Imperfect Birds

by Anne Lamott

  After a while he said, “Can we just sit here by the creek?” She nodded. Neither spoke. Time fluttered in the glade where they sat. There was still some water in the creek, making a soothing, clean burbling murmur.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer right away. His eyes were as big and almond-shaped as Rae’s. She liked how serious he was. She dipped her head shyly and said, “Jack.”

  The energy, sorrowful and close, was now stretched taut between them like a fishing line. He looked so sad that she almost reached out to touch him, like you would anyone who looked in such distress.

  “Tell me about the creek,” he said.

  “What?” She had no idea what he meant. “I don’t know.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. “I guess,” she said, “a creek is like the rush of my thoughts.” Oh no, it sounded like the first line of a little kid’s poem. “But because the brook keeps moving forward—unlike my snaggy, plugged-up thoughts—it smooths me out.”

  “It washes out the roar of rushing, tumbling thoughts,” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  He fished a wadded-up handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her. She wiped at her eyes, and held the handkerchief to her nose to inhale all his smells, and the sweet, sticky child smells, too.

  “Let’s get up and hit for half an hour,” he said, and she didn’t want to, she wanted to sit with him by the creek, but he gave her shoulders a squeeze, stood, and handed her a twenty-dollar bill.

  Elizabeth and Rae made rice, black beans, corn bread, and salad with lettuce from Elizabeth’s garden, for a large crowd. People had heard that there was a commemorative ceremony and somehow thought it was in honor of Jack and Amelia, and that was to some extent what it had become, since that was the community’s most immediate shared sorrow. Rae had brought ten avocados, but they wouldn’t cut them up to add to the salad until the last minute. She and Elizabeth chopped tomatoes and onions and cilantro for the salsa while they talked about the same old things they always talked about, politics, periods, sex, books they were reading, books that they were reminded of by mention of these books. They washed lettuce and talked about Jack, Amelia, their bodies, Rosie, Lank, and James.

  “Jack is this year’s sacrificial lamb,” Elizabeth said. “Half of the kids are drinking and using, driving badly, way too fast, while lighting up or fiddling with the radio. And almost every year, the gods seem to come and collect. Or the devil does. I don’t know how these things work. But it feels like a bored evil is hanging around town, waiting for one false move.”

  “My understanding is not that there’s a devil outside, prowling Pali Park or the Parkade. But that there’s something inside that’s always bored, that beckons us, knowing what it is we each want most desperately. And adolescents have fewer defenses.”

  “Do you think that we’re wired this way? With the devil inside?”

  “Yeah, in the same way we’re wired for God. But not to the same extent. I think it’s tiny, and insidious. Like hairline cracks that let in the water that shatters the rock.”

  Reverend Anthony and Rosie had filled the sanctuary with candles, flowers, and origami cranes from the origami crane ministry, and every chair the church owned, which was sixty. Anthony asked the fifty or so younger people to please sit on the floor or stand, and he began with a prayer that the fire marshal not show. Even the people who were crying laughed.

  Rosie couldn’t believe how good her own mother looked. Maybe it was the light, or the solemn occasion. Other girls from her class were there with their mothers, and the mothers seemed sort of frumpy and stressed, even bottle blondes and brunettes. Elizabeth’s hair did not seem as gray and mussed as usual, but frosted, casual, confident. Her mother was actually a fine- looking woman, as Jody’s soldier, Claude, had said after meeting her. She was wearing black linen pants, a dove-gray blouse, a bamboo-patterned Japanese scarf, and shoes that did not for once make you want to die or join the government witness protection program.

  She smelled delicious—that was her best quality—of soap and baking. Rosie felt proud standing beside her, and wished desperately to be a better child. No matter what happened from now on, she was going to stop lying so much.

  Anthony wore the clerical dashiki of wine red and green and gold that he wore when he presided over unusually joyful or tragic gatherings. Rae was at the altar holding a small bowl of salt. She winked at Rosie. She always looked so great, in comfortable flowing clothes, cool accessories, an elegantly messy bun.

