Fly Bird Fall

By R. P. Poe

Twelve-year-old Fali George has not spoken in the three years since her father’s suicide, seeing no point to words that failed to keep him alive. Since that time, she has endured the wrath of her mother’s revolving door of violent boyfriends. She finds sanctuary in her grandmother’s home along a remote coastal inlet, and in the companionship of Jake Curtain, an artist who has lost the will to paint. She also attaches herself to Jake’s niece, Melt Curtain, a young architect attempting to start again after a failed marriage. Fali’s stubborn determination to find meaning in her father’s death, as captured in her search for the elusive night heron, leads her to the story’s dramatic conclusion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. P. Poe
• Release date: Aug 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005921330

R. P. Poe

The author of ten novels, R. P. Poe lives west of Austin, Texas, near the small town of Driftwood. He has a particular interest in the real or imagined boundaries between countries, cultures and people, including their effect on the mercurial concept of family. His most recent novel is Fly Bird Fall.

Book preview

Fly Bird Fall

Richard Paul Poe

Copyright © 2020 R. P. Poe

Handwrought Books

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 9798673586723

I see an empty bird flying

and its song follows me

with my own name

with the sound of the ice

of my own name

breaking

-W. S. Merwin

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

a long, long way from my home

-Anonymous spiritual

Other books by R. P. Poe

South by Degrees

Silence

Water Flow Down

The Consequent Touch of McHenry Feathers

In a Hollow Land

Chancer’s Almanac

The Fourth book of Five

The Long Forgetting

The Langdon Codex

One

In my dream I’m soaring high above the earth, effortless and birdlike. The land drifts by, an old map set in olive-green and orange and zigzagged by rock-strewn canyons that wind through the brush like snakes. I follow the contours with my eyes as I might with my feet. I am that girl again.

Air swirls past smelling of fresh water, a pond or lake, and I scan the horizon, spotting a stock tank through the trees. The rippled surface winks like a dying star. The sun sits warm on my face. I want the feeling to last forever.

But my freedom is always short-lived. Suddenly, I’m spiraling down and down, away from the sun, away from the warmth. I know where I’m going. I remember. And then I’m there again, in that room. Light filtering through the half-opened window is the only reason I can see a thing. A blackbird watches from the sill, brooding and silent. It’s raining outside.

I feel my way along at first and then I spot him. I know he’ll be there yet seeing him always sends a shiver up my spine. He’s stretched out on the floor like he can’t wait for the coffin. I try to speak, to call out, to ask him why, but all I hear is my own ragged breath. The air comes so hard I fear I’ll suffocate and die right there with him. A part of me wouldn’t mind, the part that wants to be in that coffin too.

Somewhere far off I hear my grandmother calling over and over, like my name is some sort of prayer or incantation. I follow the sing-song rhythm of her voice to the doorway and hesitate, turning to take one last look. Then I step through.

I can see now that the dreams are all the same yet different, like a face over time, the changes slow and subtle but there, nonetheless. Except for him. He looks as he always did, tall and lean, a dark sweep of hair crossing his brow. No graying temples or crow’s feet will ever alter his looks. He’s as timeless as the stars.

I find this eternal youth he’s sentenced to terribly sad. I can’t help but wonder what sort of man he might have become if he’d given himself the chance, a surly curmudgeon unfit to be around or maybe a good-natured eccentric. The truth is I’ll never know. What I knew then was no amount of praying or pleading or wishing would ever bring him back. Words were useless.

Melt Curtain followed the road south along a narrow strip of coastline, past mangrove swamps and tidal flats reduced to mud and sand by an ebbing tide. Heat hovered above the asphalt in a succession of silver pools. Neither nearing nor receding they seemed to taunt her, as if daring her to deny the truth of their existence.

Turning inland, the road narrowed and entered a dense stand of mesquites. Their thorn-covered branches screeched along the fender, reminding her of her dead stepmother, and she glanced at the envelope on the seat, the reason for her trip. Her uncle, Jake Curtain, had sent her a vague and puzzling letter. That he lived minutes away yet chose to write rather than call was one of his many quirks. She was not even sure Jake still owned a phone.

All at once the trees and underbrush fell away, allowing the sky dominance once again. The horizon lay blurred and uncertain in the haze-smeared air. Tattered clouds drifted overhead, painting the rain-starved grass in pale, irregular shadows.

The green and white gabled roof of her uncle’s house rose above a clutch of trees and then was gone. The familiar sight stirred memories of her father. When she was a girl, he had often left her with Jake for days at a time while he was off fishing.

