The Book of Dead Birds

by Gayle Brandeis

  “Just enjoy it, Ava,” Emily says. “You need to loosen up!” She lifts up her arms and starts jumping up and down to the DJ tracks. A group of teenage boys gather around her.

  “Emily!”

  She is too busy showing off for the boys to answer.

  I don’t know what to do. I race over to the closest tent. A bunch of kids are lounging around inside, sucking on pacifiers. I can’t bring myself to ask them anything. I run over to three relatively normal-looking guys sitting on beach chairs.

  “Excuse me?” I ask, panting. “Can you help me? I just took some Ecstasy!”

  A hefty guy with a goatee and a kind face stands up and slips a surgical mask over my nose and mouth. The inside is slick with Vicks VapoRub. It smears on my skin, makes the inside of my nose burn. I flash on the night of the smell party, Abby’s fingers, Darryl’s eyes. I take a deep breath and start to cough.

  “Does this counteract it?” I ask, my voice muffled.

  “No, man,” the guy smiles, “it enhances it!”

  I rip the mask off my face.

  “What?!”

  “It makes you feel it better. I thought that’s what you wanted.” He adjusts his ski cap.

  I run off, furiously rubbing the slick stuff from my face. I don’t know where to go. The music is so loud, I can feel my diaphragm vibrate inside my ribs.

  I push myself through the crowd and into some open space. The air is wild, a mad rush of prickly seeds and candy-wrapper scraps. My body begins to feel funny, like my bones are melting, like the wind can pass right through me. Only my feet feel solid, slogging through the sand. I climb up a dune. A small crowd gathers by a bonfire at the bottom on the other side, nestled in a grove of cottonwood trees. The leaves shimmer in the firelight, flashing silver like some sort of code. I can hear a single voice singing, the shake of a rattle. The techno music recedes into the background. I stumble-slide down the dune, my body streaming in all directions.

  My mother balances on a star at the far edge of the Milky Way. The swirling swath shimmers between us, a river of glitter in the dark. From where I stand on my own small star her body blinks in and out of focus, but the nightingale that hovers over her head shines in sharp relief.

  “I can teach you a song,” I hear the bird tell her, and my mother’s voice floats out into the empty space.

  A crane touches down next to me and whispers, “I can teach you a dance.” It lifts its strange ankles, and my hands involuntarily slap against my drum.

  Crows and magpies swarm the milky span and spread their wings. Their bodies drown out all the glimmer. “Use us as a bridge,” they say, then clip their beaks to each other’s tails and wings, weaving together a huge hammock of bird. I place a blind foot on a crow’s back. The bird bobs down, then rises back up, like a buoy. I move my other foot onto a magpie’s wing. The ridges of its feathers are jagged; my foot slips, knocks against another bird’s skull. I’m scared I might fall; there is nothing to hold on to but my drum as I slowly step from one bird to another. A few bright specks seep up between their wings, but it is too dark to see anything else. I can’t tell whether my mother is navigating this bridge, too, trying to reach me halfway.

  I wake up to a strange, buttery light—much softer than the light in the trailer, where even the sun seems harsh and fluorescent. Outside the window, a hummingbird hovers over a bird of paradise plant, then darts away, an emerald flash. Beyond it I can see hills, cactus. I’m on a futon, covered by a down comforter. The room smells of cedar and coffee. I have no idea where I am. My head pounds. My mouth is completely dry.

  “Good morning.” Darryl kisses my cheek. “It’s so amazing to see you here.”

  I sit up fast. The cover slides down to my waist. I’m relieved to see that I’m still wearing my clothes.

  “Are you okay?” He hands me a cup of coffee. “You were really out of it last night.”

  I struggle to remember what happened. Then it all comes back to me in a rush: a bunch of rave kids sitting in a scraggly semicircle on the ground, the cuffs of their enormous pants pooling together in the sand. In front of them, by the fire, a woman, around sixty years old, sang in a language I’d never heard before. She danced in small steps, half bent over, her arms and hands shaping the song. A younger woman, maybe in her twenties or thirties, obviously related to the singer, sat on the ground, shaking a large gourd rattle. She watched the singer intently as she accompanied her. My heart pounded. I fished around in my purse for my small tape recorder and pressed the red record button. I wondered if the singer was telling the truth; I wondered if the other woman hung on every word, if they rang inside her long after the song ended. I felt myself melt into the music, into the sand.

