by Amy Drayer
What would it feel like to fly? I often pondered this and so many other very original thoughts over strong black coffee on my deck every morning. The obsession with flight was prompted regularly by the ornately rusting hummingbird metal art I’d stuck, with no real ceremony, into the large stone planter that hosted my oft-dying primroses. I’d revived them, barely, multiple times. Maybe the stake was contaminating the soil or something. Leeching toxic metallic elements into the roots and slowly poisoning it.
Sounded like a reasonable explanation to me. After all, the gal over at Ace had assured me good luck with the hardy plant, and I was certainly not having luck. Every once in a while a sickly yellow bloom would appear, then die the next day. I didn’t even really like plants, but I figured having at least one on the porch would brighten the place up. Make the expanse of pale, gray, bare cedar feel less stark, less like I was waiting for Amazon to deliver the winning tasteful addition for the successful domestication of my world.
The flight obsession, no matter its triggers now, began when I was a kid. I read a book about a puny boy, some orphan, who takes a potion and sprouts wings every night. He flew from his bedroom window and had engaging adventures that made him realize he was less alone in the world, or had to be more compassionate, or respect his elders – I don’t remember what critical lesson he learned through the gift of flight, just the way it felt to have magnificent, feathered wings sprout from his shoulders and free him from his depressing existence.
Coffee gone cold, I walked to the edge of the deck and tossed what remained in the cup over the low railing. I had an envious view, cloudy sky to rocky shore; the small house I rented was perched alone on a cliff high above a tumbling sea. The roar of the surf sometimes kept me wide awake at night and sometimes lulled me into oblivious sleep. I’d lived on the plains, I’d lived on lakes, in New York for a while too. Brooklyn: Park Hill before it became Posh Hill. I’d found the white noise of the city comforting. Far less disconcerting than the deafening rhythmic shouting of cicadas in the Midwest or the intermittent but relentless howling winds of Kansas. The surf was different than any of it. Constant, powerful. I was beginning to suspect that my isolated cliff-front cabin in Oregon could be a real home.
But the man who rented the house to me, Doug, was grade A, premium creepstore and I saw him far too often. He had a right to check on the property, sure. But the checks always seemed to come first thing in the morning or late in the evening. He gave notice, always plenty of notice, though I didn’t buy his excuse that work kept him busy, even on weekends, except for the heads and tails of the day. He never said what he did and dissembled when I asked; just insisted it was exceptionally demanding. I couldn’t muster a credible image of an overweight sixty-year-old man with an overgrown gray pornstache doing anything demanding. Whatever the truth was I made sure to have a bra on well before he rang the bell.
Speak of the devil. Still on the deck holding my empty cup, waited for a while after hearing the weak chime before heading inside. I pondered more, watched the gulls wheel, and listened to the shrieks. The morning was cool and the mist drifting up from the craggy beach felt bracing and alive on my skin. I wanted to sit here and think more about that boy and flying. I didn’t want to see Doug. I didn’t want to see anyone. But mostly not this fucking guy. There was nothing overtly wrong with him. He wasn’t slovenly with stains on his chambray shirts. He didn’t smell like he needed a shower or have dandruff and his breath wasn’t sour. He didn’t even always look at me like men do; the constant assessment that provoked the constant simultaneous desire to say fuck off – for wanting me, for not wanting me, for just existing in that sickening man-world that works so hard to keep us all in our place.
Doug, for all intents and purposes and to the reasonable world, was probably a perfectly fine guy. I just didn’t want him – and particularly him – in my space. I glanced toward the sliding glass door. I set the empty white porcelain coffee cup on the railing; pushed it, with just one finger, closer to the edge. I slid my phone out of my pocket and snapped a photo of the cup on the railing, then snagged it by the little hook and set it carefully into the stainless kitchen sink before answering the door.
“Hi, Doug.”
“Oh hey there, Mary. Good to see you. How are you this morning? Good? Have your coffee yet? Can I come in?”
How about you ask one question at a time, asshole. “Sure, Doug. Come on in. Everything’s in working order. I went ahead and did that furnace filter subscription. New one came last week, and I changed it out already.”
