J. Powers - The Stories of J.F. Powers

Reaching the other far corner of the yard, he stood considering the thick black-walnut tree, which he had once, at about this time of year, thought of girdling with a tin shield to keep off the squirrels. But this would have taken a lot of tin, and equipment he didn’t own to trim a neighboring maple and possibly an elm, and so he had decided to share the nuts with the squirrels. This year they could have them all. Few of the birds would be there when it happened, but the squirrels — there were at least a dozen in residence — were in for a terrible shock.

He moved toward the house, on the street side of the yard, on the lookout for beer cans and bottles that the college students from their parked cars tossed into the bushes. He knew, from several years of picking up after them, their favorite brand.

He came within twenty yards of the white oak, and stopped. He didn’t want to venture too near in case the mother was engaged in feeding the baby, or was just about to make up her mind to do so. In order to see, however, he would have to be a little closer. He moved toward the white oak in an indirect line, and stopped again. The nest was empty. His first thought was that the bird, sensing the approach of darkness, had wisely retreated into the shelter of the lilies of the valley nearby, and then he remembered the recent disturbance on the other side of the yard. The cat had last been seen at what had appeared a safe distance then. He was looking now for feathers, blood, bones. But he saw no such signs of the bird. Again he considered the possibility that it was hiding in the lilies of the valley. When he recalled the bird sitting in the very center of the nest, it did not seem likely that it would leave, ever — unless persuaded by the mother to do so. But he had no faith in the mother, and instead of searching the lilies, he stood where he was and studied the ground around him in a widening circle. The cat could’ve carried it off, of course, or — again — the bird could be safe among the lilies.

He hurried to the fallen oak. Seeing the little bird at such a distance from the nest, and not seeing it as he’d expected he would, but entire, he had been deceived. The bird was not moving. It was on its back, not mangled but dead. He noted the slate-black feet. Its head was to one side on the grass. The one eye he could see was closed, and the blood all around it, enamel-bright, gave the impression, surprising to him, that it had poured out like paint. He wouldn’t have thought such a little thing would even have blood.

He went for the shovel with which he’d turned up no worms for the bird earlier that day. He came back to the bird by a different route, having passed on the other side of a big tree, and saw the little ring of grass that had been the bird’s nest. It now looked like a wreath to him.

He dug a grave within a few feet of the bird. The ground was mossy there. He simply lifted up a piece of it, tucked in the bird, and dropped the sod down like a cover. He pounded it once with the back side of the shovel, thinking the bird would rest easier there than in most ground.

When he looked up from his work, he saw that he had company: Mr and Mrs Hahn, neighbors. He told them what had happened, and could see that Mr Hahn considered him soft. He remembered that Mr Hahn, who had an interest such as newspapers seemed to think everybody ought to have in atomic explosions, didn’t care to discuss the fallout.

The Hahns walked with him through the yard. They had heard there were no mosquitoes there now.

“Apparently it works,” he said.

“The city should spray,” said Mrs Hahn.

“At least the swamps,” said Mr Hahn, who was more conservative.

He said nothing. They were perfectly familiar with his theory: that it was wet enough in the lily beds, in the weeds along the river, for mosquitoes to breed. When he argued that there just weren’t enough swamps to breed that many mosquitoes, people smiled, and tried to refute his theory — confirmed it — by talking about how little water it took, a birdbath, a tin can somewhere. “In my opinion, they breed right here, in this yard and yours.”

“Anyway, they’re not here now,” said Mrs Hahn.

He received this not as a compliment but as a polite denial of his theory. They were passing under the mulberry tree. In the bloody atmosphere prevailing in his mind that evening, he naturally thought of the purple grackle that had hung itself from a high branch with a string in the previous summer. “I’m sick of it all.”

“Sick of what ?” said Mrs Hahn.

The Hahns regarded him as a head case, he knew, and probably wouldn’t be surprised if he said that he was sick of them. He had stopped trying to adjust his few convictions and prejudices to company. He just let them fly. Life was too short. “Insects, birds, and animals of all kinds,” he said. “Nature.”

Mr Hahn smiled. “There’d be too many of those doves if things like that didn’t happen.”

“I suppose.”

Mr Hahn said: “Look how the fish live.”

He looked at the man with interest. This was the most remarkable thing Mr Hahn had ever said in his presence. But, of course, Mr Hahn didn’t appreciate the implications. Mr Hahn didn’t see himself in the picture at all.

“That includes children,” he said, pursuing his original line. It was the children who were responsible for bringing the failures of nature to his attention.

Mrs Hahn, who seemed to feel she was on familiar ground, gaily laughed. “Everybody who has them complains about them.”

“ And women,” he added. He had almost left women out, and they belonged in. They were responsible for the children and the success of Queen for a Day .

“And men,” he added when he caught Mr Hahn smiling at the mention of women. Men were at the bottom of it all.

“That doesn’t leave much, does it?” said Mr Hahn.

“No.” Who was left? God. It wasn’t surprising, for all problems were at bottom theological. He’d like to put a few questions to God. God, though, knowing his thoughts, knew his questions, and the world was already in possession of all the answers that would be forthcoming from God. Compassion for the Holy Family fleeing from Herod was laudable and meritorious, but it was wasted on soulless rabbits fleeing from soulless weasels. Nevertheless it was there just the same, or something very like it. As he’d said in the beginning, he was sick of it all.

“There he is now!” cried Mrs Hahn.

He saw the black-and-white cat pause under the fallen oak.

“Should I get my gun?” said Mr Hahn.

“No. It’s his nature.” He stamped his foot and hissed. The cat ran out of the yard. Where were the birds? They could be keeping an eye on the cat. Somewhere along the line they must have said the hell with it. He supposed there was a lesson in that for him. A man couldn’t commiserate with life to the full extent of his instincts and opportunities. A man had to accept his God-given limitations.

He accompanied the Hahns around to the front of the house, and there they met a middle-aged woman coming up the walk. He didn’t know her, but the Hahns did, and introduced her. Mrs Snyder.

“It’s about civil defense,” she said. Every occupant of every house was soon to be registered for the purposes of identification in case of an emergency. Each block would have its warden, and Mrs Snyder thought that he, since he lived on this property, which took up so much of the block…

“No.”

“No?”

“No.” He couldn’t think of a job for which he was less suited, in view of his general outlook. He wouldn’t be here anyway. Nor would this house, these trees.

While Mr and Mrs Hahn explained to Mrs Snyder that the place was to become a parking lot for the college, he stood by in silence. He had never heard it explained so well. His friends had been shocked at the idea of doing away with the old house and trees — and for a parking lot! — and although he appreciated their concern, there was nothing to be done, and after a time he was unable to sympathize with them. This they didn’t readily understand. It was as if some venerable figure in the community, only known to them but near and dear to him, had been murdered, and he failed to show proper sorrow and anger. The Hahns, however, were explaining how it was, turning this way and that, pointing to this building and that, to sites already taken, to those to be taken soon or in time. For them the words “the state” and “expansion” seemed sufficient. And the Hahns weren’t employed by the college and they weren’t old grads. It was impossible to account in such an easy way for their enthusiasm. They were scheduled for eviction themselves, they said, in a few years.