I watched Elijah until he’d crow-plowed his way outta sight, then turned to Uncle Dave just in time to see him come shakin’ his way out from underneath six inches of obsidian feathers and black pearl eyeballs. I was teeterin’ a bit and managed a sloppy elliptical two-step, crunchin’ beaks and skulls like they was pork rinds on a hardwood floor. I reached out to the nearest headstone to steady myself. Took a moment for the letters to quit snaking their way in and out of all that freckled granite, but then the name and date come floatin’ up in deep relief; Albert DeWyfe, June 16, 1937 to June 16, 1991. My father-in-law. God bless his cheap Flemish soul.
Whole thing was shakin’ like a tuning fork under my hand. Not consistent but in broken stutters. Morse code like. Bertie’s bean-fed corpse was sendin’ me a message it seemed. Somethin’ akin to, “Don’t you just walk out on my daughter lest you want more trouble’n these here crows and coyotes ever gave you.” I screwed my eyes shut and thought a message back at him, “You know it ain’t like that sir.” And that headstone settled right back down to its ground state, spittin’ out a few gamma rays in accordance with the law.
Uncle Dave and I had known the Wife, born Loretta DeWyfe, since kindergarten. Grew up together, got into trouble together, went to prom together, everything together. I started calling her the Wife in seventh grade before we’d ever even kissed. Before I even wanted to kiss her. And she called me Shit-Eye. Which made a lotta sense seein’ as how just like ‘ol David Bowie I got one brown and one blue.
It probably won’t surprise no one to hear I was an ornery l’il cuss growin’ up. Took more than a few beatings from the local adults. I know nowadays that kinda thing really upsets the more delicate types, but back in the 70’s a good parent in these parts was one who beat kids proper when they got outta line. Didn’t matter whose kids they were neither. Don’t get me wrong; I ain’t advocating child abuse. But Bertie whupped my ass real good on a couple occasions, Uncle Dave too, and we both ended up more’n just fine. Plus, wasn’t like we weren’t gettin’ what we deserved. I threw a smoke bomb into the cab of his ‘49 Ford one Saturday for some damn reason. Still don’t know why. But that kinda behavior sure deserves a good beatin’, which is exactly what I got.
And it was due to that particular ass whuppin’ that Loretta and I started going steady. She took pity on me, squattin’ on her driveway, trying to stop the blood gushing out my nose and the tears pourin’ out my eyes. Brought me a kerchief and a glass of lemonade while her dad started shampooing the upholstery of his truck. Once I stopped bleedin’ I did my best to help him. Had to stain about a mile of fence too before he forgave me. By that time the Wife and I were gettin’ pretty hot and heavy. Got to third base after the Sadie Hawkins our freshman year.
Never did get married in the eyes of God or anyone else. Just sorta silently agreed that we was together and that was that. I reckon we got some sort of common-law status, whatever that means. Guess when she does our tax returns it means somethin’, but none of them titles ever meant jack to us. We were just in love, and now I was gonna have to tell her I was leavin’ for a bit.
I took my hands off her daddy’s stone and seemed to come back down just a hair. I turned around to find Uncle Dave layin’ on the ground, moving his arms and legs like he was doin’ jumping jacks.
“The fuck you doin’ down there Dave?”
“Just makin’…
…crow angels, Pa.”