Gift Giving in The Odyssey - 1007 Words

Gift Giving in The Odyssey Everyone loves to receive gifts. For some it makes them feel special or important. In the Odyssey gift giving can be seen as sign of respect. Xenia, an important aspect to Homeric society, can be described as the guest-host relationship. It was of importance in Homeric society because it was something that could make or break the relationship you have with someone. Throughout the Odyssey xenia influences those who Odysseus comes into contact with impacting the plot of the story. Focusing on the theme of gifts and gift giving throughout the Odyssey I will support Odysseus assertion that gift giving was connected to respect with three specific examples. The guest host relationship is discovered in a number of†¦show more content†¦Where have your rovings forced you?† (Book VII). The pattern that we see with the previous example and this one is the host giving their guest everything they need to be comfortable. They provide them with food, shelter, a bath, clothing, and things for safe travels as they continue on their journey. The two examples given above provide us with support that gift giving and gifts were connected to respect. However, throughout the Odyssey we also witness the operation of a degenerate society going against what was important to Homeric society. Polyphemus didn’t worship the gods and lived in caves. They didn’t live like how Odyssey or those from Homeric societies were accustoming to. They went against the guest-host relationship because they simply didn’t care. Polyphemus doesn’t provide Odysseus and his men with food instead he ate all of it. Yes, like the previous examples he asks that who they are but he didn’t offer them something to eat. This deviating from what is expected in Homeric society. Odysseus states â€Å" Your filthy crimes came down on your own head, you shameless cannibal, daring to eat your guest in your own house.† (Book IX) Odysseus expected a gift and some sort of hospitality from Polyphemus. He gives Polyphemus the o pportunity to provide them with gifts, transportation, anything. Odysseus reaction to his treatment from Polyphemus shows us how important and valued the guest-host relationship was. Polyphemus was not the only one to challengeShow MoreRelatedEssay about Gift-Giving in Beowulf and the Odyssey1707 Words   |  7 PagesGift-Giving in Beowulf and the Odyssey Literature has always been an immensely helpful resource when discerning cultural values in societies past and present. Through the study of noteworthy historic fictional and factual, texts we are able to distinguish parallel characteristics present through many different cultures and time periods. These distinguishing characteristics are one of the main things that help us to determine when and how a society, or world culture as a whole changes as timeRead MoreOdysseuss Appearance in The Odyssey and the Iliad1416 Words   |  6 Pagesconfidence in his words. Agamemnon sends Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax as an embassy to convince Achilles to come back to fight. Odysseus makes a toast to Achilles that outlines all of the gifts Agamemnon has promised to Achilles, but glosses over some of the finer details. Agamemnon has offered many material gifts to help bribe Achilles intro returning, but he has one immaterial request. Agamemnon wants Achilles to return, but only if he promises to submit to his rule. Odysseus knew that AchillesRead MoreWhy Is Xenia Such an Important Theme in the Odyssey?1211 Words   |  5 PagesWhy is Xenia such an important theme in the Odyssey? Explain your views and support them with details from the poem. (45 marks) The concept of guest hospitality was extremely important in ancient Greece. Evidence that Xenia was integral to Greek society can be found in the fact that Zeus, the king of the Gods, was also portrayed as the God of Xenia. Xenia created an obligation for the host to be hospitable to their guests, and conversely, the guests had their own responsibilities too. If eitherRead MoreAnalysis Of Xenia And The Odyssey 889 Words   |  4 PagesHomer: Hospitality in the Illiad and the Odyssey The concept of Xenia was extremely significant in ancient Greek culture. As such, it played a prominent role in the works of authors, most specifically Homer. In fact, some of the most significant information we have about the concept of Xenia, as it relates to cultural norms come from the work of Homer, and the examples of hospitality demonstrated in the protagonist’s journeys in the Iliad and the Odyssey. More specifically, Xenia is presented byRead MoreThe Odyssey, By Homer Essay1679 Words   |  7 PagesThe Odyssey, a text written by Homer, originates from Ionia (a part of Asia Minor). This epic poem relates the journeys of both Odysseus and Telemachus. During their journeys, they encounter a wide variety of hosts. Telemachus provides Mentes a great meal and is later also given a feast from King Nestor. In addition, King Nestor also gifted Telemachus two horses and a chariot; Athena gave Telemachus the gift of wise advice, for which he used to go on his journey. And as t heir paths crossed in a meetingRead MoreThe Odyssey1243 Words   |  5 PagesThe Odyssey In Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, each culture treats strangers and guests with distinct differences from every other culture. One of the most hospitable cultures was that of the ancient Greeks, exemplified in Homer s The Odyssey by both gracious hosts and guests. In Greece and The Odyssey, not only was good hospitality etiquette expected, but the added pressure that if they didn’t treat their guests with respect the gods would punish them further compelled excellent manners. The OdysseyRead MoreEssay Homers Hospitality1386 Words   |  6 Pagesthat arose during1600 BC. It was during this time that Ancient Greece began to take form, in both cultural and religious aspects. Historians often refer to this period as Mycenaean, but due to the culture and values embodied in Homer’s poem, The Odyssey, it is also known as the Homeric Age. In Homer’s world, society consisted of city-states controlled by well-respected Kings. The Homeric Age also focused on the impo rtance of religion where all regions participated in sacrificial tributes to the GodsRead MoreRough Draft Of The Odyssey By Homers The Odyssey716 Words   |  3 Pagesâ€Å"The Odyssey† Rough Draft In â€Å"The Odyssey† by Homer, Odysseus is on a journey home to Ithaca after helping the Greeks win the Trojan War. The â€Å"Hero’s Journey† by Joseph Campbell represents the difficult journey a hero must go on to defeat the â€Å"final battle,† meaning that he must overcome a really difficult challenge to complete his journey and restore the world. In â€Å"The Odyssey† by Homer, Odysseus experiences significant events on his journey home to Ithaca which includes Entering the Unknown;Read MoreThe Odyssey by Homer1275 Words   |  5 Pages The Odyssey is one of the two epic Greek poems attributed to Homer. The Odyssey is the sequel of The Iliad and mainly focuses on Odysseus’s return from the battle of Troy to his home, Ithaca. Odysseus’s travels take him beyond the realm of the known world and he encounters many mythological beings, which he has never met before. Every encounter with these creatures in The Odysse y is full of adventures, twists and most important of all, life lessons. If we assume Odysseus’s longRead MoreHospitality in Greek Culture through Homer Essay example686 Words   |  3 PagesHospitality is one of the most important and heroic facets of Greek culture that needs to be covered when examining the story line of the Odyssey. There are many settings within the Odyssey that contain both positive and negative connotations of hospitality, and it is important to explore both sides and see how they relate to each other. The most common situation or scene from the ancient Greek literature often appears to be the scenes in which the characters are in foreign lands, lost, or just

