The Book of Dead Birds

by Gayle Brandeis

  No one picks up.

  A train rattles in the distance.

  “I’m at the Salton Sea, Omma.” I try to raise my voice above the train’s whistle. Hopefully my message will be audible. “I just wanted to let you know I got here okay. I helped out in the bird hospital for a while. Tomorrow they want me to walk around the beaches to find more birds. Hopefully I’ll find some that can be saved. I don’t know how—”

  The answering machine beeps and cuts me off. I consider calling back, but I’m not sure what else I would say. The trains keep coming.

  The tent is like a sauna when I enter it, shining my flashlight ahead of me. Abby, asleep in her clothes, frowns and flips over when the light hits her face. I flick it off and find my way to my cot in the dark. I strip down to my underwear, fold the hot top blanket down to the bottom of the cot and scoot under the scratchy sheet beneath. It takes me a long time to fall asleep. Right after I finally drift off, around 2:00 A.M., Abby cries out in her sleep. I wake up, heart pounding.

  “Omma?” I ask, ready to grab my drum. Then the heat hits me, the smell, and I remember where I am. I wait for my heart to calm down, wait for it to feel steady as the trains that seem to run all night, a rhythm of steel against track that echoes across the hills. I slide back into sleep, clack clack, clack clack. Every couple of hours, Abby cries out again.

  SUWON, 1967–1968

  Dried squid dangled around Hye-yang’s head like stiff mittens from clothesline strings. The flat brown bodies brushed against the tips of her ears, her forehead, her hair, as she navigated her way around the stand. She enjoyed selling the cuttlefish to hungry Folk Village visitors, but after a few weeks, she began to feel restless in her little booth, tired of the fish reek that began to waft from her skin. During a lull, she wandered over to the archery area, picked up a bow, and shot an arrow straight into the heart of the rice straw target. A manager saw; one of his archers was going to marry a GI and leave the village, he said. Would she be willing to perform demonstrations? Hye-yang was quick to accept the offer. She saw the squid lift off her skin by the dozens, a whoosh of leathery wings in flight.

  She soon spent long, satisfying hours pulling her right arm back, squinting her eyes into fierce focus. All the shame she had caused her family on the island distilled into one thin, sharp point after another, then flew straight out of her arms.

  At Sun’s urging, Hye-yang also began to sing a few times a week. She sang most often for the traditional farmer’s dance troupe, but her true moment of glory came when she was allowed to sing the pansori, accompanied by a single drum. Her voice wasn’t ripped raw like a trained pansori singer’s, but she could feel lament and longing thick in her throat. She knew the crowd could feel it, too—she often saw men and women cry when she sang. Their tears fed her, filled her heart near to bursting with wet diamond drops. Her whole body sometimes felt ready to explode into song, shimmering like a handful of glitter in the air.

  Every night, she and Sun pushed their sleeping mats together; their hair, their hands tangled like dreams as they slept. Every day, Hye-yang woke up eager to go to work. She never felt so happy, so deeply at home in her life.

  A year after Hye-yang arrived at the Folk Village, Sun planned a trip back to Cheju-do for her grandmother’s sixtieth birthday celebration. Hye-yang felt torn. She missed the island, missed the jagged cliffs, the salt air, the fields of yellow rapeseed flowers, but she hadn’t heard from her mother and grandmother since she left. The only time she let herself remember their faces was when she wrote their names across the envelope she sent home each month with a portion of her earnings. The women often appeared in her dreams, though, swimming deep underwater, grabbing at strange sea creatures. When she tried to reach for them, they dissipated like clouds.

  A storm brewed while Hye-yang watched her friend pack for the weekend. Rain began to explode against the ground as soon as Sun kissed Hye-yang good-bye and left the dormitory. Through the window, Hye-yang watched Sun bend against the wind while she made her way toward the bus station. With weather like this, Hye-yang knew she wouldn’t be able to perform outdoors at the Folk Village for days, with either her bow or her voice. She would have to spend the weekend shivering in the cuttlefish stand, water dripping through the straw roof, turning the strands of squid slick and even more pungent. Hye-yang suddenly realized how empty the Folk Village would feel without Sun around. She grabbed some clothes, threw them into a small bag, and ran through the storm to catch up with her friend.

