Odd Birds

by Ian Harding

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m—my name’s Ian. Ian Harding. I am an actor, but I’m not … I’m not who you think I am.”

  The girls’ faces immediately fell. Their smiles vanished.

  “I’m on a TV show. It’s called—you know what, never mind, doesn’t matter.”

  This was not going well.

  “Look, I’m sorry for the confusion. I didn’t mean to lead you on.”

  A voice in my head whispered: Your name is Ian Harding. You are thirty years old. And right now you are apologizing for not being James Marsden.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I excused myself and left the two crestfallen teenagers to finish their meal in peace.

  Nowadays, when people come up to me and say they know me from somewhere but they can’t quite place it, I tell them I just have one of those faces.

  One of those James Marsden-y faces.

  ’SPLORES WITH KEEGAN

  Keegan Allen, dear friend, costar, and photographer extraordinaire, sat across from me at Dialog Cafe, a small family-run spot in West Hollywood, just down the street from the more intimidatingly named Viper Room and Rockhard Films.

  “So how long’s this video need to be?” he asked.

  “Only like six seconds. You can shoot it on your phone.”

  “So I don’t need any of these today?” He pointed to three cameras hanging around his neck.

  I had told him we were going hiking, and that on the hike we would have to take photos that I had to post on Instagram. Keegan dressed appropriately, while I, on the other hand, had opted not to shave or sleep the night before.

  We polished off our now watery iced coffees. Looking out the window, I took in the traffic on Sunset Boulevard. Houses dotted the hills above us, and the sunshine was finally cutting through the June Gloom.

  In the café, we were surrounded by young parents, all of whom seemed to be shockingly well rested. The shop was crowded with baby strollers, but none of the babies had cried even once. They all just lay there with these eerily serene looks on their calm faces. Can babies get Botox, I wondered? Maybe they couldn’t cry.

  Several patrons sat with open laptops resting next to half-eaten pastries. Screenwriters most likely. Or accountants. Or anyone really, but I always assume that if you’re in a café with a laptop open, you’re probably writing the next Jaws.

  “Thanks again for helping me shoot this,” I said.

  “Of course, man.” Keegan wiped the lens of his Leica. “And don’t feel bad about doing this stuff for money. Everyone does it. Besides, you’re helping your family, and in a few months no one will remember or care about a little video you shot in the woods.”

  I’d been having second thoughts about this photo shoot since the moment I signed on. I was beginning to worry that my social media page might someday look like the side of a race car—plastered with ads and logos, having little if anything to do with the personality of the page’s original creator. It was a scary thought.

  “How are you getting the photos to the company that hired you?” Keegan asked.

  “I think I’ll probably just email them over. I can do that right?”

  Keegan sighed dramatically. “Oh thank God, Ian. I thought you were about to say passenger pigeon.”

  “Hilarious. First off, those are extinct. Second, you’re thinking of a homing pigeon, which are actually still used—”

  “Did people ever actually ride those?”

  “…”

  “Like, passenger pigeons. Back in the day. Could they ever actually ride them? Like how big were they? Were they—” He spread his arms out wide. “Were they bus-sized?”

  “Are you asking me if The Flintstones happened in real life?”

  Keegan stared at me in silence for a moment then downed the remainder of his iced coffee.

  * * *

  Here’s a sentence I don’t always like to say out loud: I have a branding agent. Her name is Jean Kwolek, and she’s lovely.

  Jean attaches her clients—mostly actors—to various commercial campaigns, which supplement their income between acting gigs. Look really good with three-day stubble? She can help you sell whiskey. Never had dandruff? Easy: hair commercials. It isn’t always that blatant, either. There are increasingly lucrative ways for people in the public eye to make a little dough on the side without looking like total sellouts.

  That’s an interesting word, by the way. I struggle with it constantly: sellout. The term has always carried a strange gravity in my mind, and it was echoing back and forth in my head that day. I felt a bit off using my acting for purely financial gain.

