The Weight of Feathers

“?Hablas espa?ol?” the quick one asked.

It wasn’t the first time Cluck had gotten mistaken for something he wasn’t. Women often asked him for directions in Spanish. His mother said it was his Manouche blood. His whole family had it, but in him it came through like a stain spreading. It made him darker than anyone in his family except his grandfather. It streaked red the feathers that grew in with his hair, made him le petit démon to his mother.

“You don’t speak none of them, chucho?” the smallest one asked.

Cluck tongued the blood on his lip.

The oldest one grabbed his shirt. “Talk, chucho.”

The cornflower came unpinned from Cluck’s vest, and the blue-violet bloom tumbled to the dirt. He still didn’t look up.

The oldest one shook him. “Talk.”

Cluck’s shirt collar came off in his hand, and he fell back to the ground.

The oldest one’s lip curled up. He’d probably never heard of a detachable collar. Cluck wouldn’t have either if his grandfather hadn’t worn them when he was his age. The buttonholes had grown soft over the last half a century. The collars came off more easily than they once did.

“Used to be very fashionable,” Cluck said. “The mark of a gentleman.”

The oldest one hit him in the temple. The force spun through his head. He felt his brain whipping up like one of his aunts’ meringues. Beat to stiff peaks. Just add sugar.

Something about Cluck always rubbed somebody the wrong way. If it wasn’t his clothes, it was his left hand. These three hadn’t noticed it yet. Too dark. The light from the liquor store barely reached them. The ring of red-orange stopped just short of the ground where Cluck braced his hands.

A shadow broke the neon. The shape of a girl, hands on her hips. She set her shoe down a few inches from the fallen cornflower.

Cluck looked up. The red-orange caught one side of her face and body. It lit up the hem of her skirt and one sleeve of her jean jacket. It brightened her lipstick to the color of pincushion plants, and streaked her hair. Black or brown, he couldn’t tell. She had on a thin scarf tied like a headband, the tails of the bow trailing on her shoulder.

She cleared her throat.

All three of them looked up. The bigger one dropped Cluck’s collar.

The girl tilted her head toward the road. The three of them backed away, like Cluck was something they’d been caught breaking.

“You gonna say anything?” the youngest one asked as he passed her.

“Still thinking about it,” she said.

She held out her hand to Cluck. He hesitated. She wasn’t as little as Eugenie or Georgette, but he was still more likely to pull her down than she was to get him on his feet.

The muscles in his left hand twitched. He kept it still. He never could talk his body into believing it was right-handed.

She grabbed him just above his elbow and pulled him to standing. The force of her surprised him, her small hands stronger than he expected. He stumbled, stopping himself from falling forward.

“You got an arm on you,” he said. “Well, two of them.”

“I do a lot of swimming.”

“Around here?” He brushed off his hands on the front of his pants. “I don’t recommend it. Not with the colanders.”

She stared at him, her lips a little parted.

He picked up his collar, dusted it off. “The roots of the trees growing in the river tangle together, form these big strainers.”

“I know what a colander is,” she said.

“Of course you do.” Anyone who lived around here did. He buttoned his collar back on his shirt. “Do you always have that effect on men?”

“I know their mother.”

He blew the dirt off the cornflower and pinned it back onto his vest. “Same sewing circle?”

“Something like that,” she said. “You could’ve fought back, you know.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You take out the biggest one first. Do you have any brothers?”