How Carolina Killed the Blackbird
There had been blackbirds outside the window all morning. They cast shrewd eyes on me as I burned the eggs and dropped the toast.
It wasn’t just the blackbirds. A few days prior she had given me her best two dresses and a pair of expensive jeweled shoes two sizes too small. She hadn’t called since. There was a dread. A sick fear snaking up. A sorrow winding through my stomach and constricting my heart. There was hidden knowledge about to be revealed and guilt for my non-disclosure.
I called him at work. “I think there’s something wrong with your mother. We should go check on her. I think she’s dead.” I could have been more tactful, but the snake had my throat. It cracked my voice. My heart beat staccato in my chest. I couldn’t find the soft words or the gentle speech. He responded with the courtesy anger expected in such situations. To my coldness and dry tone. To his own fears and forced ignorance. We went to her house. The black birds followed, like dreadful spirit eaters flocking to a meal. The omen that he couldn’t see. The truth I knew and he was about to experience. I was already grieving for him as he clung to tenuous strands of hope.
I loved him, you see, more than the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the heavens. I loved him. I loved him more than myself.
The fire department broke down the door when she didn’t answer. They found her dead in her bed. They wouldn’t let us inside. They said we wouldn’t want to see. The morbid part of me, the black bird inside, wanted to see. To see the foam spattered blue lips, the needle jutting from the vein, the excrement on the sheets, the vomit on the floor. To see death’s fine and terrible work at play in the universe. I held my tongue. Locked the desire down deep inside and held the crying boy.
I didn’t have the same capacity for loss as him. It wasn’t in my nature to be less than accepting of fate’s grand plans. I had no answer for the whys and hows that inevitably followed. I didn’t have the faith to spew the obligatory speech about heaven and joyful afterlives. I couldn’t muster those standard, meaningless condolences. I said I was sorry and left him to his tears and rage.
I watched as brother and sister riffled through the echoes of her life. Smelled the perfumed clothes, cried over the pictures on the wall, blamed themselves for her illness. Divided the spoils of her memories. Gathered needles into sharps containers. Disposed of hidden heroine to preserve the decorum of the dead. Kept the cocaine as an escape plan. They said they should have known, they said they if they had just been less selfish they could have saved her. If they had been less involved in their own lives it would have been different. She would have lived. I felt guilty in a small way. I should have told them. I had known all along.
It was painted on her face like cheap makeup. It was in her vacant eyes. It was in the constant gifts and the advice she gave to care for each other deeply. It was in the martyred charity and the track marks. I thought they knew as well. They hadn’t seen it coming. I could have said something, but I was a stranger to their family and didn’t have the right. In the dark, under the flicker of memorial candles, pure and ghostly white, my boyfriend inhaled an eight ball of grief. “It’s ok”, he said. “It won’t hurt soon.” Having not the capacity to console him, I joined him. I breathed deep the mourning.
I fell in love again.
Carolina was beautiful.
Pale and sparkling like ground diamonds. Her radiance was undeniable. The soft powder so bitter and precious, numbing the painful parts of me. She was generous, giving me both day and night to experience the world. She was kind, forever sparing me of my agony. Bestowing upon me, like a great heathen Goddess, joy and beauty. Filling my body with tingling bits of glorious light. Through her I opened the door to the universe. Stood at her alter and sacrificed the best of me. I gave her all my wealth, my aching flesh, my weakened dignity, my childhood traumas, my exhaustion, and my soul.
She rewarded me with the height of mountains and epiphanies of starlit nights. She gave me brilliant dawns and the intoxicating scent of gasoline mixed with Armani. She rewarded me with rich scarlet streaming from my nose - a wondrous affirmation that I was still alive. She let me see what the firemen would not. I caressed the silken robe of death and felt the thrill of coming close to his power.
She gave me addiction and I accepted it gratefully with the whole of my damaged heart.
She spoke to me in pictures. Like a shoe box of photos, new and old, dumped into my head. Some black and white, some color, some sepia with elaborate handwritten paragraphs on the back. Each a piece of me I barely understood. She dropped them one by one, first the large ones, the glossy 8 by 10’s with names and dates, then quicker came the faded 5 by 7’s, then the cascade of blurry 3 by 5’s and passport photos. They rained down on me like quiet hell.
