The Book of Dead Birds

by Gayle Brandeis

  Sun came back to her room, breathless, followed by a few women from the crowd outside.

  “Helen!” she beamed. “I mean Hye-yang! I won’t call you by your American name, not anymore, ever! I promise! Did you hear me out there?”

  Helen nodded, embarrassed that she hadn’t come outside.

  “We can do this!” Sun said to the women. Her eyes glittered. “If we work together, we can change things!”

  The women began to speak about better cuts in pay, less barroom debt, accountability for the GIs who are their customers. Helen wanted to join in, but she couldn’t even catch her breath. She looked outside at the jeeps patrolling the area. She didn’t want to be in Sun’s room when they came looking for her. As Sun scribbled furiously on a piece of paper, the other women looking over her shoulder, Helen slipped past her out the door.

  The sky was a rich, clear blue, the air not too warm. All the voices earlier had obscured Helen’s view out the window; she hadn’t known what a lovely morning it was. She tried not to notice the jeeps honking at her as they passed, tried not to notice the men with their rifles, tried not to notice the way the dust from the ground jumped onto her ankles, leaving a thick rime, tried not to think about Sun in her room, starting something that Helen knew could never really work. She told herself to just soak in the sunshine for once, just enjoy the soft touch of it on her skin. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sky.

  A blow to the hip jarred her out of her reverie before it really even began. A group of children ran past, chasing a small dark-skinned girl down the dirt road.

  “Ggum-doongi!” they chanted. “Ggum-doongi!”

  The girl ducked, teary, into the empty Shangri-La-La bar. The other children stood in the doorway, taunting her. “Yeah, run off to your Dark Man omma,” one said. “She’s nothing but a ggum-doongi fucker, just like you’re gonna be!” yelled another. They picked up handfuls of dirt and tossed them into the dim room.

  “Stop that!” Helen yelled at them.

  The children turned toward her. “Are you a ggum-doongi fucker, too?” the tallest one sneered, his eyes a disconcerting shade of blue. “Do you have little Dark Man babies running around, stinking up the place?”

  Helen spit on the ground right in front of his feet.

  “Filthy whore!” The boy threw a handful of dirt in her face before he raced out of the DMZ, his arms raised in victory, the other children trailing close behind him. Helen blinked some of the dirt out of her eyes, spit some out of her mouth.

  The girl stuck her head through the bar doorway.

  “Are you okay?” Helen asked.

  The girl just stared into space, her lips chapped, her hair a wild, frizzy tangle. A cold weight dropped down to the floor of Helen’s stomach. Of course she wasn’t okay. How was anyone going to be okay here?

  Helen wondered if she should go back to Sun’s room, see what they could do to make things better, but the more she thought about it, the more her feet refused to move in that direction. It’s better to not even get our hopes up, she decided.

  The girl slunk out of the doorway, her long Coca-Cola T-shirt badly stained, her legs and feet scabby and bare. She picked her way down the street, arms across her body as if she had a stomachache. Helen wondered if any of the GIs had gotten to her yet. She swallowed down the nausea that swept through her whole body like a wave. She wiped some more dirt from her face, brushed off the front of her short orange dress and headed over to Wild Ting to see if any GIs had stopped in yet for the morning.

  Ava, daughter, 19.

  Come into house with poem

  book. She stand and read

  in front of me. Her voice

  big, not regular squeak voice.

  Loud. Her hands flap around.

  After she finish,

  she put down book

  and run out the house,

  pages still spread open

  on table. The book

  heavy in my hands

  when I pick it up.

  These words covered

  with pink pen:

  And I had done a hellish thing,

  And it would work ’em woe:

  For all averred, I had killed the bird

  That made the breeze to blow.

  Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,

  That made the breeze to blow!

  Another bird? Another?

  10/17/90

  I am about to add another pelican, a brown, to my quickly bulging bag when the bird twitches. At first I think it’s my own hand twitching, a sudden surge of pulse beneath my glove, but a tremor shakes through the bird and it falls from my grasp.

