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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Distances” Down in the Dirt v213 (11/23) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Instant Karma the Down in the Dirt September-December 2023 issues collection book		get the 422 page September-December 2023 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Instant Karma

Clay Coppedge

    We were somewhere in the Permian Basin, four of us doodlebuggers, hired to carry 80-pound bags of geophones, or jugs, across the badlands for the seismologists to use in ways I understood only in theory. This was coyote and jackrabbit country, deep in the heart of a heat-brutal summer. We didn’t know it was our last day as doodlebuggers but the knowledge would not have disappointed us.
    The turning point in the day and our jobs came a couple of hours before quitting time when a red-tailed hawk flew into a high line wire and fell from the sky to the dust below, trailing sparks the whole way. The four of us stopped what we were doing and trotted to where the big bird lay on its back, regarding us, it seemed, with a baleful eye.
    Dead or alive, this was a beautiful bird, regal even in the aftermath of its fatal blunder. We took in the long-curved beak, the creamy breast, the alternating bands of tan and black along the wings. The red tail feathers served as a signature on a piece of art, or a final touch that made it perfect.
    Gus, our boss, was about ten years older than the three of us doodlebuggers. He drank more than the rest of us combined, which at the time we saw as one of his few redeeming qualities. In fact, he was drinking on the job that day and was half drunk, by his standards, when this happened. (Not being judgmental here. Kyle and I were stoned.)
    Gus said, “Sumbitch should have watched where he was going. That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention.” He nodded at us like this was something he’d tried to drill into our heads for the better part of a year.
    Gus pointed to Kyle, a gentle soul and Gus’s designated fall guy. “Why don’t you reach down and pluck me a feather, nature boy.”
    Kyle shook his head. “No way, Gus. It’s bad karma to take a feather from a bird in the wild. It’s illegal too. You can’t possess a feather unless you’re a member of certain tribes. Besides, it’s just plain—”
    Gus cut him off. “Hell, I ain’t superstitious. And I ain’t a member of no goddamn tribe and I don’t give a rat’s ass what the government has to say about what I do. Just reach down there and get me a feather, and hold the karma, okay?”
    Kyle was about to say something but I cut in. “Gus, if you want that feather, why don’t you get it. You scared of that bird?”
    Gus said, predictably, “You better shut the fuck up, boy” but without the usual thunder and conviction because he actually was scared of that bird. As birds go, it was damn big. And we weren’t sure it had breathed its last.
    Riley, the quietest and by far the hardest worker of the four of us, spoke up for the first time to say, “You guys are ridiculous.”
    We knew he felt that way but this was the first time he ever said it out loud. Riley walked over to the hawk, reached down, plucked a wing feather, and held it aloft. “Here’s your fucking feather, Gus.” The hawk flapped the offended wing once and then was still. That image stayed with me.
    “Thank you, Riley. You’re a trooper. How did you ever get stuck with these two deadbeats?” Gus stuck the feather in his cap and sang “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and made a series of bad “feather in your cap” jokes until we called it a day.
    Early that evening, just as we sat down to eat at a steak house in Odessa, Riley reached across the table for a basket of crackers when we heard a loud pop and saw the color drain from his face. His arm hit the table hard and he let out a short scream that got the attention of everybody in the steakhouse except the waitress. Riley used his left arm to drag the now useless right arm across the table, knocking some silverware to the floor in the process, then let the arm hang limp at his side. He looked like he was about to pass out or cry. Riley was a tough guy with a ridiculously high pain tolerance. This was scary, this was serious.
    Gus was going to drive Riley to the hospital but he was shitfaced and didn’t put up much of a fight when I snatched the keys and loaded Riley into the truck. As I pulled out of the parking lot Riley reached out and touched me with his good arm.
    “My right arm,” he gasped. “I plucked that feather from its right wing. Get it?”
    I pondered that while the ER doctor diagnosed Riley with a bicep tear and put his right arm in a sling. Then he jabbed a syringe into Riley’s left arm and wrote him a prescription for pain killers. We signed some insurance papers, picked up the meds at a pharmacy, and went back to the motel.
    We didn’t like Gus’s reaction to Riley’s injury— he insisted Riley try working with his left arm since he was left-handed anyway—so we all quit the next day, leaving Gus alone at that run-down motel in the middle of nowhere with no crew. But Gus had the work truck, half a case of beer, and that beautiful, bewitched feather. He was still wearing it in his cap when a taxi picked the three of us up and hauled us to the bus station.
    Somehow, on the way there, we convinced ourselves that Gus got what was coming to him because of his lack of respect for the hawk (and us) but the unfortunate fact remained that Riley was the one with his arm in a sling and none of us had a job.

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