A Bird On Water Street (9 page)

We weren't alone when we got to the store. I helped my parents quickly fill a basket to overflowing with things like tuna fish, coffee, toilet paper, flour, yeast, and soap—things that would last a long time. We managed to get in the checkout line not too far back. It quickly grew behind us and wrapped around the shelves, which were now almost bare.

Mr. Ledford stood at the checkout counter with a small selection of goods.

“He's lost weight since I dropped by last week,” Mom whispered. “Poor man is trying to take care of his wife without any nursing help.”

We were close enough that I overheard Mr. Ledford ask, “What do you mean I can't buy groceries?”

“You can't buy on credit anymore,” Mr. Davenport said loudly. “You've got nothin' for it to come out of.”

“I don't have any cash,” Mr. Ledford muttered. “My last paycheck was only ten dollars.”

“You and half the other men,” Mr. Davenport replied. “We were doin' you a favor lettin' you charge against it all this time.”

“My wife got sick.” Mr. Ledford said. “I got behind.”

“That's not my problem,” Mr. Davenport said. “Now step aside, so I can ring up the Hills.”

Mr. Ledford just stood there with his mouth open.

“Saint Peter don't call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the Company store,” Dad said, quoting the Tennessee Ernie Ford tune.

“Mom, can we help?” I asked.

She already had her wallet open. Dad nodded as she pulled out a few dollars. I pulled two wadded up bills out of my pocket to add to it. Up and down the line of grocery carts, families pulled money from their wallets and passed it forward. By the time it got to the front it was a thick bundle of cash—enough for several trips to the store.

Mr. Hill slapped the pile on the counter and said, “Mr. Ledford has plenty of money to buy his groceries. I suggest you check him out now.”

Mr. Ledford gave everyone the slightest nod. His eyes were wide and brimming with tears as he turned back around like a turtle pulling into his shell. He paid for his groceries and quickly left the store.

I was never so proud of my neighbors. But Mr. Ledford was a scary reminder of how close any of us were to being in a similar situation.

O

Dad still left for the mine every morning, but now it was to strike at the front gate . . .
where he can't get hurt
, I thought but rubbed my lucky rabbit's foot anyway.

Piran and I stood on the bridge after school and watched the miners picketing in the distance. The men chanted and punched the sky with their signs as they circled in front of the Company.

Dad came home excited at the end of the day. “We'll have our jobs back in no time—all of us. They'll give in soon.”

Was it wrong of me to hope not?

O

By Thanksgiving Dad was a little less fired up. “They're not makin' any money without the Company running. They need us back,” he said. “They've got to compromise.”

I almost envied Buster when his family came over for Thanksgiving. Living on a chicken farm might not have been so great, but at least they knew what tomorrow looked like. His dad had a job, and they could always eat chicken.

r

Chapter 12

December

“Now Jack, I don't want you getting your hopes up about Christmas, y'hear?” Mom said on the way to the Piggly Wiggly one Saturday. The Company had shut down the store like Dad predicted, so we had to drive forty minutes out of town for groceries, even though we didn't buy that much. “We don't have the money to spend this year like we used to.”

The Christmas season had moved in with a lot less celebration than normal. The town put up twinkle lights, but with the miners still on strike, everybody was hurtin'. The storefronts didn't have anything new in the windows and holiday spirits were low.

“I know,” I replied, although I ached for that BMX dirt bike that would have been mine if things were different. I tried my best not to be bitter about it, but our minister, Father Huckabay, would have had a field day if he could peek inside my head. I knew I was luckier than most and tried to count my blessings. Really, I did.

We passed Crazy Coote on the way out of town. He looked right at me like he could read my mind. I shrank into my seat, feeling guilty for wantin' anything at all.

As we followed the Tohachee River northeast over the mountains, the scenery changed from our paper-bag landscape to something very different. Pastures came into view full of wooly cows nibbling on weeds and brown grass. Most of the trees had dropped their leaves, and skeletal trees stretched their branches up to the pale gray sky. Even without their leaves, they were beautiful, like living sculptures.

“What do you suppose trees do all winter?” I asked Mom. “Do they sleep?”

“Not really. They concentrate all their growing underground when it's too cold above.”

They looked to be hibernating. But not all the trees were bare. Small evergreens grew along the pasture fences. “What kind of trees are those green ones there?”

“Those are spruce trees,” she said. “The birds eat the seeds, land on the fences, and well, they poop. It's fertilizer and a seed in one. So, that's where the trees grow.”

“Then they're bird-crap trees?” I said and quickly covered my mouth.

“Jack!” She glared at me but then turned away. I could see her grin in the window's reflection.

“We gonna have a Christmas tree this year at least?” I begged.

“No, Jack, that's wasted money,” she said with the frown again. “I'm sorry, but I need you to be mature about this for me, okay? Just this year, please?”

Being poor sucked. Still, I couldn't stop thinkin' about bird-crap trees. If we could just get birds to fly over Coppertown, maybe they'd help make trees. I'd take bird-crap trees over no trees at all.

O

Dad showed up a week before Christmas with a tree tied to the roof of his car anyway. Puffed up like a rooster, with an axe in his hand, he planted it on the ground next to him with a proud “Ta-da!”

He looked like Paul Bunyan in his denim and plaid flannel top. Mom snickered, “Oh, Ray, what have you done?”

It was a bird-crap tree. My dad brought home a bird-crap tree for Christmas.
Well, don't that just beat all
.

We set it up inside anyhow and tried to decorate it, but the branches were too floppy to hold any ornaments. So, we threw tinsel over it and called it done.

