Sealing Up the Barn

When my wife left me just after my father’s funeral, right at the peak of summer, my mom and I allowed ourselves a couple weeks of mourning and then, to lift our spirits, we decided to throw away some art. The second floor of our old barn was full of it, and if we were going to sell the place we needed to start cleaning. Mom was in no shape to climb the sagging curved stairs into the loft, so we made her comfortable in a lawn chair on the gravel drive, just outside the massive sliding door to the barn. I went upstairs and opened the smaller slider, a sort of architectural mouth that had over the years consumed so many hay bales and slaughtered cows. From that perch I could bring forth pieces from the collection and show them to Mom, who used a pair of 20x binoculars to scrutinize them with her failing eyes and cast a final judgment.

   Most of the art was kitschy, gifts from appreciative friends over the years. There was an extensive collection of owls--figurines and carvings and water colors--because once at a hospital fund-raiser she mentioned that she admired owls. After that, every time she bailed out a friend in need, the collection grew. There were also framed prints of seventies-era art, abstract smears of loving couples intertwined. There were psalms in counter cross-stitch. Hooked rugs with morose African animals. Unsettling pastel portraits of mature-looking children with gigantic eyes. There was a scene of the rapture on black velvet.

We had driven over in the Ford truck my grandfather left me, and I parked it directly below the open slider. As each piece was condemned, I just dropped it into the truck bed below. Mom gave me an option on everything and tried not to sway my opinion.

She’d ask, How about this one? Do you want it?

I’d say No.

And then with delight she’d proclaim, Out it goes! And so the pile grew.

I didn’t want any of the art. Even it if had been tasteful, I wouldn’t have wanted it, because I didn’t want anything at that time. My father’s death was anticlimactic, as he had faded from our daily consciousness decades ago, absorbed in distractions no one talked about. It was sad, but expected. My wife, on the other hand, completely surprised me. Although she rarely spoke to my father, it was as if his death relieved her of some accountability. And so she announced to me matter-of-factly that she had re-kindled a romance with an old boyfriend who had pinged her on a social network to tell her that he was now an assistant football coach, amateur drummer, playground equipment salesman, and a redeemed sinner dedicated to his personal savior.

You’ve never been comfortable in your own skin, she told me. I took my time considering that statement, measuring how it might justify her actions. But by the time I had summoned a response, she was pulling out of the driveway. I stood there for a while, studying a framed poster of a painting, a wedding gift, featuring three kittens fighting over a ball of yarn. In that moment, I discovered that I never liked that poster.

On the day we threw away art, it was the first thing to go.  The pile grew steadily, and we hadn’t saved a single piece. Even from my perch, I could see Mom was getting tired. She didn’t look through the binoculars for long, and then dropped them into her lap.

Then we came to a painting that changed everything.

It appeared behind a stack of folk records, its unframed edges coated in the filth of the barn. I retrieved it delicately, sensing somehow that this one was different, and held it up in the hot afternoon sun.

Oh, Mom said. That’s where that went. She sat up straighter, and peered through the binocs.

I said, Why do I recognize this?

It used to hang over the mantle.

How did it end up here?

Mom shrugged. Your father, probably.

Then after a pause, she added, We’ll need to start a new pile. For ones we want to keep.

I turned the painting around and held it at arm’s length. Then came a peculiar hydration of the mind, a sudden stream of memories long dammed up.

Uncle Eddie painted it! I said.

He did, Mom said. Do you remember him?

Sure, I replied. I wiped the edges of the piece, and blew dust from its coarse and wild strokes of paint. The lines were in perpetual motion, vaguely recognizable figures smeared across a watery surface, vibrating as if about to take flight. I remembered now, watching this illusion from the couch in the dark afternoons of winter.

How well? she asked.

Not well, I said, unable to look away from the surreal scene.

Time for a break, Mom said. I’ll make some tea. You tell me what you remember. I’ll fill in the gaps.

---

In the yellow-tinted seventies, before I was even ten, Mom looked for ways to draw me out of imaginary worlds. She invented tasks when I seemed lost. One day she asked me to help Uncle Eddie chase starlings from the barn. Don’t tell him I sent you, she said, He can’t think of this as charity.

It was October, and the birds were preparing to roost, coordinating in vast pulsing flocks. Soon enough, they’d force their speckled black heads through every crack in the barn and colonize the rafters, replacing the swallows of summer, and coat the place with runny shit. We tried to get ahead of this invasion, to secure it like a fortress.

