One Bird's Choice Read online

  After a supper of grilled chicken and cucumber salad, I’m on the verandah, half lying, half sitting on the swing, watching the sun disappear for another day. I’ve been alone for about three minutes when Dad appears. He yawns and sits on the wooden chair to my left. I sit up straighter.

  “A red sky means it should be another nice day tomorrow,” he says.

  “I hope it’s not too hot.”

  “So, did you bring your swimming trunks home with you?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure. There might be some lying around here.” I’m rattled by Dad’s question. He’s never been much of a swimmer, and regardless of the heat I’m not sure how I feel about a day trip to the public beach with him.

  “I only ask because I’m still waiting for a really hot, humid day this summer so I can put on my trunks and clean the barbecue. I mean, really give it a good once-over. You could help me.”

  I probably should have seen that explanation coming. But I didn’t. Now my brow is furrowed. I need to respond appropriately, mask my trepidation while staying noncommittal. “Huh,” I sputter, “it could use a cleaning.”

  Maybe it’s my high standards, but the mental portrait of Dad and me in our chlorine-dulled bathing suits, soaping up the outside of the barbecue, hosing each other down when it gets too hot, is somehow not my prototypical summer fantasy.

  “And I’m sure Mom would make up a pitcher of that lemonade if we asked her to. You know, the kind she makes with real lemons and club soda.”

  “Yeah, good stuff,” I say, alluding to the refreshing drink. I decide that now’s a good time to retire and leave the swing to Dad if he wants it.

  The next afternoon the ringing phone pulls me from a dream. Dad has moved one of the new portable phones with call display into my study. Even though I haven’t told anyone about my return and have very few friends in Ottawa, he predicts I’ll be getting the bulk of the calls. I’ve been napping on the couch and don’t hear him come in. I roll onto my other side and feel the wet drool on the cushion with my cheek. I watch Dad as he bends down to survey the display panel on the phone.

  “Uh-oh, it’s an unknown number.”

  “Well, just screen it,” I say, squinting at his fuzzy silhouette.

  “We can’t do that,” yells Mom from parts unknown. “We have to answer the phone.”

  “It’s an unknown name too,” continues Dad.

  “Just let it go to the machine.”

  “We have to answer it!” screams Mom.

  “Go for it,” Dad yells back. “You better hurry or the machine will pick up.”

  “Please, just leave it. I don’t feel like talking on —”

  I hear the thud of a full laundry basket and Mom’s hurried steps racing down the hall.

  “Hello,” she says, between pants. “Oh, hi, yup, yes. He’s right here. Iain!”

  I take the phone in the other room. When I return, Mom and Dad are sitting on the maroon sofa, sipping tea. Each is holding the mug in both hands. The white sheet from the couch is folded neatly on the floor.

  “I tried to tell him all the calls were going to be for him, but he didn’t believe me,” says Dad.

  “So, who was it?” asks Mom after I’ve sat down at my computer, trying to appear busy.

  “What do you mean, who was it? You answered it.”

  “I know, but your dad doesn’t know.”

  “It was Linda.” Linda is Mom’s friend from down the road.

  “Linda,” says Dad, dramatically. “Why is Linda calling Iain?”

  “She heard I was back home and wanted to know if I would ever want to walk Eggroll.” Eggroll is Linda’s dog. She hasn’t been able to walk him recently because of work, and since I “wasn’t up to much” she thought it might just be a match. The first and only time I saw Eggroll, he stood a few feet away and growled at me menacingly.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” says Mom. “It would be good exercise for both of you.”

  “And I bet she’ll pay you,” remarks Dad.

  “She offered me twenty bucks per walk.”

  “Excellent. It all adds up.”

  “Anyway, it’s just an option to keep in mind,” declares Mom.

  Something else to keep in mind: I’m in my late twenties, I have no possessions, no money, no savings, and a temporary, low-paying summer job — and I’ve just moved back in with my parents. And now I’m being offered the chance to walk Linda’s temperamental beagle for twenty bucks a pop. Maybe I can also dig up a morning paper route. And while I’m at it, I can pop into Kinko’s and print up some flashy orange flyers promoting my babysitting skills to stuff in people’s mailboxes.

