A Catalog of Birds

  “Kyle? Can you give me a hand with this?”

  “They feeding you at home?”

  “Pain meds. Not much appetite.”

  “Try to eat. You’ll need your strength for what we’ll be doing here.”

  On the pool deck, two little boys stop and stare. As he walks past, one calls out to his mother: What’s wrong with that man? She hushes him, her eyes glancing off Billy’s burns. She tries and fails to rearrange the expression on her face.

  Get used to it, he thinks, or wear a shirt.

  He follows Kyle to the geriatric steps with handrails, feels another flare of anger. Steadies himself: he has work to do.

  “We’re just going to walk today. Waist deep. Rebuild your strength. We’ll start with fifteen minutes, add five minutes each day. In a week, your surgeon says we can go shoulder deep and start working your upper body.”

  Billy eases into the pool. He’d forgotten about the water, the way it holds you and forgives your anger, the weight of guilt and self-pity that eats at you.

  The water doesn’t care.

  “Once you get acclimated, we’ll go backward and sideways, as well as forward. Waking up those muscles, okay?”

  At least he’s moving. Within seconds he’s breathing hard; he can’t believe how much effort this requires. He pushes himself on as Kyle leads him up and down, in figure eights. His face pours sweat.

  “Five minutes,” Kyle says.

  Five minutes? You have to be fucking kidding me.

  “Nice job. Let’s take a break. Ninety seconds, then we’ll go for another five.”

  The water is not feeling friendly or forgiving now, it feels like a wall he’s asking his muscles to push through.

  “Maybe that’s enough for your first day,” Kyle says.

  “You said fifteen minutes.”

  “You’ve done eight. It’s a great start.”

  “Fifteen,” Billy says, pushing on.

  Leaving school after a late session in the lab, Nell walks down Seneca Street to Exchange, the streetlights glowing softly in the rain, heading for Saint Joseph’s and the Wednesday night supper in the parish hall.

  The night before she’d found her parents in the kitchen, short-tempered, and for once not trying to protect her from their financial woes. The files full of bills were overflowing: Due, Past Due, Threatening.

  Marion had been on the phone again with the hospital, demanding itemized bills, arguing over the crushing cost of a bed in the burn unit. The bills are recalculated, the terms extended; still they are drowning. Jack has been looking into remortgaging the house as a last resort.

  Nell’s college money is gone. She’s on her own—scholarship, work-study if she can find it. She’ll have to patch something together. Delay possibly, work for a year or two. Brendan has promised to help, but so far no checks have arrived. A drop in the bucket anyway, Marion says.

  Nell needs a job; she needs to do what she can to help her parents. Maybe college will just have to wait. That thought nearly flattens her. She wants to fly through college in three years if possible, then graduate school, working in a lab, in the field. If only she could start right now.

  In the parish hall, Sheila, who drives up from Syracuse after work on Wednesdays, is already serving up plates of lasagna and garlic bread. Mary Beth Farley and her mother make the main dish each week and leave it in the oven. Sheila makes the salad and dessert and handles serving. She and Nell take care of the cleanup.

  Father O’Rourke carries plates to the tables, serving the guests, as he likes to call them. He smiles at Nell as she slips in and sits down at the piano.

  More young men than usual are present, many wearing fatigues. Saint Joe’s has no hard and fast rules about who can partake. Nell is glad there’s no proselytizing, no sanctimonious quid pro quo for a meal, just a simple grace.

  Father O’Rourke clears his throat. Those who had started to eat put their forks down.

  “Would you please join me in offering prayers for Dorothea Clancy who passed on Tuesday, for John Jordan who moved to Rochester to enter a rehab program, and for all who are suffering in mind, body or spirit.”

  He bows his head. “Bless us, oh Lord, for these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  “Amen,” they chorus, some more heartily than others.

  “Bless this food and fellowship and music. Bless you all.”

