Darren Effect (25 page)

“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.

Cooper and his father would meet Danny and his grandfather at an Irving station along the Trans-Canada Highway, then they would all get into Danny's grandfather's truck and drive an hour down a dirt road. Cooper would fall asleep during the drive, but wake in time to see them approaching a lake and the cabin belonging to Danny's grandfather. They would get out of the truck and the grandfather would yell, Hey, boys, give us a hand with this gear! A smell that Cooper had forgotten all year would come off the lake. It was fishy and rank, but at the same time fresh and soft. It was a feeling on his face as much as a smell in his nose.

The four of them would go out in the boat right away to fish
before it got dark. Danny's grandfather would make sure the engine had gas and they would motor out across the lake to a special spot they knew was good for trouting. Just before getting there, Danny would reach over to cut the engine and they would glide quietly across the water. They spoke in whispers.

They fished, concentrating on the water and where their lines disappeared into it, and the boys would beg not to have to go in. But Danny's grandfather would remind them there was all of tomorrow and that he needed something more substantial than air to swallow, and Cooper's father would laugh and say, That's right, it's getting dark.

Cooper liked Danny, and he envied him for having a grandfather with a fishing cabin. But Danny never stopped talking and moving until he fell asleep. The cabin had its own smell too, like dirt and garbage and rot, but after the first night Cooper didn't mind. The boys had their supper and the two men would sit and have their drinks. Cooper's father would talk about things Cooper did not understand and had never heard him talk about at home. Every once in a while he would catch Cooper watching him and give him a big grin, and Cooper would remember they had a whole day of trouting to look forward to.

Meanwhile, Danny would be crawling all over his grandfather, who would just laugh and say, Mind the drink now son, mind the drink.

Danny hated gutting the fish, so after the first year Cooper got into the habit of doing it. He knew he was good at it and he liked the responsibility of handling the sharp knife. One evening they came back in with dozens of trout, more than they'd ever caught. The other three went in the cabin but Cooper stayed outside to gut the fish. He wanted to get right at it. There were promises of help, but he didn't mind. He knelt down and began removing the fish from the two baskets. He worked carefully and steadily — cutting off the head, slitting the belly, removing the guts — aware that he was getting faster and more efficient. Each time he reached for another fish he briefly examined it,
thinking about who had caught it. He placed the cleaned fish in a row on the ground beside him.

The door opened and his father and Danny's grandfather came out with their bottles of beer and stood a few feet away, watching him work.

“He's a real crackerjack at that,” Danny's grandfather said after a while.

Cooper didn't look up.

“He's my boy all right,” his father said.

Cooper had a feeling then of bursting. He concentrated on preventing any kind of expression from showing on his face. He wanted his face to look like stone. He didn't want anyone to know what he felt. He wasn't really sure himself what he was feeling.

He heard Danny's grandfather take a long swallow of beer, then say, “My oh my, what a day,” before going back inside the cabin.

His father bent down to gaze at the gutted fish. “We'll have some feed tonight, won't we?”

Cooper nodded, but still could not look up.

He felt his father's hand tug playfully at his hair.

Cooper pushed the gas can back under Mr. Foley's work table. The moment he was outside he saw the truck pulling into the driveway, so he hid his canister behind a bush to retrieve later and went out to see what Mr. Foley had in his truck.

Mr. Foley was just letting down the tailgate when Cooper came up.

“What is that thing?” Cooper asked.

“Christ. Where did you come from?”

“It's making a sound like a puppy,” Cooper said. “What is it? What are you going to do with it?”

“Northern gannet. A type of seabird.”

Its cries put Cooper off a little, but he couldn't resist getting closer to it. Mr. Foley was shining a deadly powerful spotlight
on it and Cooper could see how the tip of each chocolatecoloured feather bore an identical streak of white. It looked as though a big dark bird had been dusted with white powder so evenly it had been measured. It looked like a math exercise. And its eyes were perfect circles and as beautiful as marbles or sea glass. They looked like the eyes of someone gone crazy.

“What are you going to do with it, Mr. Foley?”

“Let it rest a few days, then let it go. It might just be bruised, or have sprained something.”

“Can I have it?”

“I don't think so.”

Mr. Foley turned off the spotlight and the bird became colourless.

“Will it find its family after you let it go?”

“Unlikely.” Mr. Foley leaned towards the bird and placed his forearm right in front of the bird's face. The bird immediately latched onto his wrist. “But you never know.”

Cooper stepped back. “Careful.”

“Not to worry,” Mr. Foley said. “If he grabs my arm he won't get my eye, right?”