Historical Novel, Excerpt

The rain still sliding down and down here, the house quiet. I work on the historical novel in this stillness, an excerpt from which I post here today. It is 1876, August, Philadelphia. William, Ma, and Francis are just barely getting by, but Francis, who will be murdered by a policeman later, has a gift for the remarkable. In this scene he has caught a bobolink by the Schuylkill River and brought it back home in a magenta hatbox, an act of theater and, also, generosity.

The sun still at his back, the blue-steamed sky as his frame, Francis stood in the doorway and slid the lid of the box back just wide enough for the three to see, until Ma, catching her breath, said, “And such a derring-do he is.” There was a penny toss game getting under way across the street—the toughs, already distracted. There was a milk cart trotting by, a tabby in the gutter swatting fleas, and the sun had been high all day, heat was the mood, heat was August in Philadelphia, and the kitchen stunk of bleach. William had been upstairs reading Moby Dick. He still felt out to sea.

“He’s a good bird,” Francis said, and now, like an illusionist with a practiced trick, he closed the door behind him and freed the box of its lid—such a strange box, William thought, so like Francis to be out there toting a livid, bigheaded color. Into his free hand, Francis scooped the bobolink and let the bird stretch its one wing and settle, let the bird flaunt the bright coal-blackness of its feathers, the drifts of snow white across his small, proud back, the straw-colored cap on his head. The bird cranked its head right, and blinked.

“Come on, bird,” Francis encouraged. “You show Ma what you’re made of now.” William could see the pulsing heart in the bird’s elastic chest, the cinders of fear in his glassine eyes, and Francis—understanding, sympathetic, a genius with living things, living being Francis’s genius—began to whistle until the bird gave up its song, which wasn’t shrill and wasn’t haunting, just a daylight summer song.

“He’s a soprano,” Ma said, after awhile.