Jist git you a litt’l piece o’ vict’ry an y’ll understand, girl.” He had chaw tar dripping from the corner of his mouth, down the big wrinkled jowls that made him look like Methuselah’s bulldog. Pa finished the business about the hay and hustled me out of the shack. “Don’t listen to him”, he said, “He had a wife once that never owned a new dress and a boy that went barefoot all year long. More than enough money too, got it all squirreled away for the rapture. I reckon he’s gonna bribe Saint Peter.” Till a girl hits a certain age, the point when her arms get lean and long, her hips spread, her thighs get strong, and her feet plant firm enough to hold down during a knocking blow, she’s not worth much more than giving advice too. There’s plenty of it to give, apparently, and not much of it is worth the breath used to give it. But, that’s what little country girls are for, giving advice and sweet treats to, growing them up quick for working or breeding or both.
Click. Snap. Flip.
A country road, a red Chevy pickup. Old Scratch and me whittling the day away with little pointed words. “Echo, I don’t want to tell you more than you need to know, but let me make something clear. I’ve done a lot in life and I know more than a few things about the world. Let me tell you — Never drink too much whiskey, smoke too many cigarettes, or run around with too many women and you’ll be just fine.” Uncle Duck died that winter from cancer. I suppose Ma and I are the only two people in the world who could rightfully say that we had mourned the devil.
Whirrrrrrrrr. Flash. Photos faster. Faster and faster. First a scrapbook, then a flipbook, then a Kinetoscope complete with carnival music and swirling nausea.
The City. The lights. My body writhing under pulsing strobes. Grown men falling off their bar stools before I’d even gotten started. Chain smoking. A lady or two to wrap my corn-fed thighs around. Southern charm enough to get boys to pay the bills.
A crime against my brother. Unspeakable and unforgivable. A look at what I killed in him.
110mph down a winding country road with a frosted nose and suspended fear. A dead catfish nailed to a road sign. Cherry blossoms fluttering down like soft pink rain.
“Shhhhh… it’s just a game, we won’t tell anyone.” Rough hands on flowered cotton panties.
A black eye. A busted lip. A cracked rib. Switch marks and blood.
Snap. Flash. Whirrrr.
A neighborhood. A boy’s face, blurry, and unrecognizable. Carolina holding my hand. My car. Me. Where? Cold.
Click.
Red light.
White light.
Things that look like people.
Noises like insects, buzzing.
Chest pain.
Heart ache.
Face mask.
A blackbird. Dead in the snow.
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SUN TZU
He’s talked nervously all night. Like a counter-fitter passing off a bill. I can hear the desperate rattle of his broken pieces atop his vocal cords. Two discordant thoughts competing with every move of his larynx. I can smell the heat and sweet of him. He’s huddle down like a prey animal in his chair. He’s overwhelmed.
It’s understandable. I’m plain faced and wide hipped. I laugh like a lumberjack and my voice quakes the small spaces around him. But, then he blinks and I carry myself like Audrey Hepburn— regal and austere. Everyday royalty. It’s part of the game. At this moment he doubts me. That’s good. I’m abnormally persuasive and doubt is easily overcome.
I force my eyes into two lipid pools of crystal water. Fresh, clean and new to the world. Turquoise fish dart, dive, and glint when he skims his fingers through the ripples. I’ll form my lips into glossy, soft petals; bowed gently, only slightly parted, faintly damp. I’ve studied cherubs and sirens. Their lips look the same.
He’ll reach out a hand to touch my wrist or maybe my arm. I’ll faint a blush and tilt my head down and to the side, threads of hair quietly drifting down across one eye. In this pose he’ll see me gentle, yielding and submissively feminine. My former brashness will now seem to him like rare and welcomed honesty.
It goes the same way, this dance, so oft repeated, that I no longer need a metronome to keep the beat. Each step is instinctual.
His hand is on my wrist. I have flushed and turned. Up comes my head now, slow as if in reverence, so that I can clasp my eyes tight to him. I’ll narrow them to sharpen my aim. I’ll pull back my lips ever so slightly to bear my fangs. He will think I am smiling.
***
Her smile. It’s taking me away. She’s listened all night, really listened, those eyes locked on me – large like a doe. Cool like skinny dipping on a hot day. Playful like cat. I lost myself and stuttered a time or two, but she didn’t notice. I wanted to touch her, just to feel the softness of her skin, and when I laid my hand her her wrist she blushed brilliant glowing pink and turned her head in the sweetest way. You can trust a girl with a smile like that. Trust a girl that can still blush. You can love girls like that even if they aren’t perfect.
