Stars Screaming Read Free

works?”
    “Yes, generally. But I’ve had trouble reaching you in the past. Last Friday, for example—”
    “I was at Santa Anita last Friday, like I am every afternoon during the week. Except Mondays. I’m an expert handicapper,” Sandra bragged; then she glanced at her wristwatch, as if she had an appointment to keep. “Can I speak to Louie, please?”
    “He’s taking his nap. If you like I can wake him.”
    “No. Don’t.”
    Sandra heard a door slam in the house next door, and the sound startled her.
    “Mrs. Burk?”
    She didn’t answer. Her body was rigid, her mouth dropped open in fear.
    “Mrs. Burk? Are you there?”
    “Yes.”
    “I think we should discuss this in person.”
    “No.”
    “But—”
    “Stop it!” Sandra said, springing up from the bed. Her eyes were wide and her heart was beating in her throat. “There is nothing wrong with my son!”
    Sandra was in the kitchen heating up take-out pizza when Burk came home from work that evening. On the dining room table, next to thesmall section of clouds she had pieced together that morning, was a note that said, I’m pregnant.
    Burk looked at her inquiringly. “True?”
    “Yes.”
    “Wow.”
    “Is that a happy wow or a sad wow?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “I want this baby, Ray.”
    “Okay. But—”
    “I really do!”
    That night, while he and Sandra lay side by side in the darkness with their bare shoulders touching, Burk replayed the conversation he’d had with Louie right before he put his son to bed.
    “Mom’s sad,” he told Burk.
    “She is? How do you know?”
    “Because this afternoon, while we were driving home from nursery school, I looked over and saw a tear fall off her chin.”
    “Did you ask her what was wrong?”
    “No.”
    “Then maybe she wasn’t sad, because sometimes people cry when they’re happy.”
    “No.”
    “Some people do.”
    “Tears are what happens when the glass breaks behind your eyes. If you swallow them you can die.”
    “Did your mom tell you that?”
    “No. The bird did.”
    “What bird?”
    “The big black bird.”
    “Where is that bird, Louie?”
    “You can’t see him.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s inside my head, behind my eyes . . . behind the glass.”
    “Is he always there?”
    “No. Just sometimes. He’ll come tonight if Mom forgets to tuck me in and kiss me good night.”
    * * *
    Much later that night, his body fatigued but his mind too restless to let him sleep, Burk switched on the radio. From 3 to 4 A.M. each morning on KMPC, late-nite talk show host Ray Moore invited his listeners to call in and “share a moment from your childhood, a story or anecdote that is either happy or sad. It doesn’t matter which, because we’re here to listen and open our hearts, not to judge.”
    The first caller, a woman from Monrovia, spoke about a crush she had had on a boy in the fourth grade. “Donnie Randolph was his name. I sat right behind him at Warner Avenue Elementary,” she told Radio Ray. “No one ever called him Donald or Don. It was always Donnie. He was smart—but he was a cutup too, always turning in his seat to make faces at his friends or toss notes down the aisle. But he never looked at or spoke to me. Not once during the whole semester, even when I gave him a card on Valentine’s Day. Do you know how that made me feel?” the woman asked Radio Ray, her voice close to tears. “It made me feel like the ugliest little girl in the whole world.”
    “Maybe he was just shy,” Radio Ray said. “What else do you remember?”
    “All those weeks sittin’ there in class, hopin’ he would smile at me or say hello or even tease me. And I remember how my fingers ached to reach out and straighten his shirt collar so I could touch his hair. Sometimes I would bend my head forward and dare myself to kiss him on the neck—but of course I never did.”
    Radio Ray said, “I suppose you were in love with him.”
    “Yes, I suppose I was.”
    “What do you think he’s doing