  I take a deep breath and exhale heavily through my nose. I stare at the blinking cursor on the computer screen in front of me. Mom and Dad remain on the maroon sofa, enjoying their tea.

  “I’m just thinking out loud, but there are a lot of flies in here this year,” says Mom. “And it’s a bit dusty. I should come in here and vacuum before you really get settled.”

  “I haven’t noticed the flies as much this year,” says Dad, “although I rarely notice houseflies. They don’t seem to bother me.”

  “Yeah, because it’s me they always dive-bomb.”

  “Houseflies don’t dive-bomb.”

  “Cluster flies don’t but the houseflies do.” As Mom is speaking an errant fly buzzes down from the rafters and momentarily lands on her head before she shoos it away. “You see, you see!”

  I stand and, without a word, push the chair back with my legs and lie chest down on the floor like a cadaver.

  “I don’t know why flies love you. Maybe it’s the same reason mosquitoes love me.”

  “I think it has something to do with the amount of CO2 we exude.”

  “What about you, Iain? Do houseflies or mosquitoes seem to land on you more?” asks Dad.

  There’s something rejuvenating about an unpolluted view in a familiar setting. Lying there, my face turned to the left, I can see the room and its contents in a distinct and refreshing way. Looking under the couch that I normally look at pokes a tiny hole somewhere in my clogged thoughts. I spot a ball of cat fur, a few pieces of straw, and a tiny spider web jutting out on an angle from the wooden leg of a chair. From where they sit, my parents can see only my legs. If I look over my shoulder I can see their socks and slippers. But with their running discourse I don’t need to look to know they’re still there.

  “Oh, I think he’s asleep again” whispers Mom.

  “On the floor,” mumbles Dad. “But you haven’t even vacuumed yet.”

  “I better do that tomorrow; you know how much Iain likes to nap.”

  They turn their attention back to their tea, until Dad speaks. “What was that?” he asks, startled.

  “No, I didn’t say anything,” answers Mom. “I was just blowing my nose.”

  Two

  One Bird’s Choice

  IT'S TAKEN ME A FEW WEEKS, but I’ve finally unpacked most of my stuff. I’ve been feeling a slight malaise these last couple of days, a tinge of homesickness for Toronto, for the friends I left, the familiar pubs and cafés along Queen Street, the used-book stores and sushi restaurants, the urban parks, the markets, the shows, and the video store where I rented my movies. I’d grown quite fond of Toronto, a world-class city.

  Tonight’s no different from any other evening at Lilac Hill, the Paris of rural eastern Ontario. I’m hangin’ with Ma and Pa at the farm. Mom piles more food onto my plate while interrogating me about my sickly physique. The gleam in her eye tells me she’s set herself a personal goal of increasing my body weight by a minimum of ten pounds by the end of the summer. Meanwhile Dad is sharing fashion tips with me. He’s left a sweater on my bed to try on. “It still looks brand new,” he says. “I honestly think it’ll suit you.”

 
; Now that I’m back, Dad’s fallen into the habit of leaving me his unwanted old clothes instead of giving them away to Goodwill. Maybe he thinks I need new clothes but can’t afford any. My concern isn’t strictly our differing styles but, more to the point, our differing sizes. Even though I’m more than six feet tall, Dad’s taller and larger. He outweighs me by at least thirty or forty pounds. I’m swimming in most of his shirts and jackets.

  I clear my plate and make my way up to my room, flushed and sweaty from Mom’s colossal portions. I’m greeted by Dad’s discarded sweater lying across my pillow. It’s made of black wool and has two yellow stripes running down the front in the shape of a V. I pick it up. It’s heavy and smells of dust. I haven’t seen it on Dad for more than twenty years. I put it on arms first and let the body fall down over my head. The waist settles at just above my knees and the sleeves cover my hands. I stand in front of the full-length mirror examining my profile.