She said, When you’re done, tell him to come see me. I have a surprise.

She wore a yellow dress and an owl pendant necklace. I ducked beneath the owl as she held the screen door. She must have watched as I disappeared through the hedge.

From outside the barn, I could hear the starlings already camped in the upper rooms, a strange chorus of trills and chatter. They say starlings can mimic as well as parrots, but I only heard the most unnatural noises from them. They were clever birds, who found their way into all the mysterious spaces in that sprawling old structure, built even before my ancestors moved out from Chicago.

Uncle Eddie was alone inside the barn, wearing his mechanical legs, so he could reach the top of the workbench. He was attending to an assembly of wire harnesses, tube amplifiers, and speaker cones. When he heard me come in, he pivoted on those ingenious legs, first one and then the other, swaying slightly with their pneumatic recoil, and he smiled at me.

Your mother sent you? he asked with an amused wink. Before I could protest, he motioned toward the bench and said, Hand me that tape.

As I helped, he explained what he was building--a system of noise to offend starlings. He showed me precise blue-line schematics he had drawn. If we do it just right, he said, we can turn this whole structure into a kind of loudspeaker and the walls will reverberate with noxious tones forcing our bird friends to depart, without losing a feather.

He laid a short finger against his Slavic nose and repeated, If we do it right.

I didn’t know Uncle Eddie was a dwarf until much later. He was my dad’s uncle, and the family always claimed he was small because he had polio as a child. This was true--he had survived polio--and that’s why he had to walk with crutches or mechanical aids. To the kids, polio seemed like a plausible explanation for his size. We knew little about the disease. The only other polio victim we could name was FDR--we saw that in our history texts. Eddie was like FDR in other ways. If you look at pictures, you’ll see the same expression of equanimity, even in the most difficult times--the way they both thrust their chins out with alertness and cheerful defiance of the odds.

Among adults, who must have known better, Eddie had distinguished himself as a commercial artist. He drew advertisements for several of the legendary department stores downtown. At his peak, his style was well-known and in demand. Sketches of those ads always hung, clipped to lines, in the corner of the barn where he kept his studio. His illustrations were unmistakable for their severe tautness of line. You felt they might break if you touched them, like a spider web. Or they might shatter, like filaments of glass. It made them feel more precious. They reflected the opulence retailers promoted in their window displays--the delicate aspiration of dreams.

Eddie applied that meticulous ingenuity to his fabrications too. He fitted a 1934 Ford Roadster with extensions on the pedals so he could roar up and down the dirt roads of Lake County, and drive himself to client visits downtown. He made the mechanical legs to elevate him to a height greater than his enormous brother, who was my dad’s father--that is, my Gramps. With the help of those legs Eddie hung his illustrations for review, protected from bird shit with a draped tarp. He could clamp the legs to wooden ladders that rose three floors to the cupola of the barn, scaling the walls like a bat, breathing steadily in concentration. The inventions gave him independence, with limits. He could not, for example, descend from such heights. But he loved the view, so there were days where he waited hours for one of us to wander into the barn, until we’d hear his gentle baritone call out, Hey kid, how about a hand?

The family celebrated his talents in their way. I remember hearing Gramps bragging on Friday nights, when they entertained old city friends with pinochle and whiskey sours and Artie Shaw.

He does it with those little hands! Gramps would bellow. That’s how he draws so good too. Eddie, show us those hands!

And Eddie would lay down his cards and compliantly hold up his stout hands, first front and then back, wiggling his short fingers. He smiled patiently, eyes lowered.

Grandma Helen would lean over to her neighbor and whisper, He had polio. As a boy. So.

The visitor would nod respectfully, grateful for an explanation.

When we finished assembling the speaker system, Eddie gestured for me to flip the power switch. The device gave out a low, pulsing sound you might expect from a spacecraft. The sound had such persistence and roundness you could see the wavelengths, forming patterns in the sawdust on the shop tables. When I flipped it off, the barn was silent. A dry cool silence we hadn’t heard in months. He looked at me with mischief, but he said nothing, waiting.

After a minute, when their bizarre racket returned, Eddie made the slightest downward tilt of the head and shrug of the shoulders. Back to the drawing board, he said. Then he looked up and asked, What was the surprise?