  Rosie’s head felt like an anthill. What could Anthony possible say? Plus where on earth was Robert? She had scanned every inch of the sanctuary, like a jumpy spy, but he was not there. Anthony began, and Rosie turned to listen, although she knew his pitch by heart. He would begin by saying that most of the time in our lives we were taught to silence our sorrows, because they were so hard for others to bear, and so he did. “But today,” he continued, “we welcome you to a sacrament of expression, a ceremony of salt, of tears and sorrow. We are drawn here every year by the suffering of the world, of our church members, and now today, for the families and friends of Jack and Amelia.”

  He looked out at the congregation, took a deep breath, and seemed to choose his words carefully. But Rosie knew exactly what he would say, that he had no easy bumper-sticker explanation for what our losses meant, and that there was no sweet, hopeful, cute saying that made them less of a nightmare. He did say something like that, and then surprised her. “People make decisions that have horrific consequences,” he intoned. “Sometimes these are political decisions, and we get to rise up and fight them. Sometimes terrible things happen to the most innocent people, and we come together as one wounded body, as Christ crucified. The psalmist, in Psalm Fifty-six, says, ‘You have put my tears in your flask,’ and that means that God is paying attention to the pain of God’s people. And we may not get what we want, but we will get what is needed. God is struggling in this with us, in all the sadness of our lives, in the car accident, and God is the answer. Our tears are in God’s flask, and if what is needed is going to get done, it’s going to be through divine love working through us. So we acknowledge as a community that what is going on sucks—if you’ll forgive my French.” People laughed and said, “Amen.”

  Rosie’s mouth dropped open. Whoa—that was pretty good.

  “In closing, we ask ourselves, what is the next right thing we can do? How can we stop the bleeding of those we love? How can we fund-raise to get the money for a burial, or therapy, or medicine, or a walker?” Rosie sighed: The End.

  There was a large glass bowl on the communion table, filled with water, and Rae stood beside it with her container of salt. Anthony asked everyone to come forward, take a pinch of salt, and drop it into the common bowl, twice. “A pinch for each sorrow, and one for each joy, to express the bittersweet aspect of our paradoxical faith.” Rosie went up with Elizabeth, who said for her sorrow, “Jack and Amelia,” and for her joy, “Rosie.” Shame for her endless lies nearly made Rosie cry out loud. This, and the fact that Robert hadn’t come—she had so gotten her hopes up. She felt crushed, and that made her feel insane. “Jack and Amelia,” she said, for sadness, although she was more sad that she didn’t have a boyfriend. For joy, she said, “My friends.” She should have said her mother; it would have made her happy. Later, Anthony said a prayer for the community, and Rae stirred the water, troubling it the way angels did in the Bible so people could enter and be healed. Then Rae went to join Elizabeth in the fellowship hall, to cut up the avocados for the salad, and serve everyone who had shown up.

  Rosie threw herself into bed when she got home, and fretted. James came in and tried to get her to tell him what was wrong, but even she didn’t know. Elizabeth had gone to her psychiatrist’s after the ceremony, which Rosie found extremely annoying. What kind of crazy person saw a shrink at seven p.m., she wondered. God, her mother was never here anymore when you needed her. James sat at the foot of Ro
sie’s bed, but when he put his hand on the blanket covering her feet, she nudged his hand away. He went and got her a cup of sweet, milky tea, his solution to everything. After a while, she sat up, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Is this about a guy?” After a moment, Rosie shook her head. “You tell me where he lives—I’m going to go over there and knock some sense into him.”

  Rosie glared at him, and then into her lap. “I said no.”

  “But your eyes said, Oui, oui.” Rosie punched him, smiling, teary. “ ‘Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding space,’ to quote the late, great Zora Neale Hurston. It’s not much fun when the love that beckoned you out gets cold feet and leaves you there alone, like a snail in between shells. Very scary.”

  “That’s the thing, I don’t love anyone. I hate my life. Why do Alice and Jo have boyfriends and not me? What’s wrong with me?”

  James didn’t say a word, as any other adult would have done, like “You’re so pretty” or “It’ll pass,” which was so meaningless.