“Good, good.” He clapped his hands once and rubbed them together; pushed back his hood and came inside. He placed a fat palm square on the white wall as he paused to take off his tall, black rubber muckers. “Appreciate you letting me stop by to check on the place like this. Mother always kept it so nice, and you do too. Just good to stop in and see that for myself. Appreciate it, like I said. Thanks.”
His pilled white socks were clean, just a little worn. No holes in the toes. No yellowing. He treaded lightly across the shining maple floors toward the kitchen. Immediately he bent – with his knees, no crack shot – to inspect under the sink. “Nice and dry. You did a good job on that P-trap.”
“Yep.” He’d been shocked last month into unbearable, spluttering compliments when he came by and realized I’d already replaced the corroded galvanized mess under the sink when it started leaking – again. Doug had promised to do the job himself in January. He’d promised in February to send someone from town to come look at it. In March, I drove into Depoe Bay and kitted it all out myself. Even managed, through the fine art of list-making, to buy everything I needed in one trip. It was a P-trap, for fucks sake. Three pieces of pipe already joined up. I did have some trouble making the connection to the male coupling on the old pipe. Finally, I just got the fucking hacksaw from the basement and cut it off, joined up the Fernco I’d bought just in case. That was an hour of sweat, a wicked bruise on my elbow, and a week of ice on my back, but it meant no one else set foot in the place and the end of black mold spreading across the bottom of the cabinet. That I’d sanded out as best I could and sealed, then covered in blue and white check shelf-liner. Super goddamn cheery.
“Any other trouble with the house,” he rambled on. “Septic treating you right? It’s warming up but it’s still cold at night, so if you – “
“All set here, Doug. No complaints.”
“Well if you ever need – “ he swiveled three-sixty around the main room, hands splayed over the ill-fitting jeans hanging from his spreading hips.
“I’ll call.”
“I’ll just check on the gutters, while I’m here, if you don’t mind – “
“I don’t.”
“Good, good then. I’ll just get the ladder from the basement.” He looked out the salt-smattered picture window facing the Pacific. Rain was rolling in and the crash of the waves was picking up. Was he really going to insist on doing this, now, with the clouds and the day darkening? He had to drive in from Portland, but still –
“I’m happy to check the gutters tomorrow, Doug. I can send you photos.”
“No, no, no need. I’m here and that’s my job. Part of being a good landlord. Hate to think of a nice gal like you falling or – “
“Or breaking a nail. Thanks. I appreciate that.” A nice gal like me, thirty years his junior and at least a hundred pounds lighter.
“Right.” His little sharp blue eyes slid to the floor. He turned to me, opened his flappy mouth, then closed it and headed toward the basement stairs.
I heard the pull of a chain, the click, and the yellow bare light glared up from the steep passage. Various thunking and grunting ensued and he huffed slowly up the narrow wooden stairs.
The ladder swung with him through and out of the house, narrowly missing the dusty ceiling fan and the only thing I really cared about, my Mac. They’re overpriced. They’re idiosyncratic. But they can’t be beat for layout, and the only work I do, enjoy doing, is collage. Photo collage. I don’t sell my art. It’s not for public consumption. But it makes me happy, or something approaching it.
Doug struggled to get on his muckers then heaved himself and the ladder out the door. Rain splattered and darkened the red rug I kept just inside the threshold.
“Damn.” I could hear him muttering as I closed the front door.
Gruesome images of broken glass and blood, brains and bone, filled my head as he wedged the ladder between the deck railing and the gutter running along the house, fronting the single-pane window. Was the glass tempered? It was beginning to sag and warp with age, and I didn’t think so.
Doug’s fish belly, decently hidden from the rest of the world but visible as he perched on the illicit top step of the ladder, poked out from under his t-shirt. The soft white skin was flecked with a constellation of wiry silver and black hairs. I took my phone again from my back pocket. I backed up three paces, and steadily panned across the living room. I took the time now to edit the panorama into black and white, just to check the shot.
He’d left the basement light on and the door open. Phone in hand, I walked down the stairs, pulled the chain, turned off the light, and came back up again. I took a picture of the framed black maw contrasting nicely with the worn, pale wood of the irregular steps.