  Hal Lynch, who with his twin brother is trying to hang on to their family’s farm, asks for “It Had to Be You”. Mrs. Benson, who sits alone in a chair against the wall, sings along. She always knows all the words.

  Sheila requests “Shenandoah” and gets almost everyone singing. She moves among the tables serving lemon squares. Nell watches how at ease she is, touching shoulders, sharing a joke.

  When Father O’Rourke stands, Nell begins clearing tables.

  “A few announcements: we’ve been putting together some information about local services that are available for veterans and the homeless,” he begins. “It’s not much yet, but we’re working on it.

  “Volunteers have set up a closet with some basic clothing and necessities. Toiletries and the like. I’ve left the doors open. You’ll see it in the hall on your way out. Please help yourselves. There’s a clipboard for suggestions. Let us know what you really need. At this point, we’re just guessing.

  “As many of you know, we’ve been holding a peace vigil every Thursday in front of the church. We began in 1965 after Roger Allen LaPorte set himself on fire at the U.N. to protest the war. Some of you may have known Roger. He was born and raised here. I baptized him in this church. He was twenty-two years old and a member of the Catholic Worker Movement at the time of his death.”

  O’Rourke pauses to collect himself.

  “The bishops have ordered me to stop these peace vigils and have forbidden me to distribute pamphlets informing people of our government’s actions.

  “As a Catholic, I apologize for their cowardice.

  “We will continue. Please join us if you are so inclined.”

  Nell washes and dries dishes while Sheila scrubs the tables and sweeps the floor. Father O’Rourke comes into the kitchen to say good night. He looks exhausted and Nell’s not sure she actually saw him eat.

  She wraps up a lemon square for him.

  “Say hello to your parents.”

  “I will. See you next week, Father.”

  They’re surprised to find Harlow Murphy leaning against Sheila’s beat-up Nova. He embraces Sheila, puts a hand on Nell’s shoulder, making her blush. She’s grateful for the darkness.

  “What’s up with Billy? He’s not returning my calls.”

  “He was never any good with the phone,” Nell says, trying not to stare at the rain beading on his hair and lashes.

  “Lousy excuse.”

  “He’s not really talking to anyone,” Nell adds.

  “You should stop by,” Sheila says.

  “Tell him he can run but he can’t hide.” Harlow walks off.

  “You’re blushing,” Sheila teases.

  “Shhh!”

  “Look at you!”

  “I can’t believe he still does that to me. Ever since I was nine years old. It’s nuts.”

  “Those long legs . . . ”

  “Those dark eyes . . . ”

  “Too bad I’m not gonna get involved with anybody,” Sheila says.

  “Too bad I’m too young.”

  “Closing the gap, girl.”

  Nell can’t sleep. For all the weeks Megan has been missing, any girl anywhere near her age wakes up with Megan on her mind, walks to school, goes to bed, lies awake, all while wondering about Megan and where she might be and what could be happening to her. Or what has already happened to her. Halfway through Sunday dinner, going to co
nfession, or attending Mass, Megan is more a part of her friends’ and classmates’ lives these weeks than she ever was before she disappeared.

  Nell gets up, stops outside Billy’s door; hears him thrashing in a dream. Hesitates, her hand on the knob.

  Billy gathers her ardent body in his arms, the touch of her burning him. He holds her ribs, the sweep of her spine. She is speaking to him, he can’t quite hear her whisper, promising him . . . When he wakes, the house silent, a sliver of moon floats in the black sky, thin as the edge of a knife. He hears the floorboards creak outside his door, then someone descending the stairs.

  Nell pulls on a coat and heads out the back door. Climbs the drive, walks up the rise to the railroad tracks. Winter’s grip is melting away. Streams are running high down to the lake, sap rising, a new season blowing in.

  She can hear her mother forbidding them to play anywhere near the tracks. Between the lake and the railroad, you had to scare the bejesus out of your kids and then pray they had enough sense to keep body and soul together.