  “It’s even worse than that—I think I like someone who is a hundred percent unavailable. Someone who’s totally taken. I’m a total cliché.”

  “Never, ever, that.”

  She drank the tea he had brought, and blew her nose. He went back to his office to work. She lay in bed reading a book by Roy Blount, Jr., that Claude had lent her. When James came in later to check on her, they talked about what a genius Blount was. She read him her favorite lines. Then she talked him into lending her the car. It was not hard to disarm him with a subtly vulnerable expression, a nuanced compliment about how sweet he had been, eye contact, using his name: he was putty.

  He squinted. “Didn’t you lose driving privileges for another couple of days?”

  “Yeah, technically.” She gave him a pained look, and his face softened. She watched him hem and haw. “Let me go out for a while. I just have to be with my friends. Please, James.”

  “Okay,” he said finally. “It’s a special night. I think your mom would let you go. But if you get home past curfew, my ass is grass. And I’ll be pissed.”

  He could be so great, and she swore to him and to herself that she would be home on time.

  She put on her sexiest tank top, her tightest, lowest jeans, with a zipper barely three inches long, and makeup so she’d look good for whatever she and Jody and Alice might end up doing—a party at someone’s house, or up in the hills, or even under the streetlights of the Parkade. “Fucking A,” she said out loud in front of the mirror, blending in foundation, what a douche to fall in love with this old teacher, a married teacher with a wife and little kids, who didn’t even like her back. Thank God she hadn’t made a move all those times; and the best thing was, no one knew. She hadn’t told anyone else. She outlined her eyes in kohl, smiling with relief, still a little sad, but talk about close calls. She looked good in the reflection. She practiced looking hard, then tender and dewy, sassy, ecstatic, bored, and above it all.

  She picked up Alice, Jody, and Claude. Alice had found out about a party up in the hills way above the Manor School tonight at nine. This was so great, much better than a house party. Everyone was going. It was sort of in honor of Jack and Amelia. It was one of those parties where you had to pay five or ten dollars, depending on if there would be E there or only kegs. People would meet at Safeway, get shuttled by the older guys who were throwing the party. Nobody got to drive themselves down the hill, because most of them would be pretty trashed, and the guys giving the party couldn’t risk legal problems.

  They stopped at the Parkade, bought a joint for Alice and Rosie, shoulder-tapped Gilligan, in his floppy hat, who bought them a six-pack of lager, and the four of them sat at the park getting high. Rosie and Claude had a lively talk about the Roy Blount book, like one you might have with Robert. Claude was sweet and cool, surprisingly sophisticated when he spoke, even with that drawl. Alice was all about this new guy she was hooking up with later. Rosie felt a little down, but not too bad. She imagined talking with a new guy tonight, too. Her mind retraced the scene today with Robert, how easily they talked and how deeply, and the shape of his eyes, oval, pointed at the sides, so blue but not as blue as her own. It was such a nice memory, heightened, elevated, unspoiled.

  “I have a teacher I think you’d love,” she told Claude, though she meant it as an introduction of the topic to Jody and Alice. “He’s like we are about books. Like the other day we were totally jamming about Waiting for Godot.” She knew Jody would care, because she’d done the summer program with ACT her sophomore year, before her troubles with cocaine.

  “I love that play so much! Remember, I was Lucky in the junior production.”

  “I was Dorothy in sixth grade,” Alice announced.

  “Really, Alice,” Jody said, like a mortified schoolteacher. Rosie smiled. Then Jody turned around to face Claude: “Do you know that play? About the two little tramps, waiting for this guy Godot, or maybe it’s God, but nothing ever happens, the whole play is about them waiting, waiting, and then this guy comes along finally with his slave, Lucky, who he’s dragging along like a dog, to sell at the market. It’s like about the meaning of life.”

  “It sounds like a regular shoot-’em-out night at the theater.”

  “Samuel Beckett only won the Nobel Prize for it,” Jody snapped. “God, you’re my only hope,” she said to Rosie. “So what were you saying about Tobias?”

