Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury Read Free Book Online

panic at what I've done. I may wish to sell cheap and
flee. Because, well, think, there's the problem of getting this bird out of the
country, yes? And, simultaneously, Castro might declare the parrot a national
monument or work of art, or, oh, hell, Raimundo , who did send you?"
                 "Someone,
but now no one," I said, brooding. "I came on behalf of someone else.
I'll go away on my own. From now on, anyway, it's just me and the bird. I've
read Papa all my life. Now I know I came just because I had to."
                 "My
God, an altruist!"
                 "Sorry
to offend you, Shelley."
                 The
phone rang. Shelley got it. He chatted happily for a moment, told someone to
wait downstairs, hung up, and cocked an eyebrow at me: "NBC is in the
lobby. They want an hour's taped interview with El C6rdoba there. They're
talking six figures."
                 My
shoulders slumped. The phone rang. This time I picked it up, to my own
surprise. Shelley cried out. But I said, "Hello. Yes?"
                 "Senor," said a man's voice.
"There is a Senor Hob-well here
from Time, he says, magazine." I
could see the parrot's face on next week's cover, with six follow-up pages of
text.
                 "Tell
him to wait." I hung up.
                 "Newsweek?" guessed Shelley.
                 "The
other one," I said.
                 "The
snow was fine up in the shadow of the hills," said the voice inside the
cage under the shawl.
                 "Shut
up," I said quietly, wearily. "Oh, shut up, damn you."
                 Shadows
appeared in the doorway behind us. Shelley Capon's friends were beginning to
assemble and wander into the room. They gathered and I began to tremble and
sweat.
                 For
some reason, I began to rise to my feet. My body was going to do something, I
didn't know what. I watched my hands. Suddenly, the right hand reached out. It
knocked the cage over, snapped the wire-frame door wide, and darted in to seize
the parrot.
                 "No!"
                 There
was a great gasping roar, as if a single thunderous wave had come in on a
shore. Everyone in the room seemed knocked in the stomach by my action.
Everyone exhaled, took a step, began to yell, but by then I had the parrot out.
I had it by the throat.
                 "No!
No!" Shelley jumped at me. I kicked him in the shins. He sat down,
screaming.
                 "Don't
anyone move!" I said and almost laughed, hearing myself use the old cliche ". "You ever see a chicken killed? This
parrot has a thin neck. One twist, the head comes off. Nobody move a
hair." Nobody moved.
                 "You
son of a bitch," said Shelley Capon, on the floor.
                 For
a moment, I thought they were all going to rush me. I saw myself beaten and
chased along the beach, yelling, the cannibals ringing me in and eating me,
Tennessee Williams style, shoes and all. I felt sorry for my skeleton, which
would be found in the main Havana plaza at dawn tomorrow.
                 But
they did not hit, pummel, or kill. As long as I had my fingers around the neck
of the parrot who met Papa, I knew I could stand there forever.
                 I
wanted with all my heart, soul, and guts to wring the bird's neck and throw its
disconnected carcass into those pale and gritty faces. I wanted to stop up the
past and destroy Papa's preserved memory forever, if it was going to be played
with by feeble-minded children like these.
                 But
I could not, for two reasons. One dead parrot would mean one dead duck: me. And
I was weeping inside for Papa. I simply could not shut off his voice
transcribed here, held in my hands, still alive, like an old Edison record. I could not kill.
                 If
these ancient children had known that, they would have swarmed