“You know, Turdus migratorious, the American Robin, is one of the most common land birds in North America.”
Robin wasn’t fond of the tour guide, Benji. The way he was slinging the Latin around was making him insecure and he reacted internally by labeling the guy an asshole. Which he clearly wasn’t.
“Are you calling me common?” said Robin.
“Not at all, I am just telling you a bit about the bird that shares your name,” replied a defenseless Benji.
“I wasn’t named after a bird. I was named after my uncle.”
Benji was as unthreatening as a man could be. He stood not more than five and a half feet tall with a crop of wildly curly blond hair that was trying to escape the Cleveland Browns baseball cap he was wearing to shield his soft gray eyes from the glare. He wore a khaki vest that was made entirely of pockets, which overflowed with identification books, water bottles and writing instruments. Around his neck hung a set of high-powered Pentax binoculars as well as a more modest and maneuverable pair with lower magnification. He spoke in patient tones and treated the kids in the group with the same respect as the accomplished ornithologists.
A flock of Pine Siskins landed on the top of a building across the parking lot from where the tour was embarking. Benji explained that the species was prevalent that year due to a bumper crop of cones in the lowland conifer forests of western Washington. “Many of those birds,” he told the group, “are just babies, following their families south for the first time. It’s easy to tell the young ones because their underbellies are still a deep brown.”
The birds didn’t look like much to Robin, who wasn’t able to appreciate the birds in detail because he didn’t have any binoculars to view them with. To him they just looked liked some plain old boring brown birds sitting in a row. He was stunned at how genuinely interested in them the group seemed. Archie Pettibon, one of the avid birders on the tour, described the siskins in great detail to his brother Stan who was recording the sighting in his waterproof log book.
“How sweet,” said Sis. Sis was Robin’s new wife. The two of them settled on a nice long road trip up the west coast for their honeymoon, and the birding tour was just something that they happened upon while they were passing a few days in the decaying beach town of Ocean Shores, Wa. Going on the tour was Sis’s idea, and Robin was accompanying her under protest. His preference would have been to hang back in their hotel room at the Gray Gull and watch the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Seattle Mariners in an absolutely meaningless late summer baseball game.
“They’re gonna shit on all the cars,” said Robin. After that comment Jane Silver removed her eyes from the cups on her binoculars and craned her neck around to give Robin a nasty glare. When she introduced herself earlier in the hotel lobby Robin found out she was a professor of biology at San Diego State and a marathon runner. She also mentioned that she had birded on all seven continents, and was a devout member of the Church of the Adventists of the Seventh Day. She clearly didn’t appreciate Robin’s sarcasm or his profanity.
Robin wasn’t quite drunk but he was feeling pretty good from the two whiskey sours he had downed with his lunch. He kept his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans and flipped the black cowlick away from his face while smirking right back at the cranky college professor.
Benji saw that everyone was getting their fill of the siskins and suggested that they all start loading up into vehicles so they could get out to the tour’s destination, which was described to Robin as nothing but a mudflat in the middle of an expanse of beach sand that didn’t even connect to the ocean. Robin loathed the fact that he was being drug out there for the afternoon despite not really having anything better to do. He considered that he might be like the American Robin because he had literally no interest in birds, which he considered to be a common characteristic amongst people. His interest was in a six pack of beer and having sex with Sis after dinner. He was getting even more miffed that Sis was cozying up to the tour leader, asking him all sorts of dumb questions that she was never going to remember the answers to like how far can they fly before they need to take a nap? She looked good though, thought Robin. He loved it when she wore her hair braided and tucked her tight Jordache jeans into the scallops of her goat-hide ropers.
Robin and Sis loaded up in the back seat of the cobalt blue Ford Focus that was rented by the big German dude named Dolf. Robin didn’t like him much either. He was way too European for Robin’s taste. He spoke English with a weighty accent that had a way of demeaning the language. Robin thought the combination of the man’s great height, thigh-high black leather boots and page boy haircut was some sort of a joke. Plus he could already tell that Dolf was one of those guys who knew everything about everything. He had already overheard the guy trumpeting his accomplishments as an athlete and a chemical engineer to the retired couple from California, the Makungans. Sally and Fred just stood there egging him on about the non-corrosive salt that he developed for melting ice off of pavement. Like that was a big deal. Robin doubted the foreign intruder could switch out a toilet in even half the time it took Robin, who was a third generation plumber.
