by Lucy Ellmann
What was he so angry about? And where does all the female anger go? “Underground,” said Mimi once, “into all the slicing and sluicing and sieving and mashing.” (And of course the stitching.) There are also a lot of opportunities for destructiveness offered by gardening: digging, pruning, weeding, burning stuff, poisoning stuff, trimming stuff, tugging at stuff, hacking away for years at tree stumps. My mother’s anger went into the shaking-out of dishtowels. Seemingly peaceful mornings echoed with the slap and crackle of them, and then you knew not to go near Mom for a while.
I lounge on the porch and think of women, my woman: sitting canoe-style in my arms on the couch in my apartment, just before everything blew up in our faces…
Bubbles startled me out of my reverie by jumping vertically into a pine tree, six feet in the air! She was putting on a show for me, acting crazy, and I liked it—I even laughed, though my laughter sounded odd to me and out of place. I went to stand below her, in case she needed help getting down, and then I remembered my rowboat in the shed. I’d bought it when I got the house, to make up for that old canoe Dad preserved in amber in the garage at home.
So I dragged my boat down to the marshy pond behind the house and, with Bubbles in the bow, rowed towards the middle of the lake, where there’s an impenetrable little island. Then I just lay back and let the boat drift, with Bubbles walking back and forth on top of me, checking both sides for ducks. I closed my eyes and instantly remembered one of Bee’s Coziness Sculptures, called Creaky Boat in Maine. This consisted of the bare skeleton of an old wooden boat, lit by watery flashes of light, with a soundtrack of boat creaking, water lapping, breezes blowing, frogs croaking, birds chirping… Now I was free to listen to the gentle sounds of real breezes and real waves lapping against my fiberglass boat, and Bee wasn’t.
Not so gentle if you were a duck though. I gradually became aware of a big hullabaloo going on on the other side of the island. We rowed over to see what was happening, and it was duck rape on a grand scale! The drakes were chasing the females on land, on water, and in the air (a Churchillian assault). They fought with growing strength on the banks of the island. Whatever the cost may be, they would never surrender… When a male caught a female, he’d grab her by the neck with his beak and pin her down, practically drowning her during the actual coupling. It didn’t look very consensual to me. The females, if they were lucky, just had time to get their feathers back in order before another aggressor crash-landed and started chasing them. Sometimes the males worked as a part of a gang, tag-teaming. They raped them on the beaches, they raped them on the landing grounds, they raped them in the dunes and in the reeds, they raped them on the hillocks…
“Boys, boys! I came here to relax!” I said.
Who knew? Ducks must be an exception to Mimi’s rule—their main courtship tactic is brute force! But I really couldn’t see the evolutionary advantage in the males’ willingness to frighten, exhaust, and possibly injure the Egg-Layer. Such sharp dressers too, with that debonair white collar, the metallic blue or green or purple head, and the curlicues on the tail (all a bit undermined though by the joke-shop quack).
One female, who’d just endured a three-duck gang bang, seemed to have a broken wing. It looked awry: she kept flexing it, trying to stretch it out to get it working again, but it wasn’t helping. There was a big gap in that pretty bit of striping the females have on their wings, their one major embellishment. She must have been hurt during all this antagonistic mating, and now her disability made her the classic “sitting duck”! She couldn’t fly away from her pursuers, and didn’t seem able or willing to swim either. She was just stuck, barefoot and pregnant, on her little island.
As I watched, four more male ducks paddled over to her at top speed. She squawked frantically when she saw them, and ran this way and that, but there was nowhere to hide. I couldn’t reach her in time but yelled and clapped my hands and banged the oars together to try to scare the drakes off. They paid me no heed—I only succeeded in startling Bubbles. The drakes carried on marauding until another male duck turned up and grabbed one of the rapists by his neck, which worked: it drove him away. Then he saw the rest of them off the scene. This defender seemed to be the female duck’s real mate: he was the only male who companionably stuck around anyway, and she seemed calm with him. But by now, she was limping as well as dragging her wing.