  “Ava?”

  I looked up. The warmth of the bonfire flooded my body.

  “Darryl!” I grabbed his hand and pulled him down to the ground next to me. “I didn’t expect to see you here!” My cheeks hurt, all of a sudden I was smiling so much.

  “I heard there were going to be bird songs tonight.” His voice was quiet so that he wouldn’t disturb the singer. He looked down at our hands, linked together, and cleared his throat. His hand felt so good. I lifted it up and kissed it. Did I really do that?

  “This is a bird song?” I whispered. I was melting, melting.

  “Traditional Cahuilla,” he said. “Only a handful of people still know the language…”

  “I don’t know the language of birds,” I told him. “My mother told me to say I know the language of birds, but I don’t!” I started to laugh.

  A bunch of rave kids turned to me and said, “Shhhh!”

  “Are you okay, Ava?”

  “I’m fiiiine.” I flopped my head against his shoulder. His shirt smelled wonderful, like soap and fire smoke. Oh my gosh…

  I felt his arm stiffen. “Did you take something?”

  I nodded. “Emily tricked me.” I laughed even harder.

  The singer spread her arms like wings. I wrapped my arms around his waist.

  “Ava, this is weird,” Darryl said. “You’re not yourself. Maybe I should take you home.”

  “But I want to hear the music…” I pressed my ear against his chest. Did I actually do that?

  “Ava…” Darryl’s eyes were confused. He’d been wanting me to touch him, he’s been wanting to touch me, for weeks, but now he pulled away.

  I brushed the back of my hand against his hair. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. My jaw clamped shut tight; my teeth ground together, my mouth suddenly turned dry, salty as soup mix. Only a growl could pass through. This really happened. How could this have really happened?

  “Are you okay?” Darryl looked panicked. I shook my head. Something between a laugh and a cry bubbled up inside my chest.

  “Don’t sweat it.” The guy sitting next to me squeezed my jaw at the hinge and opened my mouth. He slid in a pacifier, slick and wet, tasting faintly of candy. I wanted to spit it out, but it felt nice to have some space between my molars, some saliva beginning to flow.

  “First time on X?” he asked me. I nodded.

  “Wait till you have sex.” He looked at me, then Darryl. “You’ll flip out.”

  Even in the dark, I could see Darryl flush.

  “Let’s go,” I whispered, the pacifier still in my mouth. Then I stood up too fast, and the world disappeared.

  I pull the covers up over my chest. I’m too embarrassed to even acknowledge the night before. I have no memory of anything after the bonfire.

  “I thought you lived in a tent,” I say, feeling like a complete idiot.

  “I’m just staying down there during the rescue effort,” he says. “I want to be close by in case anyone needs me. This is my regular house. I come up here to unwind.”

  “It’s nice,” I say, and it really is, full of space and light. Through the open bedroom door I can see the main part of the house, the high open beam ceiling, the simple furniture.

  “I picked it up for a song.” He sits down on the b
ed next to me. The mattress tilts; my hips slide toward him; I try to hold them back. “It’s all solar. There’s so much sun out here—it makes sense to take advantage of it.”

  I take a sip of coffee. Is it possible he put ginger in it? It tastes amazing.

  “My hat goes off to anyone who can live here,” I say, but this house, this view, away from the stink of the shore, seem surprisingly, wonderfully livable.

  “I really thought I wouldn’t be able to hang—I’m a northern California boy, so this is a pretty intense climate for me—but they need me here. The birds. And the place has grown on me, actually. It’s where I’m supposed to be right now.”

  I wonder what it’s like to feel such certainty. My body has a hint of it—my skin feels warm, almost like it’s glowing from the inside out; I wonder if the Ecstasy is still circling through my blood, or if it’s just the coffee, or maybe it’s from being in Darryl’s bed, from Darryl being so close. It’s scary, how good it feels. I’m not sure I can handle it.

