Chapter 3. The Pigeon
Martin was walking down the block toward Hackett’s house in long November sunlight when he noticed an odd-looking lump out in the middle of the street. He immediately suspected it was a traffic-crushed pigeon or, worse, a maimed one, but as he got closer he realized the situation was more complicated. There was a pigeon all right, but a hawk was perched on top of it, pinning it to the pavement. The hawk, a rather small, rusty-streaked thing, kept raising its wings, vampire-like, and trying to lift the pigeon, but seemed not to be strong enough to get its catch into the air. Martin moved a little closer, intrigued by the scene. The hawk attempted to lift off again, but succeeded only in dragging the pigeon a few feet toward the parked cars at the curb. A gray wing waving imploringly from beneath the hawk signaled that its victim was still alive.
Martin had no intention of interfering, but he was worried that both the birds would be squashed by some maniac jetting by in an SUV. He moved toward the center of the street, hoping to edge the hawk closer to the curb. It made one more effort to lift the pigeon, then let go and flapped heavily upward to the corner of a house, where it perched, irritably adjusting its breast feathers. The pigeon dragged itself off the street and under a parked car.
This was probably the worst of all possible outcomes, but Martin still wasn’t prepared to intervene. Maybe the hawk will come back down for its dinner if I go inside for mine and leave it alone, he thought. He rang Hackett’s doorbell.
“Martin Mulder.” Hackett loomed in the doorway almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting for the bell. “What are you looking at out there?” The usual black beret covered his near baldness, but the white beard had been neatly trimmed for the occasion.
“There’s a hawk that’s caught a pigeon, but he doesn’t seem to know how to finish the job. And then I screwed up and chased him off by accident. So now I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Just leave it alone, Marty. There are more pigeons than hawks in this city. The hawk is performing his natural function.” Hackett slipped automatically into his retired science teacher voice for the biology lesson.
“Maybe, but he’s doing a crappy job. I guess he’s a juvenile or something. Or just not very good at it.” Martin supposed there must be incompetent birds, just as there were dysfunctional humans. He looked out at the street again. The hawk had dropped back to the pavement and was trying to haul the fluttering pigeon out from under the parked car. Still, it seemed unable either to lift its victim or to finish it off. The entire desperate transaction was being conducted in total silence. Martin watched for a few seconds more, then went in the house, feeling relieved that his presence hadn’t scared the hawk off permanently, and reassuring himself that nature would now resume its normal course.
He was late, and the rest of the party had already pulled up their chairs around Dinah’s big oval dinner table, which was draped with a white lace cloth. In the center two tall white candles burned, rising from a jungle of seasonal vegetation. Dinah was emerging from the kitchen with the impeccably browned turkey on an oval silver platter.
“Marty. I’m glad you could make it,” she said. “Sit down over there next to Bradley. We’re just about to start.” Her long white hair was tied back in a businesslike bun, and she still wore her apron. She lowered the turkey to the table in front of Hackett’s spot, where it sat glowing in the sunlight that poured through the dining room window.
Bradley said in his hearty voice, “Yes, sit down Marty. We were beginning to worry about you.” He kept his eyes closed and turned his head only slightly as Martin sat down. His white cane leaned against the bookshelf behind the chair.
“I was watching a hawk trying to finish off a pigeon out on the street,” said Martin.
“Oh really?” boomed Bradley. His unnaturally loud speech, Martin had long ago decided, was a strategy for drawing attention away from his blindness, to convince others that it didn’t matter to him – in fact, that it could be considered a superior way to live.
“Good!” said Katherine. “Disgusting things!”
“Oh no!” cried Jillian, who was seated across the table from Bradley. “I hate that. Did he kill it?”
“Not yet,” said Martin. “He was working on it, but he was having his problems. I think he’s a young one.”
“I want to see,” Jillian exclaimed, pushing her chair back and rushing to the window to look out. “He’s still just sitting on it!” She watched for a few seconds. “I don’t think he knows what to do.”
“Jillian, will you let the hawk alone! He’s doing his job. We need more hawks in this city and less pigeons.” Hackett was carving and serving the turkey, and the bowls of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans with sauteed shallots, cranberry sauce, stuffing, salad, and pureed turnips were already on their way around the table.
“Come on, Jillian. We’re starting.” Greg’s voice had an edge of impatience, as it usually did when he was addressing his wife. Jillian returned to the table with a worried look on her face.
“I hate that,” she said. “I know it’s natural, but it just seems so brutal and sad.”
