Gorilla and the Bird

by Zack McDermott

  Seinfeld was on TV. A fat white man stared at the screen, howling with laughter but clearly too drunk to understand the jokes. “Mack” sat next to him but kept his head down. He looked ashamed, probably reflecting on the missed birthdays and soccer games.

  “Zachary McDermott? The doctor will see you now.”

  I was excited to see if it would be a real doctor or Dr. Dre. Did The Producer know him too?

  “Zack, or Zachary?” The physician’s assistant ushered me into a tiny exam room and told me to take a seat on the table. No fewer than six white coats lined the walls, shoulder to shoulder.

  “It’s usually Myles now, but, yeah, Zack’s cool too. I know why I’m here. You want me to just flow a bit?”

  “These are medical students. Do you mind if they sit in?”

  The question seemed rhetorical. “Not at all. I get it. It’s exciting to see this unfold.”

  “See what unfold?” the doctor asked.

  “I realize now what those gifted tests in second grade were for. I intentionally gave wrong answers when they were testing me so they wouldn’t transfer me out of my big sister’s school. But the tester knew, and he’d never seen a second grader capable of intentionally foiling the results. They told my mom my IQ was immeasurable.”

  “Lie down.” The doctor’s tone had shifted. He no longer seemed interested in analyzing the speed at which human neurons could fire inside the brains of the ninety-ninth percentile.

  The medical students had filed out. In their place, three large black men encroached and circled me; their shadows congregated on my torso. A needle emerged, and the men crept closer.

  “No needles! No needles! My uncle was a heroin addict! I can’t do needles!”

  “Just one,” the doctor flatly answered.

  The apparatus they used to pierce my arm looked nothing like any syringe I’d seen. It appeared to come from the future, shaped like a tiny Star Trek phaser, and it made the sound of a tire rapidly deflating as they injected me with something. Before I could decide if it was a tracking device or a computer chip, I was out.

  I woke up on a different floor, wearing green scrubs. The patients from the intake were no longer there. A new cast of characters, also wearing scrubs, had replaced them. It seemed half of them had been told to pace the narrow corridor with just enough energy to remain upright, and the others to yell or sleep. A few did both at the same time. Many of these people appeared to be truly crazy. They certainly weren’t breaking character. Is it possible that we’ve secured permission to shoot in an actual psych ward? I joined the walkers, but it was no more a conscious decision than a shark deciding to swim. The hall was narrow, claustrophobically so. There was no comfortable common room to take a load off. No decent furniture to sit on. Options were limited to pacing or lying in bed. I searched for clues as to whom, if anyone, I could trust to let me in on the game plan.

  “You’re Zachary M., right?” An orderly popped me out of my trance. “There’s someone here for you.”

  Standing in the hospital’s security vestibule, I spotted a middle-aged woman who looked a great deal like my mother undergoing an intense search and pat down. Her head pivoted from left to center to right, then back.

  “Bird?”

  I nicknamed her “the Bird” as a teen because of her tendency to move her head in these choppy semicircles when her feathers were ruffled. I squinted at her, trying without my contacts to make out the blurry image. Five foot one, large bosom, the exact same bushy eyebrows and bird beak of a nose as me. It checked out.

  “Bird?” I asked as I approached. I wasn’t certain it was her.

  “The Bird is here,” she said, looking me over.

  “The Bird can’t be here; the Bird lives in Wichita.” I looked her over as well. The Payless shoes checked out. So did her hair color: black with highlights somewhere between purple and burnt red. She was put together, but her outfit probably didn’t cost $50 head to toe. All signs pointed to this woman being the Bird, but she was shakier than usual. Trembling a little, even.

  “The Bird got on a plane,” she said. “You’re a bag of bones, Gorilla.”

  It was when she used my nickname, born of my barrel chest and excessive body hair, that I fully accepted this was my mother and not an actor in prosthetics. Plus, if she were an actor, how would she know I’d lost thirty-five pounds in two months? I tried to step forward to hug her, but the orderly shouted, “Get behind the yellow line!” A decal on the ward’s entrance read DANGER OF PATIENT ELOPEMENT. Nylon restraints peeked out of a supply drawer at the entrance.