I went home to get some bread for her, then rowed right out again. She was still there—no place else to go—and she ate hungrily. She seemed desperate for food. So they’d not only raped her but managed to starve her by their terror campaign: because of the broken wing, she couldn’t find food. I decided to feed her, to give her at least a fighting chance. With time, her wing might heal.
As I rowed away, one of the drakes who’d just molested her headed over to my boat, hoping for some bread for himself, and I felt like killing him—or throwing a stone at him anyway, to drive him away from her section of the pond. But what was I becoming? A guy who throws stones at ducks?! Bee had cured me early on of any interest in torturing animals, when she found me once trying to swing a neighbor’s cat around by its tail. It wasn’t what she said, it was her inability to speak that had quelled me.
I was losing my impartiality here—we’re all supposed to let nature take its course, red in tooth and claw (and beak and wing). I was like a reporter in the field, who stops writing and starts helping, changing from heartless bastard to mensch. But was it good to get so personally involved, with ducks? Aw, who was I kidding? Interfering with nature is my business!
I worried all night about my duck, out there alone and in pain. First thing in the morning, Bubbles and I were in the boat again. The duck seemed to recognize us and came right over for her breakfast. She seemed alert, which was a good sign, and had a good appetite. She wasn’t declining. But the wing was no better, and she was still being molested by every guy in town because she couldn’t get away. Sheesh!
In an effort to thwart one of the rapists, I lunged forward at one point, waving my hat (not my sickbed hat, my Sagaponack baseball cap), and accidentally stepped on a Coke can in the bottom of the boat. That’s how I discovered how much drakes hate the sound of a Coke can crumpling—it really messes with their heads. They lost concentration, allowing the injured female to flee into the reeds. There she was often safe, since the drakes couldn’t be bothered searching too hard for her when there were plenty of other females to plague. From then on I brought all the empty cans I could find whenever I went to feed her, which was several times a day. But, like her partner, I couldn’t be there all the time—I had to go indoors sometimes and eat roast chicken with Bubbles (the paradox be damned).
A few nights later, lying sleepless on my taut bed, I decided I could at least get the poor duck some real duck food. Superior nutrition might just give her the edge over the drakes. Ducks weren’t supposed to eat bread all day. But I couldn’t remember where a pet store was. And was a wild duck a “pet”? In disobedience to Bee and her abhorrence for my perusal of phonebooks, I found an old Yellow Pages downstairs and spent the rest of the night searching through it for duck fodder.
This is when you realize how homocentric we all are. There was hardly a mention of anything for animals in there, or anything non-human. It’s as if the whole world is about us. It’s all zinc, zodiacs, yachts and yoga, xylophones, windows and wills, vacuum cleaners, ventriloquists, upholsterers, underwater ballet, timber merchants, tailors, surgical supplies, surfing, silicone implants, salsa, rubber, rope, restaurants, rehab, quilting bees, pianos, personal injury lawyers, perfume, pearls and passports, orchestras and obstetricians, nurses, notary publics, noodles, nail bars, motels, morticians, mannequins, log cabins, locksmiths, liquor stores, kites, kitchens, kiss-o-grams, karaoke, jukeboxes, jack-o’-lanterns, Italian lessons, ice skates, hydraulics, hypnotists, gyms, geriatrics and gemstones, fire alarms, fertility clinics, electrolysis, drainage consultants, chapels of rest, cane furniture, Botox, antiques, advertising, and ambulances. Animals
might take more of an interest if we included them more! (Not big spenders though.)
I finally located an animal feed merchant (maybe I should have started with the As) in Sag Harbor, and drove straight over there. I’d only been a recluse for a few days but already felt like a wild man from the woods. Any minute now I’d get out the faded overalls and start constructing microscopic sailboats inside light bulbs. I’d forgotten that women wear earrings, for chrissake! I’d forgotten the effort they put into their skin and their hair and their nails, and why.
I walked down the street behind a “waif wife,” as Mimi would have called her, a frail, drained gal bobbing along in six-inch heels beside a repellent fellow who seemed to be still in his pj’s and talking on his cell phone, ignoring her entirely. How much had the poor duck blown on that fancy blouse, the tight skirt, and the tiny shiny red purse to go with the shiny red shoes, all to hang out with old PJ there?! The woman was dressed for a cocktail party, and it wasn’t even noon. Later, I saw them buying potatoes.
