Odd Birds

by Ian Harding

  The best crawfish lived in the spots where the creek got its widest, where the water slowed to a crawl. We would wade in and lift up the biggest rocks we could. In the cloud of dust and leaf litter that got stirred up under the rocks, we could usually find one or two crawfish.

  The woods were our second home. And as far as I was concerned, I was Robinson Crusoe.

  * * *

  That night, playing hide-and-seek, I started walking down the usual path, but it was extremely dark outside. Still, I was riding the high of having potentially won a round of hide-and-seek, and I wasn’t about to turn back now. I kept on walking.

  After walking about a mile, the path sloped up. I followed it until it spit me out on the side of a busy street. As I walked along the road, a four-year-old marching proudly in his Batman pajamas, a white SUV slowed down and pulled up beside me. The window rolled down to reveal a woman about my mother’s age.

  “Are you lost, honey? Do you need help?” she said.

  I shook my head. “No thanks!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m playing hide-and-seek,” I said, smiling.

  She let out a nervous laugh. “I’ll bet you’re winning.”

  “I am!”

  “Listen, you should probably head back. I’m sure your parents are worried sick about you. Can I give you a ride home?”

  “I’m not allowed to ride in the car with strangers,” I said.

  “Good point.” She put the car in park and got out. “Come on,” she said, reaching out her hand to take mine. “Let’s walk.”

  I told her my address, and we walked home together. When I opened my front door, the first thing I saw was my dad pacing back and forth. Our babysitter had called the restaurant—this was before cellphones—to tell my parents that I’d gone missing. When he saw me, he let out a cry. I’d never heard my dad make that sound. He lifted me up in his arms, a wave of emotion flooding his face, and held me against his chest. He walked me into the living room, where my mom was sitting on the couch with the babysitter, who was crying into her hands.

  “Ian, where on earth have you been?” my mom asked.

  I smiled. “I won the game.”

  After that, I wasn’t allowed to go into the woods on my own for a while. But it soon became clear that it wasn’t a good idea for me to remain indoors, either. I was a hyperactive kid, like I said, and if I didn’t have an outlet for all of my energy, things would get broken and nobody in the house would get any sleep.

  One afternoon, when I was feeling particularly rowdy, my dad volunteered to go tire me out. I was up in my room, spinning in circles. My dad stood at the bottom of the staircase and called up: “Ian, do you want to come exploring with me?”

  I raced down the stairs, threw some shoes on, and we were off. My dad and I hiked around the woods for the better part of the afternoon. I was so happy to be back outside. I showed my dad all of my favorite crawfish spots, and he told me about the different types of trees we were walking by. When I got home, I was exhausted. I slept soundly that night. And so did my parents.

  They had found a way to get rid of my excess energy.

  My dad and I went exploring pretty often after he’d get home from work. I, being your average four-year-old, could not pronounce the word “explore,” though. So we went on ’splores.

  It was on these ’splores that I first noticed birds. I mean, I knew what birds were, I wasn’t a complete shut-in. I’d seen the cardinals in our backyard and heard my mom’s stories about them. I’d smelled the deathly musk of pigeons outside of the natural history museum in DC. But this was the first time that I ever became aware of their variety, of their nesting habits, their flight patterns, and their distinct, vibrating calls echoing through the woods.

  My dad seemed to know all about them. We’d hear a rustling in the trees, and he’d point up and say, “That’s a crow, Ian.” I’d laugh—because the word sounded funny to my ears—and then I’d try to mimic its call.

  I had wanted things before: the previous Christmas, I had really wanted light-up sneakers. So desire was not a new concept to me.

  But this was the first time I remember wanting to understand something. I wanted to know everything there was to know about birds. I wanted to devour them with my mind and absorb all of their secrets. The secret of flight, how to perch, what worms tasted like, why they never had to pee … I wanted to know it all.

