When Mockingbirds Sing (9781401688233)

by Coffey, Billy

  (since Mabel died)

  Tuesday and shoved it into his pocket. Gettin’ round money is what he called it, though forty-two dollars in cash and change wouldn’t even cover the gas. The thick stack of easel orders remained on the counter.

  He didn’t know why he stopped at Leah’s painting in the window. Perhaps it was the way the morning sun glinted off the glass, framing it with a kind of alpenglow. Barney’s eyes settled over the mockingbird and the town, the way the clouds gathered just over the horizon. And the numbers. Numbers that hadn’t amounted to much of anything except to rile the town. They didn’t even look like lottery numbers at all, and he should know.

  34720625.

  Barney said those numbers aloud—“three-four-seven-two-oh-six-two-five”—then said them again slower. Then he grouped them—“three-forty-seven, two, six-twenty-five.”

  His hands went to his cheeks, where they slipped downward over the corners of his mouth and paused at his chin. The end result was an expression of slack-jawed awe that comes when wisdom enters where ignorance once dwelt.

  Only later, when the horrible mess was over and the time for reflection had come, would Barney remember that the mockingbird outside stilled at that moment. And he would ponder the Maybe that it had done so because its purpose had been fulfilled. But at the time he neither reflected nor pondered at the window of the Treasure Chest. He only whispered, “Oh my sweet Lord.”

  2

  “Would you look at that? Just sitting there, like it knows what it’s doing. Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  Tom turned from the window for an answer that didn’t come. Ellen was still in bed, turned away from the window (as if that would help) with the pillow over her face.

  He looked out the window again and shook his head. It was bad enough that the plastic owl he’d found in the garage hadn’t worked, but to see the mockingbird perched on top of it, screeching from it, was too much. Tom balled his hand into a fist and banged three times on the window—bam, bam, bam. The bird went silent.

  “That’s right, shut your yammer.”

  “My hero,” Ellen mumbled.

  The alarm clock on the dresser read 6:04. Tom thought if he hurried, he could actually get about three hours of sleep before Leah came looking for him. He’d just crawled back into bed and pulled the sheet over his head when the bird called again. This time the song was neither melodic nor mournful, but three angry staccato birps that matched the banging from moments ago—birp, birp, birp.

  “I give up,” Ellen said. “I know you abhor violence, Tom, but if you don’t kill that thing, I will.”

  “Maybe Marshall knows what to do,” Tom said. “He’s half hillbilly.”

  “Last time I talked to Mary, Marshall hadn’t slept either. No one has. It’s like a bad Hitchcock film—death by sleeplessness.” Ellen got out of bed and pulled on her robe. “I’ll go make coffee.”

  She opened the door to let in sounds echoing from the living room beyond the hallway. Ellen leaned out into the hallway and looked back to him.

  “The TV,” she said. “Leah must be up.”

  Ellen continued down the hallway as Tom got out of bed and dressed. “Leah, honey, what are you doing?” he heard Ellen ask. He followed his wife’s voice into the living room and stopped as his mind tried to interpret what his eyes saw.

  Leah sat on the edge of the sofa, back straight and hair combed. Her knees were close together and her hands carefully folded into her lap so as not to wrinkle her yellow birthday dress. The living room curtains were still drawn. What little morning light peered through the edges was drowned in the blue glow of the television screen. The shine made the black eye she’d sprouted overnight burn a sickly green. Tom realized he might be pacifistic enough to spare an aggravating mockingbird, but if he ever caught the person who threw that rock, he’d kill him. He’d kill him and not think twice about it.

  Leah looked up and said, “M-morning, Muh-Mommy. Hey, Puh-Pops.”

  “Why are you up so early, Leah-boo?” Tom asked.

  “Had to wuh-watch the w-weather.”

  “Since when do you get up before the sun and check the weather?” Ellen asked.

  “It’s c-carnival day,” Leah said. “We have to go, Puh-Pops. It’s important.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to the carnival today, Leah-boo,” Tom told her.

  Leah didn’t respond at first. She picked up the remote and flipped through the channels, passing over cartoons she never missed and clicking through the nature channels she loved. Her thumb stopped on the weather channel.

  “We have to go, Puh-Pops. Muh-Mommy, we huh-have to.”

  “Why?” Ellen asked.