A Dirty Job Chapter 14 Free Essays

string(112) " dragged him into his bedroom, even as he protested, swore, and smacked it in the head with a brass table lamp\." 14 BARKING MAD Charlie opened the door and Lily breezed by. â€Å"Jane said you have two huge black dogs up here. I need to see. We will write a custom essay sample on A Dirty Job Chapter 14 or any similar topic only for you Order Now † â€Å"Lily, wait,† Charlie called, but she was across the living room and into Sophie’s room before he could stop her. There was a low growl and she came backing out. â€Å"Oh my fucking God, dude,† she said around a huge grin. â€Å"They are so cool. Where did you get them?† â€Å"I didn’t get them anywhere. They were just here.† Charlie joined Lily just outside the door to Sophie’s room. She turned and grabbed his arm. â€Å"Are they, like, instruments of your death dealing or something?† â€Å"Lily, I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t talk about that.† And they had. In fact, Lily had been great about it. Since she’d first found out about him being a Death Merchant, she’d hardly brought it up at all. She’d also gone on to graduate from high school without getting a major criminal record and enroll in the Culinary Institute, the upside of which was that she actually wore her white chef ‘s coat, checked pants, and rubber clogs to work, which tended to soften her makeup and hair, which remained severe, dark, and a little scary. Sophie giggled and rolled over against one of the hounds. They had been licking her and she was covered with hellish dog spit. Her hair was plastered into a dozen unlikely spikes, making her appear a little like a wide-eyed Anim character. Sophie saw Lily in the doorway and waved. â€Å"Goggie, ‘Ily. Goggie,† she said. â€Å"Hi, Sophie. Yes, those are nice doggies,† Lily said, then to Charlie: â€Å"What are you going to do?† â€Å"I don’t know what to do. They won’t let me near her.† â€Å"That’s good, then. They’re here to protect her.† Charlie nodded. â€Å"I think they are. Something happened last night. You know how the Great Big Book talks about the others? I think one of them came after her last night, and these guys showed up.† â€Å"I’m impressed. I’d think you’d be more freaked out.† Charlie didn’t want to tell her that he was worn out from freaking out the day before about his little girl killing an old man with the word kitty. Lily already knew too much, and it was obvious now that whatever lay below was dangerous. â€Å"I guess I should be, but they aren’t here to hurt her. I need to go check the library in Berkeley, see if there’s anything about them there. I need to get Sophie away from them.† Lily laughed. â€Å"Yeah, that’s going to happen. Look, I have work and school today, but I’ll go do your research for you tomorrow. In the meantime you can try to make friends with them.† â€Å"I don’t want to make friends with them.† Lily looked at the hounds, one of whom Sophie was pounding on with her little fists as she laughed gleefully, then looked back at Charlie. â€Å"Yes, you do.† â€Å"Yeah, I guess I do,† Charlie said. â€Å"Have you ever seen a dog that size before?† â€Å"There are no dogs that size.† â€Å"What do you call those, then?† â€Å"Those aren’t dogs, Asher, those are hellhounds.† â€Å"How do you know that?† â€Å"I know that because before I started learning about herbs and reductions and stuff, I spent my free time reading about the dark side, and those guys come up from time to time.† â€Å"If we know that, then what are you going to do research on?† â€Å"I’m going to try to find out what sent them.† She patted his shoulder. â€Å"I have to go open the shop. You go make nice with the goggies.† â€Å"What do I feed them?† â€Å"Purina Hellhound Chow.† â€Å"They make that?† â€Å"What do you think?† â€Å"‘Kay,† Charlie said. It took a couple of hours, but after Sophie started smelling like diaper surprise, one of the giant dogs nosed her toward Charlie as if to say, Clean her up and bring her back. Charlie could feel them watching him as he changed his daughter, grateful that disposable diapers didn’t require pins. If he’d accidentally poked Sophie with a pin, he was sure one of the hellhounds would have bitten his head off. They watched him carefully as he moved her to the breakfast bar, and sat on either side of her high chair as he gave her breakfast. As an experiment, he made an extra piece of toast and tossed it to one of the hounds. It snapped it out of the air and licked its chops once, eyes now locked on Charlie and the loaf of bread. So Charlie toasted four more slices and the hounds alternately snapped each out of the air so swiftly that Charlie wasn’t sure he didn’t see some sort of vapor from the pressure of their jaws clamping down. â€Å"So, you’re hellish beasts from another dimension, and you like toast. Okay.† Then, as Charlie started to toast four more slices, he stopped, feeling stupid. â€Å"You don’t really care if it’s toasted, do you?† He flipped a slice of bread to the closest of the dogs, who snapped it out of the air. â€Å"Okay, that will speed things up.† Charlie fed them the remainder of the loaf of bread. He spread a few slices with a thick coat of peanut butter, which did nothing whatsoever, then a half dozen more he spread with lemon dishwasher gel, which appeared to have no ill effect except that it made them burp neat, aquamarine-colored bubbles. â€Å"Go walk, Daddy,† Sophie said. â€Å"No walk today, sweetie. I think we’ll just stay right here in the apartment and try to figure out our new pals.† Charlie got Sophie out of her chair, wiped the jelly off her face and out of her hair, then sat down with her on the couch to read to her from the Chronicle’s classified ads, which was where he plied a large part of his business, other than the Death stuff. But no sooner had he settled into a rhythm than one of the hellhounds came over, took his arm in its mouth, and dragged him into his bedroom, even as he protested, swore, and smacked it in the head with a brass table lamp. You read "A Dirty Job Chapter 14" in category "Essay examples" The big dog let him go, then stood staring at Charlie’s date book like it had been sprayed with beef gravy. â€Å"What?† Charlie said, but then he saw. Somehow, in all the excitement, he hadn’t noticed a new name in the book. â€Å"Look, the number is thirty. I have a whole month to find this one. Leave me alone.† Charlie also noticed in passing that engraved on the hellhound’s great silver collar was the name ALVIN. â€Å"Alvin? That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.† Charlie went back to the couch, and the dog dragged him back into the bedroom, this time by the foot. As they went through the door Charlie reached for his sword-cane. When Alvin dropped him Charlie leapt to his feet and drew the blade. The big dog rolled over on his back and whimpered. His companion appeared at the door, panting. (Mohammed was the hound’s name, according to the plate on the collar.) Charlie considered his options. He had always felt the sword-cane a pretty formidable weapon, had even been willing to take on the sewer harpies with it, but it occurred to him that these animals had obviously wiped the floor with one of those other creatures of darkness and had no problem sitting down and eating a loaf of soapy toast a couple of hours later. In short, he was out of his league. They wanted him to go retrieve the soul vessel, he would retrieve the soul vessel. But he wasn’t leaving his darling daughter alone with them. â€Å"Alvin is still a stupid name,â⠂¬  he said, sheathing the sword. When Mrs. Korjev arrived, Charlie had put Sophie down for her nap, and a dark pile of hellhounds was napping by her crib – snoring great clouds of lemony-fresh dog breath into the air. It was probably part of Charlie’s rising rascal nature, but he let Mrs. Korjev enter Sophie’s room with only the warning that the little girl had a couple of new pets. He suppressed a snicker as the great Cossack grandmother backed out of the room swearing in Russian. â€Å"Is giant dogs in there.