A Catalog of Birds by Laura Harrington
Nell is working with one of Esme’s teams documenting mercury levels in songbirds. The toxin attacks the nervous system, making the birds act strangely. They have trouble sitting on their eggs long enough to hatch. They seem easily distracted and the impact on the rates of reproduction is alarming.
The birds exhibiting the most elevated levels of mercury are the wood thrush, Bicknell’s thrush, rusty blackbird, red-winged blackbird, eastern wood-peewee, indigo bunting, Nelson’s sparrow, yellow-throated vireo, and salt marsh sparrow.
Nell has proven to be the most adept with her nets. All those years with Billy, her knowledge of the woods and marshes, the stillness they cultivated in order to listen and observe. She’d like to bring Billy with her. Hasn’t found a way to ask him yet.
She turns back to her work. Labels the specimen bag and bottle, checks the net; presses play again.
Billy is losing weight and Marion can’t figure out why. He shows up for dinner and seems to eat, though the dog probably gets more benefit from her cooking than her son. On several occasions Marion has found Billy sniffing his food, looking skeptical.
Tonight she’s made macaroni and cheese, a dish he used to love. But these days he smothers most of his food in Tabasco sauce. That little bottle has taken up residence on the dining room table.
Marion does not tolerate bottles and jars and cartons on the table.
“Put it in a dish,” she tells her children, “or a pitcher or a glass.” They don’t listen. She can just imagine her own mother’s response to that stuff slopped down on the table. God, it’s hard work keeping up Mabel Morrissey’s standards. All the way through raising five kids, how many meals would that add up to, to be felled at last by Billy, not hungry, not giving a damn.
Nell gets up and pours the milk into a pitcher.
“How was physical therapy?” Marion asks.
“Fine.” Billy’s chair scrapes back.
“Where are you going?” Marion asks.
“I don’t know, Mom. Out.”
“What? I’m suddenly some kind of lousy cook? You barely ate.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’re never hungry.”
Nell and Jack exchange a look.
Billy turns to the door, Flanagan following him.
“Come back here, please,” Marion says with that tone.
Billy stops in the doorway, looks at his mother, that flat stare none of them can get used to.
“Can we talk about this later?”
“No.”
It seems possible Billy will just ignore Marion and go. But some memory of family dinners, where each of them was sternly spoken to by their father, stops him.
“Well?” Marion presses.
“I can’t smell much. And that means I can’t taste much either.”
“How long has this been going on?” Jack asks.
“A while.”
“A week? A month?”
“Six months or more.”
“I’m tired of either chasing you or tiptoeing around you. Sit down for five minutes,” Marion says. “What about a specialist?”
“You want to fight with the VA to cover another specialist, be my guest.”
“Yes, I do. Give me the number to call. What does your doctor say?”
“He says he’s heard of it. It usually clears up on its own.”
“And the cause?” Jack asks.
“You know the VA. Nothing’s wrong until you and a thousand other soldiers can prove it.”
“So what are you hearing?” Jack asks.
“There are plenty of vets who can’t smell, or taste. Most everybody has hearing loss. And then there are the guys who just plain feel lousy, with low-grade fevers, constant fatigue, and vomiting. More and more cancers are showing up. The VA says they’re slacking off, looking to stay on the dole. Nobody’s getting any answers.”
“What do you think it is?”
“We used a lot of chemicals, Dad.”
“Jesus Christ!” Marion bursts out.
“Marion, please,” Jack says.
“They deny the symptoms so the government isn’t responsible for disability and medical payments. If you can’t prove direct cause and effect . . . ”
“Why can’t you prove it?” Marion asks.
“Think about it. I say I’ve got hearing loss. They have experts who cite studies on hearing loss among eighteen-to-twenty-two-year old noncombatants due to loud music. Do I listen to music? Yes. Did I fly without proper audio protection? Yes, sir, I did, but—only they don’t want to hear the explanation, the crap equipment, or good equipment that breaks down or malfunctions in combat conditions or jungle damp or forty days of rain and fog and mud.”
“Did you personally handle chemicals?” Jack asks.
“You wouldn’t believe what we did.” Billy looks at his father. “Twelve million tons of Agent Orange, Dad. As if the Geneva Convention against chemical warfare did not exist. Think of what we’ve done, what we’re leaving behind.”
Flanagan whines, pushes against Billy.
“Can I skip the dishes, Mom?” Nell asks, getting up to follow him.
“What about your homework?” Marion asks.
“C’mon. She got into college already,” Billy says.
“Can we take a walk?” Nell asks Billy.
“Or a drive?” He looks to Marion.
“You can’t shift,” Marion says.
“Sure I can. Left-handed.”
“What? How do you hold the wheel?”
“Nell will do it.”
“Billy . . . ” Jack cautions.
“I steady the wheel with my right hand, reach under and shift with my left.”
“That’s so reassuring,” Marion says.
“We’ll stick to back roads. Or Nell will drive.”
