Birdy

isn’t any treasure here! I made up the map and everything. I did it as a school project.’
    Birdy keeps on digging.
    ‘Aw, come on, Birdy. Let’s go home and get dry.’
    Birdy stops, looks over at me. Then he says he knows the treasure is here and we shouldn’t give up. It’s got to be here and I only think I made up the map. That’s too much. I tell him he’scrazy and I’m leaving. He keeps digging. I stand around another five minutes, then take off. He’s still digging madly, not saying anything.
    I don’t see Birdy for another two or three days. I decide not to write about the treasure hunt for school. I go down to where we’d been digging and there’s a hole at least six feet deep, deep as a grave. I don’t know how the hell Birdy got out of the hole when he was finished.
    When I finally do see Birdy again, we don’t talk about the treasure hunt at first. A few days later, Birdy says he figures somebody got to it before us; that’s why the ground was sunk in like that. He still won’t believe I made it all up; even when I tell him how I did it. He only gives me one of his crazy eye-wiggling looks.
    I want to think to make real this that I know and can’t hold. I’m pulled down. The earth in me is strong; the drifting dust is in my bones.
    We get such a good business going, selling pigeons, we decide to go out and get some birds ourselves. That’s what we were doing up on the gas tank that night. It’s a big storage tank at Marshall Road and Long Lane. This is a place where several different flocks of pigeons roost and nest.
    – How about us up on top of the gas tank, Birdy. That was wild. That night you almost convinced me you might just be part bird.
    Damn; he’s not paying any attention to me at all.
    – Listen here, birdbrain! I’m tired talking to the back of your head; you can’t be that crazy! Maybe if I come in and give you a coupla hard ones you’ll hear better!
    Crazy ass thing to say; anybody hear me, they’d lock me up too. Anyway, Birdy’s not afraid of things people are supposed tobe afraid of. No way you can make him do something he doesn’t want. No way to hurt him; like he just doesn’t feel anything he doesn’t want to. Typical of what I mean is the way I met Birdy.
    Mario, my kid brother, comes in and tells me this freak down at the Cosgrove place took his knife. I ask him where he got the knife; he tells me he found it. I figure he stole it but I’m always looking for fights anyway. I’m naturally strong and I’ve already started lifting weights; have my own miniature gym down in the cellar. I’m walking around squeezing spring things to increase my grip; reading Strength and Health ; York, Pennsylvania, is a kind of Mecca for me. I start all this crap when I’m only about eleven – probably because the old man used to beat me up so much. Anyway, I’ve got all this strength and I want to try it out with fights.
    I’m just starting these crazy ideas when Mario tells me about Birdy taking his knife. I’m thirteen. Birdy must be all of twelve. I see us in my mind as older, not as little punks like that.
    I go down and walk across the ball field. I’m wearing my new brown leather jacket and Mario’s tagging along behind me. He shows me the place. I lean over the gate in the wall and Birdy’s sitting on the steps of his back porch cleaning off the knife. I tell him to come over. He comes with a look on his face as if he’s glad to meet me.
    Living things grow upward but are not free. The highest branches trap air and light but only feed endless grindings of earth. Growth itself is without meaning.
    I tell him to give me the knife. He says it’s his; says he bought it from a kid named Zigenfus. He tells me I can check with this Zigenfus if I want. I ask him to let me see the knife. He gives it to me. We’re talking over the wooden gate in the wall to his house. It’s the wall of the baseball field.
    I see right away this is a really good knife, a switchblade. I try to work it. Tricky kind of catch and spring; seems to be broken. Birdy reaches over to show me how it works. I pull the knifeaway and tell him to keep his crummy hands off my knife. He looks at me with his wiggly eyes as if I’m nuts. I turn and start walking away with Mario. He opens the gate and comes after us. We keep walking. He gets in front of us, walking backwards, and asks for his knife. I stop. I hold it up. ‘This knife?’ I say. ‘Try and take it.’ He reaches for the knife.