“Bro, ” he said.
Although not directly related to the disappearance of Orson or to the
kidnapping of Jimmy Wing, the flock’s self-destruction added urgency to
the already pressing need to find the dog and the boy.
For once in his life, Bobby appeared to feel the solvent of time passing
through him and swirling away, carrying with it some dissolved essence,
like water into a drain.
He said, “Let’s cruise, ” with a solemn expression in his eyes that
belied the laid-back tone of his voice and the casualness of his
language.
I climbed into the Jeep and yanked the door shut.
The shotgun was propped between the seats again.
Bobby switched on the headlights and pulled away from the curb.
As we approached the mounded birds, I saw that no wing fluttered any
longer, except from the ruffling touch of the gentle breeze.
Neither Bobby nor I had spoken of what we’d witnessed. No words seemed
adequate.
Passing the site of the carnage, he kept his eyes on the street ahead,
not glancing even once at the dead flock.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t look away and turned to stare back after
we had passed.
In my mind’s ear, the music came from a piano with only black keys,
jangling and discordant.
Finally I turned to face forward. We drove into the fearsome brightness
of the Jeep headlamps, but regardless of our speed, we remained always
in the dark, hopelessly chasing the light.
Dead Town could have passed for a neighborhood in Hell, where the
condemned were subjected not to fire and boiling oil but to the more
significant punishment of solitude and an eternity of quiet in which to
contemplate what might have been. As if we were engaged in a
supernatural rescue mission to extract two wrongfully damned souls from
Hades, Bobby and I searched the streets for any sign of my furry brother
or Lilly’s son.
With a powerful handheld spotlight that Bobby plugged into the cigarette
lighter, I probed between houses lined up like tombstones.
Through cracked or partially broken-out windows, where the reflection of
the light glowed like a spirit face. Along bristling brown hedgerows.
Among dead shrubs from which leaped bony shadows.
Though the light was directed away from me, the backwash was great
enough to be troublesome. My eyes quickly grew tired, they felt
strained, grainy. I would have put on my sunglasses, which on some
occasions I wear even at night, but a pair of Ray-Bans sure as hell
wouldn’t facilitate the search.
Cruising slowly, surveying the night, Bobby said, “What’s wrong with
your face? ”
“Sasha says nothing.”
“She needs an emergency transfusion of good taste. What’re you picking?”
“I’m not picking.”
“Didn’t your mom ever teach you not to pick at yourself? ”
“I’m poking.” While with my right hand I held the pistol-grip spotlight,
with my left I’d been unconsciously fingering the sore spot on my face,
which I had first discovered a little earlier in the night.
“You see a bruise here? ” I asked, indicating the penny-size tenderness
on my left cheek.
“Not in this light.”
“Sore.”
“Well, you’ve been knocking around.”
“This is the way it’ll start.”
“What? ”
“Cancer.”
“Probably a pimple.”
“First a soreness, then a lesion, and then, because my skin has no
defense against it … rapid metastasis.”
“You’re a one-man party, ” Bobby said.
“Just being realistic.” Turning right into a new street, Bobby said,
“What good did being realistic ever do anyone? ” More shabby bungalows.
More dead hedgerows.
“Got a headache, too, ” I said.
“You’re giving me a full-on skull-splitter.”
“One day maybe I’ll get a headache that never goes away, from
neurological damage caused by XP.”
“Dude, you’ve got more psychosomatic symptoms than Scrooge Mcduck has
money.”
“Thanks for the analysis, Doctor Bob. You know, you’ve never cut me any
slack in seventeen years.”
“You never need any.”
“Sometimes, ” I said.
He drove in silence for half a block and then said, “You never bring me
flowers anymore.”
“What? ”
“You never tell me I’m pretty.” I laughed in spite of myself. “Asshole.”
“See? You’re way cruel.” Bobby stopped the Jeep in the middle of the