Boys Life

be kinda difficult,” he said.
    “Sir?”
    “Miss Blue Glass took that parrot to Dr. Lezander a couple of weeks ago. It had a brain fever or somethin’ birds get. That’s what the doc told her. Anyhow, the parrot kicked the bucket. What is it, Dick?”
    “Lookit this guy!” Mr. Moultry said, motioning to the man snarling on the television screen. “Name’s Lincoln Rockwell! Sonofagun’s the head of the American Nazi Party, if you can believe that garbage!”
    “American Nazis?” I saw the back of Mr. Osborne’s neck redden. “You mean I helped beat their butts over in Europe, and now they’re right here in the U.S. of A.?”
    “Says they’re gonna take over the country!” Mr. Moultry told him. “Listen to him go on, it’ll split your ribs!”
    “If I could get hold of him, I’d split his ugly head!”
    I was on my way out, my mind heavy with thoughts. Then I heard Mr. Moultry-whom ex-Sheriff Amory had said was a member of the Ku Klux Klan-laugh and say, “Well, that’s one thing he’s got right! I say ship all the niggers back to Africa! I sure as blazes wouldn’t want one in my house, like a certain somebody invites that Lightfoot nigger right into their front door!”
    I had caught this remark, and I knew who it was aimed at. I stopped and looked at him. Mr. Moultry was grinning and talking to Mr. Osborne, the man on the television screen going on about “racial purity,” but Mr. Moultry was watching me from the corner of his eye. “Yeah, my house is my castle! I sure as blazes wouldn’t stink my castle up by askin’ a nigger to come in and make hisself at home! Would you, Eugene?”
    “Lincoln Rockwell, huh?” Mr. Osborne said. “That’s a hell of a name for a Nazi.”
    “Seems like some people would know better than to be friends with niggers, don’t it, Eugene?” Mr. Moultry plowed on, baiting me.
    At last what was being said got through to Mr. Osborne. He regarded Dick Moultry as one might look at rancid cheese. “A man named Ernie Graverson saved my life in Europe, Dick. He was blacker’n the ace of spades.”
    “Oh… listen… I didn’t mean no…” Mr. Moultry’s grin was pathetic. “Well,” he said as he struggled for his dignity, “there’s always one or two gonna have the brains of a white man instead of a gorilla.”
    “I think,” Mr. Osborne said, clamping that U.S. ARMY hand on Mr. Moultry’s shoulder and putting some muscle into his grip, “you’d better shut your mouth, Dick.”
    Mr. Moultry didn’t make another peep.
    I left the Bright Star, and the brown-uniformed man who was being interviewed on television. I pedaled Rocket home, the cake pans in Rocket’s basket. But all the way I was puzzling over the blue parrot-the recently deceased blue parrot, that is-who spoke German.
    When I got home, Dad was sleeping in his chair. The Alabama game on the radio had ended before I went to the Woolworth’s, and now the radio was tuned to a country music station. I delivered the cake pans to Mom and then watched my father sleep. He was curled up, his arms gripped across his chest. Trying to hold himself together, I thought. He made a soft husking noise, his mouth on the verge of a snore. Something passed through his mind that made him flinch. His eyes came open, red-rimmed, and he seemed to stare right at me for a couple of seconds before his eyes closed again.
    I didn’t like the way his face looked in sleep. It looked sad and starved, though our food was plentiful. It looked defeated. There was honor in being a dishwasher, of course. I’m not saying there’s not, because every labor has its share of honor and necessity. But I couldn’t help thinking that he must be on despair’s front porch, to have to walk into the Bright Star Cafe and apply to be a dishwasher when assistant foreman of the dairy’s loading dock had been so very close. His face suddenly twisted in the grip of a daymare, his mouth letting loose a quiet groan. Even in sleep, he couldn’t escape for long.
    I walked into my room, shut the door, and I opened one of the seven mystic drawers. I brought out the White Owl cigar box, lifted its lid, and looked at the feather under my desk lamp.
    Yes, I decided, my heartbeat quickening. Yes.
    It could be a parrot’s feather.
    But it was emerald green. Miss Blue Glass’s German-cursing parrot had been turquoise, not a speck of any other color on it except for the yellow of its beak.
    Too bad Miss Green Glass hadn’t been the one with