Darren Effect

by Libby Creelman

  Byron was smiling as he crossed the lot. He seemed happy to see Darren.

  “Where are the school buses?” Darren asked.

  Byron made a dismissive gesture with his hand and said, “Let’s have a look at that heron.”

  Darren opened the back of his truck and watched as Byron leaned in to have a peek. He still wore his brown hair parted down the middle, an antiquated style that took some getting used to. His dark eyes were enormous, round and perpetually startled. They reminded Darren of a tree-clinging bush baby.

  “How long has it been without food?”

  “I gave it some goldfish last night.”

  “How many?”

  “Half a dozen.”

  “And before that?”

  “At least a week.”

  Byron was shaking his head and frowning. “The goldfish were a disastrous idea.” He lifted the box and Darren followed him inside.

  The “hospital” smelled of feces, dead fish and antiseptic. They entered the small operating room where an aluminum table folded out from the wall, similar to a changing table in a public washroom. Byron placed the box on the table and stood blinking.

  “You’ll have to excuse me if I seem a bit slow off the mark. I was up all night with an owl. Normally, first thing I do is leave the bird alone. Do nothing. Don’t touch it. Put it in a dark room with the temperature a few degrees above the comfort zone. Birds come in, no meat on them — ”

  “I’m not sure that bird can afford to be left alone, Byron.” Byron’s friendly lecturing always made Darren defensive. He put up with it because he was the one who had landed the secure government job, while Byron was stuck here becoming yearly more eccentric and less respected.

  “Second thing I do, after leaving it alone, is hydrate it. More important than food. But you know that.” Here he shook his head again. He went over to a small table and picked up a large syringe and filled it with Gatorade. “If we can stabilize the electrolytes . . . . Would you mind holding this?”

  Darren took the syringe and rubber tube, then stood obediently back a few feet as Byron opened the box.

  “Too late, Darren.”

  “What?”

  “It’s gone.”

  Darren approached Byron and the two of them stood silent for a moment, gazing in at the crumpled heron. Already, it seemed, its colours were fading.

  Byron took a deep, catching breath. “When you said unusual heron, Darren, I thought maybe you had a cattle egret. But now this is something. This is something.” And he lifted the body out of the box and laid it on the metal table. “Venture a guess?”

  “Grey heron?”

  Byron looked disappointed. He turned the heron over onto its back and spread the wings. The keel was clearly outlined. There was no doubt the bird had been consuming its own muscles for days. Here was a body crying out for forced hydration.

  “Grey heron. Yes, indeed.” Byron stroked the bird’s feathered thighs. “White thighs. White headlights. Very diagnostic.”

  Byron looked at Darren.

  “You see what I’m getting at? These white patches on the leading edge of the wing, just past the carpel joint. This is a grey heron, Darren, absolutely no question. Congratulations.”

  “Well — ”

  “Would have been an improbable sighting only a few years ago. What you’ve got here, of course, is a ship-assist. One other thing. Greys tend to curl their toes in flight. Not as leggy as our great blues. Something to keep in mind should you see a great blue that doesn’t look quite right, Darren. When you’re out and about. Doing what you do.”

  As Byron spoke, he fiddled with the heron, patting down its feathers and pulling its legs straight, then doing the same with its neck and head so the body was stretched several feet across the table. To have come all this way, Darren thought, only to die in a box in the company of two well-meaning but essentially ineffective humans. But he was not surprised the bird had died. He had been expecting it.

  He placed the syringe on the table. He was more interested in Byron’s excessive knowledge of other things.

  “Listen, Byron,” he said casually. “Have you ever read of the Bruce Effect being observed in humans?”

  “What? How did we get onto the Bruce Effect?”

  “Seems a bit unlikely, doesn’t it?”

  “Quite.”

  Byron laid the heron back in the box and closed the lid. Darren could see that Byron’s mind was elsewhere.

  “They’re shutting me down.”

  “What?”

  “Operating without the proper permits. Not licensed for veterinary medicine. A few other infringements. I thought you knew.”

