The Blackbird of Death
by Doug Hiser
Timmy looked seventeen but he was really more like twenty-nine going on ten. He sat at the picnic table with Joel, a huge guy with long hair like a rock star, who was thirty-four. Timmy looked at the three pine trees that stood by the tall restriction fence and said, showing dimples and perfect teeth, “I think the bunny rabbits never come back here because the squirrels are having a war with them and they don’t feel safe.”
Alice walked by their table carrying a tray with a glass of water and some pills. She smiled at them and said, “Hi, boys, beautiful day today.”
They didn’t respond to her and watched her travel across the large yard towards Emile, the oldest man here, sitting in a fancy wheelchair. Joel cracked his knuckles. One finger at a time, and said, “I think Emile started the whole thing. He’s on the squirrel’s side of everything.
Timmy watched Alice feeding pills to the old man and saw a squirrel reclining on a branch above the man’s head. He looked at the sky, noticing a puffy solitary cloud had begun to float over the sun. Joel kept trying to crack more fingers.
Timmy howled at the sun like some demented wolf and laughed when Alice turned back to look at him. He chuckled and told Joel, “I think I might be turning into some kind of animal that eats squirrels.”
Joel stared at the checkers table across the yard where the Z group always met when it wasn’t raining and they had permission to go outside. Joel just sighed and said, “One day I want to learn to play games.”
Timmy looked Joel directly in the eyes and opened his mouth wide. He winked oddly at the big powerful man and replied, almost whispering, “Games? Why would you want to play games when there is a war going on? I’ve been telling you for weeks that you need to get a grip. I’m not saying you’re crazy, but, buddy, you better start seeing the right colors of the scenery around here if you don’t want them shipping you off to some looney bin in a white jacket. Remember Steve?”
Joel’s face tightened and apprehension seeped into his cheeks. He almost started to cry. Timmy gripped him by his bowling ball shoulders and said, “Steve, you remember Steve? He used to play games with the Z group and hang around with us, too. Steve just disappeared. He talked a lot about his time warp. Let me wise you up. They took him away.
“Playing those games with cards, dominos, little castles and horse heads, he always talked about war elephants, nuclear submarines, electric anti-gravity hovercraft, genetic nano-technology and all that other taboo stuff. Steve is where I learned my lesson. Sit tight and stay out of those games. People start disappearing from that Z group.”
Joel just sat there and stopped smiling when Alice walked back by, carrying the tray, now without pills and an empty glass. Two older men in white lab coats walked to meet her and held a short quiet conversation with the red-haired woman.
Timmy liked the white shoes she always wore. Joel was watching Emile. The old man was using his right hand to turn his wheelchair in a circle. He kept going in a circle and the squirrel watched from up in the tree.
Joel stopped watching Emile when Timmy asked, “Are you hungry?”
Joel smiled. “Hungry?”
“Yeah, Joel, are you hungry?”
“What am I going to eat?”
“Maybe tonight we get jell-o. Maybe we get barbecued squirrel. Maybe we get to watch cartoons and eat some cereal with milk and bananas.”
“Yeah, Timmy, I’ll take some bananas if we get to watch cartoons.”
“That Z group never watches cartoons. They think they’re too goody two-shoes for that. They better hope I don’t turn into an animal and eat their underwear.”
“Timmy, you ever eat underwear before?”
“Not exactly, but there’s always a first time.”
Joel turned his attention back to the men playing checkers. He knew all of the men’s names, but Timmy told him he didn’t want him saying their names in front of him because it hurt his ears. Almost every day he wanted to go over there and try to play. He was afraid, because Timmy kept warning him about what happened to Steve.
Alice’s replacement, Jennifer, who was younger and prettier, even though Timmy didn’t like her as much because she wore red shoes, stopped at their table and asked, “Do you two want to eat out here on the table or inside in the dining room?”
Joel started to answer, but Timmy cut him off, saying, “We sure as hell want that jell-o, and we have decided to eat right here where we can keep an eye on those damn squirrels.”
That evening in the main hall, Emile sat holding the Bible in his wheelchair while Marcia, a skinny girl with cross-eyes and stringy blonde hair, tried to read it to him. Timmy sat on the couch with Joel and a small frail young teenager named Rodney. Timmy listened as Marcia tried to read to Emile.
She puckered her thin lips like she was trying to kiss the words as she spoke, “God sent Satan to live in the Garden of Eden and then he made him climb a tree like a snake. He told his son, Adam and that girl, Eve, to eat some of the apples because they taste good. God created the world in seven days and Jesus saves our souls, Amen. Amen. Amen. Bless our soul to keep. As we walk in the garden of the shadow of deadly evil we fear nothing because God follows in our footsteps. Thou shall not steal or eat too much or kill or lie against thy neighbor’s wife.”
