The Man Who Loved Birds Read Free Page B

heart—a gesture she had last performed late in her one year at the Loretine Sisters boarding school in Calcutta, where an English classmate with ruddy cheeks and flaxen hair had decided to teach the heathen how to keep their word.
    He told her then how he had decided to play a little joke on Harry Vetch, the county attorney, to get back at him for building his mess of a subdivision right next to Johnny Faye’s mother’s woods. “No great harm done,” he said, since he had taken care to bury the cart so that once dug up it would have suffered only a few permanent stains on its green-and-white striped upholstery—“a little reminder, might teach him a lesson, not likely but anything is possible, right? But I guess it was the teacher that got taught.” He pointed to the scrape down his side.
    She bent to look more closely. “Unless you object, I had best provide your tetanus booster now.” She removed a vial from a small refrigerator, swabbed its top, stuck in the hypodermic and withdrewits contents. She swabbed his arm with disinfectant. “This will sting.” She thrust in the needle.
    “
Ow! Damn!
”
    “I am so
very
sorry.”
    “I aint. I’m glad to see you get riled up. That’s a good sign.”
    “Sign of what?” She pulled out the needle and swabbed the bright drop of blood, then picked up his right thumb and pressed it over the ball of cotton.
    “How much you’d enjoy a little walk in the woods. I built this little shack where I go when I want to keep myself out of
real trouble
. Sort of a blind except I don’t use it for hunting, just for watching birds and such. Not too far from here, neither, over by the monastery.”
    “There is a monastery nearby?” She applied a Band-Aid and gave it a pat.
    “Sure, a big one. Well, used to be big. A lot of the monks are gone now, to the grave or married or whatever. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of it. That’s what usually brings strangers to these parts.”
    “I must say I know very little about
these parts
.”
    “I could show it to you sometime. The blind, that is, not the monastery, even if the blind’s on monastery land so I guess it
is
the monastery, sort of, but it’s outside the wall so women can go there, no problem. A afternoon walk before it gets too hot.”
    “I do not socialize with patients.”
    “And I do not go to the doctor.”
    “Well, then, there we have it.” She handed him his shirt.
    “Anyways I’m not your patient.”
    “For the last fifteen minutes you have been sitting in my office.”
    “Show me the paperwork. If it aint been writ down it aint happened.”
    “Which is why you must now complete this form.” She handed him the clipboard and form and opened the examinationroom door. “There is really nothing you can do about a cracked rib except to return home and suffer. I could write you a prescription for something stronger than aspirin—”
    “I don’t take nothing stronger than aspirin except whiskey and a certain not-so-secret little vice. Matter of fact I don’t take aspirin.”
    “Then I am at a loss as to why you paid me a visit.” She moved to the door and made a pointed gesture of holding it open. “Ring me or ring
somebody
immediately if that scrape gets red or swollen. I assume you have a family member whom you may ring up to drive you home?”
    “We got no need for a chaperone.”
    She placed her hands on her hips. “You bring to mind a phrase I learned from a medical school colleague but that I never thought would have professional application.
When hell freezes over
.”
    He stood but paused in the doorway, pensive. “Just try and stop the light from changing.”
    She handed him his stick. “You may find your cane useful.”
    “I aint telling a living soul about burying that golf cart, not even my mamma. Better for her to be ignorant. So I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that story to yourself. Though I do understand how a good story wants to be told. Later,” he said, and he was