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Bird
at My Window
Excerpt
He snatched the sun in his arms,
squeezing it and squeezing it until it fell into tiny
sputtering pieces, and he knew his job was done, even
though he still felt the burning rays fanning his face
and neck and rushing in little heat waves about his
arms and around his shoulders. Yet they held him, wanting
him to smash another sun, another world, but he was
finished! Finished. Breaking the bonds that held him,
he tested his freedom by dashing up the lonely dark
street. Then they were upon him, dragging him backward,
forcing his arms closed, making him reach for the sun
again.
Wade Williams opened his eyes slowly-no, they had been
open. It was the red mist from the sun that lifted,
letting him see the intent, expectant faces shoving
through the mist above him. He lowered his lashes quickly,
glancing from the corners of his eyes to the side of
the bed: white-clad legs; to the other side, more white-clad
legs. What had they seen in his mist-soaked eyes?
Shook him up worse than anything to find himself in
here again. Didn’t make sense-no-no kind of sense. He
played his fingers, tried his shoulders. Caught tighter
than a sewer rat in a mouse trap. He closed his eyes;
pulled thoughts from all of the dark corners of his
mind. Mumma’s-that’s where he had been-at Mumma’s-more
reason for it not to make sense. Never blacked out around
Mumma’s. Matter of fact, that was one of the few spoken
laws he obeyed in this world-no drinking in Mumma’s
house, ever since that thing with Buddy. He never crossed
her on that. Sure, he teased her sometimes-might take
a drink outside somewhere, then come around the house
and blow his breath in her face, set her back a little.
But no matter how stoned he was, he never went over
the border around her place. What had happened this
time?
Wade lay still, listening to the movements, the whispers,
the almost silent footfall about him. He wanted to pretend
sleep, but lay stiff as a turkey in the strait jacket,
not able to relax a muscle. Rough hands pushed him over
and a needle was injected into his backside. Too tense
to react. They let him fall to his back, stood waiting
over him. Never opened his eyes. The eyes are the mirror
of the soul, Wade chuckled inwardly. Damned if he’d
let them see into his soul before he wanted. Not that
it mattered with these punk nurses. They didn’t fit
into his class of thinking. It was the doctor he had
to get his mind ready to meet. If only he could figure
what happened.
He had been sitting at Mumma’s talking to Faith, when
in walked Willie Earl. The moment Willie Earl saw that
Mumma wasn’t in, he decided to go out and buy a bottle.
Willie Earl was like that, the sneaky kind; smiled,
nodded and said "that’s right" in front of
Mumma; and when she was not around, lushed like a clown.
Said it was respect, and Mumma went for that. To Mumma,
Willie Earl was God’s answer to her praying-she deserved
more from all that praying.
The muscles of Wade’s back began to soften and spread
out, a warm sense of comfort spread through him. Must
have been the crap they stuck him with. He couldn’t
afford to sleep; had to figure out what to say to the
doctor. Some of them never listened anyway, just looked
at your record and tried to look inside your head as
though they had x-ray eyes. Others talked nice and joked,
making you slip out with something supposed to be the
sum total of you. Some, the so-called smart turkeys,
used the couch, got you spilling your guts, then they
fixed you up by injecting the Freud routine and that
was that. But a hell of a lot of them just looked at
your records, read the notes some simple ass of a social
worker took down, and diagnosed you, pulling you apart
according to their particular formula.
Wade had a pat solution for all of them. Keep your eyes
clear, look as deeply into their souls as they tried
to look into yours. Don’t answer questions too fast
or too slow, and above all, don’t be too intelligent.
A colored man was not supposed to be intelligent. That
was a sure sign of insanity, especially coming from
the part of the City where he lived. Understandability,
but not intelligence. He held his lips firm against
a chuckle.
It was only a matter of time. They picked studs up on
a routine binge, held some for seven days, others ten;
but with him, it might go harder on account of that
Buddy trouble. A month would be easy. He had done six
months at one time and if necessary, he could cool it
a year. He knew the score. Things were bad. Overcrowded,
understaffed hospitals, doctors on rush schedules. Negroes
and Puerto Ricans had it made if they were even a little
smart. As it was, they were overrunning both the city
hospital wards and Mattawan, and probably all of the
other insane asylums in the country. Yes, if it was
routine, he had it made.
If it was routine. Wade shook his head to throw off
the sleep creeping over his mind. He wanted to give
in to it. It was the best feeling he remembered ever
having, but he had to think-think-think. . . .
There they had been, laughing and joking on account
of Willie Earl had brought this bottle. Willie Earl,
who never went in for buying bottles or anything else,
was such a chinch that Wade and Faith-and oh God, what
was Faith thinking now?-got a kick out of teasing him
and bringing him right down front. "What? As I
live and breathe," Faith cried when she saw the
bottle. "Willie Earl, I swear I never thought I’d
live to see the day. Even I have to have a sip on that."
"Don’t let me change your ways of living,"
Willie said, sarcastic as anything. "You ain’t
the drinking kind." But sitting there on the couch,
both hands in his pockets, he looked whipped. Willie
hated like anything for Wade and Faith to gang up on
him, so he had to be pretty low in spirit to just come
and hand himself over to them.
"But the way you changing yours, you driving me
to it," Faith teased.
"What happened to you?" Wade asked. "Your
old lady put you out?" He simply asked to be asking
but when Willie didn’t answer, he and Faith exchanged
those sly knowing looks and took him on.
"Don’t tell me that Margie got hold of some sense
after all these years," Faith said. "Good
for her. I’m going to send her a card of congratulations."
"Ain’t nothing funny, fool." Willie Earl glared
at Faith. "You think it’s right that Gloria should
be without her father?"
"Well now, I suppose Margie will let you come to
look in on Gloria from three in the morning to five
minutes after three, the way you been doing all her
seventeen years."
"Sure," Wade said. "Then you don’t have
to have those long absences from Sadie-or is it Jeanie-or
Thelma-and come on, Willie Earl, help me out. Which
chick will you be shacking up with?"
"Shacking up? I ain’t shacking up. I’m moving in
with Uncle Dan."
"Oh no, you’re not!" Faith’s humor turned
quick as anything to anger. Nothing could get Faith
hotter than someone messing with Uncle Dan. "How
come you can’t make it on your own instead of bleeding
poor Uncle Dan?"
But Wade never let up. "You mean all of that love
dribbling out of you over what’s-her-name, and you get
a chance to live with her and you go to Uncle Dan’s?"
"A man’s got to look out for his family, don’t
he?"
"Yeah, your family pride sure comes down when you
can figure out how to save a dollar," Faith said.
"You mean a penny, don’t you?" Wade put in.
"One lousy penny."
They cracked up then. They laughed and laughed, but
between that laughter and now-what?
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