Birds of Stone

Souvenirs: Consecutive Substack Story 1053

Photo by Alessandro La Becca on Unsplash

I saw the dead hawk. Didn’t see it circling – I might have but didn’t pay close attention because hawks circle here all the time.

I saw Bert Gaber sliding premade concrete blocks down a ramp from his truck by the side of Chisolm and Slatter County Road.

When he stopped sliding the blocks I thought he was gonna ask me for help.

But he didn’t.

He walked over to the dead hawk and propped it up against the pole that holds the sign for Wertheim Pasties, Venison Sausage and Souvenirs.

Bert pulled out a flip phone and took pictures of the dead hawk, wings spread.

Then he got back in the bed of his truck and started carrying ready mix concrete down the ramp.

When he got the last 50lb bag on the ground I said “Whatcha doin’ Bert?”

Bert turned to face me and his face got serious. A judge telling you you lost your license serious.

“‘Member when we voted that tandem trailers couldn’t use Slatter County Road?”

“Nope,” I said. Because I didn’t.

Bert sneered.

“Well, that amendment didn’t pass. This beautiful creature was diving down to get some dinner or lunch, whatever it might have been, and this tandem gravel hauler turns right, and clips the poor thing while it was going for a bunny or…or whatever.”

I’ve lived near Slatter County Road my whole life and I can tell you that any semi truck can and will hit a bird in flight.Doesn’t have to be a tandem. Doesn’t have to be shit special, it can be Walt Sester’s blue ‘66 F-150, because I seen that happen.

But I wasn’t gonna tell Bert Graber and his teeth grinding, serious face what I thought.

“So,” Bert said, looking deeper into my face like I killed the damn hawk, “I’m sculpting a monument to it, right here on the side of the road.”

I wouldn’t tell most people this, but sculpting kind of interested me ever since my Grandma took me to the Slatter County Library and there was a stone statue of a big chested woman in a robe, representing some kinda knowledge or grace or peace.

I was gonna ask Bert Graber if anybody could just build a monument on the side of a road, anywhere, but that was a question I was pretty sure I knew the answer to.

“You know how to sculpt, Bert?” I asked.

“Nope,” Bert said without hesitating. “But in honor of this bird, I’m gonna teach myself.”

“Good luck,” I said, and I meant it more than most things I say, and I kept walking into Luederville to see if I could get a job.

I wasn’t there when the Sheriff came by and told Bert he couldn’t build no monument to nothing on county property, much less next to the shoulder of the road where it would cause a safety issue, but Anna Wertheim happened to drive by, and she owns the property right there where the county-owned property ends.

She told Bert he could build his monument to the hawk on her land.

I gotta say, Bert took those premade cement blocks and made the base of that monument look nice, kinda sorta professional and…symmetrical I guess.

When I saw Bert start sculpting the hawk that was going on top, I decided I was gonna watch him and learn myself.

In 8 days watching over the course of about two weeks, I learned that Bert Graber can’t sculpt.

What he ended up with was some concrete and rebar that looked like someone stuck a quarter stick of dynamite in some concrete and rebar.

The sculpture is so ugly people talked about it.

And posted pictures of it.

Some of those pictures have the sign for Wertheim’s Pasties, Venison Sausage and Souvenirs in the background.

Wertheim’s actually got business from Bert Graber’s horseshit sculpture.

I was thinking–way too late–but I really was thinking that I could teach myself to sculpt and make Bert Graber’s thing better.

But now nobody wants a better sculpture. They want that thing that everyone makes fun of and talks bad about.

Especially the Wertheim family, because that sculpture creates traffic, and they really do make fantastic pasties, specially the turkey ones.

Anna Wertheim was fixing the flowers outside the pasty shop when she saw me walking.

She called me over and said “Didn’t I see you helping Bertram with his sculpture?”

I didn’t know what she was getting at, or what the right answer to her question was, so I answered honestly.

“I was there, Miss Wertheim, but I can’t really say I helped…um…in the truest sense of…um…helping.”

Anna Wertheim said she heard I was looking for work.

I work at Wertheim’s Pasties, Venison Sausage and Souvenirs now. I do a bunch of stuff, but my favorite is cutting out the little outlines of the State of Michigan on a jigsaw in the pole barn, slapping a stencil on them and painting kids names on it.

The Marys and the Pauls and the Patricias were just sitting there. Grandparent tourists want Liams and Neveahs and Harpers.

I get free turkey pasties on my lunch break.

All because Bert Graber can’t sculpt.

All because a hawk got hit by a truck.

I wanna thank Bert but I can’t, because he moved down to Florida.

Work this week was extra busy, grinding venison for the banquet to honor Luederville High, who just went down to Detroit and beat Carson in the state Class D football championships.

When I get done for the day I walk out into the parking lot, burping turkey, kinda grateful that I know none of the turkeys the Wertheims use got hit by a gravel hauler.

I cut down Slatter County Road, and on the side of the Wertheim’s property, somebody, gotta be some kids from Luederville High, draped a spray-painted sheet over the sculpture.

Bert Graber couldn’t sculpt, but I’d say it was 50/50 that he could smile. 

He’d be smiling, I think.

In big, forest green letters the sheet over the sculpture says “Go Hawks.”

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