  Holding the bottom of the sweater away from my legs like a wedding gown, I walk over to the window. I can see Mom unclipping laundry from the line. She’s not alone. Lucius, their pet guinea fowl, is with her. They are locked in conversation. Every so often Mom stops, bends down, and with her hands on her knees whistles at him. This excites Lucius, who reacts by jumping up and down, flapping his wings, and dancing about, which only encourages Mom to whistle some more. At this rate it will take her another hour or two to get the laundry inside.

  I flop down on the bed in my new woollen nightie and glance around the room. The only adornment that’s been added since the millennium is my history degree from university. My parents brought it back after the graduation ceremony and had it framed. It’s printed in Latin. I can’t read Latin. Dad tells me it checks out.

  My diploma has proved useful. Not in terms of opening doors or expanding opportunities, but practically speaking. It rests against the foot of my bed, where I’ve been using it as a rack to dry laundry. It works best for socks and underwear. There are a pair of red boxers and some white tube socks hanging on it right now. They should be ready by morning.

  By early the next morning my melancholic spirit has given way to feelings of optimism. Predictably, they’re short-lived. I’m scheduled to meet with Laura, the producer at the radio station, at 9 a.m. Laura’s been busy and has already rescheduled our meeting twice. Downtown is a forty-five-minute drive from the farm. By 8:15 a.m. I’m alone in the kitchen, finishing the last of my barely edible dry white toast. I found the loaf in the freezer underneath a package of frozen chicken legs. I had to pry each squished piece apart with a knife before I could toast it. I call goodbye to Dad, who’s reading the paper in his study.

  “Where’s Mom?” I ask.

  “Mom? She’s out with Lucius, giving him breakfast.” He says it in a way that makes me feel stupid for even asking.

  Few people, apart from the odd ornithologist, would be able to tell you anything practical about guinea fowl. They likely wouldn’t know that guinea fowl are native to Africa and generally eat insects and seeds. I bet most are unfamiliar with the average guinea fowl’s appearance — how they resemble an unfortunate blend of frumpish partridge and diseased vulture, while their arched posture gives them an unflattering likeness to a stooped chicken. And I’m sure most among us are unaware that guinea fowl are communal birds.

  I have the unfair advantage of knowing intimately the physical characteristics and temperament of these creatures. I grew up with the domesticated flock that roamed the fields of Lilac Hill. They were the ideal animal to complement our cast of ducks, turkeys, chickens, dogs, cats, sheep, and bees. Our guinea fowl were the helmeted kind, complete with cranial growths that protruded skyward and resembled bony mohawks. Their tiny heads are the colour of bird droppings and their cheeks are a bright, raw-ground-beef red. They possess physical attributes that only a mother — my mother in particular — could love. After leaving home at nineteen, I rarely gave any thought to our brood of eccentric birds.

  Throughout my years at university, care packages would arrive from Lilac Hill that included updates on all of the animals. Tramp, the wise old dog, was starting to limp; Eric, the once burly ram, was eating less; and Cornelius, the rooster . . . well, it turned out that Cornelius was gay. But these detailed descriptions rarely included any mention of the guinea fowl. They were part of the physical landscape of the farm, more like the collection of lilac bushes than livestock. Then one day I received a solemn email from Dad explaining how careless drivers and hungry predators had over the years whittled away our flock, which was now down to two, a father–son duo. For more than a year the pair got along famously and could often be seen roaming around the meadows and orchard. “They seem happy,” Dad wrote, “because they still have each other.”

  And then one day, unexpectedly, the patriarch keeled over, twitched, and died in front of Dad while he was washing his truck. Our once replete flock of chirping fowl had been diminished to a single lonely bird.

  “Now that he’s alone he’ll probably just wander off,” Mom presumed wistfully on the phone one night, as I flipped through a magazine, only half listening. “I just feel bad; after all, they’re instinctually communal . . . Maybe he’ll bond with the sheep.”

  Several weeks later, the same night I called about my new job in Ottawa, Mom seemed glad but ultimately preoccupied. She was eager to share her own exciting news. “Oh, Iain, we’re just so pleased,” she said. “The last guinea fowl has finally settled on his new family. He’s not alone anymore.”

  It took me a second or two to metabolize her statement. “Oh, right, that’s great,” I said. “So did he settle on the chickens or the ducks?”

