The Hollow Body
Part 1 - Major Minor
Chapter 4
Blue Jay Way
There's a feeling I get when I look to the sky
As if someone were watching
Someone hears very word.
- Joe Walsh
The trail along the brook is challenging and slippery as runoff from the steep embankment keeps the trail moist. A fallen tree obstructs them ahead. Large, twisted upturned roots, exposing the dark soil and the life teaming within. They will have to cross. The scent of the soil is fresh, crisp, and clean like the air after a cool rain. Edmund takes a deep breath. Danny hears the rush of air and mimics his brother with an extra-long inhale of his own.
Overhead a pair of blue jays dart out of the trees. Swooping directly over the boys and across the bank making a raucous of jeers, as if pointing to the narrows where it will be safer to get to the other side.
Danny tugs at Edmund pointing as the blue jays fly over the perfect crossing spot. Edmund’s eyes follow their flight path and then looks toward his younger brother. It was that Spring Valley Road look. The connection, the sharing of energy. They never questioned how the blue jays knew.
Edmund grabs Danny’s hand as they cross, fingers woven together. Danny feels Edmund’s callused fingertips press into his palm. Someday Edmund will be a guitar hero he thinks. Stepping into the current the remaining caked mud spirals off their boots in the swift but shallow current, twisting like smoke in the wind.
Edmund guides Danny across, following the blue jay’s suggested path with a cautious gait, each step thoughtful and sure. One step from the bank Danny’s heel lands on a stone that gives out from under him. His other foot follows, and he finds himself face down falling toward the water. With a sudden jolt he stops midair as Edmund grabs Danny’s belt. Danny can hear Edmund chuckling as he holds Danny, dangling horizontal inches above the water.
“Did you need a bath brother?”
“If I pee my pants I will!”, Danny replies, when he notices a change in the water.
“Hold on Edmund, look-it!”
“I can’t hold you here forever Danny! You are growing heavier by the second!”
“It’s a rainbow Edmund, it’s a rainbow.”
Edmund looks skyward as he lifts Danny and stands him on safe ground.
“Too much pancake there Bromo. Went to your head. I must talk to Dad about that.”
“Down. On the water Edmund, look down.”
Heads tilted down, the brothers squat synchronously on the bank. Edmund touches a finger to the surface of still water on the upstream side of the fallen tree. The colors whirl and eddy around in the curious convections. A dead minnow wobbles in a tangle of branches and twigs.
Edmund lifts his finger to his nose and then Danny’s.
“Smell that, Dorothy. No rain. No rainbow.”
“It smells like Dad when he’s working on the car.”
“Let’s go Danny,” Edmund orders rising to his feet. “No pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.”
Danny stops, staring into a mental fog trying to recall his dream. Edmund squints ahead, the sun now rising mid-level, an orange ball glowing through the trees, the dithering light creating patterns through the leaves in the morning breeze.
Breaking from his trance Danny’s eyes widen as he sings “doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo” to the theme of the Twilight Zone. “Look Edmund! A UFO,” he spills through a giggle.
“Mom still thinks it was an alien,” Edmund drones. “The eggs mom burned that morning looked like alien eyes. You believed it too Danny boy. Both of you staring out the kitchen window while breakfast was incinerating on the stove.”
“I’ve got to be at the Marone’s so let’s go figure this out for Dad and get home.”
The rainbow on the water intensifies and dawn gives way the further upstream they hike. Like following the scent of foul play, Edmund and Danny home in on their portentous moment.
The contrast of a red oil drum simultaneously catches their attention and has them still in their tracks. More believable than an alien landing but paralyzing, nonetheless. Danny grabs Edmund’s wrist. A few steps up the embankment is another. A dark blue drum.
A blue jay darts from the branch of a nearby tree to the blue drum and back again mobbing midflight. Three others join, crests fluffed and bristling on what looks like a reconnaissance mission.
The blue drum is empty except for a sprinkling of scrap metal shards littering the curved wall. The lid, right side up, touching the water on the shoreline looking like a large rusty frisbee. The red oil drum lies neatly and diagonally on the embankment, oil seeping out of the loosened cap trickling into the stream.
“Dad would be so mad. Maybe we can get it out of the water,” says Edmund in his contemplative voice.
He sinks his feet into the shallow downstream side of the oil barrel and gives it a shove with both hands, when the barrel barely gives way from its muddy surroundings.
“There’s a lot of oil left in here, but I’ll need your help standing it up with this Danny.”
“We can turn it right side up Edmund so no more oil spills out.”
“Sure!” says Edmund, proud of his little brother’s enthusiasm.
They each take a side, the blue jays darting up and then hovering above. They rock the barrel until it gives way.
“On three Danny!”
With the combined force of two brothers pressing up Spring Valley Road, Edmond pulls on the top edge as Danny pushes the barrel to a stand. The oils sloshes around, its weight shifting, challenging the brothers to keep it steady. Edmund pulls the drum forward balancing it on its bottom edge.
“Stand clear Danny so I can roll it up the embankment!”
Edmund rolls the drum carefully on its chime, inching up to the top of the embankment. A few yards feeling like a mile. Edmund lowers the edge and stands out looking through the trees.
“Look Danny, there’s the factory,” casting a big smile.
Danny hurries a few steps up the embankment eying the factory and turns to Edmund.
“Oh no Edmund,” reading his mind, “Daddy will put you on pancake restriction and have you doing the lawn for the next year.”
Danny’s look of concern morphs into a smile as they know it’s as good as done. Edmund tips the drum again, rolling it over the ground toward the factory.
“I’ll clear the trail,” Danny, walking ahead excited, clearing stones and branches that might obstruct Edmund along the way. When they reach the empty parking lot, they simultaneously take a deep breath.
“No one in sight Danny.”
Without a word Edmund spins the barrel on its chime to the front door. The glass double doors spell “The Bering Company” on one side and a logo on the other. The brothers execute their unspoken plan as they tip the barrel on its side watching the oil spill onto the ground and under the door. Danny runs to the side of the building and retrieves an old brick.
“Hold up the edge Edmund!”
Danny slides the brick on the bottom side, ensuring that the remaining oil will seep under the door and directly onto the lobby floor.
“Double trouble,” chuckles Edmund.
The cheers stop abruptly as they hear a car pulling into the parking lot. The brothers run for it. Their superpower legs get them back to the woods in a flash. They roll down the embankment laughing and stop at the remaining blue barrel still lying on its side. Danny crawls in, leaning on his back against the bottom of the barrel.
“We can leave this one here brohemian. We can use it for a fort!”
Edmund likes the acoustics as Danny rambles on about barrel fort ideas echoing out of his blue Batcave.
“Okay, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny,” lowering the volume with each repetition impersonating an echo. “We got to get home. I have a lesson, and Daddy has work for you to do.”
As they start to head back upstream Danny sees one of the Blue Jays perching on the edge of the blue barrel.
§
(to be continued)