“How long is this drive going to be?” Robin grumbled.
“Ten minutes as the crow flies, half an hour or so by car,” Robin was annoyed that his question set Benji up for one of his too cute comments about birds which wound up getting a big laugh out of his wife. Deep down Robin knew it wasn’t really the bird tour that was getting under his skin, it was that Sis told him in bed that morning that she wanted to quit taking her birth control.
The other cars fell in line to caravan to the mudflat. Just behind Dolf’s rental was a full size Chevy pick up that belonged to the Oregon carpenter, Joe Zipperer. Joe struck Robin as out of place on the tour. He wore his work clothes even though it was a Saturday and he kept nervously putting on his hat and then taking it off. He had no woman with him but he had two little kids. The younger of the two was a boy they called Bean who made freaky intense eye contact and didn’t appear to speak at all. He followed his big sister Alice everywhere she went. Alice was a vehement little kid whose voice boomed loud and clear out of her plump eight-year-old body. She kept Bean under her wing, and had a prodigious penchant for birds.
Archie and Stan, the two brothers from Baltimore, who had the exact same voices and gestures despite looking sort of mismatched, swung their rented white minivan into the file.
Jane Silver had offered a ride to the Makungans so they could leave their Monaco RV parked at the hotel and the three of them were wildly engaged in a discussion of the extinct California Condor and some of the rare species that Jane had seen on a recent trip to the Aleutian Chain.
The last car to account for was a rusty Chevette that belonged to a local woman named Dotty Campbell. Dotty was a lifer in Ocean Shores. During introductions she told the group that her father was a fisherman, and Dotty had been cleaning and packing fish since she was as young as she could remember. For the past fifteen years she had worked the night shift at a little motel in the middle of town called the Salty. Dotty was in rough shape. She had the look of a life long cigarette smoker who had never once even seen a fresh vegetable. Dotty wasn’t actually operating her own car, which may have had something to do with a bandage she wore over her right eye. Behind the wheel was her son Herbie, who didn’t look qualified to drive. And it wasn’t just that Herbie looked young, the bubblegum chewer had a distracted nature that could be disastrous behind the wheel of a car. The windows of the Chevette were down and Dotty could be heard telling Herbie where the turn signals were, and reminding him which pedal was the brake. When he arced the little car out of its parking spot he went way to fast and stopped just short of plowing into the bumper of Dolf’s car. Everyone inside the vehicle had an endorphin surge and Dolf immediately leapt from the vehicle and lashed out at the new driver.
“Arschgeige! You will pay if you damage this car.” In his opaque driving glasses the foreigner was intimidating as hell and the kid cowered from the sight of him.
“Dolf, please, he didn’t mean any harm.” Benji was a good mediator. He jumped out of the passenger seat and managed to diffuse the situation by asking Herbie to keep a generous following distance since he was apparently just learning.
It was a tense start to the tour and Robin caught himself chuckling at the angst.
Once they got driving Sis asked Benji if any of the birds were mating just then and Robin stared out the window and zoned out during Benji’s longwinded response. He sensed Sis was trying to push his buttons about the whole mating business. Robin had told her that there was no way she should be going off birth control for several years. He was pretty sure he was clear about that before the wedding. That he wasn’t ready to be tied down with kids. That he had too much living left to do. Which was a crock of shit really because he didn’t like doing much besides drinking with his buddies at the Poggy after work. Robin decided not to worry much about it. He owned Stat Plumbing and a little house on Riviera St. by the casino. Sis was lucky to have landed him.
A message came to Robin’s phone from his aunt Phyllis. She was in her nineties and still living alone. Robin looked after her when they were back home in Nevada. It sounded like the cable TV was on the fritz. He sent a message back promising her that he would look into it.