  But, two months earlier, my sister Sarah had been granted a slot in a highly selective Directors Guild training program in New York. Both she and I had rejoiced at the news of this opportunity, but our rejoicing quickly came to an end when we began to consider how she would pay for it. Sarah would be working as a PA in New York, and would have a couple of hours here and there to Uber or walk dogs on the side, but she wouldn’t be making nearly enough money to support herself in New York City.

  For Sarah, this opportunity was a dream come true. I gave it some thought, and I decided to play fairy god-brother. I called my sister and told her I wanted to cover her rent for the two years she would be living in the Big Apple. That way she could focus entirely on learning and working in the field she’s always loved. The news brought tears to her eyes, and when I told my accountant about it, she nearly cried as well.

  After I told Sarah that I intended to cover her rent, I immediately emailed Jean and my manager, Vikram. I asked them to find me campaign work—anything they could find that didn’t involve an actual deal with the devil.

  * * *

  “So how far away is this waterfall?” Keegan asked, holding one of his cameras up to the window and snapping away at the passing scenery.

  We were driving along the Angeles Crest Highway as it wound its way up from La Cañada Flintridge through the Angeles National Forest. We were headed to Switzer Falls.

  “Can’t be more than another twenty minutes or so.”

  “Did they say why they wanted this waterfall in particular?”

  “No, it was my idea. The company just needs me to tape myself having fun. I told them I wanted to do a hike because it’s something I actually do.”

  A short while later, I spotted our turn and hung a sharp right. We passed some serious-looking road spikes and proceeded down a winding hill toward Switzer Falls.

  The last time I went on this hike was in 2014. It had been a wettish winter—not wet enough to break the drought, but it was a welcome change for us—and the falls had taken on the appearance of, well, actual waterfalls. I had hiked out early one morning after a late winter rain with a few friends from college. The falls had bellowed loudly as we approached them at the end of the trail. I had put my head under, and the force of the water blew off my hat.

  That was then. This was now. And by “now” I mean it was a Tuesday in July, and the weather service was predicting another day of record-breaking heat.

  We pulled into a parking spot by a picnic table.

  “It looks pretty parched out here. Are you sure there’s any water going over the falls right now?” Keegan asked.

  I wasn’t.

  “Push comes to shove, I have a gallon of water in the back of my car and maybe you can just pour that over my head? Then like, throw some leaves at me?”

  “Sure, man. I could do that.”

  We walked over to the trailhead. Ten yards from the start of the hike, a man slowly walked by us, carrying a walking stick. His face was stoic, lost deep in thought. I recognized him. I looked to Keegan, who had noticed him as well. We kept walking, paying more attention than necessary to the trees above our heads, overcompensating in our attempt not to disturb the wistful hiker.

  A hundred yards down the trail, Keegan and I, now alone, turned to each other and simultaneously said: “Moby.”

  I was a huge Moby fan in high sch
ool. His music got me through puberty. I’ve even used Moby songs to prepare for auditions.

  “Crazy. Of all the places,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Keegan asked. “Moby belongs in the forest. If we’d bumped into him at, like, Bed Bath & Beyond, that would have been weird.”

  I turned and looked back up the trail toward the parking lot.

  “I kind of wish we had said something.”

  Keegan laughed. “Well, we can always creep over and watch him from one of those trees with your binoculars if you want.”

  I stopped in my tracks. I pictured my binoculars, my little Nikons, sitting on my kitchen counter. I’d forgotten them at home.

  “Damnit!” I yelled.

  My expletive echoed through the canyon, scaring birds from their nests. Birds that I could have seen, if I’d remembered my binoculars.

  “Everything okay?” Keegan asked.

  “I forgot my binoculars.”

  “I’m not sure forgetting your binoculars warrants that kind of response.” His voice sounded like a high school guidance counselor’s.

  He was right. I had promised him a short jaunt in the woods. I hadn’t said anything about birding. Still, the anxious bird-nerd in me worried that I might spot something and not be able to get a good look at it.