  “Nothing,” Rosie said. “He’s just totally cool to talk about books and science with. Plus, he pays me twenty bucks a lesson. I’ve made a fortune this summer—lucky for you two deadbeats.”

  Only she and Claude had any money that night, and they paid for the others when a guy with a Hummer and at least two woofers picked them up in the parking lot at Safeway. It was ten dollars tonight.

  “Where are the bracelets?” Jody asked.

  “You get them at the next station,” he said. “Or else too many people find out.”

  Too many usually meant more than a hundred or so. Bracelets would be issued—either a certain color yarn or a plastic tie like the kind her mother used for tying tomato vines to stakes with, or for ten dollars, maybe even the glow-stick kind. The bracelet got you a plastic cup for beer once you got to the party.

  The driver dropped them off at the Old Manor trailhead on the outskirts of town, where others were massing, looking for friends. The four of them immediately started hiking in the dark, a waning moon lighting the trail. It was not steep; more like a bunny slope at Tahoe. Ahead of them, Metallica blared from a boom box. Behind them, the old fire road gleamed, luminous with moon, lighter by far than the night or the trees that lined it. The four of them dropped back to lose the kids ahead of them, who were loud and silly. Then they stood looking up at the sky. The moon was lovely tonight; it was everything good and pure and huge, blessing right down onto them. And yet wafting through Rosie like another form of light was hurt confusion.

  “I am going to get so fucked up,” she said, and the others laughed. She took in the ambient sounds, dry grasses rustling, crickets. The warmer it was, the more the flowers opened up: the night smelled almost like a lei or corsage.

  “You think there are raccoons around?” Claude asked, genuinely worried.

  “How you going to be a soldier if you’re afraid of raccoons?” Jody asked.

  “When I’m in battle, I’m going to have a gun.”

  “To shoot raccoons with?” Rosie asked, and he shoved her.

  “I’m going up ahead and see if I can find Evan Andrews,” said Alice. “Wish me luck.” She moved off ahead of them, fast but clumsy, stumbling almost at once. Rosie and Jody smiled at each other. They were both so athletic, while Alice had an adorable clumsiness born of impatience, and not tuning in to her body at all unless there was a guy around.

  “I have to be home at midnight, don’t forget,” Rosie called after her. Turning to Claude, she said, “I don’t like raccoons, either. They hiss, and they gnash their teeth, and they sneak in th
rough the cat door to steal my cat’s food.”

  The lights of the party campsite grew brighter, and soon they stepped out at the bottom of a hillside that went upward and onward forever. A girl Rosie didn’t recognize stopped them, to give them their bracelets and cups. You got to pick out what color bracelet you wanted. Jody and Claude picked magenta, which was light pink until they snapped each other’s on and the bracelets began to glow darker. Rosie studied the box of bands, light pink, blue, green, yellow. “The blue one is really pretty,” said the girl, “not fluorescent like the others. Blue blue. Tahoe blue,” and it was.

  The three of them walked up the shaggy dry grass of the corridor to where most people were gathered, where the generator sat. The space was perfect, an endless dark refuge extending the length of a football field up the hill, with lights plugged into the generator that also powered the boom box, and everyone glowed with a bracelet. They could see people leaning against the eucalyptus, bay, and oak, perched on top of boulders and rocks, sitting with their backs against logs, like it was all furniture. The stretch of grass was pretty clear of things to trip over in case you got loaded, no rocks to tumble over or brush to get tangled in. The people giving the party had found a great spot and were going to make a bundle tonight.

  They stood around getting their bearings, moving to the music, making small talk. Then a guy Jody knew from rehab passed Rosie a pipe, and held a lighter to its bowl as she inhaled. She held it as long as she could, exhaled, and took a second hit. “Be careful,” he warned. Moments later, she was bombed, totally toasted.

  Rosie turned away from Claude and Jody because they were shaking their heads and smiling about how wasted she looked. They couldn’t smoke at all. She was actually tripping lightly, merging with the crowd, dozens of her peers, all on the same plane. She walked to a group of kids by a cluster of oak trees.