† â€Å"Yes, there are.† â€Å"But not like normal giant dog. They are like extra-giant, black animal, they are – â€Å" â€Å"Like bear?† Charlie suggested. â€Å"No, I wasn’t going to say ‘bear,’ Mr. Smart-Alec. Not like bear. Like volf, only bigger, stronger – â€Å" â€Å"Like bear?† Charlie ventured. â€Å"You make your mother ashamed when you are mean, Charlie Asher.† â€Å"Not like bear?† Charlie asked. â€Å"Is not important now. I am just surprised. Vladlena is old woman with weak heart, but you go have good laugh and I will sit with Sophie and huge dogs.† â€Å"Thank you, Mrs. Korjev, their names are Alvin and Mohammed. It’s on their collars.† â€Å"You have food for them?† â€Å"There are some steaks in the freezer. Just give each one of them a couple and stand back.† â€Å"How they like steaks done?† â€Å"I think frozen will be fine, they eat like – â€Å" Mrs. Korjev raised a finger in warning; it lined it up with a large mole on the side of her nose and looked as if she was sighting down a weapon. † – like horses. They eat like horses,† Charlie said. Mrs. Ling did not take her introduction to Alvin and Mohammed with quite the composure of her Russian neighbor. â€Å"Aiiiiieeeeeeeeee! Giant shiksas shitting,† exclaimed Mrs. Ling as she ran down the hall after Charlie. â€Å"Come back! Shiksas shitting!† Indeed, Charlie returned to the apartment to find great steaming baguettes of poo strewn about the living room. Alvin and Mohammed were flanking the door to Sophie’s room like massive Chinese foo dogs at the temple gates, looking not so fierce as shamefaced and contrite. â€Å"Bad dogs,† Charlie said. â€Å"Scaring Mrs. Ling. Bad dogs.† He considered for a moment trying to rub their noses in their offense, but short of bringing in a backhoe and chaining them to it, he wasn’t sure that he could make that happen. â€Å"I mean it, you guys,† he added, in an especially stern voice. â€Å"I’m sorry, Mrs. Ling,† Charlie said to the diminutive matron. â€Å"These are Alvin and Mohammed. I should have been more specific when I said I’d gotten new pets for Sophie.† Actually, he had been vague on purpose, hoping for some sort of hysterical reaction. Not that he really wanted to frighten the old lady, it’s just that Beta Males are seldom ever in a position to frighten anyone physically, so when they get the opportunity, they sometimes lose their sense of judgment. â€Å"Is okay,† said Mrs. Ling, staring at the hellhounds. She seemed distracted, mainly because she was. Having recovered from the initial shock, she was doing the math in her head – a rapid-fire abacus clicking off the weight and volume of each pony-sized canine, and dividing him into chops, steaks, ribs, and packages of stew meat. â€Å"You’ll be all right, then?† Charlie asked. â€Å"You not be late, okay?† said Mrs. Ling. â€Å"I want to go to Sears and look at chest freezer today. You have power saw I can borrow.† â€Å"Power saw? Well, no, but I’m sure Ray has one he can lend you. I’ll be back in a couple of hours,† Charlie said. â€Å"But let me clean this up first.† He headed to the basement in hopes of finding the coal shovel that his father had once kept there. As they parted ways that day, both Charlie and Mrs. Ling were counting on Sophie’s history of high pet mortality to quickly solve their respective poop and soup problems. Such, however, was not to be the case. When several weeks passed with no ill effects on the hellhounds, Charlie accepted the possibility that these might, indeed, be the only pets that could survive Sophie’s attention. He was tempted, many times, to call Minty Fresh and ask his advice, but since his last call might have caused the hellhounds to appear in the first place, he resisted the urge. Lily’s research trips yielded little more: â€Å"They talk about them all through time,† Lily said, calling from the Berkeley library on her cell phone. â€Å"Mostly it’s about how they like to chase blues singers, and evidently there’s a German robot soccer team called the Hellhounds, but I don’t think that’s relevant. The thing that comes up again and again, in a dozen cultures, is that they guard the passage between the living and the dead.† â€Å"Well, that makes sense,† Charlie said. â€Å"I guess. It doesn’t say where that passage is, does it? What BART station?† â€Å"No, Asher, it doesn’t. But I found this book by a nun who had been excommunicated in the 1890s, isn’t that cool? This library is amazing. They have like nine million books.† â€Å"Yes, that’s great, Lily, what did the ex-nun say?† â€Å"She had found all the references for hellhounds, and the thing they all seemed to agree on was they serve directly the ruler of the Underworld.† â€Å"She was Catholic and she called it the Underworld?† â€Å"Well, they threw her out of the Church for writing this book, but yeah, that’s what she said.† â€Å"She didn’t have a number we could call in case they got lost.† â€Å"I’m over here on my day off, Asher, trying to do you a favor. Are you going to keep being a smart-ass about it?† â€Å"No, I’m sorry, Lily. Go on.† â€Å"That’s it. It’s not like there’s a care-and-feeding guide. Mostly, the research implies that having hellhounds around is a bad thing.† â€Å"What’s the title of this book, The Complete Guide to the Fucking Obvious?† â€Å"You’re paying me for this, you know? Time and travel.† â€Å"Sorry. Yes. So I should try to get rid of them.† â€Å"They eat people, Asher. Who’s riding the duh train now?† So, with that, Charlie decided that he needed to take an active role in ridding himself of the monstrous canines. Since the only thing about the hellhounds that he could be sure of was that they would go anywhere he took Sophie, he brought them along on their trip to the San Francisco Zoo, and left them locked in the van with the engine running and a shop-vac hose run from the exhaust pipe through the vent window. After what he considered to be an extraordinarily successful tour of the zoo, in which not a single animal shuffled off the mortal coil under the delighted eye of his daughter, Charlie returned to the van to find two very stoned, but otherwise unharmed hellhounds who were burping a burnt plastic vapor after having eaten his seat covers. Various experiments revealed that Alvin and Mohammed were not only immune to most poisons, but they rather liked the taste of bug spray and consequently licked all the paint off the baseboards in Charlie’s apartment in the week following the exterminator’s quarterly service. As time wore on, Charlie tried to measure the danger of having the giant canines around against the damage that would be done to Sophie’s psyche from witnessing their demise, as she was obviously becoming attached to them, so he backed off the more direct attacks on them and stopped throwing Snausages in front of the number 90 crosstown express bus. (This decision was also made easy when the city of San Francisco threatened to sue Charlie if his dogs wrecked another bus.) Direct attacks, in fact, were difficult for Charlie (as the only true Beta Male martial art was based entirely on the kindness of strangers), so he turned on the hellhounds the awesome power of the Beta Male kung fu of passive aggression. He started conservatively, taking them for a ride over to the East Bay in the van, luring them onto the Oakland mudflats with a rack of beef ribs, then driving away quickly, only to find them waiting in the apartment when he returned, having covered the entire living room with a patina of drying mud. He then tried an even more indirect approach: crating up the hounds and air-freighting them to Korea in the hope they would find themselves in an entre, only to find that they actually made it back to the shop before he had time to sweep the dog hair out of his apartment. He thought that perhaps he might use their own natural instincts to chase them away, after he read on the Internet that the essence of cougar urine was sometimes sprinkled on shrubs and flowers to keep dogs from urinating on them. After a fairly exhaustive search through the phone book, he finally found the number of an outdoorsman’s supply store in South San Francisco that was a certified mountain-lion whizz dealer. â€Å"Sure, we carry cougar urine,† the guy said. He sounded like he was wearing a buckskin jacket and had a big beard, but Charlie might have just been projecting. â€Å"And that’s supposed to keep dogs away?