  “You know, there’s a bird song about the first people who came to this area,” Darryl tells me. “Maybe the woman sang it last night—I don’t know Cahuilla, so I wouldn’t have recognized it. I’ve just read that this song is supposed to be about the first people who came here, the first people on earth, supposedly. They could fly, so the mythology goes. They circled this place three times before they decided to touch down, to try to make a human world.”

  “I did that.” I take another sip. “I mean, I didn’t fly, but I drove around the sea three times before I decided to stay.”

  “I’m glad you decided to stay, Ava.” Darryl leans toward me. He closes his eyes; his lips reach for mine.

  I jump up, spilling the coffee all over the bed.

  “I should probably go.” My heart is hummingbird-fast.

  “Ava…”

  “I’m sorry about the spill—I hope it doesn’t stain.”

  “I’m not worried about the spill,” Darryl starts.

  “I’ll pay for it, I promise.” I race toward the door.

  When I get outside, I realize I have no idea where I am. My car is nowhere in sight. There is no discernible road, even, just ruts on the hill where Darryl’s Jeep has gone in and out.

  “Let me give you a lift.” Darryl comes outside, holding my purse. He is still wearing pajamas. “I can take you home, or I can take you to your car. Just let me know what you want.”

  “I don’t know…” I want to sit down on the dirt and cry.

  “You don’t need to go,” he says. He stands a step closer. I can feel heat move between us like a hand. I close my eyes.

  “Oh my gosh!” I step back. “Emily! I gave Emily a ride to the thing last night! She had no way to get home!”

  “If I know Emily, she found a way,” Darryl chuckles.

  “You know Emily?”

  “Who doesn’t know Emily around here?”

  “Could you take me to my car, please?” I was supposed to be keeping her out of trouble, not falling into trouble myself. “I want to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Sure thing.” He hands me my purse. “Hop in.”

  At the site of the rave, only a few stragglers, a few tents and cars remain. At first I can’t find my car; then I see it has been turned into some sort of art piece. The top is covered with glitter. A few beer bottles and candles sit altarlike on the hood, along with a couple of condom wrappers. The top of the trunk is littered with flowers and surgical masks. The car is so spattered with dirt from the unpaved road, I can barely tell it’s green. In the dust on a window, someone has written the word “beautiful.” I stand, frozen, before it.

  “I’ll work on cleaning this up,” says Darryl. “Why don’t you look around for Emily.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?” I ask. “I’ve given you a lot to clean up already.”

  “It’s my pleasure.” He smiles. “And it’s true.” He points to the dusty word.

  It is eerily quiet here, eerily still, after the wind and noise of last night. My sternum has some sort of Pavlovian response—I can feel it buzz as if the music is still thumping through the air. I can’t find Emily among the small clusters of kids sitting on the sand or in beach chairs, toasting marshmallows for breakfast and drinking sodas and beer. I peer inside the few tents that are open. Many kids sleep with pacifiers in their mouths, huddled together like puppies. In one tent, a girl with pink hair—the girl from the Aloha, I’m pretty sure—is asleep, naked. Her pants are on the ground outside, baby-doll eyes wide open on the knees. I try not to look at her nipples, but I can’t seem to help myself—she must have dyed them; they are almost as pink as her hair. Her eyes fly open; I race away, wondering where Silver Face is, wondering if I still have silver smeared on my cheek.

  Darryl is lifting a condom wrapper off the hood when I get back.

  “She doesn’t seem to be here,” I tell him, blushing. “Maybe we could check the Aloha.”

  “That’s the restaurant you always go to, right?” he says. “I still haven’t checked that place out.”

  “The food’s not the best, but it’s homey,” I tell him.

  “Are you sure you don’t just want to go home?”

  “I want to see if Frieda knows where she is,” I say.

  “Okay,” he says. “I could use some breakfast, anyway. I’ll follow you there.”