  Leah’s lips moved, but she said nothing. Her eyes were centered on the screen. Tom took a step to the side and looked at the television. What crawled along the bottom was what Leah’s lips were reading—sunny, upper 80s, slight chance of thunderstorms.

  “Because it’s the cuh-carnival,” Leah said. “What’s a sluh-light chance mean, Puh-Pops? Like a number.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe one or two in ten?”

  “But you duh-don’t know for sure?”

  “No. What’s wrong?”

  A noise that was thankfully nothing like a mockingbird came from outside. Ellen walked between Leah and the television and peered through the curtains.

  “Barney,” she said, opening the curtains.

  Tom felt the muscles in his stomach tighten. So much for a quiet morning. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” Ellen said, “but at least he’s alone.”

  Leah found another report, this from across the mountains in Charlottesville. The bright yellow sun the weatherman pointed to was hidden behind wavy letters that spelled out HAZY. Beside that were a question mark and a bolt of lightning.

  “What do you think that muh-means, Puh-Pops?”

  Ellen went to the door and opened it. The smile on her face was one that wasn’t entirely sure if it should be there or not.

  “Puh-Pops?” Leah asked. She pointed to the screen. “Does that muh-mean maybe it could r-rain today duh-down at the carnival, or duh-does it muh-mean like muh-maybe we could get attacked by aliens?”

  “Sun’s shining, Leah,” he said. “I’d go with the aliens.”

  Barney’s head slowly appeared from the bottom of the window as he took the steps onto the porch. Tom noticed he was not smiling, even if Ellen almost was. A rolled piece of paper was in his left hand. Ellen offered a curse word upon seeing it that Leah did not hear. She was too busy trying to find a third opinion on the day’s forecast.

  Ellen held the door. Barney stopped just short and said, “Hello, Ellen. Sorry to visit at such an early hour. Mind if I bother y’all for a second?”

  “Please come in, Barney.”

  “Much obliged.” He stepped through and nodded at Tom—“Mornin’, Tom”—and then turned to Leah. “Hello there, Miss Leah.”

  Leah’s head and neck twitched at the sound of his voice. “Huh-hello, Mr. Buh-Barney,” she said. “Do you nuh-know if a slight ch-chance of suh-something and a question muh-mark means suh-something will be, or are you muh-more inclined to think it wuh-won’t be?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” Barney said. “Reckon we don’t have much say in whether a thing is or ain’t, only what we’ll do either way.”

  Tom didn’t know what any of that meant and so passed over it in favor of more important things.

  “Barney,” he said, “I know I speak for the whole family when I say—”

  “Don’t have to, Tom,” Barney said, waving him off. “Appreciated, but not necessary. Just wanted to come by an’ tell y’all what I said at the funeral. Y’all didn’t hear it, you bein’ occupied with disruptin’ things. I’m leavin’ town. This mornin’, actually.”

  Neither Tom nor Ellen spoke. Tom could not help but feel a sense of responsibility over everything that had happened. It had been only a week since Barney had pulled up the l
ane with Mabel to deliver Leah’s easel. Things had been good then. Not perfect, but certainly better. For them all. And now Mabel lay in the ground, Barney in pieces, and the town that had turned out for the party now shunned them. It was amazing how quickly life could turn. One minute you’re stroking it until it purrs, and the next it’s baring its teeth and tearing at your flesh.

  The sharp thump of the remote hitting the living room’s floor snapped Tom back to the moment. Leah had dropped it. Evidently something had happened that was more pressing than mostly sunny and HAZY with a slight chance of question mark.

  “You can’t luh-leave, Mr. Buh-Barney.” She rose from the sofa. Her left foot bumped the remote and sent it scattering across the floor. “Puh-please don’t. You d-don’t understand.”

  Barney nodded. The edges of his mouth wanted to curl upward but managed only halfway. The smile that could have been came out as a frown instead.

  “I reckon I don’t. Haven’t for a long while, Miss Leah. I thought I understood, Tom. Ellen. For two whole days, I thought I finally understood. But y’all know what? It’s when we think we got it all figured out that God says not so fast and reminds us just how small-minded we are. First I won that money an’ I thought the Lord wanted me to be rich, but then He took my Mabel so I could see how rich I already was before. Then when Mabel left I thought that meant I should leave too, but then I looked at this one last time.”

