They Won’t Fly

Right around the time when Americans were inspired by sending men to the moon and deeply afraid of their Soviet nemesis, when young people learned to dance from blacks and blacks drank the water they wanted for the first time - we were sunburnt and confused farming potatoes in Nebraska. Christ was mostly relegated to Sundays and appeared on deathbed watch or as part of the admonishment team when girls dresses were to high and boys touched themselves. I was too handsome for a small town and folks were sure I’d have an accident or somehow be discovered by Hollywood because even James Dean was born in Indiana. I fucked a few girls but they didn’t get pregnant. A few fought each other in the lunchroom and all the boys knew why and the teachers too. Pops was in debt like all the farmers in Lee County but he didn’t have the guile to get a new loan and we never were sure he could multiply. His thought about fencing in an acre for new crops, I forget whether it was going to be soybeans but he forgets and to love him we forget to get even. The dream was maybe Ostriches. No one had those and he’d become the expert. He imagined his neighbors leaning in as he described their habits, how to get them to act right and how to make a killing and that farmers need to think about the future today and he’ll show all of them the way. He wired a man in Ohio too much money too quickly. The big birds were never delivered. He spent the summer driving to the train station asking the Union Pacific guys if they heard birds in the box cars. They felt sorry for him and wondered if he was crazy. Since they see most of the country they see most of its problems, that’s why they work the trains its better to love America at 45 miles an hour. It’s not when the drinking started, that started when Meg left for college. But it’s when you’d find him under a tree in the back reading about Positive Thinking which is hard to do when you’re positively broke. 

He got jealous of me right after high school graduation when I got a job at the bank. I was wearing starched button up shirts while he was muddy and wet and exhausted. The futures and options market in Chicago must of burnt down because prices begin to plummet and Pops didn’t know how to sell overseas. The day that broke his heart was when he showed up at Liberty Rural Bank to talk to my Boss John with stained documents stuffed into his leather breifcase. We practiced his speech and I tried to warn him that he had no collateral and a plan to get from up under his liabilities. I hid in the bathroom at 2pm because he was going to be on time and I knew that. I heard from Susie the secretary that John shook his hand and smiled and told jokes and had Pops out of his office in under ten minutes. When I came back to my desk I could see Pops outside staring at his shoes while smoking his stale Marlboro cigarette. His eyes were glistened but he’s been always too tough for tears. 

When I got home at six o’clock that evening mom was singing some country song and dancing in front of the fridge. A cake was cooling. My father had bought her some costume jewelry earrings that were sort of opals. They were cheap but meant something like their wedding day. She told me that he was in the bedroom taking a nap, which was just fine by me. I was not going to be able to lie to him that the loan had been magically approved. I too off my shoes and sat down to a sandwich and some lemonade. Mom and I hears some commotion from upstairs and heavy steps making their way down the stairs. Pops was giggling and sounded drunk. Sure enough he appeared in the doorway with a whisky bottle in one hand completely covered in pillow feathers. He danced around the kitchen and started making out with mom. He looked at me and said, “I’m a fucking Ostrich from Cleveland”! I choked on my sandwich a little and spilled lemonade all over my suit. I looked ridiculous, we all looked ridiculous. Chubby Cheker‘s The Twist came on the radio. My mom slid over to the radio and turned it all the way up.

Pops didn’t got back to the bank. He sold the farm the following year and took mom with him back to Boise where he grew up. Back home a job was waiting for him. My Uncle Charles was in the paper business and found a way to have my dad work a little for a little money. That was fine. He’d finally found a way to be content. Which is a blessing. Dad wasn’t build to be a successful individual he was made to follow rules and let someone else stay up at night worried about payroll. Meg moved to Denver an married a professor had a baby and stopped calling. By 1972 I was a bank manager with my own kids. My wife and I separated a year after we were married. I cheated on her because I could. 

My dad died in ‘76, the bicentennial year. He bought so many flags that July that my mom thought it was a fired hazard. Something was wrong with his lungs and right before Thanksgiving he collapsed. After the wake and the burial and the condolences I stayed a few weeks. Going through his things I found a picture of my grandparents at the Idaho State Fair dated 1947. In that old dusty briefcase there were some bonds to cash in, receipts, sticky toffee candy and a certificate of sale. Apparently Pops had purchased twenty-five ostriches from a place called Plume Farms in Amish Country for five thousand dollars. I threw most everything out but kept the certificate. By then many of my dreams were birds that won’t fly.