† Charlie asked. â€Å"Works like a charm. Dogs, deer, and rabbits. How much do you need?† â€Å"I don’t know, maybe ten gallons.† There was a pause, and Charlie was sure he could hear the guy picking flecks of elk meat out of his beard. â€Å"We sell it in one-, two-, and five-ounce bottles.† â€Å"Well, that’s not going to do it,† Charlie said. â€Å"Can’t you get me like a large economy size – preferably from a cougar that’s been fed nothing but dog for a couple of months? I assume that this is domesticated cougar pee, right? I mean you don’t go out in the wild and collect it yourself.† â€Å"No, sir, I believe they get it from zoos.† â€Å"The wild stuff is probably better, huh?† Charlie asked. â€Å"If you can get it, I mean? I don’t mean you personally. I wasn’t implying that you were out in the wild following a mountain lion around with a measuring cup. I meant a professional – hello?† The bearded buckskin-sounding guy had hung up. So Charlie sent Ray over to South San Francisco in the van to buy up all the cougar whizz they had, but in the end it achieved nothing other than making the whole second floor of Charlie’s building smell like a cat box. When it appeared that even the most passive-aggressive attempts would not work, Charlie resorted to the ultimate Beta Male attack, which was to tolerate Alvin and Mohammed’s presence, but to resent the hell out of them and drop snide remarks whenever he had the chance. Feeding the hellhounds was like shoveling coal into two ravenous steam engines – Charlie started having fifty pounds of dog food delivered every two days to keep up with them, which they, in turn, converted to massive torpedoes of poo that they dropped in the streets and alleys around Asher’s Secondhand like they were staging their own doggie blitzkrieg on the neighborhood. The upside of their presence was that Charlie went for months on end without hearing a peep from the storm drains or seeing an ominous raven shadow on a wall when he was retrieving a soul vessel. And to that end, the death dealing, the hounds served their purpose as well, for whenever a new name appeared in his date book, the hounds would drag Charlie to the calendar every morning until he returned with the soul object, so he went two years without missing or being late for a retrieval. The big dogs, of course, accompanied Charlie and Sophie on their walks, which had resumed once Charlie was sure that Sophie had her â€Å"special† language skill under control. The hounds, while certainly the largest dogs that anyone had ever seen, were not so large as to be unbelievable, and everywhere they went, Charlie was asked what breed they were. Tired of trying to explain, he would simply say, â€Å"They’re hellhounds,† and when asked where he got them, he would reply, â⠂¬Å"They just showed up in my daughter’s room one night and wouldn’t go away,† after which people not only thought him a liar, but an ass as well. So he modified his response to â€Å"They’re Irish hellhounds,† which for some reason, people accepted immediately (except for one Irish football fan in a North Beach restaurant who said, â€Å"I’m Irish and those things aren’t bloody Irish.† To which Charlie replied, â€Å"Black Irish.† The football fan nodded as if he knew that all along and added to the waitress, â€Å"Can I get another fookin’ pint o’ here before I dry up and blow away, lass?†) In a way, Charlie started to enjoy the notoriety of being the guy with the cute little girl and the two giant dogs. When you have to maintain a secret identity, you can’t help but relish a little public attention. And Charlie did, until the day he and Sophie were stopped on a side street on Russian Hill by a bearded man in a long cotton caftan and a woven hat. Sophie was old enough by then to do a lot of her own walking, although Charlie kept a piggyback kid sling with him so he could carry her when she got tired (but more often he would just balance her while she rode on the back of Alvin or Mohammed). The bearded man passed a little too closely to Sophie and Mohammed growled and imposed himself between the man and the child. â€Å"Mohammed, get back here,† Charlie said. It turned out the hellhounds could be trained, especially if you only told them to do things they were going to do anyway. (â€Å"Eat, Alvin. Good boy. Poop now. Excellent.†) â€Å"Why do you call this dog Mohammed?† asked the bearded man. â€Å"Because that’s his name.† â€Å"You should not have called this dog Mohammed.† â€Å"I didn’t call the dog Mohammed,† Charlie said. â€Å"His name was Mohammed when I got him. It was on his collar.† â€Å"It is blasphemy to call a dog Mohammed.† â€Å"I tried calling him something else, but he doesn’t listen. Watch. Steve, bite this man’s leg? See, nothing. Spot, bite off this man’s leg. Nothing. I might as well be speaking Farsi. You see where I’m going with this?† â€Å"Well, I have named my dog Jesus. How do you feel about that?† â€Å"Well, then I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’d lost your dog.† â€Å"I have not lost my dog.† â€Å"Really? I saw these flyers all over town with ‘Have You Found Jesus?’ on them. It must be another dog named Jesus. Was there a reward? A reward helps, you know.† Charlie noted that more and more lately, he had a hard time resisting the urge to fuck with people, especially when they insisted upon behaving like idiots. â€Å"I do not have a dog named Jesus and that doesn’t bother you because you are a godless infidel.† â€Å"No, really, you can not name your dog anything you want and it won’t bother me. But, yes, I am a godless infidel. At least that’s how I voted in the last election.† Charlie grinned at him. â€Å"Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!† said the bearded man in response to Charlie’s irresistible charm. He danced around shaking his fist in the Death Merchant’s face, which scared Sophie so that she covered her eyes and started to cry. â€Å"Stop that, you’re scaring my daughter.† â€Å"Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!† Mohammed and Alvin quickly got bored watching the dance and sat down to wait for someone to tell them to eat the guy in the nightshirt. â€Å"I mean it,† Charlie said. â€Å"You need to stop.† He looked around, feeling embarrassed, but there was no one else on the street. â€Å"Death to the infidel. Death to the infidel,† chanted the beard. â€Å"Have you seen the size of these dogs, Mohammed?† â€Å"Death to – hey, how did you know my name was Mohammed? Doesn’t matter. Never mind. Death to the infidel. Death to the – â€Å" â€Å"Wow, you certainly are brave,† Charlie said, â€Å"but she’s a little girl and you’re scaring her and you really need to stop that now.† â€Å"Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!† â€Å"Kitty!† Sophie said, uncovering her eyes and pointing at the man. â€Å"Oh, honey,† Charlie said. â€Å"I thought we weren’t going to do that.† Charlie slung Sophie up on his shoulders and walked on, leading the hellhounds away from the bearded dead man who lay in a peaceful heap on the sidewalk. He had stuffed the man’s little woven hat in his pocket. It was glowing a dull red. Strangely, the bearded man’s name wouldn’t appear in Charlie’s date book until the next day. â€Å"See, a sense of humor is important,† Charlie said, making a goofy face over his shoulder at his daughter. â€Å"Silly Daddy,† Sophie said. Later, Charlie felt bad about his daughter using the â€Å"kitty† word as a weapon, and he felt that a decent father would try to give some sort of meaning to the experience – teach some sort of lesson, so he sat Sophie down with a pair of stuffed bears, some tiny cups of invisible tea, a plate of imaginary cookies, and two giant hounds from hell, and had his first, heart-to-heart, father-daughter talk. â€Å"Honey, you understand why Daddy told you not to ever do that again, right? Why people can’t know that you can do that?