Crazy Uncle Mike

Bobby’s Bird                                                                                                                          

If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Bobby Simmons was a big kid for an eight-year-old, flowing light brown hair and piercing blue eyes.  He was the kind of kid that you looked at and instantly thought, wow, some day he’ll be the quarterback of the football team.  Being big has advantages as a kid, and Bobby was the leader of the neighborhood kids.  The neighborhood was a great place to be a kid, it was a fairly typical suburban neighborhood, lots of families, so lots of kids which meant there was always someone to hang around or push around whenever you left the house.

Bobby was in the living room, Mrs. Smith was visiting with his mom, which meant sooo much talking while they drank coffee.  Bobby had asked his granny for a sip of her coffee once, it was absolutely awful and he didn’t understand why adults drank the nasty black stuff, sometimes grownups were just stupid.

Of course he knew what they were talking about, he could hear the radio talking about Timmy Thompson on the radio, Timmy had gone missing.  The women were talking about Timmy’s family and how poor they were but Bobby wasn’t paying much attention, he’d gotten a box of baseball card wax packs.  The box had 12 packs and he’d opened 8 of them but still hadn’t gotten any good rookie cards.  Two days ago, he’d opened a box of 12 that his dad hadn’t gotten him and he didn’t get a single decent card, he’d been so angry that he slapped his dog when he came running over to him.  At least today he’d gotten some okay special cards and in pack 9 finally, a really good rookie card, not one of his favorite players but one lots of people liked, he’d be able to sell this one at school, or trade it for really good fireworks.  His dad never let him buy fireworks, so he’d have to hide them out in the shed where his dad never went, only the gardener went in there and he knew better than rat Bobby out.

He’d finished all the packs and even gotten another decent rookie card but he was getting bored.  He wanted to go out and play but because Timmy was missing all the parents were making their kids stay in the house.  He could email or chat with his friends, but he really wasn’t in the mood, so he sat on the couch watching Tik Tok videos when one came up he’d never seen before.  A lady was sitting on her porch feeding peanuts to a crow and the crow was taking the peanuts right out of her hand, so cool!  These were the kind of peanuts you get at baseball games, the ones in the shell and the crow was taking it, shelling it and eating right there with the woman.  Another video a few minutes later was talking about how when you feed the crows sometime they leave you little presents, shiny objects.  One lady was showing off stones, bottle caps and even a ring!  Bobby started digging into the internet and there were tons of articles and videos about this, he knew right then, he had to do this, he needed to make a crow friend. 

He remembered that at Thanksgiving his family always had nuts, including peanuts in the shell and he went looking through the kitchen cabinets.  “What are you looking for?” His mother asked and after he told her, she told him where to find them, she didn’t even ask why, she was too busy talking to Mrs. Smith.

Bobby knew there were crows all around his house and he went out to the back patio to look for one.  He saw a couple in trees around the house and so he put some peanuts on the table and went and sat in the corner of the patio on the ground, just like the stories on the internet said to do.  He sat there for two hours, and nothing happened, he smashed the peanuts with this fist and went inside for dinner.

Bobby had never been known for being very patient, but he really wanted a crow to bring him presents, so the next day he went and noticed the peanuts were gone.  He looked around and didn’t see any crows so he left some peanuts on the table and he went for a bike ride instead, it wasn’t any fun, his dad insisted on keeping him in sight the whole time he rode, so all he could do was ride around in the park, boring!

When he got home things were weird, and he realized that his mother was crying.  His dad went to her and asked her what happened.  They found Timmy Thompson in the stream; he’d apparently hit his head and drowned.  The body had been found in a tangle of weeds and sticks downstream of the town.

The next few days really stunk for Bobby.  First, they cancelled school for the next two days and Bobby really liked school, his teachers didn’t hassle him too much, he always had money for ice cream at lunch and he really wanted to trade that rookie card for some fireworks and he really didn’t want to wait.  Halloween was only like a month and a half away and he really wanted them for Halloween.  On top of that he had to go to something called a wake for Timmy, it sounded stupid and then he’d have to go to a funeral the next day, worst thing of all, he had to wear his suit to both, and he knew they’d make him wear a tie, he really hated ties.  Besides, what was the point, Timmy was dead.

For the third day in a row, he went out to the patio, set out the peanuts and waited again.  He saw a couple of crows hanging out in the trees in the yard.  He’d sat there for almost two hours and was about to go inside when one of the crows landed on the fence.  He was so excited, the bird kept looking at him, then the peanuts, then back at him.  “Go on, eat them yelled Bobby,” and the crow cawed and flew away.  Bobby was really mad at himself, he’d read he wasn’t supposed to scare the birds and he did, he smashed the peanuts with his fist and went inside.

The wake was absolute screaming boredom, the wimpy kids were there crying, the cool kids were there talking shit.  The adults moped around all sad and quiet, whispering all their little nasty comments about each other.  It went on and on and on and Bobby was so bored, he wished he was on the patio with his crow friend.  People kept asking him if he was okay, yes, of course I’m ok, why would I care that Timmy Thompson is dead.  The only cool thing was that he got to see the dead body.  They didn’t let the kids go into the room with the body, but after a while parents stop paying attention and he was able to sneak over by the door and when one of the adults came out, he looked through the door and saw Timmy’s body laying in the coffin with the lid open.

The funeral was pretty much the same as the wake, but it was outside in the cemetery.  It was still really boring with crying adults and crying wimps.  But at least it was in the cemetery which meant Bobby could slip away and look at the headstones. And in the trees he could hear crows and he knew it couldn’t be, but he even thought he saw his crow on a headstone.