  “I had no idea. Have you been fined?”

  “Good heavens, no.”

  This explained the empty parking lot, the lack of school buses. And, come to think of it, the hand-painted sign hadn’t been there at the edge of the road.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Byron shrugged. “Want to have a look around? It may be your last opportunity.”

  “You bet. Who’s in the recovery room?”

  “Boreal owl.” Byron opened the door partway and Darren leaned in. The room was dark, but in an elevated wire cage Darren could see a kitten-sized bird racing around, startled by their entry. It wore an orange figure-eight bandage on one wing.

  “It was hit by a car and found on the side of the road,” Byron said. “Broken humerus.” At the sound of Byron’s voice, the owl stopped and huddled in a far corner. Darren had watched Byron set bones a number of times. Byron could feel the break with his fingers. Like a piece of cloth laid over gravel, he explained, he could “hear” it with his fingers.

  “There’s also a gannet in the closet. It keeps getting out and scaring the owl. Maybe you could take it with you? It just needs to be released.”

  Darren followed Byron into the rodent nursery where normally rats and mice were housed in stacked drawers. Most of the drawers stood empty. But the truth was, Darren was not surprised by this turn of events.

  “Have they said what they plan to do with the birds?”

  “They’ll be donated to the museum,” Byron said. He opened the freezer and spoke through a cloud of condensed air. “Didn’t know what to do with these fellows. Might be of use to someone.”

  Darren peered in at the heap of frozen rodents. The bodies were coiled around each other as though they had died huddled together for warmth, though certainly Byron would have killed them first.

  “A hundred and thirteen.” Byron spoke absently, as though he were speaking to himself. Darren figured he normally did a fair amount of that anyway.

  “I think I have time for a quick tour of the park, Byron.”

  “Hey, excellent. I’ll grab my coat. Don’t let me forget the gannet when we get back.”

  Darren nodded, knowing he wouldn’t forget, but hoping Byron would.

  They exited the Rehabilitation Centre and took a shortcut through a boggy gully to the nature walk proper, which was similar to the shortcut but wider. Here and there, in response to seasonal wetness, planks had been laid down, though many had sunk below the level of water and moss and shifted unpredictably beneath their feet. Various plants were labelled, as with a card marked “Lambkill, Kalmia angustifolia” wrapped in translucent plastic and tied to a plant with string.

  Darren remembered an argument that had taken place between them nearly twenty years earlier, when he made one of his first, nosy visits to the park. Byron had incorrectly labelled black spruce as white — or was it white spruce, black? — but when Darren corrected him, Byron’s sulking, uncompromising reaction had been surprising. Darren wondered where that tree had stood and for the first time entertained the possibility that he, rather than Byron, might have been mistaken.

  Although the sky was cloudy, when they emerged onto open field, the bronzed brightness blanketing the landscape was a relief. A raised boardwalk snaked several feet above the barrens and into a compound enclosed by a wire fence. T
hey stepped up onto the boardwalk and entered the compound through a gate that swung unevenly and whose hinges, Darren saw, were loose. Once they were inside, Byron fiddled for a moment with the gate, but it wouldn’t catch and he gave up.

  “I always made a show of closing the gates when we had visitors,” he said, “but frankly, it’s not necessary.”

  A series of whistles, descending note by note and called out so clearly they made the air seem hollow, sounded nearby. Three snowy owls were emerging from behind a stand of shrubs, half hopping, half walking, while a fourth did not approach but stood his ground, whistling at them.

  “The male,” Byron said. “Been here fifteen years.”

  One of the owls jumped and spread its wings, and the wind carried it a few feet.

  None of them could fly and Darren vaguely knew their histories. One was a wing amputee. The others had broken bones that had mended, but imperfections in the healing process prevented true recovery of flight. There was also the problem of permanent wing droop, a condition that made the birds cosmetically unviable for public viewing. Real zoological parks did not want them. Displayed inside a glass case was the most anyone could hope for them now.

