Flying Crows Read Online Free PDF Page A

shape of her body, clearly discernible through a red-and-white flowered dress, would, as they say, turn a pope’s head.
    â€œThis is Birdie,” Josh said. “He just came in yesterday.”
    â€œWell, Birdie, welcome to Somerset,” said Sister Hilda in a voice that was light, airy, musical. “I hope you are a poetry fan like Josh.”
    â€œI am, I am. I love poetry. Yes, ma’am. I love every word of it.” Birdie’s words jumped out of his mouth like popping corn.
    â€œThat’s wonderful. Be sure and come to my reading on Tuesday. I’m planning to read some of Vachel Lindsay and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”
    â€œI’ll be there. I will, I will, I will.”
    As she walked on, Birdie watched her every moving part, most particularly her magnificently rounded rear end and her legs, visible through straight-seamed silk stockings, which were perfectly formed.
    â€œOn with ya, bud,” Jack the bushwhacker said.
    Birdie seemed unable to move. “Who is she? Why is she here?”
    â€œShe’s what they call a Somerset Sister,” Josh explained. “That’s the same as gray ladies in hospitals. They come here to help during Sunday visiting hour and do other things for the patients.”
    â€œWhat kind of other things?” Birdie asked, with a silly grin on his face.
    â€œLet’s get a move on, buddies,” said Jack.
    â€œI could tell just now that she liked me,” Birdie said to Josh, once they started walking again. “Didn’t you see the way she smiled at me? Women all do that.”
    Josh was struck by how rare it was for a Somerset patient to say anything routinely normal about a reaction to a woman.
    But as they arrived at a large locked door that led to Stearman Wing, Josh thought it best to issue a warning. He said to Birdie, “There once was a patient, a handsome fast-talker from Webb City, who thought he saw the same thing in a Somerset Sister who was the wife of a lawyer in town. He tried to act on it, she told everybody, and they beat his head so hard and so often with sluggers that within a week he was dead from what they called
brain poisoning.
”
    Josh didn’t think Birdie heard what he said because the new boy from Kansas City still had that silly—normal—smile on his face.

    The curtain opened for Josh. There he stood, dressed in short
dark-green pants and a white shirt with bloused sleeves and a
large collar. His flowing hair looked very appropriate with that
outfit. He was greeted by a loud noise of clapping and shouting.
    John Paul Flynn Auditorium had the appearance and feel of a second-rate
theater or opera house. Its main floor slanted up from a three-foot-high stage.
There were several dressing rooms in the back and a curtain of heavy red
velvet across the front. There were some four hundred folding wooden
chairs arranged in a half-moon on the slanted floor and another hundred
seats in a one-tier balcony. Christmas and other holiday pageants and performances by asylum musical and dramatic groups were held here.
    Josh bowed with a flourish and then stood up like a soldier snapping to attention. Looking straight ahead toward the back of the hall, making no eye
contact with anyone, he spoke in a stiff, formal manner, very different from
his usual way.
    â€œThis account I am about to give to you comes from my own experience
as a participant and eyewitness to one of the most barbaric massacres in the
history of our state of Missouri, if not our world. The story I will now tell is as
weird a tale as ever grew out of the most vivid imagination of any writer of
fiction.”
    Josh paused and moved his eyes around the auditorium. It was a crucial
part of his opening ritual. Hear ye, hear ye, listen up! That was the message,
the order of the day.
    Everyone obeyed. Some four hundred people, patients and staff, sitting in
chairs and standing around on the sides, were quiet.
    â€œIf anyone here