Flight
Chick patrolled in his blue PT Cruiser with the windows rolled down and his mouth opened up. When grannies walked home from evening mass, he would idle by the church and talk about how tall Tommy grew over the summer. He couldn’t help his big mouth, even when he was little. He always “chirped away like a baby chick,” his Mama joked at the dinner table, and the name stuck.
The radio at his hip buzzed white noise. Chick had been on duty the whole day, and the only excitement had been a high school senior lighting fireworks on Main Street. Besides that, the only real trouble-makers was Bird and her four-legged friend Cowboy.
Although Bird was now old enough to reach his mustache, she still found herself in sticky situations. Once a tornado hit their town. Bird sneaked out of her house “in the name of science!” with a kite and a key, intending to repeat Ben Franklin’s experiment. Chick had to chase her home, and Cowboy chased after both of them, thinking it was a game.
As the days stretched out like warm taffy, Bird played with the neighborhood kids way into the night. Chick called her gang of friends the “Lost Boys” because of the way they followed Bird. But she was never bossy or mean. She was the kind of friend who would share her snacks because someone forgot theirs.
Last Saturday she was dared to play basketball against the high school boys. Her followers gathered around the fishnet fence, watching her dribble and dodge. She was too fast and too small for her opponents to block. She reigned over the court, soaring through the August air like a swallow. Her golden braids flashed fast as lightning. Her worn-out sneaks squeaked against the pavement. The ball whistled when it left her hands --swish-- through the lyrical slipknot. Cowboy woofed each time she made a basket.
Heat slipped into the Cruiser. The black steering wheel burned his fingers, but turning on the AC would only make the vent sputter and fart out hot air and dust. The blue paint was transforming into rust brown. His car was old, a hand-me-down.
Growing up in this town, the best thing to do on a molasses-thick day like this was to go out to the lake. There was an ancient oak that pushed up from the
lakeside, and a rope swing looped over one of its strong branches. Chick’s childhood was that swing. Pumping legs, higher and higher, dropping out of the sky like a bullet. The leap between the oak and the lake stretched into hours. Falling into the water, fluttering like a feather.
He subconsciously started heading towards the lake.
Brown fur dashed across the road.
Chick slammed on his brakes.
He breathed again when he saw the brown furry thing was actually Cowboy the dog, and that the dog didn’t have a scratch on him. But if Cowboy was here, where was Bird?
Cowboy thumped his tail against the pavement, eyes wide and earnest. His ears were pinched back, like the wings of a dove. Lost Boys, appeared next to the dog. They waved at Chick frantically, pointing to the lake. Cowboy barked and then took off the way he came.
“Okay, boy. Where are you taking me?” He muttered as he went behind the dog. On the chase, again. What trouble was Bird in now?
He rode the Cruiser out as far as he could and parked. He hopped out to follow them on foot. Tall grass clumped thick around the lakeside. He couldn’t see the kids or Cowboy. He cut through reeds with a pocket knife. They were lice scurrying through the scalp of the earth.
They reached the large oak tree. More Lost Boys were gathered around the twisted roots.
A quiet sob pierced the quiet, like a balloon popping. The air filled up with pain.
Chick knew what had happened the moment before he saw Bird crumpled on the earth. Her arm was a cracked twig. Her golden hair shimmered by the tall grass.
He never thought that Bird, who soared through the thick August air, could fall.
He heard his own thump of body to earth, the vivid memory of his own broken arm crowding his thoughts. The navy-blue cast he wore to school. How it was crowded with loopy signatures, how he was claustrophobic in his own self.
Would Bird, brave enough to face off a tornado, feel as small as he did?
Chick knelt and gathered Bird in his arms. Cowboy gave a little bark.
Her snapped arm looked like a bent wing, ready to take flight.