  The owls were densely feathered, even on their legs and toes. They were splendid, but also preposterous. For years they had been fed dead rodents that Byron first prepared by whacking their skulls against the edge of a table. As the hopping alternated with clumsy walking, Darren thought they looked more like children waddling around in snowsuits than magnificent white owls. Indeed, they were like children — children placed and forgotten in a bleak refugee camp. Or children locked up in closets and discovered at eight years of age, unable to speak or make eye contact.

  “Missing one,” Byron said, looking around.

  Even so, a closet, a camp — wouldn’t those be better than the provincial museum?

  Byron was scanning the perimeter of the enclosure. “Now and then one gets carried over the fence if it’s gusty. Or it walks out the gate. But it always hangs around outside and waits for me. Oh, there, look.”

  Several hundred metres away, beyond the enclosure, an animal was coming over the hummocky ground and, like the ones inside, occasionally jumping up and attempting flight.

  Byron went back out the gate to await the returning owl. Seeing Byron, the owl hesitated, then continued towards the compound. It reached the fence and pressed up against it, as though there was the possibility it would give way, and Byron circled out a short distance before coming back for it. The owl turned over onto its back, its huge wings falling open, and presented Byron with its black talons. Byron tugged a glove out of his back pocket and handed it to the owl as one might hand a favourite blanket to a sleepy child, and with a motion that seemed almost gluttonous in its speed and readiness, both talons reached out to clasp the glove.

  Byron leaned over and grabbed the owl’s legs and carried it like a farmyard chicken back inside the compound.

  It was time to go. Darren headed towards Byron. When he reached him he laid his hand on Byron’s shoulder, lightly, and Byron flinched, as though it had been a long time since he’d been touched.

  They returned to the Rehabilitation Centre in silence. Byron’s reaction to his touch left Darren feeling lost, disoriented. He thought of Heather and their first meeting in the woods, her blond hair wet against her cheeks, the wild expression in her eyes.

  “Coming to the barbeque this weekend?” Darren asked. He was anxious to get back in the truck and be gone.

  “Still having that, are they? Tenacious bunch.”

  “They’re always asking about you,” Darren said.

  “But there was one report. Strictly anecdotal, however.”

  “Huh?”

  “The Bruce Effect in humans.”

  Darren stood still. “Do you recall the details?”

  “I do. It was in a remote village somewhere in South America. I believe the location was withheld. An isolated group of closely related individuals, numbering in the hundreds. They carried a sex-linked blood disorder that resulted in a high rate of fatality in young males, just past puberty. But a strictly monogamous society. As a result, young impregnated women were frequently left widowed. Someone working in the area — on something else entirely, a botanist I believe — observed that when a widowed woman took up with another male, in a number of instances her pregnancy vanished. Until, of course, she became pregnant by the new male.”

  “They weren’t aborting them?”

  “There was no evidence to support that.”

  “I suppose this was restricted to the first trimester?”

  “Heaven’s, yes. I can’t see it happening any later than ten weeks. Can you? Fetal reabsorption? This isn’t science fiction, Darren.”

  “No.”

  “Now hold on while I fetch the gannet.”

  It was nearly midnight by the time Darren got home and dropped the tailgate, so he was surprised when Cooper materialized at his side.

  Darren dug out his spotlight and trained it on the gannet, which was opening and closing its bill and producing a plaintive, raspy two-syllable cry. Its thick neck was mobile, curling and uncurling snake-like above its body, but its torso and dirty leathery feet were clearly paralyzed. There wasn’t much hope for the creature and Darren was annoyed at Byron for passing it off on him. Perhaps Byron simply wanted to avoid seeing another bird die.

  Darren looked from the bird to the boy and wondered if he should suggest Cooper go home to bed. But was Isabella even there? Perhaps she was out shopping? No, that was impossible. What would be open at this hour?