My reply was interrupted by a tremendous boom from within the barn. In the doorway stood Gramps, holding a 20-guage shotgun, which he had just discharged into the rafters. There was a scraping and flapping from the ceilings, as the starlings flung themselves through the nearest crack they could find. Then it was silent again, though my ears rang from the gunshot.

That’s how you do it, Gramps said. Now we caulk the cracks and shut them out. Lock it up tight. Then he switched on the little radio to a swing station and got to work.

We knew little about Eddie’s childhood. It was hard to picture him young. But there was one story I never forgot. Gramps liked to tell it this way:

When Eddie was a kid, he was a good Catholic. He was devout. He studied his catechism, knew all the saints. Then, the day of his first communion. There he was, sitting on a couple bibles in the front pew. Soon he’s up on his little crutches in line with the other kids, looking so pious and holy, just marching up the aisle. Ready and patient, while each of the kids steps up and sticks out their tongue to get communion. For each one, Father McEnroe, that ornery old crow, croaks out ‘body of Christ’ like a threat. So then here comes Eddie, one last step on the crutches, and puts out his chin like he does, and opens his mouth, sticks his tongue out. But Father McEnroe, he just looks out over the top of Eddie’s head, like where a normal-sized kid’s head would be. And it’s silent. And we’re all waiting, wondering. And finally the Father says ‘We do not bow down when giving the sacrament.’ That’s what he said! And just stands here, waiting. So then one of the deacons figures it out and grabs Ed Fashbaugh the lay minister and they start rolling over the piano bench. But Eddie doesn’t wait. He just walks away on those crutches. He never went back to church, I don’t think. Have you Eddie?

Mom had this story in mind when Eddie came over for coffee, to hear about her surprise.

I’m sure Saint Paul is rolling over in his grave, Mom said, but it’s true. Women can give communion now… She paused, savoring the surprise.

She said, And I’ve been commissioned as an extraordinary minister! Do you know what that means? I can give you communion, Eddie. Right here. Or, in your home. Just you and the lord, and nobody else. Except me.

I imagine the silence then, and my mom filling up his cup from the percolator, waiting for a reaction. I imagine Eddie looking at the table, and then up at her. He probably rested his hands on the crutches between his knees, one hand rubbing the back of the other in a slight, regular rhythm.

Well, he said, I haven’t had my communion. Or, been confirmed.

My mom gave a dismissive wave, and replied, Close enough! It’s the spirit that matters. You know they didn’t have all this pomp and circumstance in Jesus’s day. John would baptize you in a river and you didn’t need a fancy little dress!

Those were the days, Eddie said. They laughed.

In the quiet that followed, Eddie continued. There’s another thing too. What’s the best way to say it? Things aren’t so good work-wise. I’m on the chopping block, it seems. Unless I pull off a miracle.

Mom pulled back her chin incredulously. That can’t be true, she said. They love you. They hired you away.

Two years ago, he replied.

She pulled in a breath of surprise.

He said, A lot happens in two years. Design changes, fashion changes, things come in and out of style. Including illustrators. Look at what you’re wearing, he said. That lovely yellow dress, so loose and flowing. It has a sort of free spirit, the way it follows your form, and then doesn’t, as you move? Can you imagine me drawing something like that?

Mom considered. She looked out the window, her mouth slightly open as she thought. She said, Sure, I can imagine it. I definitely can!

Eddie shook his head as if to say ‘Well I don’t know.’

My mom looked at him steadily. She put a fist on her hip, cocked her head sideways and said, It seems to me that a little holy spirit would do you some good, then. Give yourself permission, Eddie. Be kind to yourself. Everybody deserves that.

Mom was someone people liked to call beautiful. I think it was partly because it was true, but also because no one ever felt threatened by her. It was an easy compliment, a quick credit for kindness. Her black hair had a stubborn wave that frustrated her, but perfectly suited the style of the day. Her eyes were an unusual saturated shade of blue, like a robin’s egg. They were often moist, giving the impression she had just laughed herself to tears. Her nose was a bit too delicate, her teeth straight but perhaps too long in the incisors, and she tended to slouch, just slightly, to compensate for her height. But she brought it all together in a comforting magnetism that made her impossible to refuse.

On that day, Eddie could not refuse her. He saw the sense in her reasoning. And so Mom brought out her wooden box with a brass plate and a sleeve of communion hosts and she read a little from the bible and together they proclaimed the mystery of faith.

