Red Belly

Branches laced over the two men like the roof of a heathen chapel. In the summer, it had played at being a rainforest canopy and hushed all sounds underneath in a lively sepulchral dark. In the winter, the intricacies of the branches cast the ground below into dismal shades of gray. It was a secluded site, holy in its solitude. It was perfect.

A sound crackled above, and one of the two men, shorter with a round face and a sweaty mop of black hair plastered across his forehead, looked up from his labor and stared into the branches above. A rogue bead of sweat sparkled into his eye and he blinked rapidly, trying to distinguish a speck of color above him through his kaleidoscopic vision. With one dirtied hand, he wiped at his face and left it dirtier perhaps than it had been a moment before. He pointed into the wooden lattice.

“Is that a robin?”

The other man, taller, thinner, and with a face insulting in its cleanliness, straightened up and cast a quick, meaningless glance into the branches. “No,” he said in a hollow voice, bereft of care or conviction, “Junco, probably.”

“I could swear it’s a robin! Look, I think I can see some red on its belly. A spot of crimson on that fine feathered friend.” The first man dropped his shovel and pointed up into the branches where a tiny morsel of movement could be seen picking its way through the woody growths.

“You’ll see some red on your own belly if you don’t help me finish this,” the second man grunted. “Too early for robins. Junco is the winter bird in these woods. We’ve seen a hundred of them.”

The first man looked into the air a moment longer and then, with a hefty sigh, returned his attention to the task at hand. He slung a few half-hearted shovels of dirt over his shoulder, eyes subconsciously skimming the branches with every rise. Before another five minutes had passed, he was immobile once more, hands clasped on the head of the shovel, mouth slightly ajar as he squinted through the gray light. The dancing black speck remained stubbornly unwilling to disgorge its full color.

“Earl,” the second man grunted at last. “It’s a junco. Just a bird. Same bird it’s been the last five times we’ve been here. Same as always.”

“You can’t know that, Hank! Spring is here, after all, and nature springs ever onward! And besides, wouldn’t that be just a thing, eh? You and I, seeing the first robin of spring, here of all places?”

Hank grunted again, his thin face determinedly, deathly clean. “I can’t see it makes much of a difference. Just birds.”

Earl flashed a toothy grin. “Next you’ll be telling me the first buds on the branches are just plants!”

“They are.”

Earl heaved another deliberate sigh and strode around the hole to stand directly in front of Hank. “No sense of the emotional, that’s always been your problem, Hank. No innate connection to the world around us. You’re about as unfeeling as a rock.”

“And your problem, Earl,” Hank said pointedly, “is that your head is always flying away over some nonsense. Birds, plants, emotional connections to the world? I’d rather be a rock than worry that it’s a robin.” He paused. “And not the junco we both know it is.”

Earl wasn’t listening. “Or maybe not a rock. Maybe as unfeeling as money. Cold, calculable, uncaring money. Or maybe Mr. Tenny.”

“You could be more like him too. You think Mr. Tenny was thinking about robins when he…” Hank gave a quick nod to the sheet-wrapped bundle they had brought with them. “No. He was thinking about that money you don’t seem to care about.”

Earl gave the bundle a careful look before abruptly returning to the digging. “I care about it. And don’t think I don’t know how to do my job.” He simmered silently.

Minutes passed, and Hank judged the hole deep enough for their task. The bundle, without fanfare, was rolled in, and the dirt returned to its home.

“I just don’t see that we can’t live in two worlds,” Earl rejoined finally, his face blackened with earth to the point that only his eyes and teeth shone through. “We can do our job, take the money, do what Mr. Tenny says, sure. And we can appreciate the natural beauty of the world and our lot in it.”

Hank stamped the dirt flat with his shovel and began kicking loose branches over top. He didn’t look at Earl as he spoke. “It was a junco, Earl. Don’t look for meaning where there isn’t any. Same bird it’s always been.” Then, without another look at the grave, he started back on the long trek to the car.

Earl looked up at the branches one final time, but the bird, whatever it had been, was long since gone. “Maybe not…” he murmured before hoisting his shovel onto his shoulder, giving the ground a quick, two-stomp salute, and hurrying after his friend.

