John Gamber
21202 International Blvd. Seatac, Washington 98198
206-579-2539
Little Bobby’s Wing’s
I was older when Daddy died, or so I thought at the time. I say older like it meant something. I was twelve years old; I know twelve is not very old by some folk’s standards; but with all we had gone through in those few years what with Daddy dying and all that. I’m not complaining or anything mind you, I have a lot to be grateful for, I do, I really do, I’m just saying. I was twelve; my little brother Bobby was only eight, he seemed a lot younger than that. Suzy, my pain in the neck older sister was seventeen. “Almost eighteen” she would say back then, like everything was gonna change as soon as she turned eighteen. She always thought she knew everything, and maybe she did, but it didn’t make it right her always talking to me like I was a baby an all. I remember my Momma tussled with her the most; I just tried to stay out of everyone’s way, and keep an eye on Little Bobby, like a big brother ought too.
When I think back on it, I should have seen it coming, Daddy’s dying and all. He didn’t seem so sick at the time, but then again, what does a twelve year old know about dying anyway. He all of a sudden died of a brain hemorrhage; at least that’s what the Doctor said. Daddy had always been kind of a hot head, everyone said he was headed for a day when he would just blow up, and well, I guess they were right. He drank too much and yelled a lot, but mostly he just loved us all in his own loud way and that’s the way I like to remember it, he died from loving us so much. However he loved Little Bobby the most, you see he was Big Bobby and Momma always said Little Bobby was a “little chip off the old man.” He would have done anything for Little Bobby, anything.
Mamma’s suffered the worst when daddy died, Gran helped her through it best as she knew how, she was always saying “everything’s go’in to be okay”, just like that in her sweet little voice with a smile on it. Gran was Big Bobbies Mamma, she looked after her son when her husband Walter died in the Second World War, and then she lost her first son George in the Korean War. So she knew something about men dying and looking after young boys. “Right now my job”, she always told me was to keep an eye on Little Bobby. So I followed him everywhere he went. I made a game of it you see, I pretended I was a spy, working on some big deal spy stuff, I tried not to let on that I was keeping an eye on him. That didn’t prove to be all that difficult.
You see Little Bobby had a kite, it was a real nice one too, he and Daddy made it together one hot day in June, just before Daddy had the explosion in his head. So every day no matter what the weather, wind, no wind, rain or shine Bobby’s was out flying his kite. One night after Daddy died, I ask him why he wanted to fly that darned kite so much, as we were settling into our twin beds with matching sailboat blankets. We shared the cramped little room down the hall from Grans, but he didn’t say anything, he just pulled the covers up, rolled right over so he could look out the window next to the bed. Looking out the window at the moon, thinking about flying that kite I would bet.
We all should have known that kite was going to be trouble from the first, I remember when Gran was getting us all ready for the funeral, Little Bobby wanted to take his kite in the worst way. Everyone said “no just leave it home for now” but he put up quite a holler, just like Big Bobby would have, so Mamma finally gave in and let him take it. On the way to the cemetery, we got to ride in this big black limousine. It rained that day, not really a hard rain, just sort of sprinkled all day. The rural Ohio hard scrap countryside was wet and green with a foggy mist. Everyone had big umbrellas. It seemed as if the whole world was crying that day. We got to sit in wooden folding chairs under a big tent; and right there in the middle of the big tent surrounded by all the wooden chairs, was a great big hole in the ground. There were flowers all over the place.
Mamma and Gran were wearing hats with all this black stuff like fishing net covering her face; they called it a veil. Suzy was dressed in her best dress, it was dark blue with white buttons down the front, I told her she looked kind of like a sailor and she punched me in the arm. Suzy‘s long black hair was pulled back in pony tail, which was not the usual way she wore it, usually she let it down so it hung in her eyes. She wasn’t crying now, but you could tell she had been, her eyes were all red around the edges, you know like your lips get when you drink cherry Kool–aid. Mammas and Grans eyes looked like they had been drinking cherry kool-aid too.
