dead bird gospel I: mouthful of dirt

Callum has a confession to make

Callum doesn’t smoke cigarettes. He hates the taste of them. Hates the bile in his throat after. Hates the scratchy, hollow feeling in his lungs, like they been scraped out with a spoon. Callum wears long sleeves ‘cause he doesn’t like tan lines. He doesn’t mind the sweat. He lets it soak through cotton like oil slick on pavement. He likes the stink. Says he smells like work, like rust and woodsmoke and gasoline. And that is good.

Callum’s a sweet kid. He played rough from time to time growing up, but he never meant it. He’s harmless. Used to come home bawling with gravel in his knees, drool stringing from his chin. His mom would put petroleum jelly on his scrapes and get him a cold glass of milk, and his father told him to man up. He had to dig his nails into his skin just to stop crying.

Callum still cries, even though he’s grown. What is he these days, twenty-something? He cries because sometimes he does bad things, but he does not know why. Crying doesn’t make him feel better. He cries so hard he vomits blood. Sometimes that helps. Retching up penance.

Callum has a confession to make. He’s sorry about what happened with Clare last winter—back by the barn, his hands cold and desperate under her skirt. He was just a kid. Didn’t know what he was doing. That’s what he tells himself. It was stupid, really. He was cold. So cold, he’d do about anything to warm up, and Clare, well, Clare wanted it, he thought. He knows now that she didn’t, and he wishes he’d known when it happened because now Clare’s going around telling people, making him look like someone who does bad things. He doesn’t do bad things. Never on purpose, at least.

Callum thought enough time had passed. Thought maybe if he was polite, if he smiled and waved, it’d make things okay. But when he saw Clare with her new boyfriend, Tate, and raised his hand in that sheepish little gesture, Tate came at him swinging. Fist to the jaw, another to the gut. Callum walked around for two weeks with a shiner like a plum on his face. Said it was all because he had the nerve to be courteous. Because manners matter to him.

Callum doesn’t go to church anymore, but he still believes in God. Or he tries to. He still says grace out loud in empty rooms. Some nights, Callum thinks he can feel God breathing through the drywall, watching him through the popcorn ceiling.

Callum’s got mold in the corner of his bedroom, behind the dresser. He found it months ago but didn’t move it. Doesn’t clean it. His daddy’s old Bible sits on the nightstand, bloated from the summer heat. The words sit there, limp on the page.

Callum dreams of Clare sometimes. Not the way he should. In the dreams, she’s in the woods, barefoot, lips blue, her Sunday dress ripped down the side like it got caught on a thorn bush. He follows her deeper and deeper into the trees, but she never lets him catch up. She’s always smiling too wide with a mouth full of dirt. He trips on something soft and wet, and when he looks down, it’s a rabbit with Clare’s eyes, rotting open. He wakes up still hard, still sorry. Spits in the sink like it’ll wash the taste out of his mouth. It never does.

Callum went to the river the week after Tate swung at him. Didn’t bring a towel, didn’t bring beer. Just sat at the edge where the clay breaks away in chunks, staring down into the brown water. He thought about stepping in. Letting it carry him. Maybe that would fix things. Maybe if he were clean, Clare would stop talking. Maybe her eyes would stop following him in his dreams.

Callum’s got a little brother now. Nine years old. Won’t stop asking questions. Follows him around like a stray. Still believes he’s good. And that’s the cruelest part. That someone still looks at him like he’s worth something.

Callum’s mom works nights at the gas station off the highway. Sometimes Callum drives out there, just to watch the trucks roll in. Big, groaning things with hot engines. He wonders what it would feel like to climb inside one and leave behind the town, the house, the mold, the Bible, the crying that never helped. Leave Clare behind, too. But he always ends up in his own bed, staring at the ceiling, fingers digging into his skin like he’s trying to dig himself out of it.

Callum’s got a dead bird on the front porch now. Been there three days. He watches it rot. Flies pick at the soft spots, and the ants make highways through its feathers.

Callum saw Clare at the gas station on the fourth day. She was buying a lighter, hair pulled back. Didn’t look at him, not even once. Just turned her body so all he could see was the slope of her shoulder and the pale patch where her bra strap used to sit. He thought about saying her name. Thought about falling to his knees right there in front of the Gatorade cooler. Instead, he stood in line behind her and stared at the back of her neck. She paid in cash and walked out. Didn’t hold the door for him. Didn’t look back.

Callum thought he heard her voice whispering something like, “You can bury the birds, Callum, but they’ll come back up beaked and screaming.” But she didn’t. Of course, she didn’t. Still, that night he took a shovel out back.

Callum’s little brother asks where the bird went on the fourth day. Says he was gonna name it. Callum shrugs and says maybe a coyote took it.

But the truth is, it’s buried behind the shed with the others.

And Callum’s starting to forget how many there are.