Deadbird Redbird by Adam Strong
“That little guy, that shade. Couldn’t see anything else.”
This piece is a stand-alone story, excerpted from a novel in progress, called Bella Vista.
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I’m six. It’s the middle of an October afternoon. Mom and I are coming back home to pick up a suit for me, for some school thing. Five steps to our walk up, four colors of leaves, shadows of the upcoming winter, sounds of laughter from around the block. And lying on the fourth step is a bird. Lying with his face down, like he just passed out.
One of those birds I saw all over the neighborhood that summer, a Cardinal with a bright red body, black wings, little orange nose. I reached my hand out to see if he was sleeping, but when I did, when I held my hand out and petted his back, all the stuff inside him that made him heavy was gone. Shadow of Mom behind me, her purse swinging into my back.
“Don’t touch that thing,” she said, “it’s disgusting.”
I’d seen dead animals before, but when I turned him over, he was the first one I saw with his little eyes on me. Usually this guy was so red, tuft of feathers on the top and his orange beak, but he had this shade to him, the color of a little bit of blood and a whole lot of water, a tea-water red, and not just in his face, in his beak, or in the wrinkles underneath the eyes, but it was in his body too. That shade was the last bit of him shining up through his skin. His little eyeballs stared off into nothing. That little guy lying there, the life drained out of him like that. He was my deadbird redbird.
I didn’t want to just leave him there on the step, so I told mom I wanted to bury him. Mom’s hand, her long fingers when she handed me a tissue, her wedding ring, the bunched up wrinkles of her knuckle.
“It’s only a goddamned bird,” Mom said, “just let him go.”
Then Mom and the clack of her heels up the walk up, no words, just the jangle of her keys, the bang crash of the front door shut.
The empty in the little guy, picked him up with the tissue in my hand, set him down on one of Mom’s planters right by the steps. The tissue and how it hung there, a little sheet that came off his face.
Nothing but my own hands to bury him with, the ground, the dirt a little hard on top, warmer underneath when I got my hands down in there. The cup of my hand, four scoops of dirt in a pile, a hole in front of me, a bed for the little guy to lie in.
Rings of dirt underneath my fingernails. I picked him up between my thumb and forefinger. His eyes, no reflection, no movement, just gone.
There was a gap in time that was my brain telling my hand what to do and then me doing it, my palm on that pile of dirt turned flat, my deadbird redbird’s head the last part to be buried. His face was behind the white tissue before I pushed the rest of the dirt over him.
I never napped, but that day I napped of salty sweat and the little bit of light I could see through my sheet. That little guy, that shade. Couldn’t see anything else.
Once I saw deadbird redbird I saw him everywhere.
Sometime later, I was at school and I had to pee. Mrs. Johnson was just on the other side of my desk with her short bob of hair, her baby blue blouse. My hand went up. She was helping out another kid, his paper worn thin from working on some math problem. There was an ache under my arm from having my hand up for so long.
I coughed to try to get her to turn around and see me.
“Jay,” she said, “can’t you just wait for a second?” Her face was normally so sweet, but then she turned to look at me, and deadbird redbird came right up through her skin.
Started out in my chest, the shortness of breath, the tremble in my voice, how she could so quickly turn into someone who was not alive.
“You never heard me, you never saw me.” I said. “It's like you’re dead.”
And once I spoke the whole room got quiet, the pencils moving on math worksheets stopped, the kids taking turns at the pencil sharpener stopped, even the click of the clock stopped.
That's when I really saw her tea-water shade, those beady eyes on me staring out towards nothing. Almost saw the white layer of tissue on her face.
“Principal’s office,” she said, “now.”
The principal’s office had smelly orange carpet, and stacks of Highlights magazines, ABC’S and 123s along the walls, and the principal came in, his hair all combed to one side. His beard, his tie undone, the yellow/pink/white form in his hand. I knew he’d been reading about me calling my teacher dead. His face there, even the principal had the same tea water blood shade as deadbird redbird.
“Jay,” he said, “why do you think your teacher’s dead?”
And as much as I wanted to tell him that I was seeing deadbird everywhere, all I felt was an empty sick in my stomach, the sweat from too many coats and the dry warm of the principal's office, the burn in my throat, the crawl up right before I could do anything about it. That orange carpet we were on, and even when I stood up and ran down the hall to find a bathroom, the principal followed me. My steps and his steps and doorhandles of classrooms but no bathroom.
I didn’t find a bathroom.
Right there, with the two of us in the hallway, puke came up out of me, chunks of white and red all over the principal’s penny loafers.
Principal’s eyes on me, his eyes like his whole body, still, not angry, not doing what Dad would’ve done. Could have yelled and screamed, could have sent me away. But he didn’t.
The principal, his skin still deadbird redbird. I stood there and he stood there too with my puke all over his shoes. Didn’t say anything, just opened up his arms for me to walk into. Me who saw death everywhere, his arms said I don’t care what you’ve been through, just come on in. I didn’t want to at first, but I needed somebody. My feet were heavy when I stepped over to him anyway. His arms around me, my eyes closed, the deep cigarette smell of his coat. Him holding me, and his beard, his tie all undone. The smell of pencil shavings and burnt dust. The two of us there in that hallway, and for a second, it was enough.
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If you enjoyed reading this piece of fiction, you might also enjoy another piece from one of Tom Spanbauer's Dangerous Writing workshop members: "An Excerpt From Welcome to Wildhorse," by Charles Dye. Read it here.
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Adam Strong was scared of grass until he was 4, when he got glasses. Adam Strong is a High School Digital Arts teacher. Adam Strong is working on his first novel, Bella Vista, where Deadbird Redbird comes from. Adam Strong has published a few pieces here and there. Adam Strong has two children that make his jaw go funny when he sees them. Adam Strong lives and writes in Portland, OR.