  She and Billy spent days walking the rails, in every season, in all kinds of weather. The trains go forever, Billy told her, all over the world. She loves those words. In her mind the rails are electric with knowledge, places, people. Someday she’ll ride them right into tomorrow.

  Dogs get to howling down the way, call and response, a brief frenzy, then quiet. Somewhere else there’s a war on. In Texas, her brother Brendan is teaching new recruits how to identify and catalogue basic words and phrases in overheard military communications, how to look for patterns, who talked to whom, when, how often. Not unlike how she and Billy identified and tried to understand the interactions between birds. Or used to.

  Brendan hasn’t written Nell in months. Too busy, too distracted, too far from home to care anymore, maybe. At least he remembered her birthday. He’d sent her a microscope. Used, but in good condition. She finds something to slip onto a slide and look at every day. Her own blood sometimes.

  She smells smoke, turns, and looks up. A man is walking along the tracks toward her. Tall, smoking a cigarette, wearing an army jacket. Harlow? Is that possible? How many times has she seen Harlow walking these tracks, Blue at his heels, rifle over one shoulder, a fox or a brace of pheasant lashed across his back. The blood-warm smell of the animals mingling with their musk, the cold night air; the pines along the tracks.

  She waits. Neither of them speaks. How odd, she thinks, as she watches the moment unfold.

  He stubs out his cigarette with the toe of his boot and reaches for her, twining his hand in her hair. His face is in shadow, eyes unreadable. The rails vibrate beneath her feet. Is it 4 A.M. already; is that the Albany train? One part of her asks these questions, while another registers the smell of tobacco and whiskey, sweat and shaving soap.

  She could pull away. His touch is easy enough; he would let her go. What happens next is up to her. A shocking realization: the power to give or withhold. Like Megan.

  She moves away, testing. He loosens his grip. The dogs begin again. She steps toward him. His kiss is hard and deep. It takes her breath and her mind away. His arms are crushing her. Here, she thinks, here is all she doesn’t know, doesn’t understand; here is the terror of Megan’s disappearance.

  The whistle from the Albany train startles her as it speeds through the crossing in town. She starts to say his name. He puts his hand over her mouth, pushes her toward home. She crashes down the path.

  Did it happen? Was it real? She touches her lips. The rush of the train, the rush of his kiss, barrel right through her.

  Billy hitchhikes to town late Saturday afternoon. He walks up Castle Street to Exchange, fighting a bitter March wind, timing his arrival at Saint Joe’s for the last few minutes of confession. He sits waiting for old Mr. McNulty to limp to a pew near the front where he kneels down with his rosary, reciting the Hail Marys and Our Fathers of his penance.

  Billy slips inside the confessional at 5:29; hears Father O’Rourke sigh; says, Bless me, Father, for I have sinned; and falls silent.

  He hears the priest shift on the hard bench. Tries to quiet his breathing. Find the words.

  “Son . . . ?”

  “Billy Flynn, Father.”

  “You don’t need to tell me . . . ”

  “I figured you should know who’s wasting . . . ”

  “You’re not wasting my time, but it’s getting on toward . . . ”

  “Time for a drink.”

  “I was going to say suppertime.”

  “Saturday afternoon, everybody I know is thinking about a drink,” Billy says.

  “Still a devil.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I remember your father and mother—maybe they took turns—marching you in here that whole year you were stealing whatever wasn’t nailed down.”

  “I didn’t have much to say then either, did I, Father?”

  “You were enjoying it too much was the conclusion I came to.”

  “That’s the truth of it.”

  “Your father, now, he’d come in to talk about it, a real trial for him. Not a man to beat his kids, that about did him in.”

  “We’re both stubborn.”

  “You are.”

  A silence.

  “There’s nothing you’ve done or could have done I haven’t heard before.”

  “Oh, Father, there is.”

  “Is it a sin of commission or omission that’s weighing on you?”

  “Both.”

  Another silence.