The road entered another thicket. Houses and outbuildings appeared at random, most broken down or abandoned. Their overgrown lawns vibrated in the ceaseless wind. A dog nearly hairless with mange streaked across the pavement and vanished, leaving behind an image nightmarish and fleeting.

Past a sharp bend, a gravel driveway flanked by a pair of stout palms opened on her right. She angled her red sedan down it, thinking of her father again, of his near-pious propriety, his remoteness. Even now, she could not escape the feeling she had fallen short of his expectations.

The gabled house suddenly came into full view and, beside it, Jake’s orange grove. Fallen fruit littered the rows. She puzzled over why he would neglect his beloved oranges. Beyond the grove the brackish water of the tidal basin glinted in the afternoon sunlight.

She parked the car and mounted the stairway, reaching the landing just as the door swung open. Jake stood before her. After a murmur of greeting, he turned and motioned to follow.

She lingered on the threshold and scanned the horizon, the sun-splattered bay, the cityscape rising above it. The sight stirred a host of memories both old and new. Some she had hoped to forget.

Jake was waiting in the kitchen, two bottles of beer sweating on the table before him. She made a quick study of him, knowing well that the ruddy, ill-defined face belied an independent and willful stubbornness. His expression also held a less familiar reticence.

Go ahead and sit, Meltice, he said, sounding troubled.

She sat and peered at him, puzzled by his manner. He rarely used her full name.

A young woman like you may like being on her feet, he continued, but these days I can’t tolerate much standing.

I’m thirty-seven, Jake. That’s not exactly young.

He snorted.

Imagine how you’ll feel twenty years from now.

She studied him pointedly. He had a three-day growth of beard and needed a change of clothes. She’d known him to neglect himself when obsessed with a painting, but she hadn’t seen that look in nearly a year, since the sudden death of his childhood friend, Lester Banks.

You don’t look so bad, she lied.

Fact is, most all my parts hurt these days. He shifted with a groan. They just take turns.

She sipped her beer and surveyed the cluttered kitchen. Dirty dishes crowded the sink, spilling onto the counter. The far corner held an overfull trashcan. She tried to hide her concern.

I see you’ve let your orange trees go, she said as if commenting on the weather.

I haven’t bothered with them in a long while, Melt.

But Jake, you’ve always babied your Satsumas.

I can’t see the point to it anymore. The trees will die sooner or later, just like Lester and me and everything else.

Now there’s an uplifting thought.

He shrugged off the comment.

Tell me what you’re painting, she said, hoping to steer him in a more positive direction.

I haven’t been inside the studio in months.

But why not, Jake? You paint so beautifully.

No one notices what I paint, whether it’s quality or crap. Besides, I’ve had enough of sucking up to rich patrons just to sell a painting, and I’m tired of scraping by. I hear I can make more money illustrating one ad than I can with a dozen paintings. Everything has gone digital in case you haven’t noticed. Paint on canvas is past its time.

But art is about more than selling clothes and computer games. What about meaning and beauty?

Beauty is overrated. Don’t get me started on meaning.

You used to tell me beauty can be found in the unlikeliest of places, even in what at first seems ugly. Then you’d prove it in a painting.

I was deluded.

You taught me to see not just what’s in front of me, but the essence, the truth of it.

You see how fooling yourself can affect the people around you? Forget everything I said. It’ll only make you unhappy.

I don’t understand. What’s gotten into you, Jake?

That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Melt. There is no understanding, no hidden meaning. We’re born, we live and then we die.

That’s just depressing.

He raised the bottle and a bitter grin crossed his lips.

Enjoy it while you can.

How many of those have you had?

Too few.

All right, I’ve heard enough. Why did you ask me over here? She pulled the letter from her purse and tossed it on the table. I can’t make much sense of this.

He lost his smile. This was a moment he had long dreaded. He tilted back the bottle and took a long swallow, stalling while he searched his mind for a way to begin.

There’s somebody I want you to go see, he finally said.

About what?

I couldn’t say anything while your step-mother was still alive.

Then say it now.

It’s not me that’s to do the talking.

Who is it then?

You’ll need to hear from them directly.

What, exactly, am I supposed to hear?

That’s why you need to go see them.

She sat back, miffed by the exchange. She’d never known him to be so evasive.

What’s this all about, Jake?

He stood and moved to the far counter, lifting the lid from a cookie jar and pulling out a tattered sheet of paper. He set it on the tabletop and smoothed flat the folds. She recognized her father’s handwriting at once. The paper held only a woman’s name and a nearby address.