  There was one bird in particular that I absolutely loved. I asked my dad what kind of bird it was, and he said it was a hawk. So, naturally, I named him Mr. Hawkins.

  Every time we went out ’sploring, I would run ahead of my dad into the woods to see my new friend. Mr. Hawkins would always stare at me with a slightly surprised and cautious look on his face. At the time, I always thought that he was pretending not to remember me, so I would play along and call out to remind him, “Mr. Hawkins! It’s me, Ian!”

  In retrospect, I now realize that the look on Mr. Hawkins’s face was one of deliberation: Do I flee from this screaming child or try to somehow eat him?

  * * *

  When I was in the second grade, we moved from Springfield to Herndon, an even smaller town, which was nestled in the shadow of Dulles airport. A lot of the public schools in northern Virginia have the exact same floor plan, so the transition to a new school wasn’t particularly difficult, at least spatially. What I was worried about was saying goodbye to ’splores with my dad.

  Despite its proximity to both airplanes and politicians, Herndon still felt rural. My new home was within walking distance of Trailside Park, a perfect place for new and exciting adventures.

  Every day after school I would rush home, grab my binoculars, and my dad and I would wander off to the park to look for birds. It turned out there was a hawk that lived in the Herndon park, too. I was convinced that it was Mr. Hawkins, and I couldn’t believe his loyalty—he had moved all the way across the county to be with us.

  Some friends just last forever, you know.

  It was clear to my dad that birds were becoming a passion of mine. One day—I think I was about six—my dad took me into his study. He pulled an old book off his shelves and handed it to me.

  “I thought this might help,” he said, smiling down at me.

  The book was significantly older than I was. The cover was made of fake leather. The white lettering along the spine cracked and illegible. The corners of the pages were all bent with age and humidity. I opened the book and turned to the title page: The Audubon Society: Field Guide to North American Birds.

  I flipped to a random page. There were row upon row of photographs. In each photograph, a different bird. Birds I’d never seen before. Birds I’d never imagined could exist. Names I couldn’t even dream of pronouncing. The book was bursting with information.

  I thanked my dad and hugged his knees—I was shorter then. I looked up at him and asked, “Is Mr. Hawkins in here?” He took the book from my hands and flipped through the pages pensively for a few moments. Then his face relaxed into a grin. He handed the book back to me and pointed to one of the pictures on the page. It was a red-tailed hawk.

  I giggled. “His tail is red!” I cried, unable to control my glee.

  I didn’t sleep that night. My mom and dad came by to check on me before going to bed, and I turned off the light and pretended to be sleeping. But as soon as they left, the light was back on and the book was open. There was a whole world of birds out there for me to explore.

  The next time we went to Trailside Park, I brought the bird book with me. When I saw Mr. Hawkins perched high up on a branch that day, I opened up the book to the earmarked page with the red-tailed hawk on it and held it up for him to see.

  “Mr. Hawkins!” I shouted, “Look! They took your picture. It’s you!”

  Mr. Hawkins looked down at me, startled, and promptly flew away. My dad told me that Mr. Hawkins was probably just shy and didn’t like looking at his own picture.

  * * *

  The Audubon guide was
the second book I had ever fallen in love with. The first was The Velveteen Rabbit, a copy of which I carried everywhere with me for months. I read it again and again, pressing my finger up against the rabbit’s nose, letting him know that I had believed he was real all along.

  My dad and I often ran across a little brown rabbit in the woods. I was convinced that it was the Velveteen Rabbit come to life. Every time we saw it, I would unsuccessfully attempt to suppress a gasp, and my finger would shoot out, pointing at the terrified bunny in our path. My dad explained to me that this wasn’t the Velveteen Rabbit from the book—it was our Velveteen Rabbit, and we could name him whatever we wanted.

  We settled on Sir Hopsalot.

  One day in the woods near our house I saw Sir Hopsalot sitting in a field. He was munching on some tall grass and didn’t seem to notice my dad and me walking toward him.

