Nothing Like Company
by John Young
From my third-floor bedroom window, I watched a raven fool my father. Every day, he would go to a hole he cut out in the frozen lake and lower a fishing line baited with mackerel. Reclining on a beach chair, he would sip his coffee until bored and then return to the house. Most of my hours pass up here observing things-it's the attic, really-except for when I go downstairs to eat or take medicine.
As soon as my dad leaves, a raven, which nests in our giant spruce tree, descends on the hole. He doesn't cock his head the way many animals do when curious. That's because the raven's a clever bird, I've learned, and this one has patiently observed my father. He drags the line up with his beak and shakes the treat free, without looking around while he does it, either. In fact, when finished, he drops the line back in and returns to the spruce tree. See? Clever.
When my dad returns to the hole, he scratches his head contemplating his empty hook before going inside to relay to my mother about his bad luck, again. The first time I watched that bird trick my father my emotions resided somewhere between laughing and crying. I was happy to finally perceive a choice.
I've drawn pictures of my father down there waiting for a fish to bite. He has no idea how much he makes me laugh now. Sometimes, I think he believes he's failed me. I've heard that having children with leukemia can do that.
When my father took me to the hospital for my last blood transfusion, I thought I heard someone say, "Raven." I scanned the room and narrowed the likely speakers down to a blue-haired elderly woman and a young girl with silky black hair. They were in loud conversation, so I continued listening. My quirky perceptions redouble when new red blood cells traverse through me.
But it turned out no one said raven. I think it was the elderly woman saying "savin'" because I heard her say "savin'" a few more times when talking to her-I'll guess, granddaughter-who was hooked up to a machine like me.
Outside a window, crows squawked around a trashcan, pecking a discarded cheeseburger wrapper. The birds became so worked up they started pecking each other. A little boy whooped a war cry and ran through them so they would scatter. He picked up the wrapper, pulled some cheese off, and stuffed it in his mouth. It wasn't more than a few seconds later when his mother snatched the wrapper from him and stuffed it into the trashcan, squawking at him about mischief.
The pink-haired girl looked at me from her propped-up position, smiling at the unfolding events. She had steely black eyes like my raven. The coincidence was too much to bear. Her grandmother was still talking about the machine, running her hand up and down the side like it were newly sanded furniture, and my father was immersed in a newspaper. I giggled and began sketching the girl's steely black eyes with my raven in one eye's reflection, and my father holding an empty hook in the other.
Today, my father dropped his line into the hole as usual. After his coffee, he returned to the house, but, before he got inside, I beckoned him from my window, saying I had something to show him.
It'd been a long time since my father had been in my room for any real length of time, maybe five years since my senior prom. He might deliver a snack, but he never lingers long. He knocked on the door, and I laughed and said come in. I pulled another chair over to the window and patted it, smiling.
"Sit down and have a look," I said pointing outside to our spruce tree.
He glanced between the tree and me for a while until he realized I wasn't going to take my eyes off the tree.
"Watch," I said.
He relented and took a seat. Sure enough, as though the curtains had been drawn signaling the show to begin, my raven descended on the hole and enjoyed his usual treat. My father's eyes burned like Mercury.
"God damn it!"
He looked to me and then back at the bird.
"How long have you known about this?" he asked.
"The whole time."
"And you never said anything? You just watch —?"
He returned his eyes to me but caught my sketches of him fishing pinned to my corkboard. He walked over to them, running a hand through his thinning hair. When he looked over to me, his eyes had teared. I went to him, took his hands, and kissed them. He drew a deep breath and smiled. I knew he was somewhere between laughing and crying. And I didn't care which.