The feed store only had a small sample bag of duck pellets, but they promised to get some more in. I also bought a book on duck care, with surprising information on the duck’s alimentary canal: they’ve got no teeth, so they grind grain with these rock-like structures in their gullet. The book also said broken wings don’t heal without human intervention. I could have done a splint myself, but she wouldn’t let me catch her! Even if I invented the perfect trap, it would probably only frighten her off, or injure her more.
I reached the car just before a storm hit. The whole town turned a gloomy yellow, and the sunlit trees waving against black clouds looked electric, as if they were about to blast off. In that low light, the scene seemed staged for an opera.
OVERTURE
Every sound magnified.
Bikes rattle by.
Lawnmower moans.
Trees sizzle.
Birdsong.
Airplane.
ACT ONE
Soprano raindrops on water.
People start to walk faster, crouching over, adjusting clothing to form makeshift hats.
Tenor (a cop) strikes nonchalant pose, as if ready for worse threats than rain.
Alto and contralto chorus of umbrellas blossoms.
Amusing variety, no two the same.
Black common, polka dots popular.
But shapes differ, and the number of spokes.
Some are classical, with spikes on the end.
Others fold; these are never fully erect.
Like dogs meeting, a small black-and-white umbrella encounters a big yellow one: they circle around each other.
Renoir poppy-field umbrella arrives, unfurling.
Coloratura star of the show: red umbrella, under which shelters a woman in a pale pink dress and dusty-brown short jacket (unexpectedly good color combo).
People calling out, “We’re almost there!”
ACT TWO
Children fill the stage (nothing better in an opera, unless you’ve got a donkey).
Kids don’t carry umbrellas—that would impede play and eating ice cream.
They don’t mind the rain, don’t cease to function when they get wet.
They stamp in puddles.
They slip and slide.
They sail trash in the gutter.
Scene ends with bass baritone rain, now falling fast and noisily on boats in the harbor.
ACT THREE
Driving home, I stop at a flower-stand on the highway that I disdained earlier, coldly depriving myself of lilies of the valley (my mother’s favorite flower).
Now I buy bundle after bundle of them: I keep wanting more than I picked up already.
Chorus of wide dark-green leaves and tiny cupped white flowers.
My duck liked the fancy duck pellets, as did her husband (though he tended to eat too many at once and then choke). I continued to row out and feed her several times a day. I loved that duck! Her dark head, encircled by that black band that ran right across the eyes and all the way around the back of the head—her wild streak. I’d never noticed before how beautiful female ducks are. Her face was a perfect Serpentine Line, that matched the intertwining reeds around her. Her tawny breast gleamed in the sun when she took a nap.
What I really wanted to do was capture her, fix the wing, and keep her safe and cozy in my yard. Maybe get her a big washtub to swim in. Returning her later to the wild in some complicated, disinterested way. But it was not to be. Any extreme efforts to help her would only freak her out. So I contented myself with feeding her, and foiling the plans of some of her stalkers when I could, by crumpling Coke cans.
FINALE
Bubbles and me in a boat.
Sample bag of duck pellets.
Five empty Coke cans.
Five-pound note.
MIMI DREAM: Long Island. Twilight. I’m running through shallow water, trying to catch up with Mimi, who’s a bit ahead of me. The sky is turquoise. We’re about to board a boat lying further out to sea but I’m dawdling on this sandbar, because there are some little silver fish wriggling there, caught by the outgoing tide, and I want to show them to Mimi. Lights sparkle all around us from small boats and houses near the shore, sending wavy snakes of light towards me across the water, and I feel utterly happy, following in Mimi’s wake.
Oh, Mimi, come! We will step nimbly through the sedge grass and never grow old!
