Night Bird

By Ryan Vulgamore

Across the street from a chain americana restaurant and a 2nd generation immigrant-owned laundromat was a diner. A cold cozy, lithium-crusted linoleum floor kind of joint - burgers and fries kind of joint. They had a seafood section of the menu, but I’ve heard the last person who had something off there passed a kidney stone the size of a ping-pong ball. Our parents and their parents went there when they were about our age. My grandparents - my mother's parents - met there. They never got married - Protestants and Catholics kind of deal. After my Grandma had the baby, PawPaw decided to pack his bags and bounce off to Miami. The couple of postcards he sent my mother are in a box somewhere in the study. They always had palm trees and seagulls on them. My mother was often sick - very terribly - and sometimes when she was down with something she'd look into the shelves and read one of the postcards. I don’t know why she cared so much about a man she would never meet.

My parents met in college - they got married. After my parents got married, that diner shut its cultural landmark - world's largest yarn ball doors... on the day, actually. The emptyshell has been sitting there for about 16 years now. About a twenty-minute drive from that diner, I was halfway out of a window, the dew of evening rain napping on the grass. Pop was asleep in the other room with his college ball reruns

playing. I missed the slide down and headed straight for the ground. There was grass grafting itself to my knees from the fall.

Cormac picked me back up. He was a damn good friend I’d say. He was a taller fella, had to duck a little under doors, you know? The bags under his eyes told me that he had been waiting for this, excitement and all that. He picked me up by my shoulders and stood me up, tried to brush the green out of the pants and then some on his own slacks, and he beckoned me to follow him.

“You’re up late", Cormac,” I said.

“You’re up early, Ern,” he said. And we jumped over my backyard fence. “How’s your pops?”

“About as well as he can be.” I looked down and kicked at loose rocks. “You know Pitt just lost the other day.”

“He’s still on about that?” Cormac asked, and he began fiddling with his car keys

“Give ‘em a break. He likes his football.” “Anything good happen today?” He was asking for a good story. I hopefully had something good happen to me today but if I didn’t I’d try to just make stuff up. Today was one of those days.

“I was taking a walk with Angie after school, and she saw this bird's nest, must’ve been night birds or something cause the little chicks were sleeping up in the tree, right,” I said.

This wasn’t entirely untrue. I only left out that another owl, with wrinkled talons, was plucking the poor things out of the nest and dropping them onto the concrete. They hit the ground and didn’t get back up. I didn’t wanna tell Cormac any of this, would’ve riled him up too much.

“And I wanted to go take a look at them, but you know how Angie is - almost dug her nails two inches into my wrist trying to keep me away. Anyway, I dropped her off at her folk's place - said “hello” to her ma and all that - and I went back to look for them.”

“What’d you see?” Cormac asked me, his eyes were widening, guy was interested. I had to keep it up.

“When I got back the mother flew in with a dead squirrel and bits of it dropped into Mr. Fletcher's coffee. Poor bastard didn’t even notice.”

Cormac let out a big laugh “wasn’t he my stats teacher” he said

“The one with the extra thumb yeah.”

“He had it coming,” said Cormac and we walked to his convertible. It was a beat up old fossil. He kept the top open cause the exhaust would come in through the windows and damn near strangle whoever was in the pile of junk. It was a red and rusting hound of a car that spat smoke and fire. “See anything new with Sheila?” he asked. Sheila was what he named her. He smiled and began looking around expectantly.

“What you get a new carburetor or something?”

“Doesn’t need replacin’.”

“You fixed the clutch?”

“We're getting there.”

“Alright well then what’s new?” I asked, and he pointed over to his rearview mirror.

“You finally fixed the rearview?” I said, and he jabbed me in the shoulder. “No, dickwad, it's what’s on the mirror.” fixed onto the mirror were a pair of large white dice that dangled and thumped around.

“God, don’t tell me you actually paid for those.”

