Percival Everett - Suder

Bud came through the screen door. “Doc! How you making it?”

“I’m making it,” Daddy answered.

“I think you’re crazy to be running in this heat,” Bud said.

“Me, too,” Martin said.

“Maybe,” Daddy said.

Bud sat in the rocker. “How’s she coming?”

“She’s coming. She may have to walk some of the way. She ran about seven miles.”

“She’s crazy,” Martin snapped.

Daddy looked at Martin and gave him a pat on the leg.

“By the way, Doc,” Bud began, “I’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks. I’ve booked passage on a freighter to England.”

Daddy looked up at Bud. “Well, good for you.”

Bud looked at me and smiled. “How about that, Bird? From there I’ll go to France.”

I didn’t say anything. I scratched my arm where a mosquito had bitten me and then Django came running onto the porch. “Hey,” I said, “how did you get loose?” I looked at Bud.

“Better go tie him up,” Daddy said, “or Mr. Simpson will shoot him.”

I got up and walked Django around to the backyard. I grabbed the rope and looked at the end of it. It hadn’t been gnawed through. I looked at Django and wondered how he’d got loose. I didn’t want to tie him up, but I did. I walked back to the front wondering just how the dog had got free.

Daddy and Martin were still on the porch. Martin was upset. “Now everybody’s going to think you’re crazy, too.”

“Maybe,” Daddy said.

“Do you have to do this?”

Daddy looked at Martin. “No.”

“Then why?” Martin was almost crying.

Daddy looked up thoughtfully and then his eyes found me. “I’m not sure,” he answered. “How’s the dog?”

“Tied up.”

“Shame you’ve got to keep him tied, but Mr. Simpson will shoot him.” Daddy groaned and stood. He placed his fist in the small of his back and stretched. “Hot, hot, hot,” he said and walked into the house.

The next morning I leave Jincy to bathe Renoir and I walk to the lake. So, I’m sitting on a rock and I’m watching this eagle gliding on flat wings and Beckwith shows up.

“What are you looking at?” the zoologist asks.

I point up at the bird.

“Oh, Haliaeetus leucocephalus,” he says, sitting beside me.

“Bald eagle.”

“Pretty amazing, eh?”

I look at him and hoist up my eyebrows.

“The flight,” he says.

I nod.

“You know, birds don’t just flap their wings up and down.”

“No?”

“No. High-speed photography shows that they move their wings in figure eights. So, they push themselves through the air very much as a propeller pushes a boat through water.” He pulls a chocolate bar from his daypack and offers me some.

I shake my head.

“Yeah, birds are amazing.” He takes another bite of chocolate and then points across the lake. “Odocoileus hemionus.”

“Deer,” I says under my breath.

“They’re hot, too.”

“Hmmmm?”

“Birds, they’re hot. They’ve got high body temperatures — one hundred and five degrees sometimes. Hot, just like any engine powerful enough to fly.” What he’s saying is fascinating. “They’ve got very flexible bodies.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“More vertebrae than any other animal.”

“You don’t say.”

“More than giraffes, even.”

“Ain’t that something.” There’s a pause. “I wish I could fly.”

He chuckles. “Wishes, wishes.”

“I think I will.”

Beckwith laughs harder and he stands up. “I like you,” he says and starts away. “I’ll see you later.”

I don’t say anything and I look up and there’s an osprey slowly beating his wings across the lake.

I walk back to the cabin a different way and I get a little lost until I come out onto the highway. There’s a car parked on the road and two fellas with binoculars are scanning the area.

“Hello there,” says one of the men.

“Hey.”

“Have you seen a little girl?”

“A little girl?”

“Yes, a runaway.”

“No.” I walk on past them.

“Keep your eyes open, all right?”

I turn back to face them and nod. I walk on back to the cabin.

When Daddy wasn’t in his office he was with Ma, running with her, helping her train. Martin was annoyed; he didn’t understand. I thought I understood, but I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that Ma seemed closer to Daddy. She even seemed less abusive to Martin. Every morning and every night Daddy and Ma went running.

I decide that flying is a distinct possibility and that being a bird is well worth my while. I’ve pretty much given up on the saxophone — it hurts Jincy’s ears and starts Renoir in a screaming fit. One day I’m sitting in front of the cabin and I’m watching the gray jays.

“What are you thinking about?” Jincy asks, sitting down beside me. Renoir is munching hay.

“Flying,” I says. “I’m gonna fly.”

“Where to?”

“I just want to fly.”

Jincy is silent for a spell. “You mean fly in an airplane, right?”

“No,” I tell her. “I mean fly like a bird.”

“How?” Her eyes are wide and curious.

“I figure I’ll make some wings and, in general, act like a bird.”

“Like how?”

“I plan to raise my body temperature and loosen up my neck and eat worms.”

Jincy frowns. “Eat worms?”

“Yeah.” I pause. “I figure I’ll make wings and step off Willet Rock.”

“Willet Rock?”

“Yeah, you can see it from this side of the lake, way up. I guess it’s about two thousand feet. You’ve got to go around the mountain to get to it because it’s on the steep face.”

“Two thousand feet?” Jincy looks over at the peak of the nearby mountain. “I don’t think you should try it.”

I don’t say anything and then I hear a car coming. “Quick,” I bark, “get Renoir into the house.” I run into the cabin and lower the wall and Jincy steps inside with the elephant. I pull up the wall and kick his hay around and this pickup pulls up with two fellas.

“Howdy,” says the driver. Both men are out of the truck. They’re rangers.

“Hey,” I greet them. “What can I do for you?”

“This is going to sound crazy,” says the one who was driving, looking at his partner and smiling, “but we’re up here looking for an elephant.”

“An elephant?” I question.

“Yeah,” says the second man, chuckling. “Some folks claim they seen an elephant up here.”

“You mean an elephant with a trunk, like in a circus and all?”

The driver laughs. “Yeah.”

And I laugh loud and then Renoir gives a blast from his snout.

“What was that?” asks the driver.

“Stereo,” I tell him. Then I yell back at the cabin, “You want to turn that down in there?!”

The two men look at each other and the driver shrugs his shoulders. “Well, if you see anything …,” the driver says and stops. “Probably just a moose way off track. It ain’t enough that everybody’s running around seeing Bigfoot, we got to have an elephant.” They get back into their truck. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No bother,” I tell him and they leave and I go back into the cabin to check on Renoir.

That night I come back from my walk and Renoir ain’t outside and when I step into the cabin he ain’t there. Jincy’s in the cabin, sitting at the table, drawing pictures of Renoir.

“Where’s Renoir?” I ask.

“Outside,” she says without looking up.

“No, he’s not.”

“Sure he is,” she says, standing and walking to the window. She looks outside and then at me. “He was out there.”

We go outside with a couple of lanterns and we can see Renoir’s tracks. They’re real deep because the dirt drive is still wet from the last rain. We follow them for about three miles and I get real nervous because it looks like Renoir has gone into town. We don’t go back to get the truck as we’re already halfway to Parkdale.