“For those of you having trouble waking up this morning, here’s some Brahms for you,” says the radio announcer. brahms? Brahms was a sweetheart, but he had trouble tying his own shoelaces! Next, some Wolfgang They-Can’t-All-Be-Gems Mozart (would he get outta here with that glass armonica of his?). I usually seemed to tune in just in time for a big dose of Berlioz or Mahler, or Wagner for godsake, “Now that your ears are attuned to the key of C major.” My ears aren’t attuned to anything but Bach, you idiot!
Then the piquant biographical details would start to flow, all that fake poignancy of chronology. Before I can reach the radio, I know all about César Franck’s love affair with some chick in his fifties, that pissed off his wife and Saint-Saëns. How is this my business? The news grates throughout Franck’s Reflections on Love, ruining any romance and eroticism the announcer had promised.
How about Satie? Satie was a saddo. Thanks. Finally they play some more Mozart—it’s fantastic—and they interrupt it! “Well, we’ve had about as much Mozart as time will allow,” says the announcer—so slowly he could have fit a few more bars of Mozart in if he’d just shut up! Any classical station worth its interminable fund-raising drives would have allowed time for Mozart. But even when they do, they wreck it by talking about his debts and his early demise—until you’re too upset to listen to the music! Mozart’s “debts” indeed. What about what we owe him?
I turn the radio off and go downstairs to play some Bach for myself: his second French Suite in C minor is like watching the planes of a landscape unfurl as you walk. An avenue opens up, a valley, the ridge of a hill, something always emerging before you.
Later, I go for a walk in the dunes, where more paths unfurl, winds whirl, clouds form and deform, and sunlight lands on the earth like a bomb. Gulls sleepily patrol the shoreline. Life and death are allowed to pursue their modest course in the country. In cities you’re at the mercy of everybody’s ego, and that gets tiring. We create criminality wherever we go. Birds just do their job, uncomplaining, content merely to survive (ducks excepted).
But I am not a bird.
I go feed my duck but she isn’t there. Drowned by rapist ducks while I was off duty? Or just eaten by some predator? Nature ain’t pretty, it’s just the only game in town. I watch some ducklings instead. They’re trying to catch bugs by parachuting off rocks. “Ee-ee-ee-ee!” they cry. A mother duck is trying to organize her brood to sleep under her, enclosing them in her wings. How cosy they must be! But one of the ducklings doesn’t want a nap and won’t stay put. All he wants to do is nuzzle his mother’s soft brown neck. So do I. I thought of Bee’s th
eory that pleasure is the purpose of existence. She was right. Animals aren’t in pain all the time. Pain is an aberration, a sign of trouble. There’s nothing irresponsible or dishonorable about seeking pleasure. It’s what we’re here for! Even bees look like they’re having a ball.
Later, I searched for my absent duck again. I kept thinking I saw her lifeless carcass just beneath the surface of the pond, but it turned out to be water weeds. I would never know if she survived and escaped or, more likely, got eaten by some creature because she couldn’t fly away. Had she hoped I might come help her? The recurrent idea chilled me.
I headed home, luckless and duckless, climbed the porch steps and there was a letter from Chevron High, forwarded by Deedee. A fearful woman with the letters, that Deedee. Chevron wanted confirmation that I was doing the speech on June 15th, now only a few weeks away—but I wanted confirmation from Mimi that she was going to help me!
Speech panic descends, excuses form—excuses I’m pretty sure I already used in high school:
sunburn
spontaneous combustion
anaphylactic shock
TB
cholera
stubbed my toe
under arrest
Pavarotti’s final concert
busy making bouillabaisse
jury duty
tomato harvest time
dry cleaning mix-up
volcanic ash problem
under-reported military skirmish in my area
just lazy
deer tick
enslavement to dominatrix
got a duck to take care of
Foreign Accent syndrome
so depressed about Mimi I can’t eat or think…
Oh, for godsake, I’d do it. I’d already bought the tickets. Bee’s memorial party at the gallery was the day before the speech, so I’d have to go back to New York by then anyway. I could pick up my notes (for various half-begun speeches) at my apartment, and go straight to the airport from the memorial. What the hell, I’d give them a speech if it killed me. I owed it to Mimi.