Two days later, Hank’s mind was getting the better of him. He had been sprawled on his cushionless couch for nearly thirty straight hours, and his head reeled with fuzzy thoughts of birds and shovels. Through the haze swam an image of Earl burying a shovel in a hole and flying away into the sunset. A cold sweat seeped through Hank’s jacket, and he bolted upright. Through the papered windows, flashes of late afternoon sun indicated that it wasn’t yet too late to call on someone. Maybe Earl could set his mind at ease. Maybe Hank could set Earl’s at ease. Maybe winter didn’t have to end just yet.

  Hank shuffled across the city. Earl’s new address, changed only six months prior, stuttered in his mind’s ear so as to not forget. The previous address had been a sordid apartment in a terrible neighborhood, seedy enough to not draw prying eyes but not so delinquent as to attract official attention. This new address was…nicer. That was allowed, of course, but strange for Earl. Still, it couldn’t be too far removed from the life he had been living these past ten years. When Hank finally arrived, he was taken aback despite his readiness. What met his eyes was not a wretched den of iniquity but a modest two-level townhouse that any middle-class citizen would be proud to not-quite-own. There was even a horrid wreath on the door, bedecked in pastel flowers and eggs. Hank pulled his jacket tighter against the day’s chill and knocked on the door. Two quick knocks, three spaced out, two quick again. As agreed.

The door opened after three seconds too many and without any additional validation. Earl’s ear presented itself in the portal. His face was turned back inside, shouting, “Only another minute, my dear! You know I wouldn’t miss the sunset!” He laughed heartily and brought himself back to the open door. It took a moment for the visage before him to register in his mind, and the slump of his smile would have been comical had it been observed by anybody but Hank. “Hank, what are you doing here?” he whispered in a voice drained of all jollity. “We don’t have any business today.” He slipped outside and shut the door behind him.

“I’ve been worried about you, Earl. You weren’t yourself the other day. I wanted to make sure you were…okay.”

“Yes, I’m fine. Now can you please leave? I’ve got company and I wasn’t expecting-”

“Who’s in there?”

“Who? Just a lady friend. You know the kind.” Earl blinked a little too rapidly. Birdlike?

Hank flicked his eyes up to the windows. “We don’t get friends, Earl. Or did you forget that?”

At this, Earl’s eyes steeled. “We can have acquaintances of a certain variety. Not too close, just enough to sample the nectar! Like a hummingbird, flitting here now there, then,” He spread his hands like a magician. “Away at last! You should look into a friend or two yourself.” His eyes softened again, and a light grin wriggled back onto his full features.

“Unprofessional.” Hank shook his head and pulled his jacket tighter still. “Mr. Tenny wouldn’t like this. First the robins, now a house and a friend. What’s next, going to the bar with each of the fools we’re meant to deal with? Get to know them? Meet their dog? Unprofessional, Earl.”

“I can’t imagine where you’re getting these ideas from, Hank! I can’t be the first person you’ve known to have gotten into a nicer house and had an acquaintance.” For the first time in the conversation, he looked closely at Hank’s eyes. “Jesus, Hank…go home. Get some rest. This is the third time in a row after we’ve come back from that clearing.”

Hank said nothing and shifted his gaze from Earl’s. His eyes caught on the wreath attached to the door. The wooden eggs on it had hatched, and stiff baby robins stretched their spindly necks out into the center of the wreath, gobbling at an imaginary worm. The flowers stayed stiff in the breeze, their purple and blue petals nothing but so much paper and paint. “Robins,” he said flatly. “Looks like you went and found some anyway.”

Earl was nonplussed. “What?”

Hank gave one of the baby robins a flick and followed the head as it snapped off the tiny neck, bounced off the door, and settled in between the two men’s feet. “Should have put juncos on this wreath. Made of sterner stuff, you know. Winter birds. Made for the cold. Not as…weak.” He put the tip of his boot on the robin’s head and stepped down, a satisfying crunch his reward. He looked back up into Earl’s eyes and smiled. “Just a thought. For the next wreath. Oh, and this must be your friend!”

A young woman, blonde and not yet far enough into her thirties to be noticeable, had pulled open the door and appeared just behind Earl. She wore a kind smile and had eyes far softer than any Hank had ever seen. “Earl, what’s taking so long? I thought you didn’t want to miss anything! Is this a friend of yours?”

“An…acquaintance, nothing more. And you’re absolutely right. We really must be going, Hank.” And without waiting for an answer, Earl disappeared back inside and shut the door firmly. The sound of the latch could faintly be heard.