Later that day, as Eddie sat at his drafting table under the chorus of birds, he couldn’t concentrate. He needed to work, to meet a deadline that could make all the difference. But he could only think about mom, and in particular her face, as she leaned toward him with that white wafer. And so, as a seasoned artist, he knew he had to draw his preoccupation--follow it until it was gone. He drew a portrait of mom that was exquisitely accurate and composed of brittle, impenetrable lines. Then he folded it carefully and dropped it into the wood stove.

I know this because I saw it. I was in the rafters just above his studio quietly caulking the cracks against the invasion of starlings. He didn’t hear me, and I waited there still, until my muscles trembled, until he was done and left with a sigh.

Now I also know this: Uncle Eddie fell in love with my mother that day. And it filled him with despair.

The next morning I went with Gramps to continue sealing the barn, and we could see that Eddie had been busy overnight. He had so many sketches, they were spread on workshop tables outside his studio, beyond the protection of his tarp. He was staring at them as if in a trance. Every few seconds, a drop of bird shit would fall from the rafters and hit the heavy paper with a snap. It didn’t seem to bother Eddie. He was too deep in thought.

Bastards are shitting up your drawings, Gramps proclaimed. Hold on, I’ll get em out. He retrieved the 20-guage, but before he could load it, Mom appeared in the door.

Caught you! she exclaimed. Put down the gun.

Laska! He greeted her with delight, using the old slang. I thought I heard woodchimes coming.

Mom put her fists on her hips and lowered her brow. She said nothing.

Eddie did not look up from his table.

Gramps relented. He leaned the gun against a wall stud. For you, Laska, I’ll do it. But you better get along before you get shit on. The barn’s no place for a lady.

Before she could reply, Eddie blurted, Hey! and turned toward Gramps fiercely. We all paused, silent but for the chattering of the birds, to see Eddie do such a thing. With composure, he continued, That’s no way to talk to her, Al. He wagged his head with disgust and returned to his drawings.

Gramps stared at him for a minute. Then the tension broke, he cuffed me on the back of the head for telling, and it was over.

Can we see what you’re doing, Eddie? Mom asked. Is this your big project?

Eddie waved us over.

It’s different, Mom said. A different style for you.

Gramps walked over with an oil rag in his hands and squinted merrily. It looks a little sloppy, if you ask me. Let’s get those god damn birds off them anyway.

Eddie replied, It is sloppy. Or, loose. That’s what they want. They want the faces more expressive too. I don’t know. That part’s hard.

Mom tapped her lips with a finger and said, I do see that. Nice loose bodies, but the faces are a little… austere. Like a renaissance Virgin.

Eddie looked up at Mom and smiled, Good enough for Rafael, good enough for me, right?

They laughed, and then mom replied earnestly, But Eddie, maybe this is silly talk, but an idea: what if you used real people? Inspiring people--their faces. Like instead you made it Jane Goodall, or Barbara Jordan? Or even Julie Andrews.

Eddie tucked one arm under the other and held his chin in his hand. He stared at the drawings. He turned to speak.

But the conversation ended in the whine of the bench saw, as Gramps began to cut strips of batten.

Soon after, Eddie arrived home from the city. He pulled his Ford up to the front of our house and honked. I gave him a hand, and once he was standing he patted my back and said, Good lad. Let’s go see your mom.

We had lemon bars and tea in the kitchen. Mom had just returned from giving communion at an old folks home and still wore an orange dress and sandals.

Eddie told his story quietly, but he couldn’t hide his enthusiasm.

They liked the faces, he said. They really did. And it was your idea!

Mom looked delighted.

Eddie continued, They said we can’t use those famous people, of course, not without permission. I suppose they were a bit too accurate. He lowered his eyes as if he were enjoying a private joke, and said. But they loved the idea. They said they might take it so far as to use photographs of real stars, which of course I can’t do. But they asked me to draw a new series, and perhaps they’ll use that as inspiration for a shoot.

My mother frowned in thought, for just a moment. She said, Eddie, did they say they’ll use your sketches? Does this mean your contract is renewed?

Eddie blinked as he lifted his teacup. Oh we’re not at that stage yet, he said.

Mom agreed to model for Eddie. The days were getting shorter and colder, and gunmetal clouds built up in the north, slowed only by their tremendous weight. Gramps and I stoked the wood stove to keep the barn warm enough for her to wear Spring fashion. And we escalated our defense against the starlings. I carried stacks of narrow batten boards up the ladders and through the maze of rooms filled with dust and shit-coated artifacts from past generations. When we discovered the roof had rotted near every seam, Gramps cursed the ‘bohemian’ who had used cheap nails, and we redoubled our efforts to caulk it enough to hold through winter.

