House of Wings (7 page)

His grandfather was shaking his head sadly from side to side. His neck bones creaked as he did this so that he seemed to be a machine that needed oiling.

“What happened?”

His grandfather did not turn around. He lifted his hands and stuck them in his back belt loops. With his brown hands and white arms he appeared to be wearing gloves. He still shook his head in the same sad way.

“Are you deaf?” Sammy asked loudly. He remembered that there had been lots of times when his grandfather had not answered. He reached out and tugged the back of his grandfather’s army pants. “Hey,” he said loudly. “Hey, what happened?” He tugged harder. He was prepared to shake the answer out of his grandfather if necessary.

Then his grandfather turned and looked down at Sammy. In an old, gray voice he gave the explanation. “He’s blind.”

S
AMMY COULD NOT BELIEVE
he had heard correctly. “What did you say?” It was like the moment when he had learned that his parents had gone on to Detroit without him. There were some things that just didn’t happen, and so the only explanation was that the ears had heard wrong.

“He’s blind.”

“The crane’s blind?” His food was suddenly heavy in his stomach. He thought that each of those biscuits must have weighed five pounds.

“Yes, the crane is blind,” his grandfather said.

Sammy could not speak. Silently he said, “Oh.” There were some things that there was no answer to but that silent and painful “Oh.” All the silent “Ohs” of Sammy’s life began to flash in his mind. “Your dog’s dead, Sammy, got run over on the highway.” Oh. “You’re not going to get your bicycle this Christmas.” Oh. “Your parents have gone to Detroit without you.” Oh. Moments later the words came—fast, hot words. “You’re a liar. My dog’s not dead!” Or “Who wants an old bicycle anyway?” Now he couldn’t think of anything to say. Finally he stammered, “How could that happen though?”

His grandfather shook his head. “I thought there was something wrong the way he didn’t run from us. Usually a crane’s shy. It runs. And he held his head in a funny way—I don’t know if you noticed it or not.”

“No,” Sammy said. “I never saw a crane before. I don’t know how they are supposed to hold their heads.”

“And his wings are battered. See, here? Like he’d been running into things again and again. I knew
something
was wrong, but …” His voice trailed off as if his strength had at last wound down.

Sammy said, “I didn’t think birds got blind.”

“Well, they don’t live long if they do. A blind bird’s not even a bird. He can’t fly. He can’t find food or water. He can’t do nothing. He just waits and if he’s lucky he dies fast.”

“Maybe he’s not blind though. You can never tell with a bird. Maybe—”

“Nature don’t help a blind creature.”

“But, listen, maybe—”

“Look at that.” His grandfather put his hand up to the crane’s head. “See? Nothing. No reaction at all. And you can look at the left eye and see it’s injured.” He motioned Sammy around so that he could see.

“How could that happen though?”

“He just ran into something most probably. All the injuries are on this side—the wing, the breast, the eye. From the looks of it, I’d say he flew into some electrical wires.”

“But I see birds sitting on wires all the time. They practically live on wires.”

“Yeah, but if a bird flies into the lead wire and hits another wire at the same time—and a bird the size of this crane could do that real easy—well, he could get a burn like this.” He pointed to the bloody feathers on the bird’s breast. “You see this here and here?” He pointed to the wing, the head.

Sammy nodded. “But why would the other eye be damaged?”

“Well, as I figure it from the look of that burn on his breast and wing, he hit right into the wires and there would be a flash in his face, an electrical flash, and it would be bright enough to burn his other eye. It would be like you staring into the sun for a while. It burns the eye.” He shook his head sadly.

“Does that kind of burn clear up?”

“Sometimes if it’s not too bad. Sometimes it don’t ever get better.” He paused, then added, “If it don’t …”

“If it don’t, what?” Sammy asked quickly.

“Nothing,” his grandfather answered.

“No, I want to know—what? You wouldn’t
kill
him.”

His grandfather was a long time in answering. Finally he said, “I ain’t going to keep a bird if it’s in misery. Some things ain’t right.”

“But he’s not miserable. How do you know he’s miserable anyway?” Sammy answered. “It’s only your opinion.
I
don’t think he’s miserable.”

His grandfather looked out beyond the pen. “I’ll tell you something, boy. Life turns out to be a lot more precious than you think. There ain’t nothing more precious. It’s like—”

“But what about the crane?”