Not Little Bobby and me, we were brave like Daddy would have wanted us too be. Little Bobby sat real still wearing his best Sunday suit; it had been mine before I outgrew it. His hair was all slicked over to one side so you could see all the freckles on his forehead. He didn’t look as though he even cried one tear; he just sat there holding on tight to his kite. When everyone had to stand up he looked so little standing there, that kite nearly as big as he was. I guess it was a good thing there wasn’t any wind that day; otherwise Little Bobby would have been launched into the air and blown to who knows where.
When the Reverend Thomas Kincaid, the tall skinny man with thinning hair and deep set eyes from the big brick Presbyterian Church downtown finally finished talking, offering good things to be remembered about Mr. Robert Brune, about Big Bobby a man that he never knew at all. The right Reverend had never even met him. Mamma either for that matter, we didn’t get to church much back then, except on Christmas Eve. It had always been pretty crowded on that night, so I wouldn’t blame a guy for not remembering us. When he was done with the eulogy, everybody came by and hugged Mamma and Gran, they patted Little Bobby and me on the head and smiled; funny how nobody said anything about that kite wasn’t like they couldn’t see it. It was pretty darn big and made out of newspaper. When he and Daddy made it, they used the funny pages. Daddy used to read us the funny papers every Sunday morning, he used all these funny voices; I think that was Little Bobby’s and my favorite day. Anyway, Daddy put varnish all over the kite, said it would make it last forever. That seems like a pretty exciting concept for a couple of young boys at the time.
When the funeral was over Little Miss Suzy ran off to the old section of the cemetery to be with some friends from school. They were all smoking cigarettes, Mama would have usually made a fuss when Suzy smoked cigarettes like that, but I guess because of all we had been through, she decided not too. Sometimes back then, I hated Suzy for making Mama so mad, but Gran said, “We gotta love everybody, especially family”. Gran said a lot of stuff like that back then. You see Gran, went to church every Sunday and a couple of days during the week too. She had a pretty Bible with her name in it and everything, she said “it’s real important to go to church”, she would hold on to that book like little Bobby held on to his kite, guess it’s about the same thing. Growing up I never could figure out how Mama missed all the stories about church; it’s pretty much all Gran talked about, except maybe her garden. She never stopped trying to get Little Bobby and me to go with her on Sunday; at the time I thought maybe Suzy should go too. But Gran said, “She wasn’t going to count on it”. Gran said she “wasn’t gonna give up on Suzy just yet”, she just figured “all she can do is pray for her right now, what with what we have all been thru and all.”
We got home after another ride in the big black limousine, I remember there were a lot of people at our house that day, and I had never seen so many people at our house or any house for that matter. Out of all the people there, I barely knew a soul; they were mostly friends of Gran’s from church “come to pay their respects for her son “Big Bobby”. It was real quiet as I remember, a lot of people brought cakes and things to eat. I didn’t get much of chance to eat though, I had to keep an eye on Little Bobby and first thing we got home he ran out into the field behind our house without even changing out of his good clothes and sat all alone on the muddy hill trying to figure out how to fly a kite with absolutely no wind at all.
It had stopped raining and the clouds just kind of hung off in the distance, like they were teasing Little Bobby, taunting him with a little breeze. I was just sitting on the bench in Grans garden watching Little Bobby when Gran came out and brought me a paper plate with some cake and cookies on it. She said how it looked like her garden was gonna give us lots of vegetables that fall, “we can always use more vegetables” she would always say. Gran was proud of her garden, it was the same garden she had during the Big War she had called it her “Victory garden”, any way it was long rows of all the vegetables that grew here in this little rural area in south west Ohio, the soil was good and she always said if you stay after it you’ll eat good all winter long. “What are you up to young man”, she said as she joined me on the bench. I told her I was keeping an eye on Little Bobby, like Mamma said I should, she ask “which eye you keepin on him left or right?” I guess she was trying to make me laugh, something none of us had done much since Daddy had died.