  Peach face lovebirds (2) (Names: Lulu, Soo)

  Ava, daughter, 21. Kill birds with pan.

  She buy me pan at flea market for scrambled egg.

  When she cook it, birds fall down. Gas comes from pan

  (called Teflon). Smells like nothing to person,

  make birds into nothing.

  [small feathers, lime green and peach]

  [foil wrapper from stick of butter]

  [receipt from flea market]

  7/18/93

  I walk along the beaches, my hands stuffed into hot gloves, garbage bags sweating against my legs. A week on the job, I have yet to find a living bird among the barnacles, but there is no shortage of dead ones. Every couple of hours, another one of my bags is full, bulging with feathers and bones. Beaks strain against the plastic; some poke all the way through. I leave the bags on the beach so someone from the hospital can pick them up later in a golf cart. The heat and stench that permeate each hour of my day slowly become familiar, but never less disturbing.

  After dinner, Darryl suggests we all have a scent party to get the death smell out of our noses. Everyone rushes off to their tents and comes back with various bottles and cans and candles and baggies to put on the picnic table. We all circle it, leaning over to sniff the various objects, walking slowly, hesitantly, like we’re playing musical chairs.

  I deeply inhale Old Spice deodorant, a stick-on air freshener disk, a bayberry scented candle, a handful of eucalyptus seeds, citronella insect repellent. I can feel Darryl’s eyes linger on me as I bend over an unlit incense cone, a plastic jug of baby wipes, a tube of coconut suntan oil. The way he looks at me has changed since I’ve been here—his eyes turn soft in my direction. My shoulders tense, and I feel him turn away, but our heads knock into each other as we both lean toward a lavender-scented sachet. I jump back, bumping Abby’s face into a jar of instant coffee. When Abby lifts her head, her nose is coated in brown powder.

  “Sorry,” Darryl and I both say at the same time. I don’t look at him, but I can feel him hesitate for a moment, then move further ahead, toward some cedar chips, anise-flavored toothpaste, rose-petal potpourri.

  “No problem,” laughs Abby, brushing herself off. “I love the smell of coffee.”

  She plunges a finger into a pot of Vicks VapoRub and smears it under my nose.

  The menthol fills my skull, cools my face, burns the touch of Darryl’s eyes off my skin. I can barely smell the packet of Kool-Aid, ripped open, or the paper wrapper that once held salt taffy that comes next. I rub some of the slick goo off my upper lip. When I look up again, Darryl is gone.

  I stumble, scent-drunk, back to the tent and pull the small box of candied ginger from my purse. I almost brought the box to the scent party but in the end decided not to. The ginger is for me alone. I didn’t want it to get touched, changed, by so many other smells. I crush a bit between my fingers and breathe in the sharp scent of it, like smelling salts, to clear my swooning, aroma-swimming head.

  “I think Darryl likes you,” Abby says as she comes into the tent, a few dark grains still on her nose.

  “I don’t want to be liked right now.” I pop a piece of ginger into my mouth, then close my eyes, heart pounding.

  “Do you have a boyfriend at home?” asks Abby.

  I shake my head.

  “A girlfriend?”

  “No.” I open my eyes again.

  “Darryl’s a nice guy.” Abby takes off her shirt and rubs her face with it.

  “I
know. I just don’t want to get involved with anyone right now.” I don’t tell Abby that I’ve never really been involved with anyone before—just a few ridiculous dates in college. I don’t tell her that I’m scared my mother will rise up like a ghost between me and anyone I try to touch, that she’ll get between me and any pleasure I may hope to feel. I don’t tell her my nipples are inverted, the tips sucked back into my chest like a turtle pulling its head back into its shell, like something shying away from the light. I don’t tell her that whenever I touch myself, whenever I try to bring myself to that place of shiver and sigh I’ve heard so much about, my mother’s voice shrieks inside my head and my body shuts down. I don’t tell her my mother’s story is so heavy in my bones that I can’t even begin to think about writing a new story for myself.

  “Good night, Ava.” Abby slips into her cot.