† â€Å"We’re different than other people?† Sophie said. â€Å"That’s right, honey, because we’re different than other people,† he said to the smartest, prettiest little girl in the world. â€Å"And you know why that is, right?† â€Å"Because we’re Chinese and the White Devils can’t be trusted?† â€Å"No, not because we’re Chinese.† â€Å"Because we are Russian, and in our hearts are much sorrow?† â€Å"No, there is not much sorrow in our hearts.† â€Å"Because we are strong, like bear?† â€Å"Yes, sweetie, that’s it. We’re different because we’re strong, like bear.† â€Å"I knew it. More tea, Daddy?† â€Å"Yes, I’d love some more tea, Sophie.† So,† said the Emperor, â€Å"I see you have experienced the multifarious ways in which a man’s life is enriched by the company of a good brace of hounds.† Charlie was sitting on the back step of the shop, pulling whole frozen chickens from a crate and tossing them to Alvin and Mohammed one at a time. Each chicken was snapped out of the air with so much force that the Emperor, and Bummer and Lazarus, who were crouched across the alley suspiciously eyeing the hellhounds, flinched as if a pistol was being fired nearby. â€Å"Multifarious enrichment,† Charlie said, tossing another chicken. â€Å"That is exactly how I’d describe it.† â€Å"There is no better, nor more loyal, friend than a good hound,† said the Emperor. Charlie paused, having pulled not a chicken from the box, but a portable electric mixer. â€Å"A friend indeed,† he said, â€Å"a friend indeed.† Mohammed snapped down the mixer without even chewing – two feet of cord hung from the side of his mouth. â€Å"That doesn’t hurt him?† said the Emperor. â€Å"Roughage,† Charlie explained, throwing a frozen chicken chaser to Mohammed, who gulped it down with the rest of the mixer cord. â€Å"They’re not really my dogs. They belong to Sophie.† â€Å"A child needs a pet,† said the Emperor. â€Å"A companion to grow up with – although these fellows seem to have done most of their growing.† Charlie nodded, tossing the alternator from an eighty-three Buick into Alvin’s eager jaws. There was a clanking and the dog belched, but his tail thumped against the Dumpster asking for more. â€Å"Well, they have been her constant companions,† Charlie said. â€Å"At least now we have them trained so they’ll just guard whatever building she’s in. For a while they wouldn’t leave her side. Bath time was a challenge.† The Emperor said, â€Å"I believe it was the poet Billy Collins who wrote, ‘No one here likes a wet dog.'† â€Å"Yes, and he probably never had to get a squirming toddler and two four-hundred-pound dogs out of a bubble bath, either.† â€Å"But they’ve mellowed, you say?† â€Å"They had to. Sophie started school. The teacher frowned on giant dogs in class.† Charlie flipped an answering machine to Alvin, who crunched it up like a dog biscuit, shards of dog-spit-covered plastic raining down from his jaws. â€Å"So what did you do?† â€Å"It took us a few days, and a lot of explaining, but I trained them to just sit outside the front door of the school.† â€Å"And the faculty relented?† â€Å"Well, I spray-paint them with that granite-texture spray paint every morning, then tell them to sit absolutely still on either side of the door. No one seems to notice them.† â€Å"And they obey? All day?† â€Å"Well, it’s just a half day right now, she’s only in kindergarten. And you have to promise them a cookie.† â€Å"There’s always a price to be paid.† The Emperor pulled a frozen chicken out of the box. â€Å"May I?† â€Å"Please.† Charlie waved him on. The Emperor tossed the chicken to Mohammed, who chomped it down in a single bite. â€Å"My, that is satisfying,† said the Emperor. â€Å"That’s nothing,† Charlie said. â€Å"If you feed them mini – propane cylinders they burp fire.† How to cite A Dirty Job Chapter 14, Essay examples

The Scarlet Ibis free essay sample

Third Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 2003. It was in the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree. 1 The flower garden was strained with rotting brown magnolia petals and ironweeds grew rank2 amid the purple phlox. The five oclocks by the chimney still marked time, but the oriole nest in the elm was untenanted and rocked back and forth like an empty cradle. The last graveyard flowers were blooming, and their smell drifted across the cotton field and through every room of our house, speaking softy the names of our dead. Its strange that all this is still so clear to me, now that summer has long since fled and time has had its way. A grindstone stands where the bleeding tree stood, just outside the kitchen door, and now if an oriole sings in the elm, its song seems to die up in the leaves, a silvery dust. The flower garden is prim, the house a gleaming white, and the pale fence across the yard stands straight and spruce. But sometimes (like right now), as I sit in the cool, green-draped parlor, the grindstone begins to turn, and time with all its changes is ground away-and I remember Doodle. Doodle was just about the craziest brother a boy every had. Of course, he wasnt crazy crazy like old Miss Leedie, who was in love with President Wilson and wrote him a letter every day, but was a nice crazy, like someone you meet in your dreams. He was born when I was six and was, from the outset, a disappointment. He seemed all head, with a tiny body which was red and shriveled like an old mans. Everybody thought he was going to die-everybody except Aunt Nicey, who had delivered him. She said he would live because he was born in a caul,3 and cauls were made from Jesus nightgown. Daddy had Mr. Heath, the carpenter, build a little mahogany coffin for him. But he didnt die, and when he was three months old, Mama and Daddy decided they might as well name him. They named him William Armstrong, which is like tying a big tail on a small kite. Such a name sounds good only on a tombstone. I thought myself pretty smart at many things, like holding my breath, running, jumping, or climbing the vines in Old Woman Swamp, and I wanted more han anything else someone to race to Horsehead Landing, someone to box with, and someone to perch with in the top fork of the great pine behind the barn, where across the fields and swamps you could see the sea. I wanted a brother. But Mama, crying, told me that even if William Armstrong lived, he would never do these things with me. He might not, she so bbed, even be all there. He might, as long as he lived, lie on the rubber sheet in the center of the bed in the front bedroom where the white marquisette4 curtains billowed out in the afternoon sea breeze, rustling like palmetto fronds. It was bad enough having an invalid6 brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable, so I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow. However, one afternoon as I watched him, my head poked between the iron posts of the foot of the bed, he looked straight at me and grinned. I skipped through the rooms, down the echoing halls, shouting, Mama, he smiled. Hes all there! Hes all there! and he was. hen he was two, if you laid him on his stomach, he began to move himself, straining terribly. The doctor said that with his weak heart this strain would probably kill him, but it didnt. Trembling, hed push himself up, turning first red, then a soft purple, and finally collapse back onto the bed like an old worn-out doll. I can still see Mama watching him, her hand pressed tight across her mouth, her eyes wide and unblinking. But he learned to crawl (it was his third winter), and we brought him out of the front bedroom, putting him on the rug before the fireplace. For the first time he became one of us. As long as he lay all the time in bed, we called him William Armstrong, even though it was formal and sounded as if we were referring to one of our ancestors, but with his creeping around on the deerskin rug and beginning to talk, something had to be done about his name. It was I who renamed him. When he crawled, he crawled backwards, as if he were in reverse and couldnt 1 bleeding tree: reference to a certain tree prevalent in the South; the name derives from the fact that the tree emits a milky substance whenever a branch is broken from it. 2 rank: thick and wild. Rank also means â€Å"smelly† or â€Å"overripe. † 3   caul: a membrane sometimes surrounding the head of a child at birth. 