Every day after that, little Bobby barely put that kite down, not even to eat. Mamma said “he’ll get over it one day and maybe it’s okay for right now, I mean we all been thru so much” she would say, choking back the tears. Me, I didn’t care one way or another, my job was to keep an eye on Little Bobby, so that’s what I did.
I remember worrying about what we were going to do when school was going to start come fall, I didn’t know much, but I could bet Mrs. Wilkerson the school principle wasn’t gonna want Little Bobby to be carrying that kite all thru the third grade, and that is a fact. She was a real nice lady but like Suzy always said “she has some serious issues with rules and such”. Suzy knew a lot about Mrs. Wilkerson and the rules because she broke most of them in all the years she attended Mill Creek District School, even in kindergarten. It was Suzy’s last year in school, “finally, I can get out of this run down old place. Suzy’s got plans” she’d say. She acts a lot like Little Bobby sometimes about her plans, kind ‘a like she got her own little kite to fly, ya know. I wasn’t sure at the time what her plans were, she didn’t much like sharing them with us. I think that’s where she and Mamma got into the most trouble, because I didn’t think her plans much included staying here in Mill Creek and helping Mamma out and getting a job at the plant like everyone else. ”It’s a good job working at the factory, they make boots, and not just any old boots mind you, but the best darn boots anyone would ever want wear,” that’s what Daddy used say. Big Bobby and Mamma had been working there a long time, until Daddy died an all. Mamma never did go back to work. Not after Daddy died, but she kept saying “she was gonna start up again after we all got back to school” she never did.
The plant was down by the river, been there a long time, people say they were making boots there since before the civil war. I wasn’t so sure back then how long ago that was, so I just had to take everyone’s word on it; they had been making boots there a long time. Suzy wasn’t lazy though, she helped out at a diner down on main street some of the time, she would say she “ain’t never gonna work in no damn shoe factory, I got me some plans ya see”, and I believe she meant every word of it.
I thought once school was out little Miss Suzy was gonna march herself right down to the bus station and buy herself a one way ticket somewhere, as far away as her saved up money would buy her. I kind of hoped she would, it would have right off the bat gotten quieter around the house and Momma wouldn’t have her to yell at all the time. I didn’t think it would have mattered to Little Bobby one way or another, because he had his kite and all. He hardly paid any attention to anything except his kite. Sometimes I wished back then I had a kite to fly, but I did have my job keeping an eye on Little Bobby that was something anyway. So I guess it was gonna be a long summer keeping an eye on Little Bobby Brune, the chip off the old man who up an died for no good reason, good thing I had two good eyes, something told me I needed to keep one eye on little Miss Suzy too. Gran’s took as good care of Mama as she would let her and church was taking care of Gran. So everyone had somebody keeping an eye on ‘em. Everybody but me, I guess I just had to look after myself.
So began the long hot summer of the kite. I realize now I must have done a lot of growing up that summer. Every morning we would get up and eat a good breakfast, Gran always says “breakfast was the most important meal of the day”. “What you boys got planned for today?” she would ask with a wink of her blue eyes. I would just sit there looking at Little Bobby, holding on tight to his kite, figuring that would be pretty much it for me that day, following Little Bobby around flying his kite. With a little bit of luck he wouldn’t want go too far off, most times he would just stick to the fields behind the house, or down by the railroad tracks. Out back of our house was a big field, that’s where Little Bobby went to fly his kite the most. Sometimes he walked down to the old railway station, there weren’t any trains any more, they stopped coming through years ago.
The old guy that lived in the ancient shack near the station said “them God damn people at the railroad went and built a new tracks went clear around our sweet little town, said it was because we didn’t have enough traffic in the station”. Most folks just used the new interstate road. Lots of Suzy’s friends used to hang out at the old Train Station on weekends drinking beer and “raisin Hell”, that’s what Ole’ Mr. Ernie would always say. Mr. Ernie was a friend of Grans husband who had died in the War when Big Bobby was my age. He wasn’t one of Gran’s friends from church, but Gran said “she was gonna pray for him anyway”.