  I drop the bag. Some of the beaks clack as they knock into each other, the ground. I kneel over the bird that had moved in my hands. It is nearly still on the ground, but I can see a slight rhythm thrum in the pelican’s throat. I take off my glove and touch two fingers to the pulse. It is weak but steady. I spit on my hand and wipe at the pelican’s encrusted eyes. A pale gray eye looks back at me warily.

  Please, please, be okay, I try to tell the bird telepathically as I scoop it up. I leave the bag of dead birds on the shore, even though I know I’m going against standard protocol. I can come back for them later—they aren’t going anywhere.

  I run with the bird up the slight sandy embankment to my car. I put it on the floor mat in front of the passenger seat. I know I should bring the bird to the hospital, have Darryl take a look at it, but I feel compelled to go home instead.

  “Hang in there,” I tell the bird the whole way home. “Just hang in there, baby, please, hold on…”

  Fortunately, the drive isn’t too far from Mecca to Bombay. I lift the pelican out of the Sonata and carry it up the ladder into the trailer. It seems to get heavier and heavier with each step. I plunk it down in a heap on the floor of the shower. Still breathing, a good sign, but it can’t seem to lift its head. I wet a washcloth in the small sink and wipe the pelican’s eyes more thoroughly. The bird starts to shake.

  “It’s okay, now, just hold on. You’re safe here,” I turn on the shower and watch layers of silt and salt swirl off the feathers and spiral into the drain. I rub the feathers smooth beneath the water, cup my hand beneath the pendulous beak. This bird is alive, I think in amazement as the pelican starts to calm down, to shake less. This bird will live.

  I turn off the water and slide the rippled vinyl doors shut.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” I tell the pelican. “I’ll be right back.”

  I drive back to Mecca Beach to get the bag of dead birds before I go to the hospital.

  “Just a few on Mecca,” I tell Darryl, as I drag the bag to the weighing area. “Seems to be slowing down.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Darryl gives me a sad, lingering glance before he races off somewhere.

  I feel like a criminal as I make my way over to the supply area and slide several tubed syringes full of electrolyte solution into my purse, along with some eye lubricant so the bird’s eyes won’t dry out before its eyelids can move again. I hurry away before anyone will notice the supplies are gone. They are going through them so fast, I’m sure a few won’t be missed. My mother eyes me from the wading pool.

  “Omma,” I start.

  She lifts her hand. A man comes over and carries away the now dead pelican she had been tending.

  “Come home with me,” I whisper. “I want to show you something.”

  “Is Yukam okay?” she asks.

  “Yukam’s fine, Omma. This is a good thing, a surprise.”

  She stands reluctantly and follows me out of the hospital. Darryl watches us leave.

  “I’ll bring her back later,” I say, then grab her elbow and pull her to the car.

  “Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead,” I chant inside my skull. I pull a clump of candied ginger from my purse and let the sharp flavor crystallize my thoughts as I zoom down the highway.

  The bird isn’t dead, although it is shivering in a skim of now cold w
ater, oily droppings floating all around it. I move the bird so that the water will drain and run a warm shower to send the poop down the pipes and take the chill away. My mother stands in the doorway of the bathroom, not saying anything.

  “You doing okay?” I crouch down beside the pelican. The warm water mists all over my already sweaty face. “I got something for you.” I pull a syringe from my purse. “I am not an expert at this yet, so bear with me.” I lean toward the pelican and fall onto the floor, drenching the side of my shirt.

  “It’s alive!” I say to my mom. She bites her lower lip.

  “Okay, now, we got your favorite sports drink here.” I’m sopping wet by now, the shower beating down upon me. “It’ll give you that get-up-and-go—you’ll be playing soccer in no time flat.”

  The pelican, to my amazement, opens up a wing. It unfolds over my head and bangs into the opposite edge of the shower stall, although it is not nearly open all the way. I feel like I’m beneath the bar awning at the Aloha Room. I scoot out from beneath the feathers.