4 5 marquisette: thin, netlike fabric. paalmetto fronds: fanlike leaves of a palm tree. 6   invalid: ill, disabled, or weak and sickly. change gears. If you called him, hed turn around as if he were going in the other direction, then hed back right up to you to be picked up. Crawling backward made him look like a doodlebug,7 so I began to call him Doodle, and in time even Mama and Daddy thought it was a better name than William Armstrong. Only Aunt Nicey disagreed. She said caul babies should be treated with special respect since they might turn out to be saints. Renaming my brother was perhaps the kindest thing I ever did for him, because nobody expects much from someone called Doodle. Although Doodle learned to crawl, he showed no signs of walking, but he wasnt idle. He talked so much that we all quit listening to what he said. It was about this time that Daddy built him a go-cart and I had to pull him around. At first I just paraded him up and down the piazza,8 but then he started crying to be taken out into the yard, and it ended up by my having to lug him wherever I went. If I so much as picked up my cap, hed start crying to go with me and Mama would call from where she was, Take Doodle with you. He was a burden in many ways. The doctor had said that he mustnt get too excited, too hot, too cold, or too tired and that he must always be treated gently. A long list of donts went with him, all of which I ignored once we got out of the house. To discourage his coming with me, Id run with him across the ends of the cotton rows and careen him around corners on two wheels. Sometimes I accidentally turned him over, but he never told Mama. His skin was very sensitive, and he had to wear a big straw hat whenever he went out. When the going got rough and he had to cling to the sides of the go-cart, the hat slipped all the way down over his ears. He was a sight. Finally, I could see I was licked. Doodle was my brother and he was going to cling to me forever, no matter what I did, so I dragged him across the burning cotton field to share with him the only beauty I knew, Old Woman Swamp. I pulled the go-cart through the saw-tooth fern, down into the green dimness where the palmetto fronds whispered by the stream. I lifted him out and set him down in the soft rubber grass beside a tall pine. His eyes were round with wonder as he gazed about him, and his little hands began to stroke the rubber grass. Then he began to cry. â€Å"For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter? † I asked, annoyed. â€Å"It’s so pretty,† he said. â€Å"So pretty, pretty, pretty. † After that day Doodle and I often went down into Old Woman Swamp. I would gather wildflowers, wild violets, honeysuckle, yellow jasmine, snakeflowers, and waterlilies, and with wire grass we’d weave them into necklaces and crowns. We’d bedeck ourselves with our handiwork and loll about thus beautified, beyond the touch of the everyday world. Then when the slanted rays of the sun burned orange in the tops of the pines, we’d drop our jewels into the stream and watch them float away toward the sea. There is within me (and with sadness I have watched it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction, and at times I was mean to Doodle. One day I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him how we all had believed he would die. It was covered with a film of Paris green9 sprinkled to kill the rats, and screech owls had built a nest inside it. Doodle studied the mahogany box for a long time, then said, â€Å"It’s not mine. † â€Å"It is,† I said. â€Å"And before I’ll help you down from the loft, you’re going to have to touch it. † â€Å"I won’t touch it,† he said sullenly. â€Å"Then I’ll leave you here by yourself,† I threatened, and made as if I were going down. Doodle was frightened of being left. â€Å"Don’t leave me, Brother,† he cried, and leaned toward the coffin. His hand, trembling, reached out, and when he touched the casket, he screamed. A screech owl flapped out of the box into our faces, scaring us and covering us with Paris green. Doodle was paralyzed, so I put him on my shoulder and carried him down the ladder, and even when we were outside in the bright sunshine, he clung to me, crying, Dont leave me. Dont leave me. hen Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldnt walk, so I set out to teach him. We were down in Old Woman Swamp and it was spring and the sick- sweet smell of bay flowers hung everywhere like a mournful song. Im going to teach you to walk, Doodle, I said. He was sitting comfortably on the soft grass, leaning back against the pine. Why? he asked. I hadnt expected such an answer. So I wont have to haul you around all the time. I cant walk, Brother, he said. Who says so? I demanded. W 7 8 doodlebug: larva of a type of insect; also, a shuttle train that goes back and forth between stations. piazza: large covered porch. 9 Paris green: poisonous green powde r used to kill insects. Mama, the doctor-everybody. † Oh, you can walk, I said, and I took him by the arms and stood him up. He collapsed onto the grass like a half-empty flour sack. It was as if he had no bones in his little legs. Dont hurt me, Brother, he warned. Shut up. Im not going to hurt you. Im going to teach you to walk. I heaved him up again, and again he collapsed. This time he did not lift his face up out of the rubber grass. I just cant do it. Lets make honeysuckle wreaths. Oh yes you can, Doodle, I said. All you got to do is try. Now come on, and I hauled him up once more. It seemed so hopeless from the beginning that its a miracle I didnt give up. But all of us must have something or someone to be proud of, and Doodle had become mine. I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death. Every day that summer we went to the pine beside the stream of Old Woman Swamp, and I put him on his feet at least a hundred times each afternoon. Occasionally I too became discouraged because it didnt seem as if he was trying, and I would say, Doodle, dont you want to learn to walk? Hed nod his head, and Id say, Well, if you dont keep trying, youll never learn. Then Id paint for him a picture of us as old men, white-haired, him with a long white beard and me still pulling him around in the go-cart. This never failed to make him try again. Finally one day, after many weeks of practicing, he stood alone for a few seconds. When he fell, I grabbed him in my arms and hugged him, our laughter pealing through the swamp like a ringing bell. Now we knew it could be done. Hope no longer hid in the dark palmetto thicket but perched like a cardinal in the lacy toothbrush tree, brilliantly visible. Yes, yes, I cried, and he cried it too, and the grass beneath us was soft and the smell of the swamp was sweet. With success so imminent,10 we decided not to tell anyone until he could actually walk. Each day, barring rain, we sneaked into Old Woman Swamp, and by cotton-picking time Doodle was ready to show what he could do. He still wasnt able to walk far, but we could wait no longer. Keeping a nice secret is very hard to do, like holding your breath. We chose to reveal all on October eighth, Doodles sixth birthday, and for weeks ahead we mooned around the house, promising everybody a most spectacular surprise. Aunt Nicey said that, after so much talk, if we produced anything less tremendous than the Resurrection,11 she was going to be disappointed. At breakfast on our chosen day, when Mama, Daddy, and Aunt Nicey were in the