  My dad stayed behind as I slowly, stealthily crept toward the rabbit. I could see his whiskers twitching with each bite he took. He must have realized I was nearby, because he sat up on his hind legs, alert, his nose twitching. His ears twisted around like a satellite dish.

  I had never been this close to a wild animal before. He was beautiful. If I could just get a little closer, I knew that I could reach out and pet him. Just a little tiny bit closer.

  Sir Hopsalot pricked his ears up, and became very still. He raised his head and looked at me. I knew it: he was finally ready to say hello.

  I took another cautious step forward.

  There was a soft thud as Mr. Hawkins slammed into Sir Hopsalot.

  Talons ripped open the rabbit’s soft belly, spilling its guts out across the field of grass and clover. Wings outstretched, the hawk throttled the rabbit against the ground, making sure it was dead.

  I stood there, stunned, as Mr. Hawkins swiveled his head up from his prey and looked me in the eye, daring me to take one more step.

  The hawk took off, Sir Hopsalot a deflated balloon of red fur clutched in its talons.

  My dad must have carried me back after that, because I don’t remember walking home. I was too busy crying.

  From then on, I was always decidedly curt—cold, even—when I greeted Mr. Hawkins in the woods. I was scarred. It was the most brutal thing I’d ever seen.

  But I did learn a valuable life lesson that day: just because you’re friends with two people doesn’t mean they’ll get along.

  MY INNER ANIMAL

  I’d been called in to audition for the role of a Holocaust survivor.

  The idea of auditioning for a part like this gave me more stress than usual. There are certain roles where when you portray them, you aren’t just a person, you’re a stand-in for an entire people. I felt like I could never possibly do justice to the character.

  The week before the audition, I spent six hours a day prepping. Every morning, I’d wake up, and read through the scene again, and feel like I had to start over from scratch. I couldn’t get a foothold on the character.

  I tried out half a dozen different accents—and a physicality for each one—and none of them seemed to fit. Around day three, I stopped drinking water, hoping that doing so might give my throat the sort of rasp I imagined the character might have.

  My studio apartment had shag carpeting, and I was pacing back and forth so much every day that I was beginning to wear tracks in it.

  I was feeling tired and weak, and more than once I thought about calling my agent and telling him to call off the audition. I just couldn’t do it, I wanted to say.

  I’d forgotten that I’d stopped drinking water, and one morning, as I was pacing, I felt the room begin to spin around me—once, twice, then a third time. I reached out to grab the back of a chair to steady myself.

  When the room finally came to rest, I bent my knees to make sure they still worked.

  They wobbled a little. My legs felt weak, fluid almost.

  I felt like I was out on the ocean, floating adrift. I felt like a jellyfish.

  I hadn’t felt that sensation in years, but it was undeniable. Believe me when I say I know exactly what it feels like to be a jellyfish: there was a period in my life where I spent eight hours a day, every day—for months—pretending to be one.

  * * *

  My dad drove me up to Pittsburgh for my first year of college. I was leaving the nest for the first time, and though leaving behind the world I’d grown up in saddened me, I was getting a chance to pursue the one thing in the world I really wanted to do. I was about to begin to study acting at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama.

  Even with all the excitement, it was more difficult to say goodbye than I expected. My parents had gotten divorced the year before, and my mom was selling the house in Herndon that I’d grown up in. When I left for college, it was already on the market, and I knew that when I came back to visit for Thanksgiving, it would be to an entirely different home.

  When my dad and I arrived in Pittsburgh, we immediately went to my freshman dorm to get moved in. That year I lived in an all-male dorm called Hamerschlag. My new roommate, Joe, who was a music major, also happened to be there, moving in at the same time.

  Joe was from South Africa, by way of Baltimore. He had a big mop of curly hair, thick-rimmed glasses, and he was virtually inseparable from his cherry-red electric guitar.