“Right. You’re such a good passenger.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Nell, Billy, and Flanagan burst out the back door.
“How much gas have we got?” Nell asks, as Billy awkwardly turns the key in the ignition with his left hand.
“A quarter-tank, looks like. You got any money?”
Nell pulls three dollars from her pocket, places them on the dash. “Where are we going?”
“Around the lake.”
“All the way around? It’s already 7:30.”
“You afraid of the dark?”
“How about Sunset Ridge? I can’t remember the last time I walked up there. With you, maybe, before you shipped out.”
“You don’t take your boyfriends up there?”
“Boyfriends. Right.”
“C’mon. Not one boy? In two whole years?”
“I’m not talking about this with you,” she says.
“Not one?”
Flanagan leans over the seat to put her head on Billy’s shoulder, filling the front seat with dog breath. Nell cranks her window down.
“Did you at least manage to get yourself well and truly kissed?” he asks.
“You make it sound simple.”
“It is.”
“I have to like somebody first.”
“At your age, don’t you like just about everybody? Every boy, I mean.”
“No.”
“So maybe you’re a little too picky.”
“I’m not.”
“A little too shy.”
“Okay, you were a fairly nice and relatively interesting high school boy. There aren’t a lot of boys like that, trust me.”
“I’m not talking about Prince Charming here, I’m talking about some kid, some boy sort of person who’d be fun to kiss. There has to be one.”
“Enough already.”
“Did you at least get to go to your senior dance or prom or whatever they call it these day
“For all you know I have had a very intense affair with an older man who has completely spoiled me for boys my own age.”
“You have not.”
“How do you know? You’ve been gone.”
“Let’s grab a beer.”
“I thought you quit.”
“It’s almost Friday.”
“Jesus, Billy.”
While Billy and Nell are out, Jack and Harlow Murphy tow home a broken-down 1960 Ford Falcon and stow it in the garage. The body’s in rough shape, it’s so riddled with rust you can’t tell what color it is, and the engine needs a lot of work, but with some time and some tools, they might be able to get it back on the road.
A project. Billy needs a set of wheels.
Harlow promises used parts and assistance before getting into his truck and disappearing up the drive.
Marion will not be happy. They can’t afford it, even though it came from a junk shop. Maybe she’ll be so glad to get her own car back she’ll forgive him. Still, Jack hesitates to go inside.
“Good lord, Jack. The insurance alone—”
“He needs his own car.”
“You could have asked me.”
“You would have said no.”
“We should have talked about it.”
“It seemed like a good opportunity.”
“You’re not listening to me!”
“Hey, hey . . . what’s got you so worked up?”
“The VA will only pay for half of Billy’s rehab. He has exceeded their customary number of visits. I can’t cover the bills we’ve got and more keep coming in. The hand specialist is going to assess the nerve damage next week, make his recommendations. It just goes on and on. And I don’t know how we’re going to pay for it on top of everything else.”
“Imagine what it’s like for Billy.”
“I do.”
“No, we don’t. Not really. We fret about money, the doctors’ appointments. Billy’s left to worry about whether his hand will ever work again.”
“A car’s not going to fix that.”
“It’ll help.”
Billy pulls up in front of Riley’s Tavern, the lone bar on this stretch of road. Riley’s does especially well during the hunting and ice fishing seasons, and for drinkers who don’t want to do their brawling and trawling for girls too close to home. The smell of stale beer has even permeated the asphalt of the parking lot. A “Jenny” sign blinks halfheartedly in the window. Billy is at the door when Nell calls out:
“You don’t have any money.”
He returns to the car and grabs the bills off the dash, both hands, Nell sees, shaking.
“That’s for gas,” she challenges him.
“The hell with you if you don’t want to have fun.”
“They won’t serve me,” she says to his retreating back.
“You don’t have a fake ID? That is just plain dull, Nell. Grow up, for Christ’s sake.”
Before she can pry apart the contradictions, Billy is back, cradling two beers.
They switch places. He’s halfway through the first bottle before Nell pulls out of the parking lot.
“You want any of this?” he asks.
“I don’t really like beer.”
“Suit yourself.”
“We don’t have enough gas to get all the way around the lake.”
“Damn. I just wanted to drive these hills in the dark. Fast. Doesn’t Mom keep change for parking meters in here somewhere?”
“She used to keep a few bucks in the glove box for summer ice-cream cones.”
Billy jerks open the glove compartment and finds two dollar bills folded small and tucked under the registration.
“Gas? Beer?” He holds up each dollar in turn.
“Gas,” she pulls into the Esso station on the outskirts of Dresden.
“Spoilsport,” he says, as she hands the attendant their money.
“You get any change at the bar?”
He fishes the change from his pocket. Nell calls out:
“Make that $2.85 would you?”
The lanky attendant, no older than fifteen, pockets their bills, the stack of change, without bothering to count it, shakes out the filthy squeegee, and washes the windows, front and back.
