The War On Bird Street

By Gary Clark

Chuck is the ninth grader, the fat kid from a father absent family, and the whipping boy for the jocks at his school. Brody is the Special Forces soldier, just returned from Iraq with a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Each afraid to confront his own adversaries, they sit alone, defeated by their weaknesses, suffocating in the loneliness and nightmares of their worst fears. But when Brody moves into the abandoned house on Bird Street, next door to Chuck, the two wounded warriors eventually forge an unlikely friendship THE WAR ON BIRD STREET is a story of torture and suffering at the hands of real and imagined adversaries, and finding that a person who looks and acts like the enemy is the messenger who inspires commitment, healing and the courage to leave the past behind and stand up to take back a life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781611608182

Book preview

THE WAR ON BIRD STREET

by

GARY CLARK

WHISKEY CREEK PRESS

www.whiskeycreekpress.com

Published by

WHISKEY CREEK PRESS

Whiskey Creek Press

PO Box 51052

Casper, WY 82605-1052

www.whiskeycreekpress.com

Copyright Ó 2014 by Gary Clark

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-61160-812-2

Cover Artist:

Editor: Dave Field

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To my brother, Jerry.

Welcome home.

Chapter 1

Walking home from Franklin Middle School that day, Chuck noticed an old faded green Chevy sedan with a dented fender parked in the driveway of the abandoned cottage next door to his house. In all his fifteen years, no one ever lived in the Victorian cottage. He remembered an occasional homeless person who spent the night there, and students from the university sometime used it for parties, but no one ever lived there.

Just like the other vacant Victorian houses on Bird Street, the cottage suffered years of abuse and neglect that took away her pride, glory, and left paint peeling off the clapboards, broken windows and a porch that had partially detached itself from the house and leaned toward the street. The early spring rains brought tall weeds partially hiding the litter left behind from fraternity parties, and other trash that blew into the yard from the street. And the old dented Chevy sat right in the middle of it all.

Walking up the sidewalk of his own house, Chuck looked up at the bright spring sun and slipped off his windbreaker. He strained to see through the dirty windows of the cottage, hoping to see someone his age. Someone who’d be his best friend and wouldn’t care that he was the fat kid everyone bullied at school.

The inside of the cottage looked dark, empty and abandoned.

Chuck stepped up on his porch and watched a young man in an army uniform walk out of the old house and open the back door of the old Chevy.

Hi. I’m Chuck.

The young soldier ignored him.

I’m Chuck, he said again. Are you moving in? I’m in ninth grade. Do you have any kids my age?

Again, without acknowledging his young neighbor, the soldier reached into the back seat of the Chevy and pulled out a large cardboard box. He put the box on the trunk of the car and pulled an army green footlocker from the back seat. He stacked the cardboard box on top of the footlocker and carried them both toward the porch of the cottage.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Chuck said, waving toward his neighbor’s back. You need any help? Chuck held his hand over his eyes like the bill of a cap, shielding them from the bright sun.

The soldier paused on the leaning porch and looked toward Chuck. Chuck sucked in a quick, deep breath, smiled and waved again. The soldier looked down, shook his head and walked into the old house. Then he kicked back with his heavy boot, slamming the door shut.

Chuck walked into his own house. Mom? he said.

There was no answer.

He knocked and pushed her bedroom door open. She was gone. Her bed was unmade. Dirty clothes littered the floor, and the smell of her cheap perfume blended with her bath powder and left behind a sticky sweet stench that made his nose itch. Chuck sneezed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

He checked the bathroom and kitchen, but she wasn’t there.

Her car’s out there. Where’s she at?

Walking into the kitchen, he reached down and unbuckled his belt, let it slip to the next hole longer, and then he buckled it. Chuck’s stomach growled and he patted his belly. Hang on down there. We got snacks comin’, he said. He reached into the pantry and grabbed two Moon Pies, a bag of chips, pulled a handful of cookies out of the jar and grabbed two root beers out of the refrigerator. Leaning toward the kitchen window, he looked deep into the old cottage, still hoping to find a new friend.