  “Cool eyes,” the boy said, and Darren nodded. He had to agree. They were perfectly circular and of a colour like no human’s: the orbital ring was cobalt blue and the iris a pale, cold grey. The eyes of a goddess, he thought. He hoped Cooper hadn’t seen the bright orange feces dripping from the tail feathers. He switched the spotlight off and reached in for the bird. It was the weight of a dressed turkey.

  “That’s a sin,” Cooper said in a soft, admonishing voice and Darren figured not a whole lot got past that boy.

  “Can I have him?”

  Darren laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  As he walked towards his house, Cooper yelled out, “Are you sure I can’t have him, Mr. Foley?”

  “I’m sure,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  His foyer was dark and he nearly tripped over a pile of shopping bags. Jeanette was sitting in the living room, dressed for bed.

  “I didn’t know if you were coming home,” she said.

  “What is all this? Why would you think a thing like that?” As he stepped around the bags, the gannet began struggling and he almost dropped it.

  “What have you got there?” “Gannet. I’ll put it in the basement for the night. Why didn’t you think I was coming home?”

  She shrugged. “Brenda called. She said you stopped in at the Pearly a few days ago with a woman. I thought it must have been Isabella, but Brenda said the woman was pregnant.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He felt guilty and disloyal for not having mentioned Heather to his sister before. He had wanted to. The gannet was growing impatient. He squeezed it with his forearm and it went still.

  “Jeanette — ”

  “I bought some new clothes. But when I got them home I discovered none of them fit. I’ll return them tomorrow.”

  “You didn’t try them on at the store?”

  “There wasn’t enough time.”

  But he knew his sister would have trouble undressing in those small change rooms. He had nothing to say to that. It was how it was done. He carried the gannet downstairs and lowered it into the old cardboard box that served as an overnighter for seabirds. The gannet looked comatose. Even if it were not doomed, it would be several years before its transformation into a white adult, brilliant in the sunlight.

  Darren sat back on his heels. He considered the bird’s oceanic journey since leaving its nest last September. And before that
, there would have been all those weeks of summer, the lone occupant of its increasingly filthy nest, the sole object of its parents’ immense reproductive investment. All those minutes, hours, days — nothing to do but wait for its next meal, flap its wings, test and build its strength. The unimaginable promise of flight. But when that moment came, many leapt from the cliff and fell directly to the sea, somersaulting over its hard surface, sprained and broken. No second chance.

  Yet others left as though they were only daydreaming of doing so: one or two moments see-sawing in the air before instinct engaged, and they were gone for years.

  While his mother slept through the second half of the movie, Cooper slipped outside. It was a dark night, but after a while he could see everything he needed to see. Mr. Foley’s truck was not in the driveway.

  Sometimes Cooper felt the impulse to break something: someone’s glass door or lawn statue. How easy would that be? You could sneak out in the night and under cover of dark pick up a rock and aim it in. Then run. How would they ever catch you? By the time the police were there you’d be back in your bed. No one would know. Unless they got hold of your thoughts.

  The door to the shed opened easily. It was unlocked and the hinges worked smooth as anything, not a squeak. Cooper switched on his flashlight. On one side of the shed was a pile of wood. This was where Mr. Foley had found the stump for the heron. It was meant to make the bird feel more comfortable in Mr. Foley’s purple bathtub, but how retarded was that. On the other side of the shed was the lawn mower and work table. Under the work table was the can of gasoline for running the lawn mower. Mr. Foley had suggested hiring Cooper to mow his lawn. When Cooper was a bit older, he had said, but Cooper figured it was the type of thing that would never happen. Plus, he was old enough now.

  The gasoline can had a long neck and was easy to tip, without having to be lifted, and Cooper went straight to work, filling his largest Super Soaker canister. He got a few drops of gas on the floor, but knew they would evaporate. He had experience with gasoline and engines because he and his father used to go on fishing trips with another man — a client of his father’s — and the man’s grandson, who lived in Grand Falls-Windsor. The grandson’s name was Danny and Cooper liked him, but the only time he ever saw him was once each summer.