A Broken Wing
A Short Story
by
Gary Wright
“Give to others what you most desperately want.”
Old Uncle Albert was always around. He’d been there for as far back as I can remember. I was seven years old before I found out where he stayed. He’d always just show up around sunup and sort of disappear near sun down. He was what we’d call ‘a character’ down here in No Hope County, Alabama. Around these parts in the Deep South there was mostly just farmers and my Daddy was one of the best. Farmers were okay but they worked all day long and went to bed early. Their conversations tended toward the crops, the weather, and the animals. My Momma was a good woman. She worked hard all her life; took care of Daddy, took us all to church every Sunday, and stuff like that. Farmers are all good people. But farmers, in the eyes of a ten-year-old, are just boring.
My Daddy always said, “There’s two kinds of people in the world. Them that’s farmers and them that ain’t.” Back then I always thought there was a third kind — them that’s got a life. But I never said that out loud. Lordy, Daddy would’a whooped the dickens outta me. But I did think that. We had other kinds of people: preachers, storekeepers, school teachers, lawyers, and the po’leece. Of course, there were the bankers. Daddy never thought too highly of them; called them all crooks ‘cause he said they got rich off’n other people’s money without really working at all. Out on the farms we all had to get up at sunrise and work til the sun went down every day. ‘Cept for Saturday afternoon when we went to town and of course, Sundays was the Lord’s day. Nobody decent worked on the Lord’s day.
I often thought I’d like to grow up to work in a bank. Lord, they didn’t have to go to work until nine o’clock in the morning and got off at five in the afternoon. That was just about a half day’s work for us that lived on a farm. And they always wore clean clothes. Momma said them bank folks took a bath every night and put on brand new clothes every morning. At the time I didn’t know what the word ‘envious’ meant. But, later on I figured out that is how I felt about it at the time.
But back to Old Uncle Albert. He was different; not weird or different physically but just strange. He wasn’t a pree-vert like us kids had heard about, you know, touching and feeling little kids. He used an awful lot of crude language and cuss words. When he’d let loose with, “Gawd bless the #@&%” and “I hope you *&%# in #@$%#!” Well, Momma would just say, “Albert! We got little ones around” and he’d just go silent. ‘Til the next time, that is. Like I say, he was strange. He’d just laughed at unusual times and cried a little when everybody else was happy and stuff like that. He told a whole lot of funny stories and made us all laugh a lot. But Uncle Albert was different from everybody else. We’ve all heard about somebody’s strange uncle who lived in the attic. Well, Old Uncle Albert did live in our attic.
He was Momma’s only brother and he had served in the war. Momma said he had seen and done some things that she couldn’t tell me about ‘til I was fully growed. But, she said, “He’s been through some awful times.” Then she just got that look on her face which said that’s all we’re gonna say about that. Whenever Momma got that look, well, it was time to change the subject. Daddy put up with Uncle Albert. He said, “He’s kinfolk and after what he did in the war and all.” Daddy would always trail off in his conversation but we knew what he meant. Uncle Albert helped Daddy on the farm, fixing engines and sich. He was real good at that. I guess he learned that in the Army.
It was Uncle Albert that told me stories about the woods and the fields and the streams. About the creatures that lived out there and the things that they did. He had a gentle way of telling stories about how Brer ‘Possum outfooled Old Blue Hound Dog who was a huntin’ him and Brer ‘Possum got clean away, leaving Old Blue all embarrassed and with hurt feelins’. Another story was ‘bout how Missus White Tail Deer ran so fast around the mean old hunter that the arrow what had been shot traveled in a circle and hit the mean old hunter square in the %#@! Missus Deer and her baby, Fawnie Mae just strode off as smartly as no never mind leaving the hunter with a hurt pride, not to mention a hurt %#@!
My favorite story was about the Killdeer. For those of you who don’t know, especially any Yankees, let me explain. A Killdeer is a bird that looks a lot like a cross between a Blue Jay and a Mockingbird. ‘Cept a Killdeer lives in a nest on the ground whilst most birds live in trees and bushes and sich. Well, Old Uncle Albert said when he was younger he was a volunteer to mow the grass down at the Third Baptismal Church. Uncle Albert was good about helping out and sich, especially at church. “Jist ‘cause I cuss some don’t mean that I don’t love the Lord,” he’d say.
He met Killdeer on the church grounds, not jist once but every time he mowed the lawn. Now, ever’body knows that the male Killdeer always return to the same nesting place year after year whether or not they are with the same female. For some years afore he went and joined the Army, Uncle Albert would go down to the church house and mow the grass, every Saturday morning so it’d be all pretty like for church on Sunday. Whenever he got too close to the Killdeer’s nest the Killdeer would act like his wing was broken. He’d hang it down and drag it on the ground and make shrieking sounds like he was hurt something awful. He’d do this ‘til Uncle Albert was fur enough away from the nest that he didn’t feel threatened. Then, that old bird would fly away like some miracle had healed his broken wing.
I asked Uncle Albert if he ever went into that church. He said “No.” But that he almost did the last time the Killdeer did the broken wing put-on. He said he was moved by the sacrifice that the Killdeer was making in exposing himself to his would-be predator in order to save his nest. He said he was so touched by it that he lost track of where he was pushing his lawn mower that he ran over a big rock and busted his lawn mower blade. He said that he just looked up at the church steeple and said, “&%#@ all of you! I don’t care if you &%$#@ or #$@&! So, jist $#@*!
Uncle Albert left town and joined the Army right after that. He went through boot camp and they shipped off to Southeast Asia somewhere. That’s where he got the way he is now. He still lives upstairs in the attic. They don’t let him mow the grass down at the church no more. You know what I think? I think that his wing got broken for what he had to go through over there.
Related Posts