“It’s an investment!” He said. “Chicks’ll dig it.” I laughed, and he jammed his keys into the car like an acupuncturist on a crocodile. Sheila began to shreik uncontrollably - must’ve caused a scene - Surprised my pops didn’t wake up. Eventually after repeated kicking at the dashboard and maniacal begging Sheila started running, and we drove off.

“Just in case you didn’t know,” Cormac said. “I can’t park in the lot over there. We’re gonna need to drive somewhere farther out.”

“What’s wrong with the lot?” I asked.

“Sheila’s not the girl she used to be, can’t drive on those roads.” He was right.

“Can we go back for my hiking boots?”

“C’mon were right by her house.”

“I don’t want to muddy up my shoes.” He turned to me and scoffed a little. “Are you both fighting or something?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not going back.” The headlights kept a circular search on the road, and on the corner were the pale red walls of her house with shallow moss and vines that crept down the walls, and a black shingle roof. Sheila stopped like a racehorse.

On the lawn was a sign for the reelection of Mayor Ethel Sorely. She was promising a complete overhaul of old downtown; she wanted to turn the whole thing into some horse and pony show for the geriatric. Angie’s dad had put it up a couple days ago before a PTA meeting. The teachers can’t afford any new stacks of paper. They’re learning how to make it themselves. I looked out towards the street and I could hear the night birds crash into the trees like ash in the wind. Angie was sitting there in one of her mesh shirts that her father didn’t know about, and she climbed into the back. She leaned forward from her seat and flicked my earlobe with her short nails.

“Fancy seeing you here, Ernest,” she said

“You think I’m too low class for this chariot?”

“Yeah, I’m surprised you weren’t stopped at the door.”

“He’s got connections,” Cormac said, chuckling to himself. The engine spat in disgust once more and began to rumble and pop like wildfire and Sheila drove us off with the fuzzy dice rattling against the mirror. Passing by us were old billboards of that diner, sixty cents shakes or something like that, and Cormac played with a lighter in his hands.

“Did you bring hiking boots?” I asked.

“Was I supposed to?”

“God damn it. You’re all so precious.” Cormac said.

“It’s gonna be a five-minute walk - five minutes. I think the both of you can handle a little mud”

He put his hand on the radio dial, which was bought from a Slavic mail-order business. Cormac once said it could pick up Marx’s ghost, but I didn’t know if he meant Groucho or Karl. The radio kept on switching between stations, crackling in and out, and every song was another pinstripe blues scale teenybopper song made for our grandparents.

“Why’s it always gotta play the old shit?” Angie asked, peaking between the front seats. I looked over at her.

“You think people are gonna be saying the same thing when we’re old?” “Nah our music’s good,” she said, smiling.

“No one below the age of 30 is up this late anyway. I just don’t get why they’d play it now.”

“They play it all the time,” Cormac said, “It’s all we can listen to tonight, anyway.” and he tuned into a station. It was grating on my ears like a thin wire, It was something I couldn’t grasp. Eventually, the three of us made it to the parking spot, another 10 minutes from the diner or 5 minutes as Cormac said.

The ground was still wet from day-old rain and the dirt sunk into my sneakers like I was going to be swallowed whole. It was in the older part of town. The common consensus was to not walk on the roads here after it rained. You’d get stuck in the gunk and they’d have to drill you out. Cormac took himself to the back of Sheila, popped open the trunk, and grabbed his bag. I didn’t know why he had it. I hadn’t seen him in school for a few weeks.

There wasn’t much to do in old town, even during the day, it was just about all plummeting businesses and insurance firms. At night the place was almost cartoonish. The moon was just starting to decay. It was dripping its hospice light onto us and it ducked behind the crotchety buildings of old town. After a bit of walking, we saw the diner. Its paint had all but peeled, and the glass was shattered a while ago by the shithead kids who came before us. What explorers the three of us were. Beyond the windows was nothing but asbestos-caked floors and canned food that hadn’t been scrapped up yet by a bum or raccoon. There was a smell of ammonia coming from the place, like mass decay and hell.

“Ah, shit! My shoe’s stuck!” Angie said, her hands clambering down her calf. I gave a look to Cormac.

"Who needs hiking boots, huh?” I said, laughing dry.