  “Come on, now,” I coax. I get the tube into the bird’s beak and squirt the 100 ml of electrolyte down its throat. “There you go. Much better.”

  “I’m just going to get some dry clothes on, okay?” I tell the bird. “You hold tight now. Make yourself at home…” Oh my god, what am I doing?

  “Omma, can you keep an eye on him while I change?” I ask. She nods as I race to the bedroom. My heart is pounding so hard, I can barely use my fingers. I have to rebutton my dry shirt three times before I get the holes in the right order; I almost fall over trying to put on my pants. When I glance in the mirror, I hardly recognize myself—a shimmer seems to come off my skin, like part of me is moving so fast, so frantically, it creates a halo effect.

  “It want to get out,” my mother says when I get back into the bathroom. The pelican, still on its side, is flopping its one wing around. It looks much healthier than it did even a few minutes ago.

  “Are you ready for some more?” I pull out another syringe. I can’t remember what the timing is supposed to be with the electrolytes. It couldn’t hurt to rehydrate the bird, could it?

  I try to get closer to the bird, but it is beating its wing too hard. The wing seems so separate from its listless body, like a flag whipping around on top of a mountain.

  I finally get underneath the wing and ease the tube down the bird’s throat. It looks at me with great distrust; its wing slows down and eventually folds back into its side. For a moment I worry the bird has died, but I can see its breath rise and fall. My breath rises and falls right along with it.

  The next few days are a blur of rehydration and eye lubrication, a blur of wet feathers and cautious hope. I feign illness so that I can stay home with the pelican; my mother pockets more supplies as needed during her shift at the hospital. The bird gets a little stronger every day. It can start to move its eyelids; then it can start to move its neck; then it can stand on its hocks; then it can stand on its feet. Then it begins to get feisty.

  “Omma, could you get the pillowcase off the pillow on the sofa?” I ask her. “I think we’re going to need it.”

  She nods and races out. She comes back with a pillowcase from home, the one that was filled with pots and pans when she first got here, covered with bleached-out geometrical patterns.

  “We’re going to need to cut a hole in it—do you mind?”

  She shakes her head, then puts the pillowcase to her mouth and tries to pull the seam out with her teeth.

  “Maybe we should get some scissors,” I say, but she shakes her head again and yanks harder. I hear a ripping sound. She holds up the pillow. Blue threads dangle from her lips. The pillowcase gapes open—a perfectly sized hole.

  “What we do now?” she asks.

  “We put it over the bird’s head,” I tell her.

  “After that. What we do with the bird?”

  “I don’t know, Omma,” I tell her. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “I do the bird, you do the pillow.” She leans into the shower, drenching herself, sending water spraying out of the stall. The bird hits her in the face with its beak. She pulls her head back out; a bit of blood trickles next to her eye.

  “Are you okay, Omma?” I ask.

  “I fine.” She leans in again. I lean above her and turn off the shower. I try to put the pillowcase over the bird’s head, but it is moving around too much. A wing smacks my mother in the mouth, cutting her lip.

  “This bird very not-dead,” my mother says.

  “Yeah—hopefully we can manage to stay not-dead in the process ourselves,” I tell her. I get the pillowcase partially on the bird, but I can’t get it all the way over. An eye peers out of the head hole like a child dressing up like a ghost for Halloween. I rustle with the cloth until the gap slides over his wet skull; the pillowcase bunches up like a collar around his neck, his wings still free beneath it.

  “Omma, can you fold in his wings?”

  “How I do that?”

  “I don’t know—just try!”

  We struggle with the bird until finally my mother squeezes the two wings in like someone playing a concertina and I yank the cloth the rest of the way down. The pillowcase doesn’t look like a dress on this bird, it looks like a sausage casing. The poor bird struggles to keep its balance, its wings tightly pinned.

