The Firebird

The kids at school called him “Lurch.” The worst part was, she saw it. He was a tall kid, all arms and legs, who walked on his toes with a forward lean, as though there was a forever wind against his sail. He was growing so fast. She couldn’t afford to keep buying clothes at the rate he was growing, so his sleeves and cuffs were going to have to ride up for awhile, but what was she to do? Her clothes were not nearly new either.

They weren’t beating him up yet, but that would probably come. He was one of those gentle kids who was so easy for the others to pick on. All he had going for him was that his height was somewhat imposing. What would she do if they did start beating him up? Again? A single mother in a strange town? God knows she would do or give anything to make the child happy, but he seldom was, following her lead. And he was still such a good boy despite all that! He did all that she asked, which was quite a bit, while asking for nothing in return. He wore the shirts with the too short sleeves, and the high-water pants without complaint. His grades were good. He helped around the house. There was only the one thing she had ever seen him want, and he never even asked her for that.

But she saw him looking at that one thing. She saw him at the store, reaching out a gentle hand to touch it. He had touched it lovingly, as a woman touches her baby. That was how she’d known. Seeing it had brought a tear to her eye. She vowed then and there that he would have it. She knew a way.

~

The man behind the counter at the second hand store would only give her $200 for her $2,000 engagement ring. Benjamin had given her that ring directly after her pregnancy, and directly before his accident. The ring was all she had left of him, but Benjamin wouldn’t mind it; back then he wouldn't have minded, and certainly not now.

She took the money for the ring from the clerk and immediately set it back on the countertop. There would be missed meals in his future, but she would give her boy this. The rest of the money she had gotten from Adam. She didn’t love Adam, and he did not love her, but there were times when Adam needed a woman, even a pear shaped woman like her, so she gave herself to him during those times. In return he helped her with bills, and such. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement that wasn’t so terrible. Adam hopped on her quickly and hopped off as fast, like a rabbit, as though he was afraid someone might see him on top of her. She had stopped dressing up for Adam, stopped trying to be pretty for him, but he did not seem to notice either way. It was not prostitution, she told herself. They were just friends helping each other, only they weren’t friends in any of the other ways that people were friends. Still, it was not prostitution. She was not a prostitute. She would marry Adam if he were to ask, but he wouldn’t ask.

It was a bright red Gibson Firebird. It's fret board was worn. The paint was scratched up pretty badly, and the neck had been repaired. There was a name scratched on the back that she couldn’t make out; the name of another boy with another dream, no doubt. She knew from her research that the Firebird was a really good guitar, even if it was old. The man behind the counter threw the amp and pickups in “cheap.” Even so, it had not been easy to take the money out of her purse, knowing what she'd had to do to get it.

~

But all of that was only memories these many years later. She had not been with Adam in ages, and no one called her boy “Lurch” anymore. He was rich now, that son of hers was. He wore only the most stylish clothes as he climbed from the backs of the limosines, or down the steps of the jet planes, and those stylish clothes always with a tailor-made fit. The way the quiet, defenseless boy had turned out was a miracle, is what it was!

And he still played the old Firebird that had cost her so much, the one whose sounds she knew so well. That old guitar never failed to break her down to prayer whenever it's soulful wail sang from out her radio.