As we stood staring at it, Mom covered her mouth and tried not to laugh. It was contagious. I squeezed my lips tight to keep from busting up.

Finally Dad said, “Well ain't that the saddest lookin' Christmas tree yu'uns ever seen?”

That was all it took. We laughed until tears ran down our faces.

I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd heard my parents make that sound.

O

I couldn't imagine not giving my family something for Christmas, but I didn't have any money since Mom cut my allowance. I looked around my bedroom hoping for an idea. And there it was in the bottom drawer of my desk.

I pulled out my old sketch pad and some colored pencils. I hadn't used them since I was a kid, but I didn't have anything else. So I drew a landscape of Coppertown for Dad. I used up half my yellow and orange trying to get the land to look just right. For Mom, I drew a bird. It had to be a sparrow, like in the tune she always sang. I looked it up in a book I'd checked out from the school library and was surprised at the picture. The bird was small, brown, and gray, nothing special to look at.

“Its charming song belies its dull appearance,” the book said. Maybe the next time we left Coppertown I could try to hear one. Unless they migrated. Wasn't that what birds did?

I'll add some colors and make it prettier.

I did one more landscape drawing of Coppertown, this one for Grandpa, but this time I added trees using lots of greens and blues. That one was the most fun to do as I imagined my home the way it used to be before the mining started. I wanted Grandpa to see it that way too.

I smiled at my drawings—they looked all right. I signed each one
Love, Jack
, rolled them up, and tied some kitchen string around them.

I was so proud of myself that I felt like a turkey with its tail fanned out. I went to find my parents, not to tell 'em what I'd done but just to hint a little maybe. Mom was in their bedroom with the door closed. I knocked. “Mom?”

“Don't come in!” she yelled and made sounds that made me think of juggling Tupperware.

I frowned. “Well, where's Dad?”

“I think he's out in his metal shop.”

Where he always was now, if he wasn't picketing. He'd come home from the strike, take a shower, and go out to his shop. If it weren't for dinner, I'd probably never see him. The message was clear—he wanted to be alone.

I sighed and went to the kitchen for a snack. There wasn't much in the fridge, nor in the cabinets neither, just stuff that had to be cooked like beans, soup, and rice. I finally found a jar of peanut butter.
That'll do
. I took a spoon, scooped out a big hunk, and ate it like a Popsicle.

Lately it seemed I was hungry all the time, and there was never enough food around. Mom said I was gonna eat 'em out of house and home. It made me feel awful, but how was I supposed to stop growing?

r

Chapter 13

Christmas

We went to church on Christmas Eve, as usual. The choir sang carols out of tune, as usual. The room did look nice with the twinkle lights and candles lit, though. There was a real Christmas tree in the back of the church. It filled the air with its spicy scent, which mingled with the cinnamon and hot apple cider. Everybody was dressed in their Sunday best, which made it feel more festive.

Piran and I laughed about everyone huggin' and shaking hands like they didn't see each other every Sunday anyway. The smiles may have been more forced than usual, but everybody seemed to be trying. Anytime the word “strike” was mentioned, somebody got finger smacked on the arm or back, or even on the back of their head if they didn't stop.

Then I spotted Hannah. All the twinkle lights framed her, lighting her up all golden and sparkly. Her friends sounded like a pack of hens out at the Spencer farm, but she just smiled and outshined them like copper in the ore, a diamond in the coal, the jewel that she was.

Could she feel me looking at her? I'd grown an inch recently—would she notice? I willed her to glance my way, but her eyes kept straying toward the back of the church. I followed her gaze to Eli Munroe. He stood near the door with his parents like a black cloud.

What does she see in that guy?

He was dressed in a suit, one that actually fit him, unlike mine, which felt like it would rip apart if I raised my arms. And he looked right back at Hannah with . . . with love in his eyes. Surely Eli couldn't feel anything that deeply—even though that's what it looked like.

She'll figure him out soon enough. She'll see him for what he really is, and I'll have my chance
. I just hoped it was soon.

O

Back home, we did our traditional reading of “The Night Before Christmas,” with sound effects. I especially liked pounding on things during “the prancing and pawing of each little hoof.” It's a very noisy poem, what with all the snorin' and whistling and such. Of course, I didn't tell any of my friends that we did that. I would have been laughed out of the county.

“What about milk and cookies for Santa?” I asked. Yeah, I'd been too old for Santa for a while, but we always pretended I wasn't. It was part of the Christmas fun.

“Not this year,” Mom replied and squeezed my shoulder.

I went to bed feeling lower than a sunken mine.
A bird-crap Christmas tree, no cookies, and no bike—this is going to be the worst Christmas ever.

O

Christmas morning I grabbed my drawings and ran for the den.
Maybe, just maybe.

I stopped short and sighed when I saw the tree. Santa had definitely skipped us. Two gifts wrapped in brown paper and tied up with kitchen string sat next to the tree. Nothing else, no dirt bike. Not that I really expected it, but I had hoped anyway.

“Maybe we can get your bike next year.” Mom hugged me from behind.

“How'd you know?” I asked. I'd made a point of not saying anything about it recently, although I'd worn out the magazine in my bedside drawer staring at the ad.

“Merry Christmas!” Dad shouted as he entered the room. “Well lookie there, presents! You better open 'em, Jack.”

I tucked my drawings in with the gifts and shook off my bad mood as best I could. I tried to fetch the larger of the two packages, but it wouldn't budge. I had to sit it on the floor to rip off the paper. Underneath was a handmade model of the General Lee from
The Dukes of Hazzard.