“Hot diggity dog!”
It was a brand-spanking-new Schwinn Autocycle Deluxe with a built-in electric light—a present for my birthday. I couldn’t stop grinning. I tested the brakes, traced the handlebars and frame with my fingers, and ran my hand across the seat.
“Gabriel Haberlin, stop pettin’ that bicycle like it’s a puppy dog,” Mama said with a smile. In one hand, she held the dirt-stained gardening gloves she wore when she tended the vegetables in what, even though World War II had been over for nearly a year, she still called her victory garden. The other hand reached up, brushed her long blond hair out of her face, and tucked it behind her ears. Daddy curled his tanned, freckled arm around her shoulder. They were like a real pretty photograph right then, my mama, Agatha, and my daddy, Jake, and I wished we had a roll of film for our camera so I could take a picture of them and some of my new bicycle, but we didn’t. Mama tended to be forgetful about things like that.
“Go on and take it for a ride, Gabriel,” Daddy encouraged me.
So I popped up the kickstand and climbed on—all the while admiring the bright blue and white color and the perfect chrome gleaming in the sun. “Can I go show Patrick? He won’t believe it ’less he sees it.” Patrick’s my best friend and lives across town.
“Sure, but you be careful, now,” Daddy warned as he gave the back of the bike a gentle push. Sunday was his only day off, and the newspaper, which I knew he couldn’t wait to get back to reading, was tucked under his arm.
“I will,” I promised, and off I pedaled, glancing back once at my parents’ happy faces.
“You be sure and be home way b’fore supper!” Mama hollered. “Pineapple upside-down cake you asked for is in the oven! And Cousin Polly and Them are comin’ from Charleston!”
Cousin Polly is Daddy’s first cousin, which I’ve been told makes her my first cousin once removed, and Them includes her husband, Teddy Waldrop, and their sixteen-year-old daughter, Tink, whose real name is Theodora but most people never call her that because if they do, Tink can be counted on to blow at least one fuse, sometimes more. Them also includes Teddy’s mama, Auntie Rita, who claims to possess heavenly insight, meaning she has a deep understanding of spiritual things, but Mama and especially Cousin Polly don’t always seem to believe her.
The fact that they were visiting today had me feeling extremely happy, because whenever Cousin Polly and Them barrel through our front door, the usually quiet house comes alive with joking and laughing, and Cousin Polly always turns the music up loud. And now I was doubly happy my cousin Tink was coming, because Tink and her two-toned green Kodak camera are like macaroni and cheese—almost always together. That she’d take more than a few pictures of me posed and smiling with my new bicycle was a sure thing, and that would make it a cinch for me to remember this day for the rest of my life.
“And tell Patrick he’s welcome for cake and ice cream!” Mama added.
“Yes ma’am, I will!” I shouted.
It was so hot, it almost felt like the sun was sitting right on top of me, but as I raced, the air cooled me off. Soon, I was flying downhill, soaring like a swallow-tailed kite bird, speeding so fast I didn’t even have to pedal. I glanced up, wondering if this was anything close to what my uncle Earl felt like when he was in his P-51 Mustang way up there in the sky. Now and then, I pictured myself becoming a pilot just like him.
Twelve is still kind of a baby age, I caught myself thinking as I rode along. Thirteen sure sounds two tons better. And then I almost laughed. Here I was just turning twelve and already wishing I’d crossed the finish line so I could start thirteen.
Auntie Rita has told everyone over and over since I was a little boy, “Gabriel’s got the eyes of an old soul.” And just that morning I’d studied my face in the mirror, searching for whatever it is Auntie Rita sees when she stares into my eyes. The way she says it, in that whispery voice of hers, makes it sound like being an old soul is a good thing. Right then, I wondered, If I am one, how exactly did that come to be, an old soul in a young body? But when the spooky Spanish moss that sways from the branches of the old oak trees that line some of Birdsong’s streets tickled my face, I laughed out loud and stopped thinking about all that.
Birdsong, South Carolina, is a mostly ordinary place. The closest real city is Charleston, and one trip there is all it takes to make you understand the difference between a real city and our town. Even so, we don’t drive the seventy-five miles to Charleston very often, because Birdsong, USA, has pretty much everything we need.
Main Street has a market, a post office, and a string of shops, including a five-and-dime. Plus, there’s Mr. Summerlin’s drugstore, which also has a soda fountain, and we even have a movie theater. Each end of town has a gas station—including one that has a garage for repairing automobiles plus a lot for selling cars that is owned and operated by my daddy, Jake Haberlin.
Mama called Birdsong a peaceful, pretty place, and most folks, including me, agreed with her.
But some things in the town of Birdsong, USA, were about to change.