  We continued onward, sans specs.

  * * *

  The trail to Switzer Falls is a four-and-half-mile trek—out and back—with several other paths forking out from it along the way. It starts pleasantly enough: there’s a small paved section of the path for the first third of a mile. Eventually the road tapers off into a dirt-and-rock-strewn trail. Several streams intersect the path until roughly the mile-and-a-half marker. Then the trail snakes upward, away from the water. This section continues for some time, rising slowly, before the trail turns back down, leading to a forested canyon.

  In the middle of the canyon, there’s a sign that states—dauntingly—TRAIL NOT MAINTAINED.

  It’s not actually that rough. What the sign should say is, THERE’S STILL A TRAIL. DON’T WORRY. JUST FOLLOW THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE GROUND AND THE SOUND OF THE FALLING WATER AND YOU SHOULD BE ALL GOOD. HEADS UP, THOUGH: THERE ARE A COUPLE OF FALLEN LOGS NEAR THE END SO LOOK OUT FOR THOSE.

  A lot of people turn around at the TRAIL NOT MAINTAINED sign. But if you keep going, you get to see Switzer Falls in all their glory. And they are worth it. The falls themselves are about fifty feet high. The water shoots out from the top, hitting a landing about halfway down and splashing out in all directions. At the base of the falls is a swimming hole when there’s enough water.

  Because not everyone makes it past the TRAIL NOT MAINTAINED sign, the falls are usually deserted, especially on weekdays. It’s a wonderful place to get away and clear your mind, as Moby apparently knows as well.

  * * *

  There was a thwack thwack thwack above our heads. Something was making a racket.

  Keegan looked to the canopy, scanning bare limbs and dead branches. “That’s a woodpecker I’m guessing?” he asked.

  “You’re right, though it’s a little too high up to see what kind.”

  “What kinds live around here?”

  I couldn’t tell if Keegan truly cared or was simply asking out of politeness.

  “There are a few different species. Maybe three or four.”

  “What are their names? How do you tell them apart—by the noise they make?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.”

  I don’t know why I felt shy. I knew the answers to his questions. I turned and looked at Keegan. He seemed genuinely curious.

  “You’re really not supposed to do this, because it messes with the wildlife, but check this out.”

  I pulled out my phone and opened the Sibley bird app. I typed “woodpecker” into the search bar. Twelve options came up. Judging by our altitude and the type of forest we were in—and the fact that a few of the dead trees around us had an unmistakable honeycomb pattern running up their sides—I had an idea of what the racket above might be. I opened the page titled “Acorn Woodpecker.”

  “Watch this,” I said.

  I hit play. My phone emitted a series of shrieks and cackles high into the forest canopy. It sounded like a gaggle of angry clowns at a young child’s last birthday party before he embarked on a lifetime of therapy.

  The recording came to an end and a few seconds passed. We stood around, waiting for something to happen.

  A few feet away, there was an oak tree with a dead branch protruding from its side. Though the sun illuminated the length of it, neither of us had noticed the branch until now. A sudden flicker of shadow fell across the top of it. I blinked, and suddenly there they were: three acorn woodpeckers, perched not twenty feet away from us, their beady yellow eyes fixed on my phone.

  I held the phone over my head, then pressed play again on the same recording.

  The three birds shot toward us, missing our heads by inches. Keegan’s hair was blown to the side by the wake of their flight. They cackled as they disappeared into the woods.

  “That was amazing!” Keegan said, slapping me on the back. He was clearly impressed by my cellphone’s godlike ability to call the birds down from the treetops.

  I suddenly felt silly for feeling shy earlier. Keegan and I have worked through breakups together, the passing of family members, and—perhaps most memorably—the near death of his beloved cat Minin from ingested hair ties. Birds shouldn’t have been a big deal.

  “Can we do it again?” he asked. “That was sick. Do you have any other animals on there? Like, could we call some deer or something?”

