A few weeks ago, the Old Man and I were cruising down the interstate, headed to the big city of Greensboro, North Carolina. It was a pleasant October day, sunny, but not too hot, the kind of day that makes you want to fly a boxkite or smell a newborn baby's head. The Old Man was driving, while I sat in the passenger seat perusing a copy of Stephen King's The Waste Lands.
I got my dad hooked awhile back on King's Dark Tower series, and although he's read all four novels twice so far, he hasn't done the extensive nerdly research on the books that I have. As a result, he often asks me questions about various characters and events in the series.
"Say, son," he asked me on that particular lovely day, "Who exactly is the Crimson King?"
For the unacquainted, the Crimson King is the chief bad guy in this series. He pops up in various forms in several of Stephen King's books, and many even say that he was the villain Randall Flagg in The Stand. Basically, the Crimson King is Satan.
"Well, Pa-pa," I answered, "I'm glad you asked."
Before I could finish, I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It was leaving the bushes at the side of the road at an incredible velocity. It was sizeable, about as big as a football, and it was heading straight for us.
"Buh," I said, as the Red-Tailed hawk zeroed in on the Honda, flames licking off of its wings, beak open in a scream of agony, feathers trailing off like confetti from an out-of-control parade float.
"HOLY Shakespeare!" the Old Man yelled as the hawk hit the windshield. "JESUS CHRIST!" I helpfully added. Upon hitting the window, the hawk launched straight up into the air like a zephyr, leaving only a bird-shaped grease spot and a handful of feathers. My father and I both watched as it slowly spiralled into the median strip behind us. If it wasn't dead, it was out for the season.
There wasn't much talk between us after that. We joked that perhaps the hawk had been trapped in a loveless marriage, but we both knew the truth. He hasn't asked me about the Crimson King since.
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