The Book of Dead Birds

by Gayle Brandeis

  “Your bath is ready,” I tell her.

  “Is your mom okay?”

  “This is just something she does sometimes,” I tell her. “It’s a Korean way of singing. She used to be a performer, a long time ago.”

  “Can you call my mom?” Jeniece starts to cry.

  “Why don’t you go take your bath and we’ll call her after you get out,” I say, trying to listen to my mother’s words at the same time. “There’s a towel hanging on the rack.”

  Jeniece nods tearily and sets off for the bathroom.

  My hands itch for my drum. I lower myself onto a torn cushion and smack the coffee table twice.

  “They kill her!” my mother wails, her voice rising and falling in wild swoops. “They kill her!”

  I catch my breath and pound the coffee table again. I wonder if she’s talking about the woman at the Salton Sea. I kind of doubt it.

  “They break her like eggshell,” she sings. “They break her. She try to help us. She make a union, and they break her!”

  Pound pound slap.

  “She call union Silky Domestic Fowl. Korea protect this bird, make this bird a treasure, but who gonna protect us? Who gonna make us a treasure?”

  Slap pound slap.

  “I don’t help her. I get too scared. I don’t help her. I don’t help her!”

  Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

  “They say she get killed ’cause she go out with white man. She don’t go out with white man! She try to get us more better life!”

  Slap slap slap.

  Her voice drops to a whisper. “I don’t help her.”

  Tap.

  “Sun…” She starts to cry.

  My palms throb, but they can’t respond. My mother grabs eggshells in both hands and rubs them over her face, her mouth trembling, her breath jagged. I inch over and put my arms around her. She tenses, then collapses against me, sobbing.

  “Omma,” I whisper into her hair. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…”

  “I so sorry,” she says, but I don’t think she’s talking to me.

  My mother decides to stay in the apartment to clean up the eggs. I unpack her stuff from the trunk and bring it upstairs before we take off for the sea. The mats in the car are completely plastered with pelican poop.

  “Thanks for coming with us today,” I tell her.

  “It was fun,” she says unconvincingly. Her hair is still wet. I can’t tell if the streams running down her face are tears or bathwater.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask her.

  She nods her head.

  We get some drive-through on the way to the highway. She’s asleep before she eats even half of her burger.

  It feels funny to drive back to the sea in the dark. It’s almost as if I know where I’m going.

  Frieda is outside, waiting for us, when we pull up to the Aloha.

  “Thank god you’re okay,” Frieda says when I roll down the window. “I was worried sick.” She looks frantic. I don’t know why—we told her what time we were going to leave San Diego, and we made good time. Jeniece wakes up at the sound of her mother’s voice.

  “Frieda, are you okay?” I ask.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Not in front of Jeniece.”

  “Mom…”

  “It’s grown-up stuff.”

  I get out of the car. Jeniece does, too, her movements slow, groggy.

  “What’s that you’re wearing?” Frieda asks her.

  “It’s Ava’s shirt.”

  “Everything’s fine.” I hand her the plastic bag with Jeniece’s rinsed-out clothes. “Jeniece had a little accident, but everything worked out okay.”

  “Jeniece?! What’s gotten into you?! Are you two years old or something?”

  “I’m not a baby!” Jeniece screams, instantly more awake. “It was an accident! Why do you always want to pick on me?!”

  “Go to your room, young lady!” Frieda yells at her.

  Jeniece opens her mouth in protest.

  “Now!”

  Jeniece groans and clomps off.

  “I was looking forward to seeing her, too,” sighs Frieda.

  “She’s a great kid,” I say. “She didn’t give us any problems at all.”

  “I guess she just saves it for me.” Frieda rolls her eyes.

  I want to defend Jeniece, but I don’t know what to say. “You had something you wanted to tell me? Grown-up stuff?”

  Frieda’s face drops. “It’s Emily.”

  I feel queasy. She and Darryl must have run off together. Maybe they got married. Maybe she’s having his baby…

  “She’s in ICU. It’s pretty bad.”