  “Oh, heavens no,” Mom replied, brimming with parental pride. “Neither. He picked us, your dad and me. Lucius could have just wandered off, but he chose us. It’s so cute, and he’s getting so tame now.”

  “Lucius?”

  “Oh, sure, Lucius. He needed a name, so that’s what we’ve been calling him. Great, eh?”

  I concurred and offered my congratulations. When Mom said goodbye and hung up, I stood with the phone dangling in my hand, staring at the wall in my apartment. What exactly was I going home to? I wasn’t sure I was ready to accept a new, unfamiliar family member — namely an adopted avian brother named Lucius.

  I find Mom sitting on the wooden stoop, breaking off little bits of fresh raisin bread (that I didn’t know we had) and tossing them at Lucius’s feet. He’s happily hopping back and forth, pecking them up at a stunning rate. “Good boy,” she’s saying. “You love breakfast, don’t you? It’s the most important meal of the day, even for you.”

  “Seriously,” she says, turning to me, “his appetite’s amazing!”

  “Right. Well, I’m off to work now, Mom. See you tonight.”

  “Look, he just loves the raisins. He can isolate them from the bread.”

  “Bye.”

  “Okay, right, I forgot, it’s your first day. Good luck. I hope you’re not in a hurry,” she says, still watching the bird intently. “Lucius likes to see us off these days, so it’ll take a touch longer to get down the driveway. Cheerio.”

  By “a touch longer” Mom means it takes an extra ten agonizing minutes to get down the driveway while Lucius pompously struts back and forth across the path of the car every few seconds. “Isn’t he funny?” Mom yells from the stoop, doing her own Lucius-like strut. “He’s just being affectionate.”

  I’m not sure what to tell Laura when I arrive for our meeting ten minutes late. Since I don’t want to lose this job, blaming traffic seems a better option than laying it at the feet of an overly affectionate fowl.

  Apart from my tardy arrival, the meeting goes as expected. Laura explains that the review will fill only about five or ten minutes of airtime each week. I love books, and I love the idea of reading them and then talking about them on the radio. But I’m still unsure about my ability to do so eff
ectively. My brief history in radio isn’t exactly glowing.

  The first time I’d ever done anything on-air was back in Toronto, where I was working part-time for a popular national radio show at CBC. Most of my duties were limited to replying to emails, completing insignificant paperwork, helping with a few crumbs of audio editing, and putting forth the odd story idea. I didn’t feel overly valued. I didn’t even have my own computer or desk, let alone my own chair. I was the rear left mud flap: useful in principle but not in any way propelling the car forward. So I was also pitching ideas to other shows, trying to gain extra writing and producing experience. My first piece on the radio was about long-lasting marriages. I interviewed three couples who’d been married for more than sixty years and wrote a script that was broadcast nationally. The couples were great. I was not.

  The day I recorded my voice-over for the piece, I sat alone in a dark studio in Toronto while the producer I was working with coached me over the phone from Winnipeg. After recording the script a handful of times, the producer asked if I was tired. “Not really,” I told her. She asked if I’d had any coffee yet. I told her, “Yes, a couple of cups.” She suggested diplomatically that I get another. She was happy to wait. “I think you just need a bit more, I don’t know, life in your voice,” she said. We did some more takes. And then several more. It took almost an hour to get a narration that satisfied the producer. The final piece was three minutes long.

  A few weeks later I ran into the producer of another show in the cafeteria. I was waiting for a bagel to toast; he was topping up his coffee. “Hey,” I said, “coffee’s pretty damn good, eh?”

  He smiled.

  “I have a few ideas for some stories. I was wondering if you guys need any new material these days.”

  “Sure,” he said, stirring a creamer into his coffee with a straw. “We’re always looking for fresh ideas.”

  My idea was to come in and record some humorous anecdotes. I’d written a few based on actual events from my life. One was about the time I tried to throw out my garbage can. It had a crack in it and I didn’t want it anymore. I would leave it out at the curb with the rest of my garbage but the collectors never took it. I ended up attaching a note to the unwanted can that said something along the lines of “This is for trash.” The note offended the garbage collector; he thought I was trying to be funny.