A Phantom Herd

by Lorraine Ray

  We were looking at Father lying on the bed, Easter 1963. He was spread eagle on the mussed bedspread, moaning and running his hand through his hair and rubbing his chest.

  "Crucify me, Christ! Oh, crucify me," he kept calling out to our mother. He had had too much to drink, or too much of something other than rum and coke or beer, both of which he was used to.

  "Instead of lying there you fool, drunk and moaning in this shameful fashion on the night before Easter, and saying these terrible things that the children can hear, why don't you pull yourself together and tell the kids a story? Gall darn it. I have clothes to iron and put away." Mother said, coming partway up the hall where the light blazed. She stacked clothes into the linen closet. We were in the dark bedroom seated on corners of their big bed. She flicked off the hall light and the lighted tip of Dad's cigarette glowed where his face would have been.

  "Yes?that's exactly what I'll do now, kids. Tell you a story or two. Where are you? Oh, who did I kick? Well, I didn't mean to. You know I didn't, so quit your crying. I'll tell the kids a story," he replied weakly. "I wish my toenails were shorter."

  "That's not a very good story," said Jack, bravely.

  "No comments from the peanut gallery," said Father. "I must think. But it's hard to think when my toenails are this long."

  He thought awhile, belched loudly once, before he crossed his legs at his ankles and his hands on his belly. Now his hands left his head alone and he began stroking his beard. Then they tugged his ears. "My beard is too long. I wish I had a shave." He belched again and began one silly short story. "Have I told you, perhaps, of the Walacachuchu bird?" Later I figured out that this must have been an American version of the Scottish Haggis Bird tall tale.

  "No," said Meredith, lying.

  "Who knows what town it was in? Somewhere in the Deep South of America, I imagine. In a place once owned by the Indians. Don't ask me for the name of the tribe. I do not know things like the names of tribes." He belched massively and we could smell rum. "Who knows why it happened or even if it did happen, but they say a bird in this unknown land was named the Walacachuchu. This bird popped out of its egg with one leg shorter than the other. The leg that was short was the right. The one that was long was the other, the left. Now what could that bird do with its life? This was not a flying bird, you understand. It had to walk like the Dodo bird. You might think it would be in trouble when it walked. But the Lord works in mysterious ways for it happened this bird was born on a mountain. Now you know that if you walk clockwise around a hill going upward it will not matter that the right foot is shorter than the left. And sure enough-wait," Father seemed horribly ill for a moment, then went on, "the minute that bird pecked its way out of the egg it began walking up the hill clockwise. What did it do when it got to the top of the hill? Then it began going down the mountain walking counterclockwise. When it was at the bottom of the hill it went back up clockwise. It searched the ground for seeds this way."

  "But it happened that sometimes a Walacachuchu bird was born with the left leg shorter than the right. What could the poor bird do with its life? This bird could not fly. It therefore had to walk up the hill counterclockwise, pecking at the ground all the way. When it got to the top it turned around and went down clockwise. The two birds could share the hill they were born on and so nature shows its perfectibility. What do you think about that?"

  None of us thought anything much about this hill and silly birds walking around aimlessly. We fumbled around with a pile of plastic dinosaurs and soldiers. The bedspread wasn't a good place to set up a play area, but the linoleum floor was too cold on an early spring night.

  "What did you think of that story? I asked you that," he repeated.

  "It wasn't much of a story," said Jack, bravely.

  "Well. Well, well. No comments from the peanut gallery, I said."

  He didn't wait to collect more of our disappointment, but launched in one of his epics, my favorite, loosely known as "That's the Way It Was Moving West."

  "Sit down. Don't jump. Now I'll tell you something. Listen here."

  "No one jiggle the damn bed! I'm gonna take my belt off if you do!"

  "Buckle up for safety," said my brother, impishly quoting the popular singing safety belt commercial.

  "Now?listen to this?across, across the wide, wide fertile plain of America in those early years," he began, "that were then covered, covered I say kids, with teeming masses of frolicking antelope, the young antelope kicking their heels in the warm sunshine, which was the very best kind of sunshine, buttery yellow sunshine, just as though it was fresh from the churn, American sunshine of the Western Great Plains, beating down on the fertile antelopes who in their multitudes were butting their small horns, like the horn of plenty, the fruits of many of unknown plants, plants sinking their roots in the dark prairie soil and lifting their leaves into the sun, across these plains traveled, ever forward, ever westward, by the teeming mass of covered wagons, carrying Grandma and Grandpa too and all the belongings, the quilts and bedsteads, the beans and coffee, and these wagons crossed the prairie, jolting, jerking moving over the grassy continent, carrying in them the possessions of thousands of family and those families themselves moving steadily westward, those pioneers...into the sun...sorry kids I need to visit the bathroom for a moment."

  He carefully propped his cigarette in a burning state on the edge of one of those bean bag ashtrays with a plaid bottom which was on the nightstand and rolling on his side lurched off the bed. He stood, waving back and forth wildly. He lurched to the side and said some curse word that was unintelligible. He stumbled into the door of their small bathroom, fumbling along the wall and switching on the blinding overhead light and for a second we could see each other sitting around the bed with shocked looks on our faces. We could hear him retching into the toilet at least four times.

  "Crucify me," he said each time he vomited.

  Finally the toilet stopped flushing.

  When he came back in, we were subdued. "Where was I?" he asked, crawling back onto the bed weakly.

  "...pioneers into the sun..." said Meredith.

  "?yes?that was it?with the pioneers into the sun, the sun that grew the grasses that were feeding the springing antelope and bison of the fields, fields of grains and grasses, crossed and crisscrossed by bird wheeling freely in the skies, under the clear blue skies of the Great Western Plains, near the Rocky Mountains, beside the cool streams and the sod houses, the Westerners, leaving behind the Eastern things, in their lengthy wagon trains, powered by teams of oxen, teams of men, teams of women, clanging pans under the wagons, often followed in the case of your mother's family by a protecting Indian friend, tracks still there across the plains, the wheels crunching the soil, the grass, digging into the prairie, those wagons stopping below the star studded skies, many fires burning, all friends together, the young folks romping and not knowing their own strength, not knowing each other, then knowing each other, in the Biblical sense, forget that I said that, all enduring together the pounding rain, the biting winds, the sleet and hail, across mighty rivers, fording the fierce waters, plunging down the banks of steep ravines, oh, save the pioneers!, across gullies, through rivulets of icy water, trudged the oxen, step by step, falls the cold rain, feeding the grasses, wetting the covered wagons which pass like sails across the prairie, boxes on wheels, turning spokes, whips cracking to drive them breathing in dust, insects buzzing everywhere, all kinds of insects, whirling, buzzing, chirping from the ground, trees, bushes, and shafts of grass, grass everywhere, and the wagon goers, the friend of the Native and the cowboy, passing over these grains, grains of bounty and hopefulness for the future of man, feeding our nation the bread of plenty every morning and evening, of cowboy and cowgirl, crossing the plains in the wagons, the hoops of white bobbing with the measured tread of the great white oxen, oxen in teams, teams across the teeming frontier, and that's...that's the way it was moving west!"

  "Now, get to bed all of you, tomorrow is church!" sai
d Mother who had come up the hall with more of the freshly piled ironing.