Tat-tat-tat-tat. The rain outside picked up substantially, sharp shots slapping the wide window. I donned my jacket and went outside. Doug and the ladder had worked their way to the end of the house. There wasn’t much in the gutters – except a dead robin coated in muck. Doug had tossed it onto the deck. Veiled eyes stared up at its metal hummingbird cousin.
“Just about as sad as it gets, huh?” He glanced down at the bird body, then at me. I think he meant it, about the sadness of a dead bird, but I couldn’t tell.
Pellets of rain bounced off the slick brown feathers to form a muddy puddle around it. Its dirty puffed chest started to become orange again. It retained most of its shape – couldn’t have been dead that long. Maybe a week of mornings, me sitting under it and drinking coffee, wondering about mundane things like mortality and flight.
I slid my eyes up to Doug, grunting as he reached as far as he could toward the corner junction; the house extended a few feet past the deck railing, and it was a stretch to get to the downspout. He was focused, oblivious. I reached into my back pocket again for my phone. First, I framed up the bird. I looked up at Doug; he was still focused. I knelt. I had a macro lens app on the camera, and I used it. I hadn’t taken any real pictures in over a year. Now my body and mind hummed happily. I grinned, thrilled to be back at work.
The even white cloud over the corneas of the little robin almost completely obscured the black lenses. I zoomed in more closely. Nothing. The white cowl had dimmed the bright eyes to gray. Nothing left of freedom, will, curiosity. What had this bird seen of the world, sailing over us with its beautiful perspective before it died? What images had stuck in its synapses that it took with it to the end?
“Uh – what you looking at down there?”
“Nothing.” I stood, dismayed to see that I had lost track of Doug, but he’d noticed me. My jeans were damp from the knees down. How long had I been lost in the robin?
“Well gutters are good, and I’m soaked through. Let me get this put away – “ he gestured to the ladder, “and I’ll be on my way.”
He had not looked at me directly since he’d come down.
“Thanks for coming by, Doug.” I stepped toward him. “I wasn’t sure, but I am now. This house really is a good home for me.”
In the corner of the deck, he started to make a show of folding up the ladder. “Well, that’s good. That’s good. Appreciate you taking such good care. Mother did too and it’s been nice to have in the family. But, uh – “ he clutched the ladder to his side, moved back again. Swept his gaze from the house to the surging steel water beyond the cliffs. “Probably going to be selling it come summer. Just a lot to get down here from Portland, and my brother – “
“I’ll buy it.”
“Not sure yet how much it’ll go for – “
“I’ll buy it.” I took two steps closer, careful not to disturb the robin at my feet.
He smiled at the deck. “Well.” His jacket squeaked and the metal ladder rattled as he dragged it around, almost in between us now. Still wouldn’t look at me. “Of course, we’ll let you know as soon as it’s on the market.”
“I’ll buy it now.”
“Okay, glad you’re interested. Got a realtor in Depoe Bay, I’ll ask her to email you.” He hefted the ladder vertically on to his shoulder and started to side step me. I didn’t move to let him by, and he stopped, clearly unsure of himself.
“Well, then – “ he feinted toward me, insinuating I should let him pass.
I didn’t. He shuffled awkwardly to the side; no room. He’d have to take a massive step over the slick wet wood, ladder in tow, to avoid squashing the dead robin under his boot heel. It seemed Doug didn’t have that in him.
Rain pattered around us as we faced each other, unease ebbing and flowing between us. I enjoyed the faint pap pap pap on my hood.
He opened his mouth –
I yielded just enough cedar to let him start to pass. “Doug, have you ever wondered what it would feel like to fly?”
Amy Drayer grew up a free-range kid on a charming island in the Pacific Northwest, then migrated south to attend Scripps College in California. She later moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked in politics for far too long. Amy is a graduate of the inimitable Lighthouse Writers Workshop Book Project and an enthusiastic member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Sisters in Crime. Her current published works include a novel, Revelation, and several short stories. Learn more about her and her work at www.MakahIslandMysteries.com.