  “Yeah, let’s get some bears over here while we’re at it. Maybe even call in a few rattlesnakes. We’ll have a party!”

  Keegan’s smile evaporated. “Wait, but, not really though, right?”

  “No, not really. It’s a bird app. It’s only birds. And we probably shouldn’t do that again, anyway.”

  We stood there for a moment. Keegan seemed a little disappointed.

  I took a few steps down the trail, then turned around. “I didn’t know you were afraid of snakes,” I said.

  “Hate ’em.”

  “When did that start?”

  “When I was a kid. I had few encounters with them, and they were never good. One time, I was driving in the car with my mom, and a snake came up to the passenger side and tried to eat our tire. That was it for me, man. I was done. I know everyone always says, ‘They’re more afraid of you than you are of them,’ but that’s bullshit, man. If that thing wasn’t afraid of a Chevy, why the hell would it be scared of me?”

  We continued to talk as we made our way up the shaded canyon to the falls. As we walked, Keegan snapped a few shots of me. I couldn’t remember if the company wanted me to do any other media—all I remembered was they wanted a video—so a few extra pictures of me out in nature looking sexy and mildly confused couldn’t hurt.

  We heard the falls before we saw them. Magically, there was still some water spilling down to a small pond at the base.

  Keegan pulled out his phone. “Get over there, man. Time to sell your soul.”

  I scrambled around the rocks to the base of the falls, and called back to Keegan:

  “You ready?”

  “Do it!” he yelled.

  I dunked my head underwater and then whipped it back, sending a rainbow of glistening droplets into the air.

  Willow Smith has a song about whipping her hair back and forth—it should come with a disclaimer. Whipping your hair back and forth is painful: the result is less fun and fancy-free and more dizzy and neck pain-y.

  Keegan, standing about thirty feet away, called out, “Do it again, man. I didn’t catch that one.”

  Time for take two. I doused my head in the pond and let it soak for a moment. Then, really selling it this time, I whipped my hair back up and out of the water. I felt something pop—in my shoulder, of all places—and I rolled sideways into a pile of rotting wood.

  Ke
egan remained where he was, squinting at the screen of his iPhone.

  “Did you get it?” I asked, still lying on the ground.

  He shook his head. “Let’s try it again.”

  I resumed my position on all fours above the puddle at the foot of the falls, and whipped back once more. And then again. After a few more takes, Keegan stopped me.

  “Can I ask you something?” he said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Why are you so set on this? They said you can do anything, right? Why not do something that doesn’t involve soaking your head in giardia?”

  He had a good point. I stood and brushed off my knees. “I don’t know. It’s like a ritual, I guess. I have this thing that I do whenever I go on a hike—I’ve done it since I was a kid. If I see a body of water at the end of the hike, I just have to dunk my head into it.”

  “Like a baptism?” Keegan’s face looked a bit incredulous.

  “I guess. Like a cleansing thing.”

  Keegan squinted at the phone again then looked back at me. “Dude haven’t you already been baptized enough?”

  “I don’t know. I want to make it at least seem authentic. I don’t want it to look like I’m not trying. If I have to sell something, I at least want to make it matter. So I want to do my little ritual, and I know it’s stupid, but I want to pay homage, I guess, to the woods. Or something. But looking at it now, I realize we’re in a drought, and bathing in a waterfall when there’s a drought doesn’t really seem right.”

  Keegan looked serious.

  “I hear you, man. But honestly this is as authentic as you’re going to get. You freaking hiked here. You made me hike here. For a four-second video for—what does the company do again?”

  “Online music sharing.”

  “Yeah, for online music sharing. That’s not half-assing it. That’s full-assing it. I mean that’s a whole lot of ass, Ian. You’ve got more ass than I’ll ever have.”

  “Because I’m fat?”

  “Yeah. Because you’re fat,” he said, smiling. “Now get your fat, horrible face back into that waterfall and let’s send your sister to band camp.”

  “It’s not band camp, Keegan—”