Who is she?

She’s a friend of your father’s.

He kept his eyes to the table, hoping to avoid saying any more than necessary. She waited but he gave no sign of continuing.

Jake, you have to give me more than that. How does he know her?

He sat and tried to imagine a path through the maze of questions he knew she had waiting.

She’s about my age and claims to be part Choctaw. When you get there, stay in your car and wait. Otherwise, you might get shot.

She doesn’t sound like the sort he would be friends with, she replied, mystified.

Well, sometimes people surprise you.

Jake, why all the mystery?

He could see he would need to say more if he wanted her cooperation.

She is a special sort of friend, Melt.

He winced, knowing he had crossed a line. There was no going back. She stared at him, her mind racing.

What are you saying?

Go see her, Melt. Hear what she has to tell you.

The girl breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the red sedan bump down the gravel drive and disappear between Jake’s twin palms. She reached up and ran her fingers under her swollen eye, wondering what he would make of it. She did not want to know.

Stepping from behind the sprawling orange tree, she started for his studio. The building, set on short pilings, sat adjacent to the house. Cedar shingles covered its sides in a quilt of weathered gray.

When open, the barnlike double-doors allowed sunlight to filter in from the north, ideal for the large canvases Jake once favored. She slipped inside. The room stood empty except for an overstuffed chair, two easels and a paint-spattered table covered with a thin layer of dust. A scattering of unfinished paintings leaned against the walls.

She wandered among the canvases, lingering before a surreal landscape of windblown trees crossed by a network of thorn-covered vines. She imagined their red tips dipped in blood, the blood of a man. The canvas beside it, as wide as she was tall, held a close-up view of a dead hawk floating above a field of yellow grain and surrounded by an oval of multi-colored feathers. Bound sheaves of thorns, also red-tipped, filled each corner. She had seen neither painting before.

The scenes seemed to be of another world, a place strange and exotic. She tried to imagine escaping there. Such a place had to be better than the cramped and unquiet trailer she shared with her mother and Brett, her mother’s new boyfriend.

An image of her mother’s face, bruised and swollen, came to her but she forced it from her thoughts and instead turned back to the paintings. Try as she might she could see little more than paint on canvas. The magic they had held moments before was gone.

She slumped onto the chair and bent her head to her knees. Her cheek throbbed in a slow rhythm. She concentrated on the ache, pressing her eye to her knee bit by bit, feeling the pain grow until there was room in her thoughts for nothing else.

Seconds later the latch holding the doors clicked and sunlight filled the room, over-bright and blinding. Jake’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. She raised a hand over her swollen eye and squinted into the glare.

He walked to the chair and stood over her. Reaching down, he nudged her fingers away and studied the bruise. Then he moved to the sink, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it under the faucet.

This happened in the neighborhood, Fali?

She gave her head a quick shake. He returned and leaned her back in the chair, pressing the cloth to her cheek.

The boys weren’t calling you Indian names again, he continued, no Pocahontas or Princess Fat Ass?

She pushed aside his hand and glared at him.

You didn’t get into another fight?

She shook her head.

Then it must’ve happened at home.

She leaned back, closing her eyes, and he replaced the cloth. The fabric lay cool against her skin. Suddenly she found herself wishing the hand she felt was her mother’s. She swallowed hard, biting back tears, fearing that if she let herself start, she might never stop.

Was it your mother’s new boyfriend? He eyed her. I hear he’s a bad sort.

She made no move to answer.

He sighed, wishing she would tell him what happened rather than take question after question. But he knew better. She had not uttered a word in over three years.

After a moment she sat up and pointed to one of the new paintings, hoping to sidestep any more questions. He followed her gaze. She motioned to the hawk with a shrug.

"He’s a young Cooper’s hawk, accipiter cooperii. He let his eyes wander over the image. I came across him in a field of wild barley. He looked like he’d hit the power line, likely during a squall. We’d had storms around. He was still alive when I found him, so I brought him back thinking he might recover but by the time I got here he was dead. Probably broke his neck."

She took a paintbrush from the stand and pointed the handle toward him. He could see she wanted him to finish the painting. He gave his head a slow shake, fighting the sense that in abandoning his art he had somehow failed her.

No, Fali, I gave it up.

She shook the brush at him, but he ignored it and turned away, unwilling to face the canvas any longer. She faced the painting and leaned close, running her fingers under the image. The bird’s beauty seemed a cruel contrast to such a pointless and random death. Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. Sensing her unease, he tapped her shoulder and nodded toward the house.