  Despite myself, I feel flooded with relief. “What happened?”

  “Someone tried to kill her. The police think it was the same guy who killed those two girls. She had the same marks on her neck.”

  “Oh my gosh.”

  “They have her boyfriend in custody, but I don’t think he did it. I mean, he roughed her up a couple of times, but he’s too much of a chickenshit to try and kill someone…”

  “Why is he in custody, then?”

  “He has a record. When he beat her up, I called the police on him. No way was I gonna let him get away with that. Plus, his fingerprints were all over her, and some of his semen was in her and on her lips and everything…”

  I feel another wave of nausea.

  “Are there any other suspects?”

  “Not that I know of. I think the guy’s out there still, I really do. I think he’s close by. Maybe you should stay with us tonight, Ava.”

  “No, thanks,” I tell her. I’m looking forward to having some time in the trailer alone. “Thanks for letting me borrow Jeniece for the day. She really is a great kid, you know.”

  “I know,” Frieda says softly.

  “I don’t think she knows you know.” I bite my lip.

  Frieda clears her throat. “Well, anyway, thanks for taking her.”

  “Good night, Frieda.”

  “You be careful now, all by your lonesome.”

  “I’ll be fine, Frieda. Don’t worry about me. I’m a self-defense teacher, remember?”

  “I don’t think the class helped Emily none,” Frieda says. “No offense…”

  “None taken. Good night, Frieda,” I say again, then go to the car.

  When I get to the trailer, the hairs on my arms stand up. Everything looks okay—the door is closed, the lift is empty—but I feel nervous. The stress of the whole day must be getting to me. I take a deep breath and get out of the car. A rustling comes from under the trailer, where all the pipes are. I tell myself it’s only a cat, only a dog, only a bird, but a person—a large person, a man—steps out of the shadows. My limbs turn fizzy with adrenaline; I shakily assume the ready stance. I wish I could see better—without the headlights, it’s hard to distinguish anything, but I can tell he’s coming closer, with an intensity that almost takes my breath away. When he gets within a yard of me, I jump into the air and kick him in the throat. He falls to the ground with a huge thud. I race up the ladder of the trailer to call the police and hide behind the door. A police car and an ambulance pull up. I wait until I hear a knock before I stand up. When I open the door, I recognize one of the policemen who questioned me at the station.

  “So you find the bodies and the guy who killed them, huh?”

  “I just found one…”

  “What kind of racket do you have going on here?”

  “There’s no racket.” I have no idea what he’s talking about. He fingers his handcuff.

  “You two working in cahoots? He takes the tumble for you? What’s the deal?”

  “I’m sorry—I don’t understand…”

  “Sure you don’t,” he nods slyly. “The guy down there says he knows you.”

  “He what?” I run to the window.

  “He says he works with you.”

  In the squad car’s headlights, I can see the man sitti
ng up now, the back of his wavy hair…

  “Oh, no.”

  “Are you two like Bonnie and Clyde or something? Or like those two in that movie with the bartender from Cheers? The dumb one? That movie where the couple goes around killing people?”

  “Officer.” Words start to tumble from my mouth. “There’s been a mistake. That’s my friend out there. I didn’t recognize him in the dark…”

  “Slow down,” he says. I try to take a deep breath.

  “That’s a friend of mine,” I say. “He didn’t do anything. I just got scared and kicked him. I thought it was the killer, but it was just my friend…”

  “Why don’t we come down and have a little chat, then, all of us?”

  I nod.

  We step out onto the narrow landing together.

  “Strange place you have here,” he says. He goes down before me—probably to keep me from bolting.

  “Darryl,” I call out. “Darryl, I’m so sorry!” This seems to be my catch phrase these days—maybe it always has been: I’m sorry.

  Darryl looks up at me and tries to smile. He is obviously in a lot of pain.

  “Ava,” he croaks out.

  I jump off the ladder and run to him.

