The crows were late. Usually in the stretch from our house to the school I
pass three pairs and a widow or widower, but today they were all off somewhere,
a conference, or possibly a funeral. I can imagine that. “Dearly beloved, we
are gathered here today to celebrate the lives of all we have eaten this past
week.” Maybe that’s what they do every Sunday, arriving in our neck of the
woods about the same time as the Tai Chi people. Their absence and the absence
of blasted leaf blowers and other forms of pollution allowed me to hear other
birds, of which we have an increasing population now that it’s time once again
to prune the roses.
I do enjoy a good disease puzzle. I open the New York Times magazine, find
another poem that doesn’t appeal, switch to the book review where I always
admire the portrait of whoever is being interviewed about what they read.
Sometimes it’s not more than a few colored lines. I keep thinking, “I could do
that.” But I can’t, and so on I read the disease of the week. Actually I
don’t know how often the column runs, but it’s like a T.V. murder mystery—a
puzzle which you know will be solved. This week’s is particularly good, a man
who couldn’t walk because…well I’ll let you read it yourself.
Mimo has been attacking the wooden fence not, as one might imagine in an effort
to escape. She’s done quite some damage with her beak. I confronted her.
“Thought I’d try something new. Keeps life interesting. Everyone needs a
hobby.”
Me, “Why are you pecking at the fence? Should I be harvesting more weeds for
you?”
“That would be nice. I do like a nice weed.”
“But?”
Mimo, “Not why I peck at the fence. At first I was drawn to the moss, yes.
But then I heard birds attacking trees and thought, ‘why not give that a try?’
Beats taking up golf.”
“Curling would be less damaging.”
“What’s curling?”
“You simply see what kinds of shape your body can adopt. The cats and dogs do
it.”
“Curling, eh?”
“Oh yes. Easier on the beak.”
Now we reach the more difficult part of the tale. A true craftsman, someone
who knows how writing is best constructed, would do the foreshadowing better.
I’m more of a bodger, which is a less widely known word than I thought.
Central to my existence, bodging. The crows at the outset here, case in point.
“Death,” I said, like some guy who has been doing long-distance running and is
expecting dripping and bread for dinner. With strong tea and an “I’m backing
Britain” t shirt that shrank first time you washed it. Kitchen sink drama.
Very melo.
Mimo said, “I want words with you about the staleness of the seeds you’ve been
scattering.”
Even when she moved her head from one side to t’other, we were not seeing eye
to eye. For the drama to be something out of the early 1960s we lacked only
set dressing and wardrobe; we had the lighting--bleak, with fog.
“I didn’t mention the subject casually,” I said. “Someone just died while I
was playing tennis... on the court.”
“Right,” she said, as if death were nothing to a chicken.
“Never met the bloke. New to the three of us. Well one bloke knew enough to
suggest he’d be good. And he was. Pleasant too. Excellent set. Got to 6-6,
almost.”
“What’s tennis?”
How to explain tennis to a chicken? I said she should stipulate the facts and
just imagine that four of us were in one place for a common purpose.
“Avoiding crows?”
“If that allows you to imagine the situation, yes. We were indoors, avoiding
crows.”
“And?”
“To play well you have to focus on the ball. I saw him miss it, and then my
eye lingered on an odd motion. Like a man suddenly noticing that his shoelace
was untied, he collapsed gently to the ground. There was no bounce of head,
nothing to indicate that his mind had lost control of his body.”
“And?”
“I ran to get help, called for a defibrillator, shouted to dial 911. We put
him on his side so that when he vomited his airway remained clear. He breathed
loudly, snorted almost, like a horse, which I thought a good sign. Maybe not.
Maybe that was him not breathing, just his lungs emptying? The machine
arrived. The wonder of it is that you need only follow instructions; it tells
you what to do, when to stand back, when there’ll be a shock.”
“Birds of prey in the trees?”
“Electricity to his heart. Three times. Then the paramedics arrived, took
over. We’d called his wife. They asked to speak with her. ‘He’s had a cardiac
event.’”
“An event?”
“They have to say something. And it takes time to take in what’s happening.”
“And?”
“Half an hour after he missed the shot, they gave up, called his wife. They
erected a screen around the body, lying there dead on the ad side."
We were there again on Saturday. Used the same balls. Two of us not in our
right minds, but we played well anyway. Tennis is like that. And life.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