  I remember lying in bed that first night, thinking about this new life I was about to embark upon. It’s bizarre being plopped into a new living situation with a stranger for a whole year. Joe and I started talking to each other in the dark, talking about ourselves, seeing how we got along. At some point, he stopped responding.

  I looked over: he had fallen asleep in child’s pose—a position he ended up sleeping in often. I still don’t understand how he was able to fall asleep with his butt in the air. What was not so cute, though, was that he often liked to sleep naked.

  That first year at CMU was a blast, but it was also a lot of work. The School of Drama puts its students through the ringer. It’s an acting conservatory, so we didn’t have any classes that weren’t theater-related. We’d spend five days a week, from 7:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M., studying acting and building sets for the school’s plays. Sunup till way after sundown. Then, on Saturdays, we’d regularly have an additional half day of set-building.

  Fall semester was a whirlwind, and looking back, a lot of it is a blur. There were so many new people to meet, a whole new city to explore, and classes were more than a full-time commitment. I had been the only person from my all-boys Catholic high school to pursue acting in college, and I was suddenly surrounded by some of the most talented people I’d ever met. It was intimidating. But over the course of four years of working with the same people, that sense of intimidation—and the natural competition between students—gave way to camaraderie and friendship. Some of my best friends to this day I met during those four years at Carnegie.

  * * *

  We had a month off for Christmas, so I went back to stay with my mom in Virginia. She’d moved into a new two-bedroom apartment, and since my sister was also home for the break, I slept in a little loft that was actually the laundry room.

  While I was back home, I met up with a few of my closest childhood friends. We all had one foot in our old Virginia high-school world, and all the shared experiences of that time, and one foot in our college worlds, on the verge of new, independent lives. We weren’t twenty-one yet, so we were still in this odd hang-out limbo. We’d play basketball at the Y until it closed, then go to Chipotle. After that, we’d drink at someone’s house.

  One night, we were all over at my friend Chris’s house. There were four or five of us hanging out, shooting the shit, comparing notes on college, bragging about how much we’d partied and the girls we’d met. My other friends all seemed to be headed toward careers in business or medicine or the military.

  The guys asked what I was up to. I took a swig of my beer. “I’ve been doing a lot of physical stuff this semester. It’s called Viewpoints. Basically, it’s about how you walk around a r
oom and the different ways you can interact with the architecture.”

  Good. I’d used some big words—I’d even said the word “architecture”—so nobody could deny that I was doing important things.

  “That’s it?” Chris asked. “You’ve been learning how to walk around a room?”

  “Well, that’s not the only thing I’m doing. I have voice class, and speech class, and acting—”

  “Voice and speech are two different classes?”

  I was starting to feel judged.

  “Yeah, speech is all about accents and dialects. This year we’re learning Standard American. Next year we learn General American…” I trailed off as I realized everyone’s eyes had glazed over.

  “Anyway, yeah,” I said.

  Matt tried to be nice: “Have anything fun coming up next semester?”

  I took a sip of beer and sighed. “Next semester they want me to figure out what kind of animal I am.”

  For a while nobody said anything. Then everyone started laughing. Matt grinned. “So, you’re in kindergarten.”

  * * *

  The first week back after the holiday break, our professors stood us up at the front of the classroom, one by one, and assigned us each an animal.

  “Adam, you’re a bear.”

  “Vicki, definitely a catfish.”

  “Shunan, dear God, could you be more of a penguin?”

  When it was my turn, I walked up to the front of the room. The professors put their heads together and whispered. I put my hands behind my back, trying to loosen up my shoulders. After a moment, one of the professors laughed a little, and they all turned back to face me.

  “You exude false confidence,” one of them said. “Like a mouse with a Napoleon complex.” The two other professors nodded in agreement. Behind them, one of my classmates snorted.

  The professor continued, “You need to be the complete opposite: an animal that has no ego, no sense of self.”

  He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. For a few moments nobody spoke. Then he squinted and leaned forward—“Any ideas?”