Timmy tried to tune her out. He told Joel, “Marcia just reads and reads. She never stops. I never read the Bible, but I think I know the whole book by now as many times as I have heard her reading it out loud.”
Joel replied, “She says ‘Amen’ too much.”
Jennifer walked over past them and clicked on the big screen television. Little Rodney stopped picking at the zits on his face and started clapping his hands. The men from the Z group moved away from the television area and congregated around a long table. Timmy could hear them already shuffling cards.
Jennifer said, “Okay, it’s time for cartoons!”
Timmy looked out the glass patio doors and saw that the sun was almost gone. Nobody ever got to go outside when it was dark. He wanted to. He liked the dark, outside. He never told anyone that, not even Joel. He knew Joel was very scared of the night. Timmy said, as a mouse slammed a window down on a cat’s nose on the cartoon show, “Joel, look outside. There’s a squirrel on the table out there watching us. I think that at night those squirrels spy on us. You never see any rabbits spying.”
Joel looked at the squirrel and then told Timmy, “He’s just watching the cartoons.”
Rodney suddenly jumped up and screamed, “Shut the hell up! Can’t you see the mouse is in trouble?”
Joel and Timmy looked back at the screen and saw the cat cornering the mouse. Rodney was shaking with excitement. The mouse reached behind his back and produced an iron frying pan and slammed it down on the cat’s head! Rodney jumped in the air and began doing jumping jacks. Timmy shrugged, saying, “That mouse does that every day.”
Leonard, a handsome, middle-aged man, with gray sideburns and the body of a gymnast, strolled over to the couch and leaned down, speaking to Timmy and Joel, “Rodney is a fag.”
Timmy laughed and Leonard continued, “Just look at that Jennifer. She’s a prime piece of real estate. Her ass looks like it needs to be on my dinner plate.”
Timmy chuckled and Leonard strolled slowly across the room towards Emile and Marcia. He glided with athletic grace as he passed Marcia, still reading to Emile who was now sleeping.
Leonard squeezed Marcia’s butt as he passed her and she smiled but never stopped reading the Bible, saying, “Jesus loves the little children and he turned wine into water.”
Timmy looked outside again and noticed that the sun was gone and only the dim light of it remained on the horizon. He saw two squirrels on the table now and also a blackbird which was pecking at something. Timmy elbowed Joel, and whispered, “Look, Joel, the blackbird of death. He’s here, somebody’s time’s up in here. Who do you think is going to die tonight?”
Joel frowned and furrowed his eyebrows as he tucked his long bangs behind his ears. He answered, “I think, maybe, Emile. He always looks like he’s dead to me anyway.”
Rodney laughed at the cartoon mouse and slapped his thighs. Timmy looked at him and got up, saying, “Please, man, get a life!”
Timmy went and stood in front of the television. Rodney stopped laughing. Joel asked, “Why are you blocking our cartoons, Timmy?”
“There’s a war going on Joel! Damn, the whole bunch of you in here are nuts. Look at Emile over there, probably dead. You know those evil squirrels are sneaky bastards and they are responsible. I bet they poisoned his pills. That Alice is on their side, too.”
Emile opened his eyes and jerked his head up. Rodney started crying and pointing towards the television screen. Jennifer heard the commotion and started walking towards Timmy. Emile began driving his wheelchair towards the glass patio doors.
Jennifer said sternly, “Timothy, move away from the television. Do you want to lose your privileges? I think it’s time for your medicine anyway. Could you please come with me?”
Emile crashed his wheelchair into the glass doors and banged his knees. He grunted and Marcia smiled and pulled his chair back away from the doors.
Timmy looked at Joel and then at Jennifer. He told “Joel, If you don’t see me again, remember me and Steve.”
Timmy moved away from the television and the men from the Z group looked up from their card game.
Jennifer spoke sharply, “Come on now, Timothy.” She took a gentle hold of his arm and they walked towards the big white hallway.
Timmy looked back one last time outside, beyond the glass patio doors. He saw a blackbird pacing on the ground right outside. He saw in the shadows by the picnic table a small rabbit near a squirrel. He shouted back at Joel, “The rabbits have a spy! Joel, the rabbits have a traitor. Oh my God, Joel! The rabbits have been betrayed!”
Two large men in scrubs grabbed Timmy by both arms and pulled him swiftly down the hallway. Joel walked over to the large table to watch the Z group of men play card games. Leonard glided across the room and whispered in Marcia’s ear. She giggled. Rodney smiled as the cartoon mouse hit the cat in the face with a large wooden mallet. Emile stared down the white hallway and watched as Timmy was escorted into one of the rooms with the metal doors.
The blackbird flew away.
Copyright © 2008 by Doug Hiser