I’m going to go find us something to eat, Fali. Come on when you’re ready.

She lingered in the cool confines of the studio, wishing she might stay, might disappear inside the otherworldly images surrounding her, far from the grim reality of her life. Her mother’s face came to her and the tears began again but she brushed them aside with a brusque wave and turned toward the door, knowing that she could not keep running, that she must return home.

Two

Melt followed the gravel road across a one-lane bridge of rough wooden planks and onto a tree-covered peninsula. The rutted path continued for another mile before a sharp curve revealed a low-slung cabin surrounded by a stand of mesquites. The house had a familiar look she could not place. Beyond the trees a stretch of wind-roughened water ended at a spit of sand and scrub.

Parking well away from the cabin, she honked twice, rousting a trio of spotted hounds, all related by the look of them. They circled the car in a snarling pack before going silent and wandering back to the porch shade. She waited but the house remained quiet.

She thought of her father again and their long estrangement. After his marriage to her stepmother a rift had opened between them. His inveterate stubbornness, or hers, had effectively cut them off from each other. From then on what little she had heard of him came from Jake.

She refocused on the house, still quiet, and had almost decided the owner was away when the door swung open, rousing the dogs into a howling chorus. A small birdlike woman in jeans and plaid shirt stood on the threshold. Other than two dangling braids streaked with gray, her hair was covered by a gold bandana fashioned into a snug skullcap.

She ordered the dogs elsewhere and gave Melt a quick wave, and then she climbed down the stairs with an unhurried but determined step. Setting two lawn chairs in the shade, she pointed Melt into one and disappeared inside. She had yet to say a word.

Moments later, she reemerged with two sweating glasses. Handing Melt one, she drank and then held the tumbler to her cheek while she studied Melt with sidelong glances. Her black eyes gave no hint of what she might be thinking. Melt wondered if she had made a mistake in honoring Jake’s request. The woman drank again and then pressed the glass to the back of her neck.

Been working out back, she said in a hoarse monotone, enough to lose track of the time. Sometimes tending the garden does that to me.

Melt took a liberal mouthful of the drink and just managed to swallow, nearly choking at the bitterness. The woman raised her glass and studied the tan liquid.

Looks like you never had yaupon tea before. I make it strong. She nodded toward the thicket. We have plenty trees around. The leaves make a powerful tea, don’t you think?

She nodded, unable to speak. She again pondered Jake’s mysterious charge, doubting his wisdom in sending her. Despite her misgivings she wanted to hear what the woman had to say.

My uncle, Jake Curtain… she started.

The woman raised a hand to stop her, eyeing her again, this time openly.

You do favor him in the face, in the set of your mouth.

Melt frowned, unable to imagine any such resemblance.

Not Jake, she added as if reading her mind. His brother is who I mean.

Ah… she replied, nodding. He said you know my father.

Your eyes are more guarded, she continued, less open to what’s around you, with the regretful look of the unlucky, in life… or maybe love.

Melt stared at her, annoyed by her frankness. But she could not avoid the fact of her troubled marriage and the divorce that followed.

The woman stood without a word and started toward the backyard, passing the scattered dogs, now all asleep. Puzzled by her odd pronouncements, Melt hesitated and then followed. She found her standing before a vegetable garden lush with growth. A wooden tool shed stood just beyond.

I’m called Dota George, she said over her shoulder. Your father built this garden for me so I could use what my grandmother taught me. She was raised on a reservation in Oklahoma. They grew their own food in a garden just like this.

She pushed through the gate and knelt beside a row of plants, reaching beneath the broad, serrated leaves and pulling out two large squash, bright yellow and free of blemish. Melt laced her hands through the fence and tried to work out what connection she might have to her father. Dota pointed her chin toward the small wooden building.

He built that tool shed too.

Is that why I’m here, because you have something to tell me, something about him?

You might say that. She stepped back through the gate and handed Melt the squash. My grandmother’s mother was on the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of native tribes to Indian Territory.

How did you know him? she pressed.

Her name was Mary Ann Johnson and she was light-skinned. She might’ve been a captive raised by the tribe. Family history is sketchy back then.

Waiting for an answer, Melt said nothing.

My truck broke down not too far from here, she continued, and he stopped to help.

And so, you became friends?

Better bring that squash inside.

She started toward the house. Melt started after her, but the familiar look of the cabin stopped her in mid-step. Noticing her, Dota paused along the walkway.

Back in nineteen-twelve, she said, motioning to the house, "this was a rail depot for a town that stood right here, a town called Riviera. A