In the living room, he spread his snacks on the coffee table and threw himself on the sofa. The bricks replacing a broken leg on the back of the sofa shifted, and it fell backward.

Dang it! he said, struggling up. He grumbled as he bent over to restack the bricks under the sofa.

Still bent over beside the sofa, he heard a car start up.

Mom? he said, turning toward the front door. Through the front window, he saw the soldier’s car back out of the driveway then head toward Oakes Street. Chuck walked out on the porch and watched the old Chevy turn onto South Oakes and disappear, leaving behind a thick cloud of exhaust smoke.

Leaning across the porch rail, he stared past the fence and through the windows of the old cottage. Wonder if there’s anybody else there who needs anything?

Walking up on the porch of the old cottage, he knocked and leaned his ear toward the door. He knocked again, louder. There was no answer. He looked through the window on the front porch and watched for anyone who may have been left behind. Hello? he said, knocking on the window. The house was quiet.

Chuck put his forehead against the window and cupped his hands at the side of his head. Looking inside the cottage, he saw the piles of trash, beer can pyramids and dirty quilts left behind by the transient tenants and the fraternity parties. Pieces of a shattered styrofoam ice chest littered the floor. A rat ran out from under an old quilt and disappeared into the kitchen.

He’s a soldier, just like my dad was. I thought soldiers learned to keep everything clean and neat. Not like this.

The old Chevy rumbled back down Bird Street. Chuck jumped off the porch and climbed over the fence, into his own yard. Walking into his house through the back door, he lay carefully on the old sofa, finished his snacks and fell asleep watching TV.

Chuck woke up some time later that night. He stretched and winced from the pain of the broken spring in the sofa, poking his ribs. Then he rolled to the edge of the sofa, finally pulling himself up to standing. He stumbled to the window and peered between the curtains. There was no sign of the soldier anywhere.

Pushing open the door to his mother’s bedroom, he saw that she still wasn’t home.

Still half-asleep, he trudged to his own bedroom and while he undressed, he noticed a dim, flickering light in a window of the cottage. He walked to his window and strained to see inside the faintly-lit room on the other side of the fence. He saw nothing but large pieces of wallpaper that had begun to peel off the wall on the other side of the room.

Chuck leaned against the window and stared across the fence, deeper into the soldier’s room. The only movement inside the old house was the ghostly shadows from the flickering light as it danced on the wall.

He sat on the edge of his bed, still watching the flickering light in the abandoned house. A large shadow moved across the bedroom wall and dissolved into the darkness. He jumped off his bed and leaned his forehead against his window again, staring into the room on the other side of the fence.

Somebody’s in there.

Chuck walked out to his porch and leaned across the rail, then looked toward the window where he’d seen the shadow. He struggled with the idea of climbing through the fence and getting a closer look at whoever was in the bedroom. After several starts stopped by lost courage, he took a deep breath and walked across his yard to the fence. He leaned as far as he could across the fence, trying to see into the window.

I need to get closer.

Standing in front of the two loose pickets he’d crawled between years before, he took a deep breath and tried to crawl between them again.

I musta got bigger since the last time.

Chuck backed away, yanked four pickets off the rotting fence, and then crawled into the weed and trash-covered yard next door. His heart pounded against his chest, and he wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. He looked back at his own house then back at the dim light in the window.

I can’t quit now. I gotta find a way to get him to trust me and talk to me.

Step by careful step, he moved toward the window. The box he’d stood on all the times before was still under the window. Chuck lifted his shaking right leg and rested his foot on the box. Then, pulling himself up, he raised his left foot and stood, bent over under the bedroom window. He put his ear against the wall. There was nothing but silence.

He straightened his back and lifted his head until his eyes were level with the windowsill. He scanned the room. There was no one. He raised himself up further and looked deeper into the room.

In one corner of the room, the soldier had cleared a space on the trash-covered floor large enough to spread out one of the old, dirty blankets. A candle flickered inside a Mason jar on the floor next to the blanket. The jar’s lid overflowed with cigarette butts. Smoke curled up from a cigarette that appeared to have been hastily dropped on top of the pile. There was no sign of anyone in the room.

