimy wallpaper splotched with blood was starkly exposed. It looked as if a deranged child had flung red paint against the walls. There was a blood-soaked towel, tightly looped about Zoe’s neck, knotted at the nape of her neck. For her scalp had been bleeding, her skull had been cracked. Items had been swept off a bureau top. A woman’s blue-sequined handbag with a fake-gold chain. A woman’s toiletries. A container of white talcum powder spilling onto the floor. The talcum powder smelled of lily of the valley and quickly Aaron squatted sprinkling the talcum powder in handfuls over his mother’s body, and over the bed. Talcum powder onto the floor and onto the walls sticky with coagulated blood. And Aaron pulled more bedclothes over the body, a heap of bedclothes to hide the battered body, whatever he could find, anything his groping hands could find, what remained of the talcum powder he emptied onto it.
“That’s better. That will be O.K.”
Exhausted then he left the bedroom. Staggered from the wrecked bedroom now smelling of lily of the valley. Everywhere he’d left his fingerprints not giving a thought to it nor to who might still be in the house, hiding in one of the rooms. Jacky DeLucca who’d licked her pushed-together smiling lips at him, who might’ve been murdered too, elsewhere in the house, he did not give a thought to, he’d forgotten Jacky DeLucca entirely. He would not pause to glance into another room. He would not glance into the bathroom close by. In a daze of unnatural calm descending the stairs like one who has been shaken out of a dream yet not fully wakened. Yet there was a smell, a smell of blood and death and now a smell of lily of the valley, sickly-sweet, on his hands. And blood, on Aaron’s hands. And a mixture of talcum powder and blood, on Aaron’s face where he’d touched his jaws. Close to fainting on the stairs but he managed to stagger outside into the fresh freezing air and sat down heavily on the stoop. The strength had drained out of his legs, he had no more strength in his body. Still he felt that strange calm, a sense of satisfaction, completion. What he had been able to do for Zoe, he had done. Too weak now to walk away. Too weak to call for help. On the dirty cement stoop and the door ajar behind him, the tinselly Christmas wreath knocked askew. Maybe Aaron had knocked it askew himself. Open-eyed and calm-seeming in his trance of sorrow where they would find him.
A few blocks away at Dock Street church bells were ringing: St. Patrick’s. For it was 11 A.M. of that Sunday morning in February 1983 when Aaron Kruller’s life was torn in two.
How long had Aaron sat there on the front stoop instead of going for help?—he would be asked afterward. And he’d had no idea. Ten minutes? Fifteen? A half-hour? In his trance of oblivion he might have been waiting for Delray to come fetch him. He might—almost—have been waiting for Zoe to come fetch him. He was not even registering the cold, which was below ten degrees Fahrenheit. Though shivering convulsively, his parka and trousers blood-smeared, smears of white talcum powder weirdly mixed with the blood. Until a neighbor noticed him, lonely-looking kid just sitting there on the front stoop like an abandoned dog, bareheaded, gloveless, hugging his knees to his chest. The dazzling-white snow caused Aaron’s thoughts to move with unnatural slowness. He could remember Zoe upstairs in the bed but had no clear memory of having opened the window beside the bed or of sprinkling the powder onto her. Why did you do such things Aaron the police officers would ask him and Aaron said simply Mom liked things to smell nice. Mom would’ve felt bad how she was left.
This was so. Everyone said this of Zoe Kruller. How Zoe had never left the house looking less than good. It was Zoe’s intention to look terrific, a knock-out. Zoe would’ve been deeply shamed to know she would be discovered by strangers naked and in a bed filthy with her own urine, feces, blood. The shame of it would follow her after her death. If I could help a little Aaron said maybe that was it.
29
LABOR DAY 1977
ON THE DAZZLING-LIT STAGE at the park there was Zoe in her sparkly red dress and high-heeled shoes looking so beautiful you just stared and stared, seeing yes it was Zoe, it was Mommy yet at the same time a stranger with a special connection to the crowd that adored her singing her best-known song “Little Bird of Heaven” at a fast bright pace so different from the way she’d sung this song to Aaron, as a lullaby when he’d been a small child thinking it was a special song just for him, that Mommy had made up. Who’s my little bird of heaven? Zoe had asked leaning over the bed to nuzzle her face against Aaron’s face, kissing Aaron’s nose, tucking him into bed Who’s my little bird of heaven—you are! You are my little bird of heaven. And now to Aaron at the age of eight it was unsettling and disturbing, it was a betrayal to hear Zoe sing the song he’d believed was special to him in this new, altered way and to see Mommy smiling and winking at the audience of strangers and in this sparkly dress he’d never seen before that dipped in front to show the tops of her breasts, and the tight fabric that clung to her narrow ribcage, waist, hips like something liquid.
I looked up and I looked back
Walked a hundred miles on the railroad track
Alls I can tell from where I stand
There’s a little bird of heaven right here in my hand.
Of course Aaron understood: Zoe was a singer with a band, and this was what you did, if you were a singer—you dressed in special costume-clothes, you stood up on the stage at a microphone, you smiled and sang like someone on TV and the audience cheered and applauded. Aaron understood and yet—Aaron was hurt. Seeing the glamorous blond woman who wasn’t Mommy in the spotlight singing with the band that called itself Black River Breakdown that Daddy resented, those guys Daddy disliked and complained of to Mommy—the white-haired fiddler, the Elvis-looking guitarist, and the heavyset man strumming what looked like a large violin resting on the floor that had a deep bass sound like frogs croaking out back of the house on Quarry Road.
Though Daddy said yes, he was proud of Mommy, too. He was.
Aaron and his father were sitting in the first row close by the bandstand. Had to crane their heads back, to see. And the loud music-sound swept over them, like waves. These first-row seats had been reserved for special family members and friends of the band, it was a privileged place to sit close by the bandstand. There were other songs of Zoe’s the audience liked, too—“Big Rock Candy Mountain,” “You Are My Sunshine,” “Footsteps in the Snow.” You could see how excited and anxious Zoe was for the audience to love her, to cheer and applaud. With narrowed eyes Aaron looked over his shoulder at the rows of seats, so many people, faces unknown to him, all of them staring at Zoe on stage, Aaron counted thirty-two rows of seats, and in each row there were twenty-five seats, and so there were—was it 800 people at the bandstand? But others were s
And beside Aaron in the folding chair seated with his legs sprawled, an opened can of beer on his knee there was Daddy listening with his face shut up tight staring at Mommy on stage and lifting his hands to clap only at the end of a song, not in spontaneous applause like others in the audience. Deliberately and loudly and lifting his hands so Zoe could see—if she wished to see—how he was clapping, and proud of her, and happy for her.
He was.
Not just clapping but other noises were disturbing to Aaron, and to Delray. Cheers, whistles, shouts—these were from men, boys—and the looks in their faces—you could tell. Aaron was only eight, but Aaron could tell.
Showing off your body like that. Don’t tell me you aren’t. The way you move your mouth, too. Think I can’t see?
That was Daddy, telling Mommy what she had not wanted to hear.
What Aaron was not meant to hear.
After the concert there was a reception. Aaron believed that they were going to the reception but before even the applause subsided Delray lurched to his feet and walked away leaving Aaron to follow in his wake. Maybe Delray had murmured C’mon! or maybe he’d said nothing at all and so Aaron had no choice but to make his way through the crowd jostled by strangers and feeling anxious, excited. Feeling the sting of Zoe’s betrayal like sunburn on his face.