FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #5

A boy with a parrot on his shoulder was walking along the railway tracks.  The boy’s eyes were as green as the parrot’s feathers, with tears spilling out.  He kicked angrily at the railroad ties with every third step.  The parrot seemed to sense when the boy was about to kick, and braced himself for the jerking motion.

 “Can’t go home,” the boy whispered, and the parrot replied, “Go home.”

 The boy paused, looking back in the direction of his house, a small white square behind a tall stockade fence. 

 “I can’t go back,” he said.  The parrot repeated, “Go back.”

 The boy sat down on the railroad tie, stretching his legs out in front of him.  He examined the slash mark on his jeans.  The fringed edges were tinged with dark blood.  He pulled the hole open and ran his finger along the cut on his freckled skin.  The blood had dried.  Too late to pour peroxide on it as his mother would have done.  The thought of his mother and not seeing her again made him hug his knees and bury his head in his arms.  His long, sandy hair fell forward, covering his face.  The boy sobbed one word:

 “Mom.”

 The parrot leaned over and preened the boy’s hair gently with his beak, pulling delicately on each fine strand, and mimicked the wobble in the boy’s voice.

 “Maybe I should run away,” the boy said to the parrot. 

 The parrot seemed to agree.  “Run away,” it said.

 “I can’t tell no one,” the boy said, and the parrot confirmed, “Tell no one.”

 As the boy stood up, the parrot spread his wings to balance himself.  His feathers were clean, silky and neatly clipped.  There was no chance he could fly away, and no indication he was attracted to that notion.  The boy continued walking along the tracks, away from the white house. 

 “I won’t go back,” he said, and the parrot answered, “Go back.”

 The boy just shook his head.  He walked all day.  At first he paused often, looking back and talking to his parrot, whose two or three word echoes either agreed or disagreed with the boy’s musings.  As he left one town and entered another, the boy said the name of the new town with an air of familiarity, as if he had travelled the route many times.  The parrot repeated each name clearly.

 Just before dark the boy reached a larger town than the others.  He left the tracks, walking towards the lighted downtown streets.  He started to stumble along the way, tired, thirsty and hungry.  He jingled some coins in his pocket and fingered a wad of bills as he approached a brightly lit ice cream shop.  He paused to look through the window at the shiny tile floor and the people sitting at small round tables.  There were a couple of families and three different groups of teenagers.  His stomach churned.  He looked enviously at the children sitting with their parents, slurping ice cream with pleasure and a lack of concern he could not even imagine.  His fear was stronger than his yearning.

 “I know I said I can’t tell no one,” he told the parrot, who agreed, “Tell no one.” 

 “But I think I have to now.  I have to tell someone.”  The parrot shifted his position on the boy’s shoulder, tugged on his ear, and then acquiesced.  “Tell someone,” he said.

The boy waited outside the ice cream store for a time.  One of the employees, a tall teenaged boy with dark hair, came outside, walked a few steps away from the door, and then leaned against the building.  He lit a cigarette and sighed, resting his head against the concrete block wall.  The boy approached him. 

 “Sir,” he said.  The teenager looked down at the boy, surprised that someone had called him ‘sir’.

 “What is it, kid?” the teen asked.

 The boy turned his head to the right to look at his parrot.  “Should I ask him?” he said. 

 The parrot answered, “Ask him.”

 The teen squinted his eyes and looked intently at the parrot.  “It’s my parrot, Max,” the boy said.  The teen said, “Uh huh.  Ok.  And what does Max want you to ask me?”

 “Where’s the police station?” said the boy.

 “Five blocks down that way,” he said, pointing, “then take a left and go two blocks.”  He studied the boy’s unkempt hair, ragged shirt, and the bloodied cut in his jeans.  “Are you ok, kid?” he asked, surprising himself with the amount of tenderness in his own voice.  “Do you need help?”

 “I need to tell the police something,” the boy said.  The teen took another puff of his cigarette, then dropped it on the sidewalk and stomped it out.  “Wait here,” he said.  He ducked back into the shop, spoke to an older man behind the counter who peered out the window at the boy and then nodded his head. The teen reappeared.

 “Come on, I’ll take you,” he said.

 As they entered the police station, the older boy put his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder, carelessly almost knocking off the parrot, but he obligingly shifted his hand to the boy’s other shoulder when the parrot squawked and the boy asked him to be careful of Max.  The boy was guided up to the intimidating desk.  Although he had never been in this building before, the boy was struck by the similarity to the police station in his home town, with the noise, the tall, blue uniformed officers bustling about, the desire to trust.  That trust had been shattered by the uniformed men he knew, the friends of his daddy.  He did not know these men and women.  That gave him hope.

“I need to see Detective Sanders and my father,” the teenager said to the officer behind the desk as he made his way down the hall.  The officer nodded.

 “My dad’s the chief of police,” the teen said, “and Detective Sanders is real nice.  They’ll take good care of you.”

 “Should I tell them?”  the boy asked Max.  The bird answered him for the last time.

 “Tell them,” he said, and the teen agreed.  “You can tell them whatever’s wrong, and they’ll help you.”

 As they turned a corner, the boy saw his reflection in the Chief’s office window.  He saw himself standing taller than usual, with fear in his eyes but hope on his face.  He saw a teenaged boy with his hand placed gently on his shoulder.  They walked through the office door.

 “Bye, Max,” the boy whispered.

 

 

back to Contest #5