Flying Crows by Jim Lehrer Read Free Book Online Page B

therapy to offer. They have no other way to help this tortured human being than to let him play conductor on the same train that ran over his sister. He mumbles himself to sleep every night, and that sure beats having a ball bat slammed against his head.”
    â€œI don’t want to pretend I’m a conductor on The Flying Crow, for God’s sake,” Birdie said.
    Josh would not quit. “They allow Streamliner a special privilege. Every Thursday morning he gets to go down the hill right next to the Kansas City Southern track and watch the northbound Flying Crow go by. The train always slows down when it gets to him, and he waves and shouts and the engineer blows his whistle—”
    â€œYou want to help
me,
get me a woman. I need women and they need me. All I need is to put my hands on a beautiful woman’s tits for a few seconds and I’ll be better. What about the women patients? Get me one of them.”
    Now Josh laughed. “Can’t do that. No fraternization of any kind allowed. There are no women available here at Somerset for men patients to do what you want to do, Mr. Birdie of Kansas City. The only form of sex available is through—you know, doing it to yourself.”
    â€œThat makes your hair fall out.”
    â€œIf that were true, there wouldn’t be anything but bald men around here.”
    They both laughed. It was the first time they had done that together.
    â€œWhat happened to you, Birdie?” Josh asked quietly. “What did you see?”
    â€œI’m not talking about it to anyone.”
    Amos and the other two bushwhackers returned. They helped Birdie out of the tub and gave him a large white towel to dry himself off, but they wouldn’t let him wrap it around himself when he was finished. Naked, Birdie went with them and Josh down the hallway and into the ward.
    Birdie did not cover his genitals. Adjustment to life at the Sunset at Somerset sometimes came remarkably fast.
    Once in the ward, the bushwhackers made Birdie, still naked, climb into bed and lie on his back, and they tied him down again.
    â€œClose your eyes,” said Amos. “Let’s see if the hot water calmed you down.”
    Birdie closed his eyes. His arms and legs immediately stiffened and he screamed, “Nooooo! Don’t shoot no more! The blood! No, no!”
    Amos raised his slugger to whack Birdie in the head from the right and another bushwhacker got ready to do so from the left, but before either took a swing, Birdie opened his eyes and went absolutely and peacefully silent and still.

    Lawrence of Sedalia’s pleas and protests had become as much of
the show as Josh and, as always, his noise and screams for mercy
and deliverance were followed by other patients asking for the
same. Streamliner, as always, was going about his business as a conductor,
standing in an aisle and going through the silent motions of taking tickets and
helping passengers board his train.
    The bushwhackers let the racket from Lawrence and the others go on a
few minutes, until it built to a small roar, and then stopped it short.
    Amos the ass from St. Joseph came down to the front row and, with
everybody watching expectantly, bashed a padded Somerset Slugger down
across the top of Lawrence’s head. That shut up Lawrence and the other
noisemakers.
    The sound of the baseball bat landing on Lawrence’s head was Josh’s cue.
Now the show was really on.
    Josh turned around to face his audience. Like magic, the look in his eyes
and around his mouth was that of a little boy, a boy of about eleven or
twelve. It was uncanny. How was he able to change his face that way? Who
knows? From the face of a grown man to that of a little boy—just like that.
Maybe it was the hair. His long dark-brown hair had disappeared under a
large flannel white-and-black-striped baseball cap. Or maybe it was magic.
Or maybe just acting.
    In the high-pitched, squeaky unchanged voice of a boy, Josh