“There’s a hawk waiting for all of us somewhere. But today we’ve got this turkey waiting for us, thanks to the efforts of my stupendous wife,” said Hackett. They all murmured their thanks to Dinah, who had seated herself at the end of the table opposite to Hackett. “Shall we have some champagne,” she intoned. They dutifully presented their glasses for filling.
“Thank you, Lord,” said Jillian lightly, afraid the giant meal might go unblessed and hoping to slip the religious reference past the non-Christians at the table.
“We do have a lot to be thankful for,” said Dinah, raising her glass for a toast. All the guests also raised their glasses, except for Bradley, who said loudly “Yes, let’s be thankful we’re not in Baghdad this afternoon.” The newspapers were full of another suicide bomber who had blown herself up, along with 20 or 30 other souls, that morning in Iraq.
“We’re toasting, Bradley,” Martin told him. “Ah yes, a toast,” he replied. They waited while he found his glass and lifted it with eyes closed. Then they all began to eat.
“Well, we should be thankful that someone’s in Baghdad looking after our interests while we enjoy this delicious dinner,” said David, applying himself to a drumstick.
“Speak for yourself. They’re not my interests!” Katherine, who detested the president and all his advisers, responded exactly as David had known she would. “As far as I’m concerned, we should just get out of there.”
“No one who burned any gasoline to get here this afternoon has a right to say anything like that.” David had the maddening habit of arguing without raising his voice, nor did his color ever deepen during political discussions. He had, of course, recognized Katherine’s dark green Lexus – the very car under which the wounded pigeon had dragged itself – parked in front of Hackett’s house. Katherine, instantly ignited, was about to respond, but Greg spoke first. As a retired executive, he based his objections to the Iraq war primarily on the bad management techniques and inefficiency of the whole operation.
“Whatever you think about the underlying policy,” he said, “we were misled about the reasons for going in there, and the whole thing has been handled very badly, with lousy planning. And the guy is just too stubborn and plain dumb to ever admit when he’s made a mistake.”
“That remains to be seen,” said David. “Wars always look messy when you’re in the middle of them. Look at the Civil War. What if Lincoln had just pulled out in 1862, after Second Bull Run.”
“I hope you’re not comparing that son of a bitch to Lincoln,” said Katherine.
“Now now,” cautioned David’s wife, Athena, dismayed at how early in the party her husband had begun his political provocations.
“History will tell.” David helped himself to more turnips. Jillian got up quietly and went back to the window to look at the hawk.
Dinah said nothing, but s
canned her guests’ faces sternly, seeming mildly annoyed by the incivility at her beautifully laid table. She herself read the Sunday Times and the Economist from front to back every week, without coming to any conclusions. She was a marvelous cook. Hackett said, “Jillian, will you leave the damn birds alone? You’re sitting here eating a turkey, for Christ’s sake, and worrying about a wounded pigeon. Let the damn hawk have his dinner.”
“Ah, the suffering pigeon again,” Bradley belted out, and drained his champagne glass as if in tribute. There was something oddly detached about his cheerfulness, as if he were humoring his sighted companions, the hapless victims of a group hallucination.
“I can’t help thinking about what’s going on out there,” Jillian replied, still peering out the window. Martin got up to join her. He, too, had been thinking about the embattled pigeon. “He’s still there, under Katherine’s car,” said Jillian. Martin could barely make out the small, dark shape crouched in the shadow of the Lexus. The hawk had disappeared, having apparently decided that dispatching the wounded pigeon wasn’t worth all the trouble, or was beyond his capabilities. Martin and Jillian returned to the table.
“Now he’s just sitting there. Don’t you think we should do something? Call the SPCA? Or maybe we should put him out of his misery somehow,” Jillian suggested.
“The SPCA is not going to come out to rescue a distressed pigeon on Thanksgiving Day,” Hackett informed her. “And I’m not throttling any pigeons this afternoon, either. Do you want to do it?” But Jillian only shook her head.
“It’s a natural process,” David said. “Things like that are going on all over the city. All over the world. And much worse things, in fact.”
“Thanks to your hero Bush,” said Katherine.
“I know,” said Jillian, “but we can’t do anything about those. We could do something about the pigeon.” She was genuinely upset, which had the effect of making her eat faster.