  We were escorted down the hall to the cafeteria at the back end of the ward, which doubled as the visitors’ room. Mother and son required three orderlies and security personnel to supervise their conversation. One sat feet away on a metal folding chair, listening to every word we spoke.

  “How’d you know where to find me, Bird?”

  “The police told me.”

  “Police?”

  “You gave them your brother’s number. They called the house, said they’d found you on a subway platform and that you had no clothes on. All they would tell me was that they were taking you to a psych ward. Bellevue.”

  “I had shorts on. Where are you staying?”

  “In your apartment. I saw the walls.”

  “What’d you think?” I felt like a renowned indie filmmaker, ready to field questions about the buzz surrounding his latest Sundance entry.

  “You covered every inch of your walls in red marker, Zachary.”

  “I know.” Why was this worrisome? Had she not seen the wall? It was brilliant:

  A Fraction of the Whole =

  Everything is Everything =

  Wu-Tang =

  36 Chambers + 5 =

  41 Shots, We are all Amadou Diallo

  The entire living room, kitchen, bathroom (mirror included), and my bedroom were covered in word equations.

  “It reminded me of ‘red rum, red rum,’” she said.

  “I think you’re thinking of A Beautiful Mind. Did you see the dad from Everybody Loves Raymond? He’s here.” I pointed to the old man shuffling down the hall just outside the cafeteria. My mom started to laugh but stopped abruptly when I didn’t join in.

  “He looks a lot like the old man from Everybody Loves Raymond, but that guy is just another patient here.”

  I huddled closer to her, deciding it was time to let her in on the secret. “There are no patients here. These people are actors. It actually is him.” I was beaming.

  “That guy died years ago.”

  Clearly the producers had decided not to tell her what was going on in order to keep her performance authentic.

  “Mom, you’re a terrible actor.”

  “Zack. You. Are. In. A. Locked. Psychiatric. Ward.” She paused between each word.

  “There are maybe some patients here, but most of these people are actors. Call my partner, my producer buddy. He’ll explain what’s going on.” I pointed to a security camera mounted on the ceiling, which provided all the explanation needed, but I sensed she was still unpersuaded. “If I wasn’t being filmed, then why was Daniel Day-Lewis on my block?”

  “Son, I spent twenty minutes in your neighborhood, and half the people on your street look like Daniel Day-Lewis.”

  I stared at her.

  “And I did call your producer buddy. He said you hadn’t been sleeping for weeks and that he made you see a doctor before he’d continue working with you. I also called his mom. She hung up on me.”

  I kept staring.

  “What about the Mohawk?” she asked after a silence. “Since when are you the Mohawk type?”

  “Since my buddy shaved it. It’s for comedy. For my act. For this. It’s not funny to you?”

  The Bird took my hand. This breed of bird does not shrink from adversity.

  Chapter 4

  Before she was the Bird, she was Cin-Cin McGilvrey. The good kid and the peacemaker at home—she made deals with the Lord that if
she colored perfectly between the lines of her Winnie-the-Pooh coloring books, her dad wouldn’t get drunk. Her homework was done, and perfectly, without asking. By the time she started fifth grade, she’d burned through a great deal of the seventh-grade titles in the library. It didn’t change things, though.

  Every Friday Pa would leave to “get a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.” Granny would nod and exhale through her nostrils. Once Cin-Cin tried to call bullshit: “But the gallon in the refrigerator isn’t even half empty yet!” Pa cleared his throat. Granny looked at Cin-Cin and then her husband—Go ahead, she seemed to say. Since when do you need my permission?

  Cin-Cin didn’t know where he went, only that when he came home he had transformed into a bear. And not a fun circus bear, an angry North American grizzly bear. Her bedroom was directly across the hall from her parents’ room, and on Friday nights Granny would warn the family bookworm not to read under the covers and to go right to sleep. Cin-Cin wanted to leave her door open, curious as to what would happen when the bear returned, but Granny always shut it before she went to bed in her own room. Watching through her bedroom window, Cin-Cin would catch the bear sneaking in late. She’d hear his keys jangling in the lock; sometimes it’d take him ten minutes to get the door open. He’d curse and stumble the entire time. “Goddamn door. Goddamn keys.” He’d drop them, pick them up, drop them again. Curse some more. Now he really looked like a bear: awkward on his hind legs, not quite sure how to use them. It wasn’t unusual for him to fall.