  “Sweet dreams,” I tell her, although I’m sure they’ll be anything but. I try not to think about Darryl trying to sleep, maybe thinking of me, just a few yards away.

  I can see my mother’s heart. It glows inside her chest in the dark, a hummingbird feeder filled with bright-red liquid. Two tubes swoop out from the bottom; the rubber tips poke through the droop of her breasts. I bend and wrap my lips around one. The hollow pellet is hard, like a bead on a cheap necklace. I press it between my palate and tongue and begin to suck. A thin, sweet liquid pours into my mouth. Hungry, I pull harder with my tongue, but only a feeble stream flows out. My mother’s rib cage contracts—painfully, it appears—with each vacuum pull of my mouth. The hummingbird feeder rattles inside. I can tell if I suck too hard, the glass will shatter. I relax my lips and pull away. My mother spins around and walks back into the night.

  I wake up starving, a film of sweetness on my tongue. I don’t feel hungry, exactly—more hollowed out, like some of the birds I find, ones that have been gutted by wild dogs or the steady jaw of decomposition. My appetite has been gone for days, so I am glad to feel some semblance of hunger, but at breakfast I can barely swallow down a bite or two from a tin of military-issue corned beef hash. I don’t think I can stomach eating near the hospital anymore. I can’t stomach eating with people who handle dead birds, can’t stomach these Meals Ready to Eat, the containers sealed like small coffins. Maybe if I could find a real meal, one made with actual fresh ingredients, I’d be able to force something down.

  By lunchtime, the heat is so unbearable, it almost takes away my appetite, but I ask for some suggestions anyway.

  “There’s a place out by Bombay Beach, just south of here,” Darryl says. “I’ve heard it’s pretty good.”

  “Maybe I’ll give it a try.” I look at my feet.

  “Would you like some company?” he asks.

  I feel myself blush.

  “No, thanks,” I tell him. “I just need to get away by myself for a little bit.”

  “I know the feeling,” he says. “But I probably need to stay here, anyway—I am Mr. Supervisor Man, after all.” He affects a super-hero pose—legs out wide, hands on hips, chest puffed out.

  I pretend not to notice his stance. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Darryl’s chest deflates, his arms drop.

  “Bon appetit!” he calls out as I walk to my car.

  In the rearview mirror, I watch Darryl watch me drive away. I shift my thoughts to the road ahead, the familiar blankness of the 111, the heat that the air conditioner can’t quite seem to dispel. I wonder if Bombay Beach is an East Indian colony, although I can’t imagine people in saris at the Salton Sea, eating samosas and chewing on cardamom seeds. After all, Mecca Beach certainly isn’t an Islamic spiritual destination. Still, I find myself excited by the prospect of some real food. Even more excited by the prospect of getting away from the birds, the bird people, Darryl’s slow warm gaze.

  The Aloha Room sits in the middle of a salt-encrusted parking lot near the water. Inside, the air is blessedly cool and smells blessedly clean—no trace of bird. Hawaii memorabilia straight out of the fifties is tacked to bamboo-lined walls, interspersed with photos of John Wayne and other Hollywood cowboys. Neon beer signs sputter their light into the dim room, along with the paper Japanese lanterns in orange and green and pink that hang from the ceiling. A counter spans one wall by the kitchen, shaded by an awning made of straw. Red and black vinyl booths line the other walls. A revolving pie rack gleams near the cash register, peaks of meringue rising inside like clouds. I feel my mouth begin to water for the first time in days.

  In one booth, a woman, the only customer in the restaurant, sits hunched over a cigarette. I glance at her offhandedly, then do a double take. She appears to be wearing a tiara and a huge plush tomato costume. I wonder if I’m hallucinating from lack of sleep, but even after I rub my eyes, the woman is still in the strange outfit, along with black fishnet stockings and bright-red pumps.

  “Hey, Miss Tomato!” a heavyset woman with salmon-colored hair calls out from the kitchen window that opens out to the counter. “Show some vegetable spirit, why don’t you?”

  “A tomato is a fruit,” Miss Tomato answers sullenly, her voice raspy, as far from a tomato voice as I could have imagined. “You should know that, Frieda, you work in the food service industry.”

