A Memory of Crows

I remember hearing crows.

It was a clear, crisp October afternoon along a recently blacktopped backwoods road in Maine. The smell of fresh gravel and tar was faint but still in the air. The sun was just beginning to go down and I was pedaling a little harder and a little faster to be sure I got home in time for supper. Traffic was scarce on the rural two lane road and I wasn't paying much attention to it. I wouldn't have noticed the small, two tone beige station wagon at all if it hadn't been rattling and belching smoke from the exhaust as it passed me. Some sort of old Volkswagon, I remember thinking and was trying to remember the theme from the Midas Muffler tv ads as it disappeared over the next hill. Then I was distracted by a scarecrow in a corn field - it reminded me of the Wizard of Oz - and I pulled over and stopped to get a better look. It was a near perfect late fall day and just past the scarecrow I could see a herd of dairy cows and a couple of shaggy draft horses peacefully grazing. On the far side of the right hand ditch, a chorus line of crows perched on the telephone wires, cawing raucously and righteously and flapping their wings as they lifted off then alighted again in a flurry of feathers. They jockeyed for position and status but never lost their symmetry. I thought of Edgar Allen Poe's raven and half expected one of them to call out to me, a salutation perhaps, or maybe a warning, who could tell.

 

I got back on my bike and coasted down the incline to gather as much speed as I could for the next hill and then pedaled fiercely. It wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be and the crest of the hill came easily. Before I knew it I was coasting downhill again and it was then I saw the old Volkswagon parked on the shoulder of the road. The driver's door was open and there was a man behind the wheel, a beer-bellied man in a checked shirt with pale skin and straggly red hair on his head and chest. His trousers were around his ankles and he was watching me. I wasn't old enough to exactly know what I was seeing but I knew I was alone and that it was wrong and probably dangerous. A sickness of fear crawled into my gut and I doubled down, pedaling for all I was worth and flying past the small car like the wind. I pedaled harder, ignoring the sharp stab of a stitch in my side and the acid taste in my mouth. I could hardly breathe for the pain in my chest but I kept going. Fear, I discovered, could motivate you beyond your limits. I was expecting to hear that ratchety old muffler behind me at any second and I turned down the first country lane I came to and rammed my bike and myself head over heels into the ditch. The startled crows on the telephone wires cawed in protest. I crouched down in the muddy water, camouflaged by weeds and the depth of the ditch, and waited for what seemed like forever but nothing followed or tracked me down. I heard no cars, no motors, and most importantly, no rattle trap mufflers. I waited some more, cold and wet, listening to the crows and very afraid.

Eventually I convinced myself that the danger was past and I crawled out of the ditch. I could see a long way in both directions and there was not a car in sight. I dragged my bike out of the weeds, wiped off the mud, and set for home, listening for every small sound and watching over my shoulder the entire way. It took a long time and I had to stop twice to throw up but I got home. I rinsed off the bike in the lake and managed to sneak past my mother and change my clothes before supper. If I'd been caught, I was going to say I'd been going too fast and run off the road and into a ditch. Skinned my knees and the palms of my hands, tore my jeans and tee shirt but no harm done.

I'd turned ten that past summer, not an age when I knew how to tell my daddy about a nasty, dead fish bellied, half naked , redheaded pervert on the side of the road. More, I had an unpleasant suspicion that if I told my mother, it would somehow end up being my own fault.

I'd had a bad scare, I reasoned, but nothing had actually happened, so I never told a soul and did my best to put it out of my mind. I stayed around the cabin more than usual from then on and told my daddy I was getting too old to be riding a bike everywhere. He didn't question me and the crows who had seen it all kept silent.