After the funeral Bobby’s parents wouldn’t let him go out to play, they said it wasn’t safe.  So every day Bobby would go outside and put out the peanuts and sit in the corner of the patio.  From time to time one crow would come and land on the fence, Bobby really thought it was the same crow every time, but it wouldn’t drop down and take the peanuts, but they were never there if Bobby looked out a little while after he left.  It was day 12 of putting out the peanuts when the bird landed on the fence again, but today was different, the bird dropped down and landed on the table, Bobby was sooo excited.  It cautiously moved forward, it never stopped looking at Bobby.  Then suddenly it snatched a peanut and flew away.  This was the beginning, not every day at first but some days the bird would come down, land on the fence, then the table, take a peanut and fly off.  Then one day the bird picked up a peanut and didn’t fly away, it held it in its mouth and looked at Bobby.  Finally, it put the peanut on the table, put its claw on the peanut and ripped the shell open with its beak.  It ate the first peanut, looked around a bit, looked at Bobby, then ate a second, then grabbed a third and flew away.  This became the pattern for the next 5 days.  On the sixth day when Bobby went out after school, the same time he did every day, there was a silver foil gum wrapper on the table and the bird was on the fence cawing at him.  Bobby couldn’t believe it, was this really his first crow present?! 

He put down the peanuts, and this time pulled a chair back from the table a little bit and sat there instead of the corner of the patio.  A minute after he sat down the crow flew down and ate the peanuts, Bobby knew right then, he’d made a crow friend.  Each day it got better from there, the crow would be there every day after school, and at first every couple of days, and then every day, there would be a present for Bobby on the table.  Rocks, bits of metal, all kinds of small shiny objects, one day there was even a coin. 

Fall was fully in effect, the leaves were almost all off of the trees and it was cold most days after school but Bobby always went out to feed his crow friend, and about a week before Halloween it finally happened.  Bobby had been holding a peanut in his hand for over a week now when finally, his crow friend warily creeped up and took the peanut from his hand.  Bobby was insane with joy, he tried to tell the whole story to his parents at the dinner table, they said that’s great, all they wanted to know was what grade did he get on his test that day, parents never care about the really cool stuff.

It became the routine now, every day Bobby would go out after school, get his crow present and feed his crow friend a bunch of peanuts right from his hand.  Halloween was fast approaching, and everyone was excited about trick or treating.  Bobby had gotten his fireworks to let off Halloween night, and he’d decided to be a vampire as a costume but he wasn’t all that into it.  He was excited about feeding his crow friend, he wondered if his crow friend would ever let him pet him, or hold him but he knew, he had to be patient.  He wanted this so badly that for the first time in his life he was actually being patient.  In school their history teacher, Mr. Heagney, who was from Ireland, told them all about the meaning of Halloween.  He told them that originally Halloween was a time when the spirits of the dead were able to walk around in the world and people put on scary costumes to scare them away.  He said that the spirits of the dead could come in so many forms, as spirits, ghouls, witches or even animals.  But Bobby knew, this was just a spooky story to scare the wimpy kids on Halloween, adults never scared Bobby, not really.

Bobby hurried home from school, he wanted to make sure he spent some time with his crow friend before trick or treating, it got dark so early lately he wanted to make sure he had time to be with his crow friend.  When he got out to the patio he couldn’t believe it, his crow friend had a present in his beak and it was ring!  A gold ring, I bet that’s worth money Bobby thought, holy shit.  But his crow friend didn’t fly down to the table, instead it flew out to a post in the yard and cawed at Bobby.  Bobby walked out to the post, but just as he got there the crow flew out to the edge of the yard by where the woods started.  Bobby followed and then the crow flew into the woods on a stump and dropped the ring on the stump.  Bobby let himself out of the back gate and went over to the stump, he knew he had to be gentle.  He crept up to the stump and sat down slowly on the ground.  Slowly, very slowly he reached over and picked up the ring, he held it to the side looking at it, he couldn’t believe his crow friend had brought him a ring.  And in one swift movement, the crow lept at Bobby and drove its beak right into Bobby’s right eye.  Bobby fell back and was screaming and crying as blood poured down his face, he put both hands over his eye and stood up to run home and that’s when he suddenly saw a flash of black and felt the same pain in his other eye.  He was blind, both eyes bleeding, he stood there not knowing what to do.  And for some reason things got very quiet, and he stopped for a moment, he could hear crows, all around him in the trees, dozens of them making noises.  Suddenly he felt claws on his back and in his head he heard, “run!”  Suddenly the birds were all over him, clawing at him, biting at him, he was running like mad trying to get away from them, he couldn’t see anything but he knew he just had to get away. “Run Bobby, run or they’re going to kill you!” the voice in his head screamed.

He was running as fast as he could when suddenly his foot caught something and he started to fall.  But he didn’t hit the ground, suddenly he realized the sound of running water, he was falling into the stream. “Bye Bobby,” he heard in his head, “did I make a good crow friend?” In that moment it hit him, he knew the voice, it was Timmy Thompson.  But it couldn’t be, Timmy was dead, he knew he was dead, not just because he saw his body at the funeral, but because he’d pushed him into the stream, saw his head bang on the rock, watched him sink under the water, watched his body twitch and twist as it sucked in the water and drowned.  He hadn’t cared, Timmy was a wimpy little shit that he never liked, that he bullied and beat up all the time, Timmy was dead!  “I am dead said the voice in his head, but on Halloween the dead come back, sometimes even as animals, and now you’re dead too.” His head hit the rock, he sunk under the water, his body twitched and twisted as he swallowed the water and drowned, and a solitary crow circled above, Bobby’s bird.