999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [47]
He didn’t mind being called Dampy. Sticks and stones, as they say. But then there was the Terrible Accident (that really was no accident at all), but why talk about that. There is no need to dwell on the dark side of things, and anyhow that was a fine example of a silver lining, since if it hadn’t been for the Terrible Accident, Dampy would probably never have come to be adopted by the Fairfields on a permanent basis. And the Fairfields’ house despite the arguments was a better place to live than Grand Junction Day Care. Quite lonely, of course, until Hooter had come to live there too, but Dampy had always tended to keep to himself. The new Mrs. Fairfield was the same way. She preferred her solitude and the TV over a lot of friends.
But special friends are different, of course, and from the very start Hooter was to be Dampy’s special friend. He had come to live with Dampy and the Fairfields when Mr. Fairfield had abducted him from his home at the Grand Junction Reformed Church. There he’d been, sitting in his box, listening to the speaker at the Tuesday night AA meeting, but not listening all that closely, and then Mr. Fairfield grabbed hold of him. Mr. Fairfield was there because he’d been arrested for Driving While Intoxicated, and the judge had said he had to go to AA meetings twice a week. So there he was at the Dutch Reformed Church in the folding chair just beside Hooter’s box.
Mr. Fairfield had nervous hands. If he wasn’t fiddling with his cigar, he would be cleaning his fingernails with his Swiss Army pocketknife or tearing a piece of paper into the smallest possible shreds. That night, after he’d turned the two-page list of local AA meetings into confetti he began to play with Hooter, not in a rough way exactly, but certainly with no consideration for Hooter’s feelings. After the people at the meeting had shared their experience, strength, and hope (except for those, like Mr. Fairfield, who had nothing that needed sharing) everyone joined hands and said the Our Father.
That was when Mr. Fairfield had picked up the young owl and whispered into his black felt ear, “Hooter, I am going to adopt you.” “Adopt” was what he said, but “abduct” was how it registered on Hooter, who left the church basement concealed beneath Mr. Fairfield’s Carhardt jacket with a feeling that his Higher Power had betrayed him. After all the time he’d lived in the church basement he’d come to assume that he belonged there, that no one was ever going to take him away, even if he spent every Saturday in the box that said FREE. At first that had been a heartbreaking experience, but the AA meetings had been a consolation in coping with the loneliness and isolation. But Hooter had put his trust in his Higher Power and turned over his will, and he’d learned to accept his life as a church owl. And now here he’d been abducted.
Mr. Fairfield pulled open the door of his pickup, and Hooter was astonished to find that someone had been waiting out here in the freezing pickup all through the meeting. Sitting in the dark, wrapped in a blanket, and looking very miffed at having had to spend all this time in the cold.
“Hooter,” said Mr. Fairfield. “I want you to meet Dampy. Dampy, this is Hooter. He’s going to be your new buddy. So say hello.”
Dampy did not respond at once, but at last he breathed out a long, aggrieved sigh. “Hello,” he said, and moved sideways to make room for Hooter under the blanket. When they were touching, Dampy whispered into Hooter’s ear, “Don’t say anything in front of him.” With a meaningful look in the direction of Mr. Fairfield, who had taken out a brown paper bag from the glove compartment of the pickup.
Hooter knew from his first whiff of the opened bottle that Mr. Fairfield was another secret drinker, like Reverend Drury, the pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church. Hooter had often been the companion of