Chuck heard a noise in the yard behind himself.

It’s him!

He ducked into the total darkness under the window and almost fell off the box as he whirled around. The steps came closer and Chuck slowly leaned into the darkness to face the soldier. The footsteps came closer until, to his surprise and relief, he saw an old, thin stray dog walking through the yard just behind him. The dog stopped, sniffed and pawed at a paper bag, and then moved on. Oblivious to the panic he’d caused, he looked up at Chuck, and then he disappeared into the dark back yard.

Dangit! Chuck whispered, grabbing hold of the windowsill to keep from falling backward.

Leaning dangerously close to the window again, he scanned the darkened room and focused his eyes into the hall outside the bedroom.

Suddenly, inside the darkened room, the soldier leaped from beside the window and let out a furious war cry. His face stopped inches away from Chuck’s. Chuck shivered in the dark, separated from the soldier only by a thin pane of glass. The soldier’s raging gaze locked onto Chuck’s eyes. Chuck yelled and recoiled in horror, almost falling backward off the box.

Get the hell out of here, the soldier yelled. The soldier’s eyes were angry, enormous, and bloodshot and he let out a war cry that rattled the windowpanes and sent a cold shiver down Chuck’s spine.

Chuck’s eyes popped as large as the soldier’s and they both stood at the window, frozen in fear. Face to terrified face, Chuck and the soldier glared. Then, in the brief seconds that followed, a quiet, malignant sadness engulfed them and a million fears and hurts and needs surged between them, leaving them both terrified and confused but feeling strangely connected.

Finally able to unlock himself from the soldier’s hypnotic stare, Chuck stumbled backward and fell off the box. Scrambling on all fours, he headed toward the hole he’d made in the fence. He scrambled through it and ran back to his porch.

Gasping for each shallow breath and soaked with sweat, Chuck burst through his front door and locked it. With all his weight, he pushed against the door, expecting the soldier to crash through at any time.

Please, God! Please tell him I’m not the enemy. Please tell him I’m a good guy so he won’t kill me. Tell him my dad’s a soldier just like him so maybe he won’t hurt another soldier’s kid.

Chuck’s body shook so violently, he could hardly stand up.

Seconds felt like minutes as Chuck braced against the door and waited for the attack that never came.

Still shaking from fear and exhaustion, he crept back to his bedroom and turned off the light. Cupping his hands at the side of his face, he leaned his forehead against the window and looked across the fence into the dimly-lit room.

The shadow moved across the wall and then disappeared.

Chapter 2

For the next five days, Chuck kept a close watch on the house next door. Every night the same flickering light glowed in the window. Occasionally the mysterious shadow moved across the wall, but he never saw the soldier. He never came outside and there were no visitors to the old cottage. The Chevy sedan sat where he’d parked it on the day he arrived. He never retaliated for Chuck’s intrusion at the window that night. It was as if the soldier next door didn’t exist.

At school, Chuck couldn’t pay attention in class for thinking about the soldier.

He’s prob’ly just lonesome and scared is why he never comes out. I gotta find a way talk to him. If I can just talk to him and get him to trust me then we can be friends; he won’t be so lonesome and scared anymore.

Suddenly an idea popped into his head. Chuck walked tall and smiled confidently as he worked out the details of the plan on the long walk home from school.

Walking into his house, he reached into the pantry and grabbed a chocolate Moon Pie. Then he took a root beer from the refrigerator. Putting all his courage behind the plan, he walked outside. After looking long and hard at the soldier’s front door, and before he had a chance to change his mind, Chuck walked up on the soldier’s porch and knocked hard.