  The woman steps out from behind the counter and walks over to where I’m standing by the front door, unsure whether or not to seat myself or wait for some sort of permission.

  “She won the Miss Tomato Pageant at the Tomato Festival over in Niland today, and is she celebrating?” She gestures to the woman in the booth. “Is she whipping herself into one big salsa party? No, Miss Tomato Emily Lawrence is moping around the Aloha Room like a great big rotten vegetable.”

  “Fruit, Frieda!” Miss Tomato repeats before she takes another big drag on her cigarette. “I wouldn’t be no stinking vegetable.”

  “Are you from the health board?” Frieda asks. I shake my head.

  “You should put out that ciggy anyway, Emily,” says Frieda. “I don’t want to get busted. You’re not supposed to be smoking in here.”

  Emily gives her the finger and takes another drag.

  “Have a seat,” says Frieda.

  I walk over to a duct-taped counter stool. The woman presents a coffee-and-grease-stained menu with a flourish.

  “Specials today are patty melt with chips, breaded veal cutlet, and Cobb salad, except with no ham, but I could do double turkey.”

  “Veal is cruel, Frieda.” Emily gets up from her booth and squeezes herself into a stool two away from me. Some of the soft tomato costume smooshes over, presses into my elbow. I’m seized with the urge to wrap my arms around it like a big stuffed animal and fall asleep. “You know what they do to make veal? They lock poor little baby cows up in cages and don’t even let them walk around or nothing.”

  “Well, I don’t do that.” Frieda shakes her head knowingly at me. “We buy them frozen from the Price Club.”

  The tomato woman snorts and takes another puff. “Give me a Bud,” she says. “Lite.”

  “I always did like pickled tomatoes.” Frieda winks before she shooshes the beer from the tap into a large plastic glass and hands it to Emily.

  “You would think he would at least show up for the pageant.” The tomato woman turns to me, her tiara slightly askew on her bleach-blonde hair. Dark roots sprout from her jagged part. “You would think that if he cared about me one friggin’ iota, he would be there to see me at least do my tap dance number.”

  “Her boyfriend didn’t show,” Frieda says in a stage whisper.

  “He’s a Tomato Adjuster, for god’s sake,” Emily says. “All the tomato people got the day off.”

  “I’m sure he had a good excuse,” I pipe up, suddenly aware I haven’t said a word since I walked in.

  “Oh, so you know where he went?” Emily scrunches her eyebrows at me. “You tell me, where the fuck was he?” She slams her cup against the counter. Beer sloshes out onto her costume, darkens and mats it in a series of blotches.

  “I’m
sorry…”

  “Don’t you pick on this poor girl,” Frieda scolds Emily, then turns to me. “She’s just pissed off, sweetheart. Don’t you listen to her.”

  “He’s probably off porking some other little tomato, the slime bucket.” Emily guzzles the rest of her beer. “I owe you, Frieda,” she says, then hefts herself off the stool and strides toward the door, red plush bobbing around her. It takes Emily a few tries to get out—the sides of the costume won’t fit through the jamb. She has to turn sideways and scrunch the tomato with both of her hands before she can leave.

  “What’ll it be, honey?” Frieda asks.

  I quickly scan the menu, my brain a bit addled from the tomato woman.

  “The Cobb salad sounds fine.” I point to the hand-printed specials paper-clipped to the menu.

  “Good choice,” the woman says, “even without the ham.”

  “Is she gone?” A man’s voice booms out of the kitchen.

  “It’s safe, you can come out now,” Frieda chimes back.

  “Thank god.” He pokes his head in the window.

  “Oh, she’s not that bad, Ray, come on.” Frieda leans over rows of glasses to kiss him.

  “She’s a man-eater.” Ray ducks out of the kitchen, rubbing his short salt-and-pepper beard with one hand, holding the large plastic salad bowl with the other. He wears the same kind of Hawaiian shirt that Frieda does. They are about the same size, too, in girth, the buttons straining against their bellies. “And I don’t mean that in any pleasurable way.” He sets the salad on the counter in front of me.

  “I should hope not,” Frieda laughs. “This is my husband, Ray,” she tells me. “Ray, this is…I didn’t ever get your name, did I?”