The Hawk

The Hawk

By Rob Fowler

“Holy Fuck.” I whispered

I rubbed my eyes from the accumulated sleep before I blinked repetitiously, trying to accommodate to the darkness of the room, a fruitless effort given the hour of the day.

Could it really be this easy?

I sat up from my prone position on the bed, studied my wife who was covered in pillows and sawing logs next to me.

I slithered off the bed, grabbed my robe and draped it over my naked body. I adjusted the belt as tight as I could over my round belly that protruded out far enough that I could only see the tips of my toes when I stood straight up.

I hustled up the spiral staircase to my office in the loft and flipped on the computer.

What was I even dreaming about?

“I need some water.” I thought.

One of the side effects from my new prescription was dry mouth, which hadn’t been an issue up until now, but of course it had to hit right as I was on the verge of solving a financial problem that had been haunting me for months.

I raced down the stairs to fetch a glass of water as my old computer booted up. It was a narrow staircase which had become narrower each year as my metabolism waned and my medications increased. My gut wasn’t the only result. I had tits and love handles for the first time in my life. The jolting of my body against the stairs loosened my belt which quickly flopped down to the floor. Unaware, I stepped on the belt, which slid over the linoleum tiles and sent me flying until I was on my back on the bottom of the stairs.

“Ouch!”

Fucking gravity

“Are you ok?” My wife belted from the bedroom.

“I’m fine.”

“You scared the hell out of me.” She said.

I envisioned her throwing on her robe to try to console her injured husband.

“Just go back to bed.” I said before I limped down the hall and into the kitchen to quench my thirst.

I chugged down a glass of water and filled it up again.

Where is that thing?

I detoured downstairs to go find the thing. I hadn’t seen it in years, not ever after we did a full house cleaning once the kids finally moved out a couple of years ago. Not only did we purge all of the kid’s crap that we had been hanging onto for years, but we also bought storage racks and vastly improved our organization of the remaining crap with clear store-bought plastic bins and preprinted labels. The Hawk should be easy to find.

The basement used to be a busy part of the house. Two of the kid’s rooms were down here, the television with a robust entertainment center, at least at the time, and the sauna. The kids loved the sauna when they were younger, especially in the winter when they would alternate between making angels in the snow outside and giggling at the pins in needles pricking their skin as they surrounded the stove in the sauna. In fact, I bet it had been at least a decade since I had even cracked open the door to the sauna. The bedrooms and television weren’t any more productive. The only reasons we came down to the basement now were to do laundry and empty out the dehumidifier which, according to the thick musty smell, hadn’t been done in weeks. I shook my head at the silent machine in the corner.

Always at the most inconvenient time.

I lifted the bucket out of the dehumidifier with both hands. The cheap plastic handle broke fifteen years ago, on the second emptying, just a few feet from the tub. Water was everywhere. I slipped and cracked my head against the floor on my way down. Concussion was the diagnosis. I thought about this each time I emptied it ever since, firmly grasping both sides before all the water was safely down the drain. I set the empty bucket down and searched the one rack in the laundry room for The Hawk.

“Christmas tree. Ornaments. Easter baskets.” I whispered.

Not here.

I scooted to my oldest son’s room which we transformed into a guest and storage room to investigate the rest of the racking. One was full of boxes that each had our child’s name on it; mementos that my wife insisted on keeping. The other rack was the hodgepodge I was looking for.

It had to be here.

Books. Party supplies. Winter stuff.

It wasn’t there.

Board games. Fabrics. Crafts.

“Fuck.” I whispered. “Was it purged?”

There was no way she would have gotten rid of it.

It was her grandfathers. From the war. Well, not from the war but after it. He served in the pacific theatre and once things settled down, he became obsessed with all things Japanese. Lotus flowers and rising suns peppered my wife’s grandparent’s living room along with cage lanterns, bonsai trees and dozens of Sensu fans that packed their shelves. But the prize, at least to my wife, was the porcelain hawk that sat on the table next to her grandpa’s rocking chair.

Maybe one of my kids sold it?

“No way. They are good kids.” I said almost immediately. My wife made sure of it. She raised them with a soft hand that I was not accustomed to. It was a joy to watch her with the kids and it at those times when I was most in love with her. I shook my head after a quick shot of guilt careened around my body. Dry mouth and paranoid thoughts we possible, although rare, my doctor had said, a recollection that made me feel better.

“Where could that thing be?”

My mind raced to all parts of the house. Each room was reviewed and no hawk was found as a decorative piece anywhere.