“You should’ve just worn ‘em when you left.” Said Cormac we both walked over to help Angie out of the gunk. We managed to squeeze her foot out of her loafers but we lost it to nature. It was a real tragedy - I think. They were real nice looking leather ones with ornate embroidery or whatever. Poor girl had to hop on one foot for another minute before she got the relief of cakey cracked linoleum. We made it onto the diner floor, past the rusted doors that scraped when they opened. It was dark as all hell. Cormac set his bag down, unzipped it, and pulled out a can of spray paint

“You’re gonna tag the place?” I said. Me and Cormac used to go spray painting shit in the next town over but that was a year ago now.

“It’s all a canvas.” He said, shaking the can.

“I’m just adding a mark.” and he drew along the walls in clotted blue paint - shaky and amateurish, but it was his. Angie took the can from his hand and began to doodle obscenities on the barstools. She tossed the can to me.

“Go make something,” she said and smiled at me. I lifted the can towards the peeling and picked at booths and whipped something up acidic blue. Wasn’t my best work really - rusty I guess. The place really was a dump, rotting like old kidneys in the heart of the most rotten section of my hometown. Wood panels cracked and ached against itself. The floor felt sticky under my shoes - like I was caught in some honey trap.

I wasn’t entirely honest about what I meant about my grandparents meeting here. As truthfully as you’ll allow it to be, My Grandma had apparently been plucked clean in the walk-in refrigerator. Apparently, Pawpaw was one of the bartenders and he had private access that he was happy to share - at least that’s what I hear at the family reunions in little breathy mutters. It just made the whole place stink that much more.

It was all so nauseating - I think. Everything was sticky and wet, it was all so old, and the stench had somehow begun to sting like lighter fluid.

Angie froze, and I followed her gaze to Cormac. In his hand was a little canteen pouring out onto the floor and splashing the walls. I couldn’t find words. I couldn’t take my eyes off the fire starter pouring onto the ground. “Whatever makes a mark.” He said. He dropped the canteen and rifled through his pocket, pulling out a lighter.

“If you guys don’t wanna get caught in it you should get behind me.” We did. He sparked his lighter and knelt down. The fire twisted in apprehension until it caught onto the lighter fluid and flashed in a great light. The flames began to grunt and gnash at the wood like a rabid bull. The three of us ran the best we could out of that diner, towards Sheila, the mud drying and cracking in the heat. Angie turned and stared at the glowing pyre. I tugged her arm.

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” I said, darting my eyes around.

“I just want to see it. No one else will see the end of it. Firemen will come and flood the place, or no one will see it and no one will’ve noticed it burnt down for weeks.” she said, “I just want to look.” It did look so fantastic.

Cormac was a block up from us, frantically searching himself for his car keys.

“Angie! We need to leave.” I said, tugging on her arm again. She was entranced by the fire. I looked up towards the fire, it wrestled with itself, clawing around for fuel. Glowing ash from the diner split and flew, kissing the nearby old wood buildings gently - sparking.

The heat stung my face and singed my eyes open. It was good I think. Maybe something could be done here after, something good and real and the teenybopper music would go away and teachers wouldn’t have to pulp their paper. Maybe there’d be a new tree for the night birds. Maybe.

I tugged Angie and she began following me back towards Sheila. The loafer was rising through the mud. We slid into Sheila and drove off. In the rear mirror with the dancing dice, I could see the haze of fire and brimstone through the trees. For a second it seemed to expel something, an energy, glowing brighter, before shrinking under the weight of the road.

In a few moments, fire trucks will radiate into the roads and hose what’s left. But for now, the three of us are soot covered and wide eyed, our hearts beating lively and the road ahead, and I wonder if those painted palm trees in those cards ever faded.

---

Ryan Vulgamore mostly writes short fiction and poetry in the comfort of their 8x8 apartment bedroom. This is their first publication. Currently, they are studying at the University of Toronto though they're from the eastern the United States. Outside of writing stories, Ryan Vulgamore also releases music on Bandcamp under the name Match the Sticks.