nest and moved it back and forth quickly. Dislodged and slumped on the tip of the angled shovel, the nest was free. I carried it behind him toward the trash barrel, where he was walking. He lifted the lid for me and flicked his head again.
"In there with it."
"Sure?"
"Put it in there."
With my height, I had to catapult the nest from my small frame up and over the lip of the bin. When it settled into the lawn clippings and collected leaves, I thought I heard a noise, maybe the crunch of cholla pads.
I walked up to peer down into the barrel.
The bird was so small. A baby, the kind that look to scream with no sound. Flesh like a deli counter daily -- hairless, tawdry. I studied its black eyes, uncooked quinoa kernels. Open mouth. That voiceless open mouth. One side of the bird was pinned into a mound of drying bermuda grass with a sharp barb from one of my cholla pads.
I looked up at my grandfather. His poly-blend golf shirt, hour-glass sweat stain down the front, double-knit trousers, even in summer, pastel plaid. Hot. Brill cream dripping now into his sideburns.
"Is it a wren?" I managed.
He reached for the shovel, spun it a half-turn in his hands, raised it above shovel-tip down, and put it into the bird.
"Alright, Johnny, wheel this out front."