The Red Flannel Rag

Joyce and Eugene were planning to move into a different house, and I was helping

her clean the windows. We were in an upstairs bedroom cleaning a window that had a long

crack in one of th e panes. Joyce rubbed over the crack and said the window didn’t have to

be replaced because the crack was smooth. Just at that moment a bright red cardinal flew

against the window, fluttered a moment, and started to bleed from its leg. A streak of blood

ran down the window in front of Joyce’s face. She turned very pale and looked at me. “It’s

time to stop for today,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

During the long weeks after the accident, I wondered if the cardinal was an omen of

the shooting accident. Was there something I could have done to prevent Joyce getting

shot? Should both of us have paid more attention to what the cardinal may have been

telling us about the future?

When Joyce came home from the hospital months later, she asked if I remembered

that bird. Joyce is seventy years old now and has walked with an artificial leg since that day

in 1951. Upon occasion, she and I still consider the meaning of the cardinal and speculate

about how her life would be different if we had paid attention to the sign of tragic events to

come.

Ruby, Joyce’s older sister, was married when I was very young , but she nicknamed

me “ Blondie ” because of my corn -yellow hair. She still calls me Blondie to this day although

my hair is silver gray. She married Joyce’s husband’s older brother, Robert Crawford.

Occasionally, Robert would be late coming home on Friday evening and Ruby was

scared he would drink up his paycheck. She used to stop by our house and pick me up to go

with her to find him on Friday evenings. We would drive around to his favorite watering

holes, and eventually find him. Mostly we found him at Ma Brown’s bar in Harrisonburg.

Ruby would take me with her to the door of the bar. We would peer in and see Robert

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