Eyes like hers could give a man a refuge from scowling wives, ungrateful children, mortgages and car payments. Dissolve away the grind and make me free again.
***
He’ll buy a drink or two. He’ll have more than that for himself. He’ll try to wash down his guile and bring up those wistful adventures he once dreamed about. There’s a conflict between the two. He’s thinking about it now. His eyes locked on a patch of wall, tuning his wedding ring with his thumb — around and around like it’s on a lathe. Like he can reshape it into something less or more than what it is. Make it somehow shiny again. I don’t notice of course. That’s his step.
The drinks come and the comfortable chatting starts. I’ll drink, laugh, sigh, and touch my hair and face on cue. In a moment he’ll excuse himself to the bathroom where he’ll wrestle with the last of his conscious before coming back to me.
***
I need to pee. And think. I’ve had a few, but it’s her that’s making me dizzy. Has to be her. I’m looking in the mirror, rubbing that other man’s face, pushing back his hair, giving him a stern look in the eye. I don’t want to be myself tonight. It complicates things.
I can’t be serious. I must not be thinking straight. She’s so perfect. My wife doesn’t smile like her. Never has, that I can remember. Right this second I bet she’s pacing the floor fretting, wanting, missing, and needing. The kids too, there’s always some small petty thing wanting from their happiness. I try so hard. I’m tired of trying. I don’t have to try with her. Surely, she not perfect? She seems like it. I bet she’s fire on the inside. Finding out would be so much fun and life has so few moments like this.
She likes me. She doesn’t want anything from me. I could be free for just an hour or two.
***
He’ll be back shortly, with some look of doubt and shame in his eyes. One last flicker of conscious before he snaps back his shoulders and starts to calculate how to put on the charm. Before he starts with his fumbling attempts I’ll tell him how lucky it is that we met tonight. How different and unique he is. How fortunate any woman would be to have such a man across the table from her. How long it’s been since I’ve met someone so hansom, funny, and sweet. He’ll settle back down, relaxed a calm. Kingly even. I’ll say it sweet, with a extra touch of softened southern twang. He’s in control now. The rest will follow smoothly; the hardest work is done. I lean forward. Place my right hand, curled and supple, briefly against his cheek. I implore gently with my eyes. He kisses me on schedule.
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In Consideration of Giving a Speech to a Graveyard
In the same way that someone who presides over a funeral must feel a twinge of guilt for not knowing the correct thing to say I too am facing a considerable amount of frustration in selecting the right words. How do I sum up the lifelong contributions of strangers who, most likely, are from various religious, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds? My audience is 100 years dried into dust beneath the clay, forgotten, and un-revered. How do I emphasis our connection to them?
You see, nothing exists in a vacuum. The decisions made by the bones below when they were with flesh are as real and with consequence as the decisions we make today. They built the roads we drive on, formed the companies we work for, settled the towns we live in, and created the law and common practices we abide by. The local culture we experience now is result of their constant tinkering. The lessons we have learned from our collective past were hard taught at their expense. The water leeched from the remains beneath our feet generations before our birth is the same water in our cup today. And while we wish we were much removed from then, untouchable by the cold and quiet grave, we are but one breath from becoming the same as and a part of them. What words best connect the beating butterfly wings of the past to the winds of today?
It’s hard to convey the sense of unity that we all should feel. If the footprints we leave behind in our daily walks were not washed away by rain or wind or sun… if they were collected, catalogued, and kept for prosperity… if our fleeting thoughts were bottled and shelved, we could see our effect on the world. We could watch the piles of footprints grow, build warehouses for our bottled dreams, and know the intimate details of the lives before ours. We would see the path carved for us by the actions of our ancestors. We could better understand how to carve a path for our decedents.
But, we are fickle temporal creatures. Eternity stretches out around us in all directions and we see only a glimmer of a fraction, a mere glimpse of the now. The past is a far away thing, a distant fairy tale, a story we tell our children. The future is a wistful dream, a wisp of white smoke rising in the distance; intangible and ethereal. The bits in between are ancillary characters to our personal dramas. How can I explain a concept that I barely grasp myself?