  “I’ll try to give it some more stuff.” I hold out the tubed syringe. The bird snaps and snaps, but I manage to slip the tube into its beak and press the plunger down. I’m soaking wet; my mother is sopping and bloody. We collapse back against the sink.

  “I think it’s ready for fish,” I tell my mother.

  “I think I ready for bed,” she tells me.

  I wet a washcloth and gently rub her temple. I smear some of the same antibiotic ointment we’ve been putting on the bird’s “bedsores” on the cut. She closes her eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever touched her like this before, so tenderly. I don’t know if anyone ever has. I dab some more with the washcloth, wanting to keep the connection, wanting to keep touching her like this. I dab and daub until she begins to squirm.

  “That enough,” she says, and leaves the bathroom.

  “What do you think of that?” I ask the pelican. It struggles inside its pillowcase. I ease the material back over its head and let it spread its wings.

  A couple of days later, the pelican is hopping all over the bathroom, preening, roosting on the edge of the sink, knocking our toothbrushes all over the place. It is swallowing fish without spitting them back up. Its hocks are free of sores. Its eyes are clear. It is time to set it free.

  My mother and I begin to make plans. We decide to drive down to Casa Cove, her old skin-diving haunt, and release it there.

  “We bring the mosaic girl,” my mother says.

  “The mosaic girl?”

  “The girl with the sticks,” she says. “The girl at the tae kwon do place.”

  “Jeniece?”

  “I think that the one.”

  “Why do you want to bring Jeniece?”

  “She want to see my eggs.”

  I’ve barely spoken to Jeniece, other than our encounter at the burial ground. My mother hasn’t seen her since her first morning at the sea. I don’t know whether Frieda would want us to take her so far away, especially when we haven’t spoken for a while ourselves. Still, I remember the way my mother smiled at Jeniece, the way Jeniece seemed so easy with her. “I’ll talk to Frieda about it,” I tell her.

  “You do it soon.” She points to the pelican, flapping madly on top of the toilet.

  “Will you be okay alone here for a few minutes?” I ask her.

  “I not alone. Go!” She shoos me off with her hands.

  It feels weird to pull into the parking lot of the Aloha. It’s like it’s been lifetimes since I’ve been there, even though it’s been less than two weeks. The light seems starker on the salty pavement; the bamboo sign looks shabbier than I remember. Now that Darryl has been here, I feel his not-bei
ng-here acutely. It takes me a while to touch the handle of the door, pull it open.

  “Ava!” Frieda rushes up to me after I finally come in. “How are you? How’s your mom?”

  “We’re doing okay.” I want to sink into her hug, but I shrink away from it instead.

  “We’ve been worried about you.” Frieda pulls back and searches my face.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I’ve just had some stuff to sort out.” I look around the room. Much to my relief, Emily isn’t there.

  “I’m so sorry Emily did what she did,” Frieda said. “I want you to know I’ve given her a good talking to.”

  “It’s okay…”

  “No, it’s not! Giving someone drugs without telling them—there’s no excuse for that! I almost called the police on her!”

  I’ve been so focused on Emily and Darryl together that I had almost forgotten about Emily dosing me. I remembered my refusal when she first asked me about whether I’d ever tried Ecstasy more than my panic after I realized what she had done. I’ve tried not to let myself remember how good it felt after things kicked in…

  “Listen, Frieda, how’s Jeniece doing?”

  “Jeniece? She’s fine…” She looks at me quizzically; we haven’t really talked about Jeniece before.

  “Is her health okay?”

  “Her eyesight is deteriorating a little, the doctor says, but for the most part, she’s doing pretty good.”

  “Great.” I’m not sure how to broach the subject. Frieda absently runs her hands over the laminated menus in their wooden pocket, fanning them out; they make a fwap fwap sound when they fall back in place. I almost want to ask her to do it again so that I can record it.

  “Anyway,” I start. “My mom and I are going to San Diego tomorrow morning—just for the day—and we were wondering if we could take Jeniece with us.”