authorjeffbaker

                                      The River of Birds

                                            By Jeff Baker

            At night he rode around the city on the River of Birds.

            It usually happened just after dark. Usually in Fall. The birds would flock and fly around the houses. Vinnie had been sitting on the roof just outside his bedroom window when the birds had swarmed by in the dusk. He’d felt them calling to him; he’d understood and stepped out off the roof onto the birds. Barefoot. In another moment, he was soaring with them around the houses, as if he was standing on a fluttering flying carpet. He learned quickly that he had to crouch like the surfers he’d seen in pictures, making himself more aerodynamic. One of the first times he had fallen off into the bushes. Luckily that time the birds had been swooping low and the bushes were thick. He was fifteen now and was more experienced. At night he would fly around the city, see the looping highway and the lights beneath him, and be eye-to-eye with the darkened windows of the few tall buildings downtown. Usually, he made it back home, but one night the birds swooped low by the lake and dispersed. He’d learned to carry a pair of sneakers with him in case he found himself having to walk anywhere. He ran as he saw the birds flocking and swooping over the lake in the near dark and dove for the flock. In an instant he was swept up and into the sky again.

            When it was cold he had to make sure he bundled up to ride the bird river, sometimes only for a short turn around the neighborhood, shivering in his bare feet. Sometimes he avoided the trips in winter until spring. In summer, the river formed only infrequently, and these weren’t always crows. One night, Vinnie had been out on a river of bats, which flew erratically and dispersed too easily, chasing after bugs. But the birds still came and he could sometimes ride them until late evening, sometimes high in the sky sometimes out of the city over the countryside. On those nights, he sometimes heard a voice calling to him from above and he would look upward.

            There above him streaked the starry Milky Way. On it rode a boy of his own age, but not quite his own species. They smiled and the Milky Way boy called out: “Ho, there! Join me on the starry ride and we can see the universe!” But Vinnie could not control where the birds went and they would not take him high enough to join the stars. So, he would ride the bird river home, and ever after when he would be dozing off, he would wonder what it was like to swoop over the heavens on the Milky Way, a ride that must take centuries, not just an evening.

                                                        —end—

The Chair Will Now Read The Minutes of the Last Meeting

By Jeff Baker

“All right. All right,” she said, over the hubbub. She looked out over the assembled crowd in the wan moonlight under the trees in the park. “The monthly meeting will come to order.” She banged her bronze gavel against the bronze podium, rustled her bronze skirts and glared at one of the crowd. “Mister Murdock. Put the paper down and join us please.”

“I can’t,” the bronze man holding the bronze paper said. “It’s attached to my fingers. And I’m not Mr. Murdock, they never did a statue of him. Not even a bust. I’m Everyman.”

“Nonetheless, please pay attention. The Moon won’t be up that long. I’ll mark you as here.”

“I’m here, representing the Civil War Memorial,” said a stone figure raising his hand.

“The Sailor,” the Chairwoman said. “Nice to see you again.”

“My turn in the rotation,” he replied. “The Cavalryman and the Army Man send their regards. They remain on duty this month.”

“Good to hear,” she said. “None of the wooden carvings made it this month, I take it?”

“They are rooted to the ground, remember?” said a bronze pioneer woman.

“Oh, that’s right,” the Chairwoman said. “Now, moving quickly does anyone…”

There was a rattling and a burst of laughter as a little bronze girl in her wagon rushed past, pushed by a giggling young man in a fireman’s outfit, followed by several bronze children and dogs.

“Order! Order!” the Chairwoman said, rapping her gavel with a series of clangs. “None of this during the meeting! You’re an adult, you should know better!” This last was addressed to the fireman.

“Oh, this is the only fun I get to have!” the fireman said, tilting his hat back. “Remember, I’m the memorial to the fallen firefighters.”

“So you are,” she said. “But please, play somewhere else if you must—oh, wait! Before you go, have you heard from your twin?”

The Minuteman statue in Riverside Park dated back to 1920. The artist who had cast the bronze Firefighter’s Memorial had copied the face and build of the young stone Minuteman. The 1920’s model supposedly had been a student from the College and had been paid fifteen dollars for posing.

“The Minuteman never leaves his post,” the young fireman said.