  He unfurled the paper in his hand—Leah’s second painting. The town. The gathering clouds. The mockingbird and the numbers tumbling from its mouth. Tom looked at it and realized that at some point since Barney had arrived, the mockingbird in the backyard had finally stilled.

  “You say you put those numbers in my first painting, Miss Leah. You know what they was for. You know what these here numbers this bird’s singing are for too, don’t you?”

  Leah did not answer. Her left hand reached for her right thumbnail with the deftness of a professional. Ellen watched her, mouth open and lips pursed in a way that made Tom think of an overbearing parent willing her child to perform. He could not think ill of his wife because Tom realized that he too was willing Leah. Willing her to say, Yes, I know what those numbers mean, just like I spoke to Harold Gladwell at the Longview Mall. That’s what Tom’s own lips were mouthing, because in the end Tom Norcross was the kind of man who would rather be proven crazy than wrong.

  Barney looked at Tom. He pointed to the numbers and then turned so Ellen could see as well.

  “Three-forty-seven, two, oh-six-twenty-five. Those ain’t lotto numbers, Tom, Ellen. People played them an’ lost because they weren’t lotto numbers a’tall. Ain’t that right, Leah?”

  There was only the crinkle of the painting against Barney’s trembling fingers and the sst sst against Leah’s thumbnail. Tom’s lips kept moving, his eyes kept watching Leah, seeing how scared she was, how nervous. The secret voice in his head wavered. Instead of saying YES, it whispered that his daughter was just as sure about those numbers as she was about the weather.

  “Three-forty-seven is the building number of the Treasure Chest,” Barney said. “On Second Street. Oh-six-twenty-five, that’s—”

  “Today,” Ellen finished. Her eyes fluttered to Tom.

  Leah returned to the sofa and sat. Tom thought she had been just as shocked. Her hand found the cushion next to her. She rested it there and squeezed her fingers together in a kind of half fist, just as she’d done on their ride to the mall.

  “Leah,” Tom asked. “What’s going on?”

  “I duh-don’t know,” she said.

  Barney took a step toward her and eyed the empty cushion beside Leah more than Leah herself.

  “What’s those numbers mean, Miss Leah? Somethin’ gonna happen today?”

  “You cuh-can’t leave, Mr. Buh-Barney. That’s what those n-numbers mean. It means it’s your tuh-time.”

  “But you said that before, child.”

  “I nuh-know.” She squeezed her hand again. Whether it was the effects of the sleepless night or some sort of willed mirage, Tom swore he could see the pads of her fingers flatten against an unseen hand she held. “But I suh-said it before. He’s suh-saying it now. Do you buh-lieve me, Mr. Buh-Barney?”

  Barney rolled the painting up slowly, an inch at a time, careful that the ends were even and did not telescope out. Tom knew what that act meant. He’d employed similar methods whenever faced with a patient’s thorny question. Barney was buying time.

  Leah rose from the sofa again. Her steps were not as bold as her first advance nor as shaky as her last retreat. She took Barney’s hand in her own and eased him down to her eye level.

  “I’m so suh-sorry, Mr. Buh-Barney. About everything. I luh-loved Muh-Miss Mabel, and all I suh-said about her at the s-service was true. All I was duh-doing was what the R-rainbow M-man asked. I didn’t understand why, but I duh-do now. He wanted as many puh-people to hear as could. Do you understand? Puh-lease try. And puh-lease don’t go yet. C-come to the carnival with us.”

  “I weren’t plannin’ on goin’ to the carnival,” Barney said. “I’s s’posed to be down Carolina way by sundown.”

  “We weren’t planning on going either,” Ellen said. “But plans can change. Can’t they, Tom?”

  The three of them looked at Tom, who nodded a silent yes.

  “All right, then,” Barney said. “Reckon there ain’t no harm in stoppin’ by.” He nodded like he’d just convinced himself and looked out the window. “Besides, s’posed to be a pretty day after all.”

  3

  Reggie thumbed the switch to Off and found himself whistling a tune he could not place. Probably it was a fragment of a hymn, though there were times when he would begin a few random notes and let the Spirit take over. Sometimes the result was pleasing, other times not so much. This melody sounded well enough that the source did not matter.