dining room, I brought Doodle to the door in the gocart just as usual and had them turn their backs, making them cross their hearts and hope to die if they peeked. I helped Doodle up, and when he was standing alone I let them look. There wasnt a sound as Doodle walked slowly across the room and sat down at his place at the table. Then Mama began to cry and ran over to him, hugging him and kissing him. Daddy hugged him too, so I went to Aunt Nicey, who was thanks praying in the doorway, and began to waltz her around. We danced together quite well until she came down on my big toe with her brogans,12 hurting me so badly I thought I was crippled for life. Doodle told them it was I who had taught him to walk, so everyone wanted to hug me, and I began to cry. What are you crying for? asked Daddy, but I couldnt answer. They did not know that I did it for myself, that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother. Within a few months Doodle had learned to walk well and his go-cart was put up in the barn loft (its still there) beside his little mahogany coffin. Now, when we roamed off together, resting often, we never turned back until our destination had been reached, and to help pass the time, we took up lying. From the beginning Doodle was a terrible liar and he got me in the habit. Had anyone stopped to listen to us, we would have been sent off to Dix Hill. My lies were scary, involved, and usually pointless, but Doodles were twice as crazy. People in his stories all had wings and flew wherever they wanted to go. His favorite lie was about a boy named Peter who had a pet peacock with a ten-foot tail. Peter wore a golden robe that glittered so brightly that when he walked through the sunflowers they turned away from the sun to face him. When Peter was ready to go to sleep, the peacock spread his magnificent tail, enfolding the boy gently like a closing go-to-sleep flower, burying him in the glorious iridescent,13 rustling vortex. 14 Yes, I must admit it. Doodle could beat me lying. Doodle and I spent lots of time thinking about our future. We decided that when we were grown wed live in Old Woman Swamp and pick dog-tongue 1 12 10 imminent: about to take place. Resurrection: allusion to the account of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ recorded in The Bible. brogans: heavy ankle-high shoes. 13 iridescent: rainbowlike; displaying a shifting range of colors. 14 vortex: something resembling a whirlpool. for a living. Beside the stream, he planned, wed build us a house of whispering leaves and the swa mp birds would be our chickens. All day long (when we werent gathering dog’s-tongue15 wed swing through the cypresses on the rope vines, and if it rained wed huddle beneath an umbrella tree and play stickfrog. Mama and Daddy could come and live with us if they wanted to. He even came up with the idea that he could marry Mama and I could marry Daddy. Of course, I was old enough to know this wouldnt work out, but the picture he painted was so beautiful and serene that all I could do was whisper Yes, yes. nce I had succeeded in teaching Doodle to walk, I began to believe in my own infallibility,16 and I prepared a terrific development program for him, unknown to Mama and Daddy, of course. I would teach him to run, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight. He, too, now believed in my infallibility, so we set the deadline for these accomplishments less that a year away, when, it had been decided, Doodle could start to school. That winter we didnt make much progress, for I was in school and Doodle suffered from one bad cold after another. But when spring came, rich and warm, we raised our sights again. Success lay at the end of summer like a pot of gold, and our campaign got off to a good start. On hot days, Doodle and I went down to Horsehead Landing, and I gave him swimming lessons or showed him how to row a boat. Sometimes we descended into the cool greenness of Old Woman Swamp and climbed the rope vines or boxed scientifically beneath the pine where he had learned to walk. Promise hung about us like the leaves, and wherever we looked, ferns unfurled and birds broke into song. That summer, the summer of 1918, was blighted. 17 In May and June there was no rain and the crops withered, curled up, then died under the thirsty sun. One morning in July a hurricane came out of the east, tipping over the oaks in the yard and splitting the limbs of the elm trees. That afternoon it roared back out of the west, blew the fallen oaks around, snapping their roots and tearing them out of the earth like a hawk at the entrails18 of a chicken. Cotton bolls were wrenched from the stalks and lay like green walnuts in the valleys between the rows, while the cornfield leaned over uniformly so that the tassels touched the ground. Doodle and I followed Daddy out into the cotton field, where he stood, O 15 16 shoulders sagging, surveying the ruin. When his chin sank down onto his chest, we were frightened, and Doodle slipped his hand into mine. Suddenly Daddy straightened his shoulders, raised a giant knuckle fist, and with a voice that seemed to rumble out of the earth itself began cursing the weather and the Republican Party. 19 Doodle and I prodding each other and giggling, went back to the house, knowing that everything would be all right. And during that summer, strange names were heard through the house: Chateau-Thierry, Amiens, Soissons, and in her blessing at the supper table, Mama once said, And bless the Pearsons, whose boy Joe was lost at Belleau Wood. 20 So we came to that clove of seasons. School was only a few weeks away, and Doodle was far behind schedule. He could barely clear the ground when climbing up the rope vines, and his swimming was certainly not passable. We decided to double our efforts, to make that list drive and reach our pot of gold. I made him swim until he turned blue and row until he couldnt lift an oar. Wherever we went, I purposely walked fast, and although he kept up, his face turned red and his eyes became glazed. Once, he could go no further, so he collapsed on the ground and began to cry. Aw, come on, Doodle, I urged. You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody else when you start school? Does it make any difference? It certainly does, I said. Now, come on, and I helped him up. As we slipped through dog days, Doodle began to look feverish, and Mama felt his forehead, asking him if he felt ill. At night he didnt sleep well, and sometimes he had nightmares, crying out until I touched him and said, Wake up, Doodle. Wake up. † It was Saturday noon, just a few days before school was to start. I should have already admitted defeat, but my pride wouldnt let me. The excitement of our program had now been gone for weeks, but still we kept on with a tired doggedness. 21 It was too late to turn back, for we had both wandered too far into a net of expectations and left no crumbs behind. Daddy, Mama, Doodle, and I were seated at the dining-room table having lunch. It was a hot day, with all the windows and doors open in case a breeze should come. In the kitchen Aunt Nicey was humming softly. After a long silence, Daddy spoke. Its so calm, I wouldnt be surprised if we had a dog’s-tongue: wild vanilla. nfallibility: the state or condition of being incapable of error. 17 blighted: suffering from conditions that destroy or prevent growth. 18 entrails: inner organs; guts. 19 20 Republican party: At this time most Southern farmers were loyal Democrats. Chateau-Thierry, Amiens, Soissons, †¦Belleau Wood: World War I battle sites in France. 