Uncle Eddie drew with fierce energy, swaying at his drafting table in time to swing music on the radio. He was like a metronome, rocking on his mechanical legs, which made a little gasp of air each time they compressed. We anticipated his needs and pushed within his reach the tools he wanted--a pencil, a jar of ink, a cup of coffee, a tray of the new watercolors.

When he was done, illustrations papered all the open surfaces of the workshop. Mom wore a cardinal-colored raincoat, the last article he had to draw.

Are we done? She asked, still holding up a matching umbrella.

We are, Eddie replied with a sigh.

As Mom lowered the umbrella, a drop of starling shit fell from the rafters and struck the shoulder of the coat, spattering outward like a web. When Eddie saw this, he reacted impulsively, grabbed a rag, and lurched toward her to wipe it off. His leg stuck on one of the rough floorboards and tripped him, and before we could react, he was face down on the floor.

We all three leaped to his aid, but Eddie rolled over and waved us away. He laughed silently, and once he recovered, he gasped, I completely forgot I was wearing these things! Then he retracted the legs, grabbed a strut of his drafting table, released the legs again, and rose himself up to standing. Mom stepped forward to dust off his back.

Gramps watched the scene, uncharacteristically silent.

Mom said, All right, let’s have a look.

Eddie arranged his favorites. He hadn’t drawn anything like this before, as far as I knew. They were more alive. The water colors added depth and dimensionality. But beneath the color, there remained that tautness of line and precision.

Gramps said, Laska! That’s your face on there.

It was an accusation. I hadn’t noticed, it seemed so natural, but he was right.

Eddie nodded, looking down at his work. Well of course, he said, She’s the model.

Gramps snorted, studied the drawings, and said, This better save your job.

Eddie shrugged philosophically.

My mom said, Eddie, I think they are beautiful. This is your best work. The color. The flow you’ve captured. My only worry is you put me in them!  

The next day, right after his client fired him, Eddie drove home from the city into a winter storm. He drove alone with the knowledge that his career was probably finished. He was older by then, perhaps of an age where retirement was forgivable, but it wasn’t supposed to end this way, with a client complimenting your heart’s work so vacuously, reassuring that you’d be paid for it, promising that they would happily consider any future ideas, suggesting that you consider work as a draftsman. The client opening doors for you when you could damn well handle them yourself, and walking you all the way to the elevator and pushing the button for you, handing you the box with the shit-stained coat they couldn’t use any more, sending you down forty floors to a wet street bustling with young people and the new fashion, all their heads up high, so far from the pavement someone had carefully planned and poured, some forgotten someone probably now long dead.

On the old northwest highway, the rain turned to snow. It came horizontally in flakes as big as quarters splatting his windshield, overwhelming the old wipers. It was too late when Eddie saw the fallen elm tree, shattered by lightning and burst across the highway. All he could do was steer the old Ford into the ditch and kill the engine and wait. He must have sat there for an hour before Gramps and I arrived, tipped off by a call from one of his buddies on the highway commission. We had to leave the car, but we brought Uncle Eddie home.

Mom had coffee ready when we returned, and Eddie sat with her, still in his overcoat, holding the box in his lap. Gramps took me out to the barn to secure the storm windows and check the roof.

Eddie told her the news. Mom sat for a while in silence, letting it rest. She didn’t explain it away, or build a case for blame. She just absorbed the reality without judgment.

Then she leaned forward on the table and put a hand out on top of his hands to stop him from rubbing them habitually. She said, I just hope you understand what an extraordinary, beautiful man you are, Eddie. Please, just let me say this. Because you need to hear it, truly. There is no one, in the world, like you. And in your life you have already brought so much delight to other people, and in your life to come, you will bring so much more.

Eddie returned her gaze with an expression so serious it gave her a chill. He said, How do you talk this way? How do you bring yourself to say such things to someone?

Mom sat up then and released an abrupt laugh. Ha! I suppose I’m a kook. But I just think to myself: what’s the downside? And you find there is none. We’re only here for a short while, Eddie. You should try it.

