Darren Effect (24 page)

Visiting the tanker had consumed his entire afternoon, though he hadn't been surprised when the crew insisted he come aboard to collect the birds himself. He was ferried out via longliner to the ship, which was enormous and freshly painted bright pink. A group of crewmen followed him as he was taken to the rope locker, a spacious room lined with gleaming yellow lockers where Darren guessed the ropes were stored, since there was not a single one in sight. A handwritten note posted on the door warned, “Live Birds Inside.” Although the crew had grown fearful of the herons, someone must have been coming in to clean up because the floor was spotless. It was unusual, Darren was made to understand, that they had kept these birds. The normal practice was to toss them overboard.

The live heron was standing on one leg, beside the dead one. The crew hung back as Darren seized the heron and put it in a box, then slipped its dead companion into a garbage bag. Back on deck, while the crew debated who would carry what down the ladder to the longliner, Darren marvelled at the size of the ship. Its deck was the length of a football field and its total height at least six stories. Birds lost over the Atlantic often sought refuge on these vessels. Darren imagined the birds' attraction, not only
to the ship's almighty size and excessive pinkness, but to its sheer presence over the unyielding seascape, as though it had been invoked not through chance, but necessity.

Now the heron was standing in the bathtub beside the stump he and Cooper had dug out of Darren's garden shed. Its neck and head were sunk to the level of its grey wings, which were folded in such a way that they resembled a cloak draped over the bird's back and shoulders, lending it an elegant Count Dracula air despite the lavender-coloured tub. Minutes passed, during which neither the heron nor Darren moved, and then the heron lifted its head high on its serpentine neck and with its right leg made a few leisurely attempts to scale the side of the bathtub. Darren backed away and the bird defecated. The feces was projected the length of the tub and Darren saw that among the otherwise dazzling yellow matter there were some black bits — indicative of bleeding in the guts.

He knelt beside the tub and dumped in the remaining half dozen goldfish, but knew he would be bringing the heron to Byron the next day.

When he returned to the living room, Jeanette was gone.

The heron survived the night, but had rejected the second course of goldfish, which were either floating belly up or moving sluggishly through the dirty water. While Darren scooped them up with a drinking glass and flushed them down the toilet, the heron stood oblivious, its black and white crest rising and falling like a toy whose batteries are running low.

For nearly two decades, Byron Murphy had run the Southern Shore Animal Rescue Park. Southern Shore Concentration Camp was more like it, Darren thought to himself. Sure, half the animals brought to it perished. Nonetheless, he called ahead and left a message with Byron that he was bringing down an unusual heron.

He took the Goulds bypass without giving it a second thought and eventually passed the very spot where Heather had
been pulled over for speeding. He wondered what she was doing today. He thought about seeing her at the barbeque on the weekend, then worried she might not show up. A few miles on, he turned in at Byron's and was concerned when he saw the parking area vacant. Byron lived alone in a bungalow that Darren had the misfortune to visit only once; the medley of odours resulting from fried meat, sour clothing and sick birds had been alarming. Darren didn't like to think about the things he and Byron had in common, especially the fact they were both bachelors.

The birds were kept in a long shed beside the house. But here too the lot was empty. The Southern Shore Animal Rescue Park, as its name suggested, served as both hospital and nature park. It was through the latter role that Byron made his meagre income. The place was looking more rundown than Darren recalled, though it had never been particularly shipshape, and then the door to the Rehabilitation Centre, as Byron called the shed, opened and Byron stepped out and waved. As usual, he was wearing shorts.

Darren had first met Byron after spending a summer as field assistant for a renowned seabird biologist, which meant Darren spent three months sitting in a dark cabin on an offshore island blowing eggs for that biologist's illegal personal collection. He came back to university disillusioned and in bad spirits. Byron had worn his intelligence openly and, Darren thought, arrogantly. Competition between the two had been spontaneous. It took all the years of graduate school for this to wear off, though Darren remained childishly vigilant of Byron's excessive knowledge.

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. They 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.