“Marked not present,” the Chairwoman said, scribbling in the bronze book with a bronze pen. “Does anyone know of anyone else who is not present?”

“What about the Keeper?” someone called out.

“The big Indian never shows up,” someone else said.

“They call them Native Americans these days,” said the Fireman.

“How would you know about ‘these days?’” asked the Pioneer Woman.

“I was only cast three years ago,” he replied.

The Chairwoman sighed. It wasn’t a bad thing that not everybody showed up. The modern sculptures were no help, and the big steel bison by the river had charged the crowd the only time he’d attended a meeting.

“Before we get down to the business of the evening’s gathering…” she began.

“We’ll play a game of Statues,” called out the bronze Jester from the theater. Even the Chairwoman joined in the laughter that followed from bronze and stone throats. When the laughter died down, she cleared her throat and went on.

“The Chair will now read the minutes of the last meeting.”

—end—

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Fireman’s Memorial is fictional, but the other statues, bronze and stone, can be found in my hometown of Wichita, Kansas. Including the Keeper of the Plains by Native Artist Blackbear Bosin. I have included a picture of the statue that really inspired this story!

Author’s Note: I’ll be off watching the eclipse Monday, so enjoy this way early! —-jeff

                                      Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark

                                                     By Jeff Baker

            He heard the dogs again, yelping, barking, whining. When Raymond Nash was younger, he might have worried about burglars in the neighborhood. Now, he reassured himself he had set security before he went to bed and rolled over in the covers and blankets, imagining wolves cavorting in the snow.

            By daylight, the neighborhood looked like a set for a ‘50’s T.V. show. 1228 Elmwood Drive looked exactly like 1231 just across the street. Well-kept houses, fresh-mowed grass, middle-aged men already mowing their weekend lawns. Nash wondered about the dogs he’d heard-did they run through neighborhoods in packs? Were they even local? He doubted it. He hadn’t noticed any dogs, not even any being walked in the evening. Nonetheless, he drove slowly down the street, turning on to 25^th street and then the highway. Dogs were forgotten.

            He stayed up late that night as he was off-work the next day. He was crawling into bed when he heard the dogs again. He checked the alarm clock; 11:35.

            “Somebody needs to call Animal Control,” he grumbled as his head hit the pillow.

            Nash was standing in his backyard, surveying his mangy lawn with its patches of dirt when he saw one of his neighbors glancing over the hedge.

            “Coming with us tonight?” the man asked.

            “Uh, don’t think so,” Nash replied. None of anybody’s damn business what he did, even if he did nothing. Watched T.V. and ate after work, maybe had a beer. No social life. He went back inside.

            Dogs invaded his dreams.

            Monday after work Nash was standing on his porch in the dusk sipping a beer when the neighbor wandered over and started chatting.

            “Love to have you,” the neighbor said. “You really should join up.”

            “Join up to what?” Nash said. This guy was too old to be in a gang.

            “Basically a neighborhood society,” the neighbor said. “We patrol the neighborhood at night. We make sure that all is well.”

            “Like a neighborhood watch,” Nash said. “You aren’t burning crosses are you?”

            The neighbor laughed. “Heavens no! We don’t even knock anything over. Tell you what; you look around and see if you find anything different. If you do you may be ready to join.”

            Then the man walked off.

            Lying in bed, listening to the dogs, Nash wasn’t sure what the man had meant. The next evening, he walked down the sidewalk in the cool of dusk. Nondescript neighborhood he thought. Lawns, flowers, cars, kids, backyard fences, swing sets. Wait. He walked back along the sidewalk, looking carefully. There were no backyard fences. And no sign of dogs, no tell-tale holes in yards, no “presents.” He looked up at the sky.

            That night, Nash woke up to the sound of barking. He hadn’t remembered getting in bed. He did remember making sure the back door to the porch was open and that the porch screen was unlatched. The barking grew louder. He hopped off the bed, a long way down suddenly and ran across the floor towards the open doors, panting with excitement, furniture towering over him in the darkened house. He bounded out the door onto the porch and out the screen door announcing his arrival with a series of barks and howls. He heard the barking in welcome response and wagged his tail. He stared into the night, hearing night birds and other animals and smelling them as well.

            For tonight, at least, he was running with the pack.

                                                  —end—