21 doggedness: stubbornness; persistence. storm this afternoon. I havent heard a rain frog, said Mama, who believed in signs, as she served the bread around the table. I did, declared Doodle. Down in the swamp- He didnt, I said contrarily. You did, eh? said Daddy, ignoring my denial. I certainly did, Doodle reiterated,22 scowling at me over the top of his iced-tea glass, and we were quiet again. Suddenly, from out in the yard, came a strange croaking noise. Doodle stopped eating, with a piece of bread poised ready for his mouth, his eyes popped round like two blue buttons. Whats that? he whispered. I jumped up, knocking over my chair, and had reached the door when Mama called, Pick up the chair, sit down again, and say excuse me. By the time I had done this Doodle had excused himself and had slipped out into the yard. He was looking up into the bleeding tree. Its a great big red bird! he called. The bird croaked loudly again, and Mama and Daddy came out into the yard. We shaded our eyes with our hands against the hazy glare of the sun and peered up through the still leaves. On the topmost branch a bird the size of a chicken, with scarlet feathers and long legs, was perched precariously. 23 Its wings hung down loosely, and as we watched, a feather dropped away and floated slowly down through the green leaves. Its not even frightened of us, Mama said. It looks tired, Daddy added. Or maybe sick. Doodles hands were clasped at his throat, and I had never seen him stand still so long. What is it? he asked. Daddy shook his head. I dont know, maybe its-â€Å" At that moment the bird began to flutter, but the wings were uncoordinated, and amid much flapping and a spray of flying feathers, it tumbled down, bumping through the limbs of the bleeding tree and landing at our feet with a thud. Its long, grac eful neck jerked twice into an S, then straightened out, and the bird was still. A white veil came over the eyes and the long white beak unhinged. Its legs were crossed and its clawlike feet were delicately curved at rest. Even death did not mar its grace, for it lay on the earth like a broken vase of red flowers, and we stood around it, awed by its exotic24 beauty. Its dead, Mama said. What is it? Doodle repeated. Go bring me the bird book, said Daddy. I ran into the house and brought back the bird book. As we watched, Daddy thumbed through its pages. Its a scarlet ibis, he said, pointing to the picture. It lives in the tropics-South America to Florida. A storm must have brought it here. Sadly, we all looked back at the bird. A scarlet ibis! How many miles it had traveled to die like this, in our yard, beneath the bleeding tree. Lets finish lunch, Mama said, nudging us back toward the dining room. Im not hungry, said Doodle, and he knelt down beside the ibis. Weve got peach cobbler for dessert, Mama tempted from the doorway. Doodle remained kneeling. Im going to bury him. Dont you dare touch him, Mama warned. Theres no telling what disease he might have had. All right, said Doodle. I wont. Daddy, Mama, and I went back to the dining-room table, but we watched Doodle through the open door. He took out a piece of string from his pocket and, without touching the ibis, looped one end around its neck. Slowly, while singing softly Shall We Gather at the River, he carried the bird around to the front yard and dug a hole in the flower garden, next to the petunia bed. Now we were watching him through the front window, but he didnt know it. His awkwardness at digging the hole with a shovel whose handle was twice as long as he was made us laugh, and we covered our mouths with our hands so he wouldnt hear. When Doodle came into the dining room, he found us seriously eating our cobbler. He was pale, and lingered just inside the screen door. Did you get the scarlet ibis buried? asked Daddy. Doodle didnt speak but nodded his head. Go wash your hands, and then you can have some peach cobbler, said Mama. Im not hungry, he said. Dead birds is bad luck, said Aunt Nicey, poking her head from the kitchen door. Specially red dead birds! As soon as I had finished eating, Doodle and I hurried off to Horsehead Landing. Time was short, and Doodle still had a long way to go if he was going 22 23 reiterated: repeated. precariously: unsteadily; insecurely. 4 exotic: foreign; strangely beautiful, enticing. to keep up with the other boys when he started school. The sun, gilded with the yellow cast of autumn, still burned fiercely, but the dark green woods through which we passed were shady and cool. When we reached the landing, Doodle said he was too tired to swim, so we got into a skiff and floated down the creek with the tide. Far off in the marsh a rail was scolding, and over on the beach locusts were singing in the myrtle trees. Doodle did not speak and kept his head turned away, letting one hand trail limply in the water. After we had drifted a long way, I put the oars in place and made Doodle row back against the tide. Black clouds began to gather in the southwest, and he kept watching them, trying to pull the oars a little faster. When we reached Horsehead Landing, lightning was playing across half the sky and thunder roared out, hiding even the sound of the sea. The sun disappeared and darkness descended, almost like night. Flocks of marsh crows flew by, heading inland to their roosting trees; and two egrets, squawking, arose from the oyster-rock shallows and careened away. Doodle was both tired and frightened, and when he stepped from the skiff he collapsed onto the mud, sending an armada25 of fiddler crabs rustling off into the marsh grass. I helped him up, and as he wiped the mud off his trousers, he smiled at me ashamedly. He had failed and we both knew it, so we started back home, racing the storm. We never spoke (What are the words that can solder26 cracked pride? ), but I knew he was watching me, watching for a sign of mercy. The lightning was near now, and from fear he walked so close behind me he kept stepping on my heels. The faster I walked, the faster he walked, so I began to run. The rain was coming, roaring through the pines, and then, like a bursting Roman candle, a gum tree ahead of us was shattered by a bolt of lightning. When the deafening peal of thunder had died, and in the moment before the rain arrived, I heard Doodle, who had fallen behind, cry out, Brother, Brother, dont leave me! Dont leave me! The knowledge that Doodles and my plans had come to naught was bitter, and that streak of cruelty within me awakened. I ran as fast as I could, leaving him far behind with a wall of rain dividing us. The drops stung my face like nettles, and the wind flared the wet glistening leaves of the bordering trees. Soon I could hear his voice no more. I hadn’t run too far before I became tired, and the flood of childish spite evanesced27 as well. I stopped and waited for Doodle. The sound of rain was everywhere, but the wind had died and it fell straight down in parallel paths like ropes hanging from the sky. As I waited, I peered through the downpour, but no one came. Finally I went back and found him huddled beneath a red nightshade bush beside the road. He was sitting on the ground, his face buried in his arms, which were resting on his drawn-up knees. Lets go, Doodle, I said. He didnt answer, so I placed my hand on his forehead and lifted his head. Limply, he fell backwards onto the earth. He had been bleeding from the mouth, and his neck and the front of his shirt were stained a brilliant red. Doodle! Doodle! I cried, shaking him, but there was no answer but the ropy rain. He lay very awkwardly, with his head thrown far back, making his vermilion28 neck appear unusually long and slim. His little legs, bent sharply at the knees, had never before seemed so fragile, so thin. I began to weep, and the tear-blurred vision in red before me looked very familiar. Doodle! I screamed above the pounding storm and threw my body to the earth above his. For a long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy29 of rain. 25 28 29 armada: group. Armada is generally used to mean â€Å"fleet, or group, of warships. † 26 solder: patch or repair Solder is a mixture of metals melted and used to repair metal parts. 27 e vanesced: faded away; disappeared. vermilion: bright red. heresy: here, mockery. Heresy generally means â€Å"denial of what is commonly believed to be true† or â€Å"rejection of a church’s teaching. †