  “I’m so sorry, I thought you were the guy…” I crouch down before him. He reaches out a hand. I grab it. I feel a jolt go all the way up my arm.

  “I know,” he says, his voice whisper-soft, strained. “I should have let you know it was me.” He stops to cough; my hand falls when he lifts his to cover his mouth.

  “Do you want to press any charges?” the cop asks Darryl.

  He shakes his head. “It was an honest mistake.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” I ask him.

  “Let me take you to dinner tomorrow,” he wheezes, like the air coming out of a bellows. He coughs again. Some blood flies out.

  “Oh my gosh, Darryl, I really hurt you.”

  He puts his hand to his chest and winces out a smile.

  “We need to take you in,” one of the paramedics says. They wheel a gurney toward him.

  “And we need to ask you some more questions,” the officer tells me.

  “But—”

  “No buts about it,” he says.

  “But I know the language of birds,” I say. He stares at me like I’m crazy. I feel a crazy laugh bubble in my chest, but I don’t let it out.

  As he leads me to the squad car, I turn to Darryl, who is being strapped in to the gurney. “I should take you out to dinner, not the other way around…,” I start.

  He smiles—a real one breaking through the wince—then coughs up more blood.

  I drive to the hospital after the police are done questioning me, but Darryl has already been released. I want to check up on him, but I don’t know his number and I don’t know how to get to his house. There is a message on my machine when I get back home. “I’ll be there at seven tomorrow,” he says, his voice strained but amused. “In full body armor, of course.” His laugh turns into a coughing fit, and then the tape is quiet. I think the message is over, but after a couple of beats he says, “I’m really looking forward to this, Ava.” I can hear him breathe for a while before the tape clicks off.

  I take another step on the bridge of birds. White pelicans, gray mourning doves, are scattered among the crows and magpies. I can see a few feet in front of me thanks to their light feathers, but my mother is still out of my range of vision. I hear the nightingale over her head tell her to sing; all that comes out of her mouth is breath. I wobble toward her exhale, my fingers thrumming soft.

  The bridge sways under my feet. The nightingale’s eyes flash in the dark. “Chosim haseyo,” it tells me from a distance.

  The birds who make up the bridge open their beaks and fly away. The Milky Way sparkles back into view, a flurry of flashbulbs. I have to close my eyes against the sudden dazzle. My mother’s silhouette burns inside my eyelids. I can’t figure out what’s under my feet, now that the bridge is gone. I can’t figure out why I haven’t started to fall.

  The next day goes by like a blur. I spend an embarrassing amount of it in front of the mirror. My hair has grown a lot since I’ve been out here. I’ve always kept it cut close to my skull, barely there; even when I was a little girl, my mother cut it that short. She didn’t know how to deal with my hair. Mothers of black kids would shake their heads in dismay at my almost bald head. Now my hair is poufing up like a mushroom. I tie a scarf around it to hold it down a little. After changing a zillion times, I finally decided on simple—white shirt, tan pants, which I hang in the shower to steam the wrinkles out. I am trying to decide whether or not to put on earrings when I hear the car pull up. I keep my ear-lobes bare, take a deep breath, and go outside.

  “Should I be scared?” Darryl calls up to me as I climb down the ladder.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell him again.

  “Hey—I was impressed.” He grins. “I didn’t know you pack such a punch—er, I mean, kick!”

  “How’s your throat?”

  He holds my door open for me, then runs around to his side of the car.

  “It still hurts a little when I swallow, but I’ll be fine, Ava. It looked a lot worse than it was. I bit my tongue—that’s why there was so much blood.”

  “Maybe you should just go home and rest tonight,” I tell him. “We could do this some other time.”

  “Are you kidding?” Darryl says as we pull out of the parking spot, sending scraps of salt and dirt flying. “Not on your life. I’ve been waiting a long time for this opportunity. A little esophageal discomfort isn’t going to keep me from showing you the town.”