“Are you ok down there” My wife bellowed from the top of the stairs.

“I’m fine.”

“What are you doing?”

“Um—”I stammered. “I’m emptying the dehumidifier.”

“At this hour?”

“Could you just go to sleep.”

“Ok, but don’t you go slipping again.”

Her footsteps moved her away from the top of the stairs.

“Where are you hiding Mr. Hawk?” I asked

The shelves next to the TV

On both sides of the television there were large shelves that used to hold our VHS tapes and DVDs. Our kids loved movie night which could be any night. The only requirement was someone had to say ‘Movie Night’ I rushed to the shelves that formerly housed our movie collection and found them empty except for spider webs and old speakers that probably didn’t work.

Where could that fucking thing be!

I searched though the house in my brain and came up empty again.

“Did she really fucking sell that thing?” I asked before I fruitlessly searched around the deserted television room until I spotted the bucket-less dehumidifier; the only sign of life.

I wandered back to the laundry room to fetch the bucket, striding by the sauna door whose only purpose had become to reflect a vision of me standing in my robe. A spotty head, a full bearded face and hairless calves. A far cry from the man I used to be. I shook my head as I diverted my eyes and continued into the laundry room where the bucket for the dehumidifier was resting on the floor.

“It has to be here somewhere?”

The sauna!

I dropped the bucket and hustled back to the sauna door where I stood face to face with a hopeful smile.

I swung open the sauna door and flicked on the light. More shelving. Or at least seating that my wife was using for storage. Flowerpots upon flowerpots littered the room. And gardening equipment; spades, trowels and garden forks on every inch of my sauna.

She’s ruined my sauna.

I could feel my blood pressure rise. My teeth gritted against themselves. I shook my head at another thing of mine that was ruined or at least trampled with no thought of what I might want. I considered getting her ass down here, so I could show her what she had done to my space. The space that meant so much to me and the kids, but I knew now was not the time. I also knew I wasn’t going to say anything because then she would wonder why I was even looking at the sauna and I couldn’t tell her that it was because I was looking for The Hawk.

But why are you looking for The Hawk?

I was trapped. My head hung low as I reached for the light switch.

Then I saw it. Right before my finger went down on the switch. I turned the light back on and in the corner, behind two large flowerpots, was a pillowcase. I walked to the corner and hovered over the object that had two sharp points that pressed to the opposite corners of the pillowcase and rose above the rest much like two wings of a hawk that was readying itself for flight. I lifted off the pillowcase and there it was, the porcelain hawk that my wife had inherited from her beloved grandpa. My sauna had kept it pristine. An envelope was taped to the bottom of it. Appraisal. I flipped a corner of it open to find $8,900 in the upper right corner.

That’s not enough.

“Shit!”

My heart raced as I unfolded the rest of the document. It looked official and listed the artist and date of manufacturing.

Date

“How long ago was this done.”

I searched the document again and found the date partially hidden under the staple on the upper left corner.

“It’s thirty years old.” I said joyously.

I bet you I could get triple that

I raced upstairs, skipping every other step and then tiptoed back into the bedroom to grab my phone. My wife was silent, an ominous sign that she may soon speak. I raced back out of the room and down the stairs without any queries and soon I was back in the sauna with The Hawk perfectly positioned amongst the cedar. I snapped a picture before I covered my benefactor with the pillowcase.

“What are you doing?” My wife asked as she pat her foot at the base of the spiral staircase.

“Nothing.”

“Well, it must be something.”

“It’s nothing, just go to bed.”

I squeezed by her and headed up to my computer.

“You better not be gambling again.”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“That didn’t stop you from betting on the cricket games in India.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” I said, looking down on her with an assuring smile. “I got that under control.”

“You better. We have that trip to Italy planned and I don’t want any surprises.”

“They’ll be no surprises.”

“I’m just saying, it’s going to be expensive with all the kids.”

“I know.”

“And their significant others.”

Why did she agree to that when they’re not even married.

“I understand. Can we talk about this in the morning.”

I could hear her slippers shuffle over the linoleum flooring and the bed squeak as she lowered herself onto it.

I hadn’t needed eBay for a few years but after a password reset and authentication, my profile was up and ready to go. I used the appraisal for the description and posted the picture. Considering our credit card balance and performing some quick math on the appraised value adjusted for thirty years of inflation, I set the price at a mind-clearing sum of $27,500. The publish button was bold and ready for action. I took a deep breath and smiled knowing this was exactly what we needed to do.