But no one seemed disposed to make any efforts on the pigeon’s behalf. While the political argument continued, Martin finished his meal, wondering what the best thing for the pigeon would be. If they did get the SPCA people to come out, they would doubtless cart the pigeon away and euthanize it. Of course, we could put it out of its misery, he thought. Snap its neck quickly or maybe drown it. He wasn’t really sure he could cold-bloodedly execute the pigeon, but he thought Hackett probably could. On the other hand, if they just left it out there, it might recover. The bird was probably in shock right now, and possibly in a little pain, but what had the clumsy teenage hawk actually done to it, besides pin it to the street for a while? Maybe after an hour or two it would waddle out from under the car and fly away, like any other pigeon. Was it suffering? They didn’t even really know whether it had been injured or just frightened. Animals had amazing recuperative powers. And even if it was hurt, what actually went through a pigeon’s brain? Did it know it was hurt? To the pigeon, presumably the whole event was just another incident in its unexamined life. It had nothing to compare it to, none of the awareness that it had been injured or the prospect of imminent death that would have made the experience so meaningful for a human being. Martin doubted that pigeons knew how to feel sorry for themselves. All it was doing was waiting. Wasn’t that about all pigeons ever did? Maybe that was the best thing for it. Meanwhile, Martin mused, the hawk was probably venting its frustration on some other, smaller bird. That was nature at work.
“The pies must be done,” Dinah announced. She got up and went to the kitchen, from which a delicious fragrance of baking was emanating. She soon returned, first with a pecan pie and then with an apple pie, its crust still domed with heat and perfectly browned. There was also freshly whipped cream. They had dessert, some people even taking a slice of each pie, while David complacently fanned Katherine’s flames by moving beyond Iraq to the difficult questions of world poverty and hunger and invoking such hard-eyed concepts as the tragedy of the commons and lifeboat earth. “We’re really not helping the situation by sending them money or food or any kind of relief,” he pointed out, carefully isolating a forkful of pie on his plate. “All that does is enable them to have even more children, who will then starve in their turn.”
“There are actual people there, David,” Katherine said. “Little babies with legs skinnier than this turkey wing.”
“And if we feed them, there’ll be even more little babies to starve to death. Is that what you want?” Eventually Katherine stopped trying to argue with him and simply twirled the stem of her wineglass between her fingers, barely responding even when Bradley proposed a toast to the chef. Shortly afterwards, she made her excuses and prepared to leave.
“Oh, but the pigeon’s under your car!” exclaimed Jillian.
“For God’s sake,” said Hackett, who had downed several glasses of wine. “It’s a goddamn pigeon.” Having had a small piece of each pie, Martin was feeling somewhat bloated, but he went outside with Jillian and Katherine to check out the pigeon situation. He got down on his knees and peered under the car. The pigeon was crouched in profile like a sitting hen, its gray plumage badly rumpled and stiff, as though it had been caught in a downpour. Its orange eye stared back at him, round and unreadable, blinking occasionally. Martin leaned under the car and swept gently at the bird with one arm. It dragged itself silently away to the shelter of the car behind Katherine’s. He wondered whether they should try to get it up on the curb. He was reluctant to disturb the bird any further; but what if the owner of that car came out and drove away, without knowing the pigeon was under it, unable to escape? He’d seen enough mashed pigeons that the thought gave him a little shiver. But on the curb, any passing cat or dog might find it. While he was worrying about that, Katherine got in her car and drove away with only minimal goodbyes. Still brainstorming about what to do with the pigeon, Martin and Jillian went back inside to the tail end of the dinner party.
An hour later, Martin emerged, slowly, with Bradley on his arm. “Is the pigeon still out here?” Bradley trumpeted, cocking his head as though listening for the rustle of feathers. Martin wondered what the word “pigeon” meant to Bradley, who had been born blind. Is the bird more real to me because I can form a visual image of it? And then he started wondering what the pigeon saw when it looked back at him with that alien, orange eye. He helped the blind man into his cab, to a litany of hearty thank-you’s and farewells. Jillian and Greg came out, too. The pigeon was still crouched in its new refuge, now only a silhouette in the near darkness. “I hate to just leave the poor thing there,” said Jillian, but Greg hurried her into their own car and drove off with a wave.
Hackett and Dinah stood on the porch, watching the last of the guests leave. Dinah had finally taken off her apron and handed it to her husband. Hackett saw Martin bending down once more to look under the car. “Still worrying about the bloody pigeon, Marty?” He shook his head and tied the apron around his waist. He and Dinah said goodnight and went inside to tackle the dishes.
Martin took one more look at the motionless pigeon and then walked slowly up the street toward the bus stop. He was mildly troubled by the feeling that they should have done something about the damn bird. The problem, he reminded himself, was that anything they did could have turned out to be a mistake. From the bird’s point of view, of course.
The Inelegant Universe Page 3
