Beneath the wide limbs of red maple, the breeze flitted my thinning hair. Above, a nest of birds. The adults flew in and out, feeding the mouths of their hungry youngsters. I didn\u2019t know shit about birds, but for some reason the action made me hopeful. Maybe something about rebirth and all that shit.<\/p>\n
He arrived late in his big white Ford, reminding me of my mother, sitting low, his head barely above the steering wheel.<\/p>\n
He opened the door and climbed out wearing his blue ball cap with MARINES stitched in yellow thread across the crown.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cSorry, the tests and the doc ran late.\u201d<\/p>\n
I said, \u201cPrognosis?\u201d<\/p>\n
He shrugged, smiled and turned to enter the restaurant.<\/p>\n
As we sat, he announced, \u201cI\u2019m buying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wasn\u2019t something he normally offered but I didn\u2019t rib him about it like I usually would.<\/p>\n
He ordered a cheeseburger and so did I.<\/p>\n
We sat next to a big window that exposed a piece of weed-choked lawn. Dandelion, ragweed.<\/p>\n
The food arrived and the fries were greasy.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t talk much: the weather, how my drive had been, what I planned for the near future.<\/p>\n
After I told him I thought I\u2019d head south, I asked his plans. He grinned.<\/p>\n
A loud bang and we both ducked. I looked out the window but didn\u2019t see what had made the sound. A waiter noticed our reactions and said, \u201cOh, it\u2019s probably a robin. They think they can fly through that window.”<\/p>\n
Outside, we shook hands, but my insides felt full of grenades.<\/p>\n
A helicopter flew over and instead of looking at him I watched it whop whop east and for a moment the two of us were back in Nam and then we weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
He yanked a pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket and pulled a smoke out with his lips, lit it with one of those flip-top steel lighters with the red and orange logo of the 26th Marines.<\/p>\n
I almost said, \u201cIs that a good idea?\u201d but then figured he\u2019d say, \u201cIt\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cSee you when I\u2019m looking at you.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he walked to his white Ford, I turned away.<\/p>\n
In the red maple a roost full of nestlings chirped.<\/p>\n
A big crow strutted across the parking lot. It squawked and complained and inspected a piece of trash. Suddenly, it lifted off and flew into the red maple and\u2014well, shit, I couldn\u2019t see it, but I heard it. All those noisy young bird chirps turned to frantic screams, turned to screeches and cheeps and then one by one, they turned to nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I didn\u2019t know shit about birds, but for some reason watching them made me hopeful. Maybe something about rebirth and all that shit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[3157,171,863,1538,1442],"class_list":["post-20149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-birds","tag-death","tag-flash-fiction","tag-veterans","tag-vietnam-war","writer-ken-rodgers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20566,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20149\/revisions\/20566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}