“You want your oil checked?”
“What about him?” Billy asks.
“No thanks,” Nell says to both of them.
As Nell turns onto Route 9, Billy throws the bottle out the window. She jumps at the crash it makes hitting a tree. Thinks back to Rob Chandler and his boys. So much unfinished business.
Billy opens the second beer, fiddles with the radio. “Can you still pick up Albany late at night?”
“Albany, Syracuse, sometimes the City.”
“Cold winter nights.”
“Not like tonight.”
He pulls in a scratchy jazz show from Ithaca. Some white boy playing the blues.
“I keep seeing that picture of that little kid,” he says, “what was her name, up in Penfield?”
“Pamela Moss.”
“Wakes me up nights. And then I can’t stop thinking about Megan and if it’s somehow related.” He doesn’t tell her that he dreams of horses again and again; the same horse, he finally realizes, a gray-black Percheron. Nor does he tell her how often he goes up to the Homestead, dream-haunted, Megan-haunted, seeing that horse in the field, seeing their lives, all that might have been.
“There are crazy rumors floating around,” Nell says.
“Like what?”
“Like someone supposedly saw her in Rochester. That she’s pregnant and her family sent her away to have the baby.” Nell glances at Billy, tries to assess his reaction. Had Megan ever told him?
“Even the police could have uncovered that by now.”
“That she ran away.”
“Where? And why?”
“Did you know that she . . . ?”
“What?”
“Forget it.”
“What are you not telling me? Other boyfriends? She was sleeping with this Chandler asshole? Big deal.”
She looks out the window. Thinks of that dark house, the long walk back to the bus station, Megan unable to talk the whole ride home.
Flanagan climbs into the front seat and winds herself around Billy’s feet, her head on his knees. He strokes her absentmindedly.
Driving through the twilight hush, Nell feels that anything could happen. She gives up the wheel reluctantly and pushes Flanagan into the backseat. He can’t be drunk on two beers, can he? She takes comfort in the fact that Flanagan is in the car and Billy would never let anything happen to her.
“Let’s turn back.”
“We’re just getting to the good hills.”
“It’s another hour to get home.”
“So what do you care? Plus, I don’t poke along like you do. It’s forty minutes, tops.”
“C’mon, Billy, I’ve got school tomorrow.”
He tromps on the gas. Marion’s old Plymouth has crap acceleration, but if you’re patient, it cruises all right once it gets to 60. Still too fast for these windy roads and a brother with one good hand.
He flirts with driving so fast she’ll be scared into telling him the truth, a truth he probably already knows. Feels her fear then, takes his foot off the gas.
How stupid they were; believing nothing could touch them, catch them, destroy what they had. Willfully blind to the facts, to the birds and the bees, for godsakes. Charmed, meant to be, summer of love, ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby.
He looks at Nell, thinks of how he kept pushing Harlow away from her, but still took what he wanted with Megan. With everything. Grabbed what he wanted with both hands. Flying. The war. Intoxicated in the air. Every time he walked across the tarmac,
“I think she’s dead,” he says finally.
Nell doesn’t answer for a long time.
“Did you hear me?”
“Don’t say that.” Her voice quiet, strained. “Don’t even think it.”
“And they’ll never find her.”
“Billy, Christ . . . ”
“Tell me what happened.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she says.
“Liar.”
She turns away from him to look out the window.
“You’re blushing,” he says. “Telltale sign.”
“Stop it.”
“Who are you protecting?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
Nell’s Friday night bus ride to Syracuse is hot, crowded, and noisy. She gets off the bus with a splitting headache and takes the shortcut to Sheila’s apartment, even though she’s promised not to walk through the parking lots and alleyways at night.
She runs up the stairs and makes a beeline to the medicine cabinet and some aspirin. Coming out of the bathroom, Nell realizes what’s troubling her. The apartment is nearly empty.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ve been giving a few things away.”
Nell takes in the bare shelves, the lone chair with a lamp beside it. In the bedroom, Sheila’s single mattress is on the floor. The dresser, mirror, and pictures are gone. Nell opens the closet: two pairs of shoes, two pairs of pants, skirts, shirts, sweaters.
“Nell, would you quit it?” Sheila says as Nell opens the silverware drawer in the kitchen: two sets of forks, knives, spoons. On the shelves: two plates, bowls, cups.
Sheila’s beloved stand mixer is gone. She’d saved for two years to buy that thing. The wooden table they bought together at a yard sale has been replaced with a card table and two folding chairs.
Nell wonders if Sheila ever has company.
“Are you leaving?” she asks.
“I’ll tell you while we bake. If you promise to let me tell Mom and Dad in my own way.”
“What are we making?”
“Tollhouse cookies and that orange tea cake Billy likes. Will you cream the butter?”
Nell creams the butter, thinks about Billy’s moods, the constant weight of Megan Alsop, adds brown sugar to the bowl.