  “I think I’ve seen pretty much all there is to see around here…”

  “You’d be surprised,” Darryl says.

  We drive in silence for a while.

  “Ava,” he starts to say. “I know you’re upset about Emily…”

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. I’m not sure I want to hear about the gory details.

  “I just want you to know it was a long time ago,” he presses on. “Five years maybe. It wasn’t long after I first came out here.”

  I stare at the Chocolate Mountains, trying to quell the queasy feeling.

  “I was going through a rough time. My wife had died about a year before that.”

  My stomach lurches again. “I didn’t know you were married.”

  “For three years,” he says. “Everything happened pretty fast after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.”

  “I’m so sorry…” My mantra. It feels different this time, though.

  “I was completely lost. I didn’t know what to do with my life. When the position down here opened up, I jumped at it. I wanted to get away from all the memories up north, you know, but when I got here, it wasn’t any better. This place looked as desolate as I felt.”

  I nod, my voice stuck in my throat.

  “I was drinking when I met Emily—drinking way too much those days. It was just so nice to have someone smile at me, you know? So nice to have someone want to touch me again.”

  I shudder involuntarily.

  “It lasted less than a week, Ava. It just didn’t feel right. We had nothing to talk about. I felt emptier than ever.”

  I open my eyes wide to keep from crying.

  “To tell you the honest truth, I was worried I’d never be able to love anyone again…” He looks over at me. I meet his eyes for a second, then turn my head to look out the window again, dizzy. We drive in silence until Darryl pulls the Jeep into the driveway of Shield’s Date Garden.

  “I thought we’d stop for a little movie before dinner,” he says. “Make it a real date.”

  I look at the rows upon rows of date palms. “When you say date, you really mean it.” My voice feels scratchy, like I haven’t used it in ages.

  “I always say what I mean.” His eyes find mine again. I worry I won’t remember how to breathe. He gets out and opens my car door.

  “They have a great film here,�
�� Darryl says as I hop down to the dirt. “It’s the only movie theater for miles, you know. No popcorn, but it’s nice and cool inside. Don’t get put off by the title—I don’t mean anything by it, Ava, honestly. It’s just fun, you know—a bit of local lore.”

  I can’t imagine what he could be talking about until I notice the sign advertising the film Romance and Sex Life of the Date. I can feel sweat begin to form on my upper lip. I wonder if I should turn around, feign a stomachache, a heart attack. The sign, however, also touts the air conditioning and the 108 COMFORTABLE THEATER SEATS. It would be good to get out of the heat.

  In the empty theater, I find myself strangely stirred by the erotic life of the date. I don’t like the fact that the palms are divided into “harems,” an acre of forty-eight female plants with one male “presiding”—it sounds too much like my mother’s life as a bar girl—but the actual date reproductive process makes my body respond in ways I wouldn’t have expected.

  When the film’s narrator speaks of how each female blossom must be pollinated by hand, I become acutely aware of Darryl’s fingers, folded neatly on his lap. I am tempted to touch his sleeve, his arm, his wrist, but I hold myself back. I’ve never tried Ecstasy before and I have no intention of ever doing so. I have a feeling those words will haunt me the rest of my life.

  After the movie, we wander over to the gift shop and taste samples of Medjool, Zahidi, Khadrawy, Halawy, and Deglet Noor dates, along with dates rolled in coconut and little date pellets dusted with oat flour. Darryl points out a package of dates stuffed with walnut pieces. The way the fruit is spread open, with the little nubbin of nut in the center, makes it look like a tray of plastic-wrapped vulvas. My pulse drops down between my legs.

  “So, you mentioned dinner…” My voice is wavery.

  “Well, I just thought we could eat dates all night.”

  I look at the package again and involuntarily gasp.

  “Just kidding!” he grins. “I should ask, though—are you vegetarian?”

  I shake my head. I’ve barely eaten meat—certainly not bird meat—since I’ve been out here, but I couldn’t live without my mother’s bulgogi.