  I’ve never been so aware of the back of my head before, the backs of my arms. I can feel Darryl driving behind me, his car bouncing on the same potholes as mine, changing lanes when I do to stay right behind me. I’m glad I’m surrounded by so much metal. My body feels way too soft and fluid and warm to hold itself together.

  The Aloha is surprisingly busy—at least half a dozen tables are filled, the most I’ve seen at one time. Emily is sitting at the counter. Relief floods through me at the sight of her. She looks at me, then quickly glances away.

  Darryl touches my elbow. It feels funny to be here with him; it’s always been the place I’ve gone when I’ve wanted to avoid catching his eye. One wall crumbles down after another…

  Frieda runs up to me and gives me a hug. Her hair smells like bacon. “Ava!” she cries. “We were so worried about you!”

  “I think I passed out, but I’m okay.” I glance over, but Emily won’t look at me.

  “I didn’t pass out.” Emily fiddles with her fork. “You only had a little bit—I barely put anything in the water.”

  “Did you give her something?” Frieda spins toward Emily.

  “I just wanted her to relax,” she says, her face pale. “Looks like it worked.” She gestures to Darryl’s pajamas with her head.

  “Emily! How could you do something so stupid? That’s totally illegal!”

  “Don’t lecture me, Frieda, okay?” Emily storms off to the bathroom.

  “I didn’t know she did that,” says Frieda. “That’s bad. That’s really bad. That’s not even what I was worried about, though—not before now, at least. We heard another body was found, not too far from that rave.”

  “Oh, no” tumbles out of my mouth, Darryl’s mouth, together.

  “When Emily said she couldn’t find you last night, I got scared…”

  “I had no idea,” I tell her. “I’m glad Emily got home okay.”

  “Yeah, well,” Frieda says, distracted. “Oh, we got some other news from the cops, too—that first body, the one you found, Ava? Turns out she was a hooker.”

  My heart falls to my knees.

  “I didn’t even know we had prostitutes in these parts.” Frieda hands Darryl a laminated menu. She knows I don’t need to look at the menus anymore.

  “World’s oldest profession,” Ray says from the grill. “They’re everywhere you go.”

  “I’m not even going to ask you how you know that, babe,” Frieda says.

  Heat rises up my neck and into my cheeks. The words “my mother was a prostitute” tap the inside of my teeth like Braille, then slide back down my throat. I’ve never said them out loud bef
ore. If I say them out loud, I think I might spontaneously combust. I can write the words, but if I say them, it would make them real. If I say them, I would have to deal with them. On the page, even in my mother’s song, they are in a safe little box. In the air, from my own lips, my own breath, they would rip my heart out.

  “Have they identified the second body yet?” Darryl asks.

  Frieda shakes her head. “It’s a woman, that’s all I know.”

  “I figure I’m gonna ask Rick to start paying.” Emily walks back to the counter. “He calls me a slut so much, I might as well make a few bucks out of it.”

  “You’re kidding, I hope,” says Frieda. She gives a customer some change. He glares at all of us before he leaves.

  Emily laughs unconvincingly. I wonder how she got home last night.

  “You shouldn’t put up with that crap,” Frieda says to Emily. “Rick is no good. You could do so much better than that little asshole.”

  “I have.” Emily grins slyly at Darryl. He looks down. My stomach bunches up.

  “Excuse me,” I say, then race toward the bathroom. Frieda meets me in the hallway by the cigarette machines.

  “Emily’s clean,” Frieda says. “I make sure she goes in for a test at least every six months. You have nothing to worry about in that regard.”

  Emily shows up in the hallway. “She’s got plenty to worry about,” she says.

  My knees weaken.

  “With the bodies and the birds and everything.” Emily rustles in her pocket for some change. “We all got something to worry about around here.”

  “You know, I’m not really hungry,” I tell Darryl when I come back from the bathroom. I hope my eyes aren’t too red. I can barely look at him. “I think I’ll go on home.”

  He stands up. “Ava,” he says. “I’m really glad we found each other last night.”

  “Thanks for looking out for me,” I tell him.