  “Any chance you’ll be able to talk about this today?” O’Rourke asks.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then have a drop with me. I’ve been sitting in this box too long.”

  Billy follows the priest into his office behind the altar. Tucked to the side is the room where Billy had changed into his robes the years he’d served as an acolyte. He hadn’t had the right demeanor for that, either, but it was a requirement of his father’s that he learn all the roads to God, even the ones he didn’t want to go down.

  O’Rourke pulls a bottle of whiskey from his desk drawer; rubs two glasses clean with the underside of his stole. They both take long draughts, more than pure thirst might dictate.

  “I’d invite you to dinner except I’ve decided to spare you. Margaret is reheating yesterday’s fish and I have come to the conclusion that Margaret harbors a secret loathing for fish. She buries it with the mustard and the breadcrumbs and some sort of topping besides. I have no idea what it is. Could be cornflakes. Could be saltines. Could be the parings from a pony’s hooves. Then she bakes it beyond recognition; so dry it requires a second sauce to help it slide down your gullet. She varies the sauce a bit week to week. Sometimes it’s green. Sometimes it’s tan. Could be spring onions. Could be parsley. Anybody’s guess.”

  “We could escape to the pub, Father, have a burger.”

  “Does your mother cook fish on Fridays, Billy?”

  “If I catch it.”

  “Trout, you mean?”

  “Perch, too.”

  “And if you don’t catch a fish?”

  “Spaghetti.”

  “No meatballs?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “You could ask the Vatican, sir.”

  O’Rourke laughs so hard his face turns bright red.

  “Smart aleck! Invite me over sometime. Free Margaret and me from our penance.”

  Billy stands.

  “You come back, son. I’m here to listen.”

  Nell can’t stop thinking about Harlow. The sensible side of her brain tells her it was an experiment, an anomaly, not an indicator of future events. The rest of her can still taste his mouth, feel his body, and the rails rumbling beneath her feet.

  Arriving home from school on Monday, she flips through the mail on t
he back porch. Still nothing from the schools she’s applied to. If she gets in she could delay. Work for a year, save. Who is she kidding? How will she ever earn that much money? She’d had a few hundred dollars saved from summer jobs. Gave it to Megan that panicked August.

  It was Miss Rosenthal who’d pushed her to apply to Cornell, told her she was a good candidate for a scholarship. Brought her to the campus, introduced her to professors, toured the extensive labs.

  She always thought she’d go to a state school. But even that might be out of reach now.

  Walking through the house, she drops the mail on the counter and finds Billy at the kitchen table, paging through one of his field journals.

  “Hi.” She pours a glass of milk. “You want some?” Pours a second glass, puts some of Sheila’s cookies on a plate.

  “I got a job,” she says.

  “No kidding.”

  “At Bob and Dave’s. Stocking shelves, bagging groceries. Saturdays, plus two afternoons.”

  “Fun.”

  “Pays better than babysitting.”

  “Uniform?”

  “Apron. Cap. White shirt. Khakis.”

  “How’s school?” he asks.

  “Counting down the days. You remember.”

  “I do.”

  “I heard fox pups on my walk home,” she says. “Near that stand of sumac by the Nielsons’. That faint high yapping.”

  “How many?”

  “Three, I think.”

  “Not bad.” Billy takes a tentative bite. “What are these, exactly?”

  “Cowboy cookies.”

  “What’s in ’em?”

  “Chocolate chips, raisins, walnuts, oatmeal. Maybe coconut.”

  “Can you taste the coconut?”

  “Not really.”

  “Me, neither.”

  He opens his journal to a page dated October 10, 1961, where he’d drawn flocks of migrating ducks near the crumbling stone pier in town. Buffleheads and goldeneyes among the canvasbacks and redheads.

  “I was twelve years old when I did that.” He pushes a pad of paper across the table. Labored block printing, not quite legible, wavers between the lines. “Now I can’t even print my own name.”