Hank stood outside for several more minutes, the head of the baby robin flattening millimeter by millimeter beneath his boot. His eyes flicked in a near-frenzy between different petals of the wreath, the pastel colors swirling in his mind’s eye until he nearly forgot where he was, and all he saw was Earl’s laughing face, turned away. When it turned back, it had the beady face of a robin.

He backed away from the door, horrified, and ran down the darkening street, arms wrapped around himself and muttering under his breath.

Thick motes of dust puffed from the carpet as Hank paced forward and back, hands shoved deep into his pockets. His eyes never left the ground as he walked mechanically the length of the small room, stopping only when he was inches from the peeling wallpaper to turn and repeat the process. He had been doing this for hours; the sun had long since set and now only a few shafts of dusty moonlight illuminated Hank.

He murmured as he paced. “We’ve seen it before. Both of us, we’ve seen it. Five years ago, we’ve seen it. Alf, that’s who it was. Alf and that girl from the party. Stupid man, should’ve let well enough alone. He’d seen it too. We’ve all seen it.”

Hank hacked rabidly into a filthy rag clenched in one fist. Tiny flecks of spittle gleamed yellow as they soared across the beams of moonlight. “And what happened to him? Kept that girl around too long. Too long. She asked a question about a day, and told the wrong thing to the wrong person, and then we never saw Alf again. Here one day, gone the next. And he knew it was going to happen, and we all knew it was going to happen. We’ve seen it. No ties. Mr. Tenny says no ties, and we all know it.

“It lands on other people too. Anyone caught up with it is gone the next day too. Can’t be helped, part of the job. Tight operation like this needs no loose ends. None.”

Silence filled the next half hour, broken only by the continued muffled footsteps in the threadbare excuse for a carpet and infrequent back-breaking coughs.

Then, “Robins!” It was spat from between Hank’s teeth as though that word itself were what he had been trying to remove desperately from his lungs. “Robins, of all the damn things! Never talked about robins before. Moved to a new house, new woman, and now…robins.”

The pacing stopped. A final burst of dust rose, then settled over Hank’s boots like the final fall of ash from a volcano. “Can’t have robins, Earl. We’ve seen robins. The world isn’t nice to robins. Isn’t nice to those nice to robins. Hmm.”

Branches laced over the man like a wedding trellis, covered from end to end with gorgeous pink blossoms and the slightest green beginnings of new leaves. The baby blue sky above only just peeked through, though enough warm light was able to pierce the clearing that the man below was able to see to his work. Bees buzzed sleepily, creating a background drone that threatened to put all life within earshot to a pleasant, sun-bathed sleep. It was a secluded little place, perfect for a long, long nap. Perfect.

Hank looked up from his labor, thin face perfectly clean but covered in a fine sheen of sweat. A burst of movement in the higher branches drew his attention, but he could see nothing there but the occasional darting of a bee, almost indistinguishable from the particles drifting endlessly across his eye. No, just a bee.

With a grunt of dismissal, Hank looked down at the ground, at the two freshly-disturbed patches of dirt that were difficult to hide without the standard cover of leaves, branches, or anything else. Too many visits in too many days. But the clearing was secluded, and the flower petals would soon fall. The grass would grow, the mushrooms would digest, the winter would come and return everything to its proper state.

There was nothing left to do, then. It was done. As done as it could be or needed to be. Hank nodded, grabbed his shovel, and turned to go when a flurry of sound, chirps?, caused him to turn back, eyes wide. He scanned the branches furiously, looking for the source. He could see the flowers, the sprouts, the branches, everything. He could see the two, bare patches of earth. If he strained his eyes, he could even see two bundles of blankets laid unceremoniously among the roots and the worms.

But there were no robins.

Not even a junco.

There was nothing there.

“Robins, pah,” Hank spat, and stalked from the clearing without another glance back.

As Hank left, the robins, who had hidden above the flowers from the bustle below, began to sneak their way back down the branches. They dropped to the ground on light wings and pecked eagerly at the ground, hungry for a meal after a long winter’s rest. Petals fell around them as they jostled the flowers in their haste to return to the clearing. Chirps filled the air, and red bellies swelled with food, with pride, with life.

And then, a branch snapped somewhere in the distance, and as quickly as they had come, the robins were gone from the clearing.

There was nothing there.