  Sweat gathered above his brow though the sun was still weak on the horizon. His T-shirt was wet and cold at the neck and under the arms. It had been a long job, and tougher than he’d realized. But it was done. Reggie stepped back to take stock of his handiwork and saw that it was good.

  He laid the chainsaw in the grass beside the ladder and settled into the backyard’s only chair, one of those plastic jobs the Super Mart in Camden gathered en masse in front of the store and sold for five bucks apiece when the weather turned from cold to hot. Aside from that, the only other object that occupied the concrete slab outside his back door was a small charcoal grill covered by a tattered canvas and a thin layer of spiderwebs. Reggie took a sip of milk—not his first choice but his only, as that was all that was in his refrigerator. Across the way, Jeff and Pauline Hartzog peeked out from behind their curtains, no doubt wondering why their preacher was making such a racket so early on carnival day. Reggie toasted his glass of milk to his only neighbors and carried on his tune, pausing only to chuckle at Pauline’s confused and somewhat petulant look.

  She and Jeff could slumber in peace now that the once mighty maple outside Reggie’s bedroom window had been reduced to a pile of kindling. Cutting down the tree had only expanded the emptiness of the backyard, but it had been worth it. Oh yes it had, because Reggie’s backyard may now be devoid of all but the tumbledown woodshed that marked the boundary between his property and the Hartzogs’, but it had also chased off his mockingbird.

  “Let’s see you sing now,” Reggie said to no one in particular, and then he whistled again.

  He looked at his watch, surprised at the hour. There was no time to shower, which was fine because there really was no need. Strange how the minutes could slip away when you had so much to do. Sort of like how God could hang a CLOSED sign on the door and go fishing when you needed Him the most. Reggie thought of Leah, tiny Leah, powerful Leah, thought of her saying, See you soon, Reverend, and of Brent Spicer’s rock hitting her in the head, but most of all Reggie thought of God and how he’d spent his life in search of Him and how now He seemed so very far away.

  The ride into
town took longer than it would have on a normal Saturday. The downtown area was already filling with trucks and cars. Horns bellowed and hands were lifted. Anticipation filled the air like electricity. People passed from one side of the street to the other, most of them not bothering to make sure the way was clear. They carried blankets to lounge upon and chairs to sit in. They pushed baby carriages and pulled coolers, laughing, shouting, celebrating the day. Many waved to Reggie as he passed. A part of him wanted to wave back—it would be the Christian thing to do—but his hands were too tight on the steering wheel and he could not seem to pry them away.

  He realized the tune he’d been whistling was not the Spirit’s but that of a man named John Newton, who long ago had cried out for God’s mercy during a storm at sea and had become a good man because of it. Reggie whistled the melody as he passed the town square and saw Barney’s truck gone. Left for Carolina already, Reggie supposed, and may God go with Barney Moore. He repeated it as he drove by the rides and games and fun that awaited in the park. Then he parked in the lot of the First Church of the Risen Christ, where every Saturday for the past twelve years—rain, shine, or carnival—Reggie Goggins had gone to put the finishing touches on the next day’s sermon.

  He was whistling still when he dropped five quarters into the vending machine just down the hall from his office and selected C2. Having a candy bar for breakfast may not have been synonymous with treating one’s body as a temple of the Holy Spirit, but when you were gripped by the three-headed monster of anger, hunger, and exhaustion, only chocolate and peanuts would do. The metal loop that held his breakfast gave way with a whir, pushing the candy bar free. Just as it was about to fall into the bin below, the whir stopped. Reggie’s eye twitched at the sight. The tune he whistled caught in his throat. He walked back to the office for something that could help. Lines of townspeople marched by the window. He turned and saw Mary and Allie Granderson walking hand in hand toward the park.

  Whistles echoed through the hallway as he returned to the vending machine and the reward still dangling beyond his grasp. Reggie brought the softball bat down upon the thin sheet of Plexiglas. It shattered into long, thin shards that bounced off the junk food inside and plinked onto the floor. Reggie reached in and gently pried his breakfast from the metal ring. He turned toward his office, candy bar in one hand and the bat swinging in lazy circles in the other, whistling again words John Newton had penned after his storm was over—of the dangers and foils and snares through which he’d already come, and how it was Grace that had brought him safe thus far and Grace that would lead him home.