The next morning the sky was a cloudless blue and the air was brittle with cold. Gramps and I took the truck to start clearing branches shaken loose in the storm. Mom went to check on Eddie, and she found him in the freezing barn, bundled in sweaters, at his table. The storm had blasted away all our roof repairs and light came like needles through the cracks, illuminating the dusty air. The starlings were back in full flock upstairs, chattering and squeaking in an unearthly chorus.

I talked with them this morning, Eddie said. They agreed to take a look at one more drawing. I figured it was worth a shot.

Well good, mom said. She studied him with worry. Would you like me to light the stove?

He ignored the question and looked at her for a long moment, turning his head from side to side. 

Would you model? He asked. The coat?

Mom started to decline, for all sorts of practical reasons, but when she saw his expression, she said, I just have a few minutes.

Eddie nodded his appreciation. Then he looked at the ceiling and said, Now let me shut those god damned birds up!

He marched over on his mechanical legs and grabbed the 20-guage, loaded a cartridge, and shot it into the rafters. There was a brief rain of debris, and then it was silent, the birds gone.

Gramps and I heard the blast from the road. He stopped sawing, gave me a curious gaze, and motioned to get in the truck.

Mom tried to amuse Eddie with silly poses, to lift his spirits, and it seemed to work. When the drawings were done, she put the coat back in the box and prepared to leave. But Eddie handed the box back to her.

I can’t keep this coat, Eddie, it’s too expensive, she said.

Why? He asked. It makes me happy to give it to you. Don’t you need a new one for spring?

I suppose I do, she said. Thank you.

He stopped her again. Will you come sit with me? Just for a minute? He gestured toward the stool beside him. Mom came to sit.

The birds had begun to return and it grew louder in their space. Eddie had to speak up. He took a deep breath, and then thrust out his chin and continued.

How do I say this? he said. His breath was shallow and he looked her in the eyes.

I never have had, you know, companionship, Eddie said. But it doesn’t mean I haven’t wanted.

Mom nodded solemnly.

And I’ve been wondering, in these recent days. I have been thinking about miracles. How we see them every day. The miracle of the sacrament. The miracle of the kids running about. The miracle of how a polio survivor like me has been able to do the things I’ve done. And then I think about how after these many years I would know a woman like you and you would bring me new energy.

Mom spoke quietly, hiding her apprehension. Yes. It’s really wonderful.

So I am wondering. I’m wondering if another miracle is possible. Wondering if you might have in that tremendous heart of yours room for… two men.

And then, before she could respond, he added, Or perhaps for one-and-a-half. He smiled wryly.

Oh Eddie, my mother replied. I don’t understand. What does that mean?

The chorus of starlings grew louder and they had to raise their voices again.

Eddie took a deep breath and said, I suppose it means would you love me?

But I do love you. In the way I should.

Eddie interpreted her reply correctly and immediately. It was as if he had awoken from a stupor. He grabbed his crutches and stood up and pointed his chin at her and said, Yes of course. Wonderful. Yes. Thank you for saying so. We don’t--this family of ours, we don’t say such things. You know that: you married into it. So I thought I would just try out your advice, you know. Consider the downside and find there is none.

Mom said, Oh that’s so true, Eddie, and…

He interrupted her to say, You know, I’m so relieved. Like a burden has lifted. I won’t deny it. It was ridiculous, how would such a thing work? But I feel this great relief.

And then they heard the crash of a pile of boards. Gramps stood there, with me behind him. In our attempt to leave the barn unnoticed, we had tipped the boards. But now it was clear we had overheard some part of their exchange. Perhaps not all, but enough.

Gramps barked at me, Light up that stove. Throw in some fuel oil. It’s god damn cold in here. And then he turned on the radio and raised the volume until it drowned out the birds and anything we might have said.

The next day when I arrived at the barn, Gramps said casually, Eddie’s on the roof. We got to get him down.

Uncle Eddie’s on the roof? Of the barn?

What roof do you think I mean, you dumbass?

We marched through the labyrinth of the upper floor to the straight wooden ladder that reached up to the cupola and a magnificent view of the country.

Eddie sat in the cold, wrapped in his coat and scarf and cap. His legs extended straight out, his boots pointed to the sky. His mechanical legs were askew beside him, unsuited for a return to the ground. He sat with his eyes closed, his face in the morning sunlight that came through the black bare branches of the locust trees.

Uncle Eddie! Why are you up here? I cried to him breathlessly.

But he did not reply. He didn’t answer his brother either.

Suit yourself and freeze, you dumb shit, Gramps barked at him and left.