  When my grandma heard him, she’d race to look out the back door to make sure the car made it into the driveway. Then she’d run back to her bedroom. Cin-Cin would peek her head out into the hallway. “Momma, what are you doing?” Granny would shout-whisper, “Get back in bed. Go back to sleep. Don’t let your father know you’re awake.” Despite being fall-down drunk already, Pa would make a pit stop on his way to bed, crack another beer, and smoke another Salem. Cin-Cin knew she’d have seven minutes before the ugliness in the next room began. She pleaded with God for them to get divorced, or worse.

  Pa would poke toward the bedroom, knocking knickknacks off the walls along the way. Granny would pretend to be asleep, but Pa would flick the bedroom light on anyway. Cin-Cin would hear him try to undress while he continued to stumble around. “Don’t pretend like you’re asleep,” he’d tell Granny. “I’m sick of your holier-than-thou, high-horse attitude. Your dad and your farm and your kids.” They were his kids too, but the world turned against him on Friday evenings.

  “William, please, you’re going to wake Cindy up.”

  “T’hell with Cindy,” he’d say. “T’hell with Boeing. T’hell with you. I’m tired of being kicked around.”

  One particularly bad Friday night she heard Granny cry out, “Don’t, William! Please! You’re drunk!” followed by the sound of the big oaf collapsing onto the bed. Cin-Cin wandered into the hall, Winnie-the-Pooh in hand, and saw her father stumble from the bedroom. He looked like Humpty Dumpty in his boxer shorts. Her mom was sobbing in the other room as Pa hurled pots and pans against the wall in the kitchen. She knew it was almost over when she heard the cellophane crumple of his Salems and the click of his silver Zippo.

  Soon he’d be en route to his corner chair, where he’d pop one last Miller Lite and smoke until he passed out. Granny must have also listened for the cellophane and the lighter flick, because she seemed to know exactly how long to wait before going to survey the mess Pa had left in her kitchen.

  The North American grizzly remained ensconced in his cave for the greater part of that Saturday morning, snoring away. Cin-Cin crept into the kitchen, expecting maybe to find lingering evidence of the demolition she had pretended to sleep through. Instead, Granny was reading the newspaper and sipping coffee, the kitchen in perfect order. “Good morning, Cin-Cin. Shall I fix you cinnamon oatmeal or pancakes?”

  Cin-Cin wanted to yell at her mom, tell her that she wasn’t stupid or deaf, and to beg her to leave. Granny might have wanted to, but she’d no sooner divorce him than run away and join a cult. The best Cin-Cin could muster was “Daddy was scary last night.” To which Granny replied, “Cinnamon oatmeal or pancakes? You are far too sensitive, Cin-Cin.” She ordered pancakes, and while she waited for Granny to prepare her breakfast, she surveyed the freshly mopped linoleum floor. She noticed a brown indentation in front of the refrigerator—it looked like a smashed, twisted caterpillar. Sparkling floors were not low on Granny’s list of priorities. “Mom, what happened?” She pointed at the caterpillar. Granny grimaced but explained, “It’s nothing. Daddy just dropped his cigarette.”

  When Cin-Cin returned her focus to the new hole in the kitchen wall, Granny nudged her out of the house and gave her money for a Tastee-Freez. So Cin-Cin made her way to her friend Shellie’s. Shellie’s dad was up, and he was cooking breakfast in a goofy chef’s hat while her mom lounged in her bathrobe. Shellie was embarrassed, but Cin-Cin wanted to trade.

  The bear was up when she returned a few hours later. “Hi, Cindysnoots,” he greeted her as she walked in the door. Pa was showered and shaved and inevitably smoking. In the light of day, he was no longer a grizzly bear but a giant pink-eyed rat. “How’d you like to run errands with me today? We need to get your mama some flowers. How about you help me pick them out?” Despite his hangovers, he was nicest on Saturday mornings—sheepish and remorseful, although probably not certain for what.