“I’m coming around to the crane. First you look up there at the sky.”

“But—”

“Look!” Squinting a little, Sammy looked up. “You know what’s up there, don’t you?” his grandfather said.

Sammy looked and then glanced at his grandfather. “Clouds?”

“Beyond that. Beyond that,” his grandfather continued without waiting for Sammy to answer, “is planets, boy, and then more planets and more planets. They say it goes on like that forever.”

Sammy looked at his grandfather without speaking.

“And sometime, in your lifetime, boy, men are going to get up to the planets. They are going to get to planets you and me never even heard of. And you know what they’re going to find?”

“What?”

“Nothing!” He clamped his mouth shut on the word. “They’re going to find one dead planet after another, that’s what I think. You’ll be picking up the newspaper and reading one sorry headline after another. No life on Jupiter. No life on Mars. No life on this planet. No life on that planet. And not until you’ve seen every one of those headlines, not until you know there’s not any life anywhere,
then,
boy, is when you’ll know how precious life is.” He glanced at the crane. “I know it right now just by being an old man, or I wouldn’t have carried that crane all the way home, and I’m not killing this crane if there’s anything else I can do.”

“There could be life on other planets.”

“Yeah.”

“But I guess there couldn’t be too.” Sammy shook his head. He said, “Well, anyway, I don’t think he’s all the way blind. He blinked his eye.”

“We’ll see.” His grandfather waited, watching the crane. Then he straightened and said, “Well, give me the corn.”

Sammy handed the corn to his grandfather, and his grandfather held it beneath the crane’s beak, shaking it in his hand so that the crane could hear. The crane stood without moving. “He don’t want to eat now. Corn was what he’d been after in that field, but he won’t take it now.”

“Keep trying,” Sammy suggested.

“Give me the water.” His grandfather lifted the bucket and sloshed the water around. He scratched his hand on the bottom of the bucket. The crane did not move, and Sammy’s grandfather put the crane’s head down into the water.

The crane drank. He lifted his head, swallowed, clapped his beak and then drank again.

“At least he’s drinking,” Sammy said. “He couldn’t be completely miserable if he’s drinking.” He looked at the crane, who had finished and was standing now with his head high, turned slightly toward them. Sammy felt the crane’s stubborn will and was touched by it. He said, “I know he’s going to be all right.” He stepped forward, “Don’t you think—”His foot landed on one of the geese and the goose fluttered up, squawking. “I’m sorry,” Sammy said absently, then to his grandfather, “Don’t you think so?”

His grandfather turned without speaking and started walking toward the house. Sammy felt his question had been pointedly ignored. “The first thing to do,” his grandfather said, “is to get some food in him—and in us too. I reckon you’re hungry, boy, aren’t you, not having any breakfast?”

Sammy felt a sudden stab of guilt and he turned slowly and walked behind his grandfather to the house. “Well, I’m not
that
hungry,” he said.

“I made some biscuits for your folks for breakfast. There might be one or two of them left.”

“I don’t feel much like having a biscuit.” This was the truth.

“Well, we’ll find something.”

They went into the kitchen and Sammy glanced first at the parrot in the corner, who was still there, quietly ruffling its feathers. He half expected the parrot to screech out his shame. The parrot would cry, “He already ate. He already ate.” Sammy could almost hear the sharp mocking words. He cleared his throat and said, “Does your parrot talk much?”

“He says one or two things.”

“Does he ever tell you things that have happened, anything like that?”

“No, he can say ‘Where’s Papa?’ and—”

“Where’s who?”

“Papa, that’s me.”

“Oh.”

“And he can say ‘Good-by,’ only he don’t know when to say it. Or else he just plain enjoys saying it at the wrong time. He won’t ever tell somebody good-by when they’re leaving. A thousand people could go out of this house and that parrot wouldn’t say good-by to a one of them.” He wiped his mustache in a gesture of disgust. “Folks say parrots don’t know what they’re saying, but that parrot does, because he just plain makes a point of saying good-by at the wrong time.”

He went over and stood by the parrot. “Good-by, Paulie, good-by. I’m not going anywhere, so you can say it. Good-by. Good-by.” He waited, then he gave up and crossed the kitchen with his slow heavy steps. “I used to have me a fine gray parrot that knew all the parts of a car.”