I remained for a moment, taking in Eddie’s view. And I could see what so transfixed him. Beyond the hills in the white parchment sky, an enormous flock of starlings assembled. There were thousands of birds moving in harmony, like a drop of black ink in water, changing shape each moment in ribbons of coordinated line. They pulsed and evolved in a magnificent composition, with all the hypnosis of northern lights.

They call it a murmuration, Eddie said.

I know, I replied.

You can tell him to come get me now.

Okay, I will.

There’s a good lad.

 When Gramps arrived, Eddie muttered, It’s about time you got here, Al.

He held his arms up so Gramps could lift him and sling him over his back, in the manner of a fireman. I collected Eddie’s apparatus, and we carried our loads down to the workshop and drank a shot of blackberry brandy.

Don’t tell your mom, Gramps barked.

Eddie lifted the little glass to the light and admired it, then drank.

Eddie disappeared for a few days and then it was Thanksgiving. The house shook with the voices of aunts and uncles and cousins, but Eddie wasn’t there. He didn’t show for dinner and no one commented on it until my father asked, Where’s Uncle Eddie?

Gramps said, Working. He’s got a deadline. Pass the squash.

My father said, Jeez, things go on around here and you can’t keep track.

Perhaps that’s something to think about, Mom replied, and dropped a scoop of potatoes on his plate. He shrugged, and resumed eating.

Afterward, Mom prepared a plate and wrapped it in foil and sent me out to the barn. She suspected Eddie was there, and we weren’t going to forget him.

The sun had just set and the bare trees reached up against what remained of a pale yellow sky. On my way through the hedge, I stumbled and scratched my face. On the other side it was nearly too dark to walk, and I cradled the warm plate in one arm while reaching out with the other. I made it to the barn just as the last light vanished.

As I paused outside, the sounds that came from the barn were familiar but distorted. It took a moment to place them. One sound resembled what Eddie had produced with the audio machine, the one designed to repel starlings. It was the same low, throbbing pulse, but it was inverted--as if played in reverse, like waves that crashed as they retreated from a beach. And there was a cacophony of birds in there, I could tell, but they were calling in a stirring urgency. A glow of yellow light burst from the cracks around the barn doors and up through the battered barn roof. I pushed the door open just enough to peer inside.

Eddie stood in the center of the room, high on his mechanical legs, his arms extended wide and his face turned upward in intense concentration. The stove was burning at full blast, the door flung open, heating and lighting the air at once, casting his shadow the full length of the old slaughterhouse. Painted illustrations with extravagant colors and free-form lines hung in a wide circle around him--many rows of illustrations clipped to wires. The sound machine was propped on a work bench, reverberating so deeply it seemed to warp the air. And the birds! The birds flew in concentric circles, round and round the room, screeching in a sort of euphoric wail. In a moment I could see the engineering behind this madness. The paintings were all still wet, and the birds, in their frenzy, whisked their wings against the heavy paper, smearing the lines and colors of the paintings until they became an abstraction--like the reflection of harried people on a rain-soaked street.

---

In the end we threw out every piece of art except the painting from Uncle Eddie. We sat on folding chairs just outside the barn door, surveying our work.

Mom said, Of course the client turned down those last illustrations. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The treatments were gradually stealing her energy. She continued, But it turned out for the best, as things usually do. Uncle Eddie entered his paintings into a show at the county fair. He won a blue ribbon. You know, you can still see one of them hung at the library in the church today.

She laughed. Of all places! Then she smiled at me wearily. I know you don’t go for the god stuff.

I don’t, I said. Sorry, mom.

She looked at the heap in the bed of the truck.

It’s all right, she said. Do you at least feel comfortable with the idea of death?

I listened to a cicada rattle and thought about it. I think so, I said.

Well that’s the important thing. That’s all churches are for, you know. She laughed.

Mom reached out her hand and I took it. Our hands swung slightly. It was an awkward way to sit but it was all right.

Having kids makes it easier, she said. She looked at me pointedly.

I bet it does, I said. I guess I have time.

You do, she replied. But this day is coming to an end. Your mom’s tired.

I stood up.

Keep the painting, will you? she said. Put it up in your next home. Somewhere prominent, and don’t be ashamed of it.

I promised her I would and walked over to grab the handle of the old barn door. I started to pull it along its massive, creaking rollers.

Don’t bother with that, mom said. Let’s leave it open.