  My parents started dating when they were thirteen years old. The relationship got off to a rocky start. Valentine’s Day, Mead Middle School, 1974: Mack was supposed to bring the Bird a “love ring” and ask her to go steady, but he didn’t even make it to school. She was humiliated. On February 15, Mack did make it to school, ring in tow. He was stoned, his hair was greasy, his blackheads were in full bloom, and he smelled like BO. She gratefully accepted his ring and his apology. “I was sick and I missed the bus. I woke my mom up and asked her to take me to school, but she went back to sleep,” he claimed. She bought the sick excuse—he was either exhibiting symptoms or doing a fine job of faking a sinus infection—but the mom sleeping part was beyond her comprehension. Aren’t moms supposed to be alarm clocks? To pack lunches, make beds, braid hair, help with homework, and lay out ironed outfits the night before school? This poor boy…His momma doesn’t love him. The Bird resolved to take care of him: she did his homework and gave him half of her lunch every day. Mack told her about his father, who ordered him to cut his hair and called him a worthless hippy. “You’re lazy, lazy, lazy,” my future grandad would say. “Lazy as a two-legged coon dog without a job.”

  Middle school relationships usually have a natural termination point—the young lovers go to different high schools or turn fifteen and realize they aren’t soul mates after all. That’s not how it shook out for my parents. They got married at eighteen. It would have been sooner but they decided to put off tying the knot until after they graduated high school. My mom graduated near the top of her class, and earned Mack a decent but semi-believable GPA.

  Granny and Pa weren’t pleased. Eighteen was young to get married, even in Kansas in 1978, and Mack was the sort of fella no one needed to catch in the act to know that he liked to party. Straight-A Cin-Cin was no rebel, but she was in love.

  Six months later, and not at all on purpose, my mom was knocked up with Alexa, my older sister. The Bird had just finished her first semester of college and, even though she’d made the dean’s list, didn’t give much thought to her decision to drop out of school. The boy who’d been late with the love ring had not improved in the reliability department. Someone was going to have to raise the kid and support the family. She transferred to Dillon’s grocery store.

  By this time Mack was snorting coke something serious. Which, surprisingly, was not on the Bird’s radar. She knew he could twist a joint one handed while driving, and she knew he could put down a few rum and Cokes, but cocaine was one of the few devils she didn’t know. Pots and pans against the wall, shouting and perpetual grumpin
ess, yes. A brother high on PCP standing naked in the shower in front of his mother and attempting to eat a pickle jar, yes. But the occasional nosebleed didn’t set off any alarm bells. At the height of his cocaine use, my dad was putting something like $800 a week up his nose. They were on food stamps.

  Mack started asking strange favors from the Bird: he’d send her to FedEx with large cylindrical tubes meant to hold rolled-up photographs (oddly enough, he was a pretty good amateur photographer) and instructions to ship them to Florida. She didn’t ask what was in the packages, but they sure were heavy for photos.

  She could no longer deny that she was complicit in something once the house was burglarized by drug dealers. That night Mack came home at 3 a.m. to find the front door wide open, the living room window smashed in, his stereo and speakers gone, and his drum set knocked over. Alexa was running a high fever, and the Bird, nine months pregnant with me, was contemplating taking her to the hospital. Mack refused to call the cops and called her a “worrywart,” as though she were stressing over who’d tracked mud all over her carpet.

  Soon a new threat emerged and the worrywart started sleeping with a hammer on her nightstand. A few years before, the Bird had been forced to testify against Bert, one of Uncle Eddie’s druggie friends (not that Uncle Eddie had any non-druggie friends), after he smashed in the front door of my parents’ first apartment. He’d been running from the cops and wanted my mom to hide him. She refused, the landlord pressed charges for destruction of property, and the Bird was subpoenaed to testify.

  Now, years after the trial, Bert was out of prison and harassing my mother. He’d leave her alone for months at a time, then he’d go on a drug binge and come looking for her. When she was pregnant with Adam, my little brother, Bert once pushed her against a sink in the back room of Dillon’s bakery and told her, “I’m going to drag you into an alley and stick a knife in your belly.” If Mack’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, Bert sometimes pounded on the front door hard enough to rattle the dead bolt: “I’ve been watching you! Let me see that baby! I’m going to get you!” The Bird would tell Mack, “The midnight caller paid us a visit again.” “That’s why you let the dog in at night,” he’d remind her. My mom called the cops on Bert half a dozen times. Sometimes she couldn’t help but fantasize that he would hurt her. That would serve Mack right—come home and find us all killed. But she stayed.