The Quartet on the Flatbed at the Gate

What Kirby Carried

Kirby is four years younger than me. Growing up, he was the quiet one, the one who read under the covers with a flashlight and wanted to know how everything worked.

He was also the one who minded the most when Dad was gone. And Dad was gone a lot.

Saturday nights, Sunday afternoons, sometimes a Wednesday evening if a family called. The quartet came first more often than it should have.

I was older and stubborn, and I went along. I sat in the back of a hundred little churches swinging my feet. Kirby stayed home with Mom and watched the clock on the kitchen wall.

When he was twelve, Burnis came down with pneumonia right before a revival, and Dad put Kirby up on the stage to take the baritone line. Kirby knew every part. He had a clear, steady voice.

He sang the whole revival that week. Then Burnis got well, and Kirby went back to the house and the kitchen clock, and I do not think he ever sang in front of people again. He never said why.

When Kirby grew up he moved to Temple, sold insurance, married a good woman, and had two kids.

Then he came home seven years ago to help with Mom, and three years ago the fair asked him to run the stage because he was organized and nobody else wanted it.

He has done a good job, mostly. Better sound, better schedule, a real shade tent over the bleachers.

I told him so. I am not writing this to say my brother is a bad man. He is not.

But he did a bad thing. And I think part of him knew it, because he did not tell Dad. He told me, and he let the program tell Dad.