I got you a snack, he called toward the door. There was no answer. Hello? he said, knocking on the door. Again, there was no answer. Well, if you need anything, I’m just right over there, he said, pointing at his house. Chuck turned to leave and then he stopped. He looked back at the door. You know, my dad’s an army guy, too. He’s somewhere though. We just don’t know where because when he left Iraq he wrote to my mom and said he’s not coming home. Ever. He looked down the street. I wonder sometimes though, you know, if he’s by himself and needs somebody to help him. Maybe he’s just confused and doesn’t know how to get back home to us. So maybe if I can help you then maybe somebody’ll find my dad and help him too. That would be cool wouldn’t it? Chuck waited for an answer, but there was only silence inside the house. Well, like I said, if you need anything I’m just right over there next door. Just knock on the door. I’m home most of the time. And you can trust me too, ya know. Heck, I know all about how it feels to be alone and not have any friends to talk to and do stuff with. I’m readin’ Huckleberry Finn for school. It’s all about friends and doing stuff together and trusting each other. You ever read it? You should. It’s a great book. Me and you could be friends like Huck and Jim, you know.

Chuck turned to leave again then stopped. Hey, he said, setting the Moon Pie and root beer in front of the door. I’m gonna leave this stuff right out here on the porch for you. Just get it anytime you want it. Okay?

* * * *

Walking back to his house, Chuck didn’t see the curtain pull back slightly, or the tired, dark eyes watching him walk away. He didn’t see the soldier extend his hard, shaking hand slowly to open the door for Chuck, only to pause for a moment, and then suddenly drop his hand by his side.

* * * *

Back inside his house, Chuck stood at the window for fifteen minutes and watched the soldier’s porch to see if he took the Moon Pie and root beer. For fifteen minutes nothing happened.

Tired of waiting for the soldier to come out to retrieve his friendship offering, Chuck walked into the kitchen and grabbed a sack of potato chips and a root beer for himself then he hurried back to the living room window. Looking between the curtains again, he saw his friendship offer still sat undisturbed on the soldier’s porch.

That night Chuck looked out his bedroom window and watched the flickering light in the soldier’s window. But he never saw the soldier or the huge shadow move across the wall.

When Chuck left for school the next morning, his friendship offer sat undisturbed in front of the soldier’s door. He sighed.

Chuck walked, chin on his chest, down the street. At the end of Bird Street, he turned the corner onto Oakes Street where he found himself face to face with Johnny Ray Badger and his posse.

Where you goin’, punk? Johnny Ray said.

Chuck hated talking to Johnny Ray for more reasons than he could list. Johnny Ray was in ninth grade, a tough guy, a menace to society, and he took Chuck’s lunch money, not just sometime, but every day. It didn’t matter where Chuck hid his money, Johnny Ray’s posse, Snake and Dingo, would hold him down or upside down until he gave it up or they shook it out of his pockets. But that day, Chuck packed a sack lunch and put his lunch money in a jar on top of his dresser.

School. Where’d you think I’d be going on a Wednesday morning? Chuck said.

Well, you ain’t gettin’ past me ’til you pay the toll, Johnny Ray said.

I don’t have any money. That’s why I had to pack a lunch today.

You’re a lyin’ little son of a buck! Give me that money or I’m gonna stomp you in the ground, Johnny Ray said.

I don’t have any I told ya. Mom forgot to leave my lunch money.

Check him out, boys, Johnny Ray said to his posse. He’s lyin’.

Chuck struggled to get away from Snake and Dingo as they dug through all his pockets.

He don’t got nuthin’, Snake said.

It’s in the lunch bag! Tear it open, Johnny Ray said.

Dingo grabbed the bag out of Chuck’s hand and tore it open. The sandwich fell on the ground and his apple rolled off the curb and down the gutter. Looking straight into Chuck’s eyes, Johnny Ray raised his right leg and stomped the sandwich. Sliding his boot around the sidewalk, he smeared peanut butter and grape jelly into the old, cracked cement.

"I say he’s got it hid in his clothes. Now find it or I’m gonna kick y’all’s asses," Johnny Ray said.

Take off your pants, Snake said.

No. I said I don’t have any money and that’s the honest to God’s truth.

I say he does, Johnny Ray said. Get it!

Take off your pants or we’re gonna take ’em off of you! Snake said.

No! Chuck said as he ran away from the gang.

Get him! Johnny Ray said.

Chuck was no contest in a race with the posse. They caught him and wrestled him to the ground, pulled off