His grandfather paused to glance at the biscuit plate. He saw that the biscuits were gone and said, “Well, I’ll fix us some spaghetti.” He went into the pantry and the parrot said, “Good-by. Good-by.”

“He said it!” Sammy cried.

“Yeah, he said it. He knows I’m in the pantry.” He looked out at the parrot. “You don’t say good-by when a person goes into the pantry.” The parrot bobbed its head and began to walk sideways across the mop handle, circling the handle with its feet. “You say good-by when someone’s going out the door. The
door!”
He pointed to the door and then disappeared into the pantry.

“Where’s Papa?” the parrot screamed.

“You know where I am.”

“Where’s Papa?”

“He’s in there,” Sammy said. He sat down at the white table with the chipped porcelain top. He leaned forward on his arms. He remembered how much trouble it was to make spaghetti—his mother took all afternoon doing it—and so he said, “Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”

“It ain’t no trouble.” His grandfather came out of the pantry with a can of spaghetti in his hand. “Unless you want it heated.”

“No, I don’t want it heated,” Sammy said quickly. “I like it cold.” He watched his grandfather open the can of spaghetti and divide it into two soup bowls. He wiped spoons off on a towel.

“Here you go.”

Sammy took his bowl and set it down.

Suddenly his grandfather glanced up. “Here comes the owl,” he said. “Remember I was telling you about him?”

Sammy had not heard anything. He looked around quickly and saw the owl flying to the back of the chair by the door. It was a silent mothlike flight. The owl rested there a moment and then swooped over to the table. The underside of his wings were white in the dark room. Startled, Sammy put up his hands. “He ain’t going to hurt you,” his grandfather said.

“I know that.” The owl landed in the middle of the table and stood looking at Sammy. He stepped forward on his stiff legs and glared. He was a small owl, gray, about eight inches high, but he seemed bigger because of his large broad head and the ruff of feathers around his yellow eyes.

“He has eyelashes,” Sammy said, “long ones.” It was the first time he had seen an owl up close. “What is he looking at me for?” He laughed uneasily. “Have I got his bowl or something?”

His grandfather was bent over, eating. He ignored Sammy’s question and said, “I figure we’ll have to force-feed the crane at first.” He shoveled spaghetti into his mouth like a man stoking a furnace. “We’ll just make up a liquid mixture and pour it down.”

“That’s what I figured too.” The geese were under the table. Their soft bodies rustled around Sammy’s legs. He drew his feet behind him under the chair. The geese didn’t bother him as much as the owl, who was still staring. Sammy said again, “What’s the owl looking at me for?”

Spaghetti was beginning to stain his grandfather’s mustache orange. He pointed at Sammy with his spoon and said, “We’ll feed the crane as soon as we finish lunch. If he’s blind, he hasn’t been eating good.”

The owl was gazing intently at Sammy. All of a sudden his head began to swing back and forth. He half raised his wings. Sammy said quickly, “But what’s this owl up to? Is he going to do anything to me or what?”

“Don’t worry about the owl. He’s always coming up on something or somebody and getting them in his sight and staring at them for ten minutes or so and then flying off. He does that to the parrot. He does that to my shoe. One time he stared at nothing in the corner of the room for fifteen minutes. It don’t mean nothing.”

The owl made a low noise. “Ooh.”

Sammy said quickly, “Does
that
mean anything?”

“No. He’ll get used to you.”

The owl continued to stare. “Does he come to the table all the time?” Sammy asked.

“He’ll come, but not to eat. He don’t have any interest in food that don’t move. He’ll walk right across your plate.” His grandfather looked at the owl and said, “His eyes are fixed. That’s why he stares.”

“I thought so.”

“Watch here.” His grandfather reached out and began to scratch the owl at the base of his bill. Slowly, contentedly, the owl closed both pairs of eyelids. “See that?”

“Yeah.”

“That means he’s real pleased. Sometimes he only closes the inner lids.” He straightened and the owl opened his eyes and looked at Sammy. “Well, let’s get to it.” His grandfather took the last strand of spaghetti from his bowl and held it out for the geese. One by one they came out from under the table to peck at it. One goose snapped it in half and ran. Another got the remainder, and the grandfather wiped his hands on his pants and said, “When you get finished, put your bowl and spoon over there in the sink. We got to keep things tidy.”