Half an hour later the train of cars arrived at a dusty parking lot carved out of the dunes with plenty of room for all of the vehicles, plus an outhouse that said Honeybucket. Herbie carefully nosed into a wide spot just opposite from it. After he shut the Chevette down, Herbie ran across the lot to the bucket, he must have needed desperately to pee. Robin used it to take a leak just after him. It was near full and gross. Guys could stand up and piss into the wall mounted urinal but the girls had no choice but to lower their pants all the way to the muddy plastic floor of the unit where there were wads of wet toilet paper on the floor. Some of the wads were brown. Then they would have to dangle the pink curtains over a mound that was pretty grim and growing. Robin could see about ten different piles of peoples’ stool. The disinfecting solution of the tank sat just below the rim of the toilet bowl. If it didn’t get emptied soon it would overflow. He breathed through his mouth and made his contribution to the tank. As the urine flowed out of him he studied the sticker on the inside wall of the Joe that detailed the service record. Maintenance had not been performed on the unit for near a month. The last entry was dated July, 24th, someone named Pancho had signed his name. On the inside of the door written in permanent marker was a local phone number accompanied by the words, affordable blow jobs. Robin’s last thought before leaving the Honeybucket was that one of those would be awful nice to get.
Suddenly everyone on the tour appeared to Robin as a blend of anxious and unorganized. They were all in a hurry but had so much to do. The Makungans were smearing spit on their eyeglasses so they wouldn’t fog. Jane was opening and closing all sorts of buttons and zippers as she removed her precious optical equipment from its protective cases. The Pettibon brothers were loaded for bear. The two of them sported matching vests and sun hats with the Eastern Mountain Sports insignia, and slathered themselves with high SPF sunblock even though the sun wasn’t that strong. Both Dotty and Herbie were prepared with low-end but serviceable binoculars. Even Joe’s kids were equipped with Eddie Bauer brand binocs called the Raptor Edition, made specifically for youngsters. Dolf extracted a tripod from the trunk and a spotting scope with eighty times magnification potential. The extremely expensive set up came from the German manufacturer Swarovski, and Dolf slung it over the sturdy shelf of his shoulder once he had it assembled. Only Robin and Sis showed up with nothing but their naked eyes.
The weather was perfect. A moderate system of high pressure was keeping the coast reliably dry and clear. It was sunny with a few scattered clouds, hot but not oppressive. It was great light for observing and photographing birds. Benji kicked off the tour with a spotting of a Savannah Sparrow flitting about in a thicket and everyone dropped what they were doing and trained their lenses on the bush. Robin and Sis could not see the bird, which quickly flew off, or so the group said.
Before leaving the lot the Makungans had to use the Honeybucket also and young Alice kept everyone entertained with a story about her friend Allison’s pet parakeet pooping in the palm of her hand when she was holding it.
“Let’s get going already, the tide is nearly up,” Dolf was looking impatient and frankly didn’t seem to like having to listen to the little kid. Robin wondered if they had kids over in Germany. He was sure they must be he couldn’t picture any.
“It looks like we are all together now,” Benji whispered once the Makungans had finished their business. He didn’t speak too loudly because he didn’t want to scare off any birds. “I am going to lead us down the trail. Be careful climbing over the driftwood. Keep an eye out for wrens and sparrows, sometimes you see a Western Scrub Jay around here.” The birders were constantly scanning this way and that as they walked, looking for the slightest unnatural movement in the branches, or a flash of color that would alert them to the presence of bird.
The sightings started coming pretty quick. They were making their way through a wind-stunted spruce grove, the understory was comprised of Black Twinberry, California Wax Myrtle and Salal. Benji was knowledgeable about not only about the birds but the landscape as well. There was an endless supply of ripe fruit and an endless coming and going of birds consuming it. The little ecosystem struck Robin as completely non-competitive, there was just so much food to go around. He wasn’t used to nature looking like a smorgasbord and he found that he was at least slightly impressed.
“Overhead!” came a shout from Jane Silver. She had her binocs steadied and she was looking up at a thirty five degree angle, tracking a bird with a huge wingspan, white, with grey undersides, it was flying due west out to sea. Robin and Sis didn’t need binoculars to observe it, the bird was huge.
“That’s an Osprey,” shouted the little girl Alice, “did you know that Osprey live on all seven continents? My friend Allison told me that.”
“Halt deine fresse. That’s bullshit,” said Dolf.
“Hey, take it easy with the language please, sir. These are kids,” Alice’s dad stuck up to the German. “She may not be exactly right about everything, but she likes birds, give her a break.”
“I am sorry if I offended you,” Dolf was insincere, “but Osprey do not live on all seven continents. The fraülein is distributing false information.”
“Osprey are the world’s most naturally widespread bird, she isn’t far from being right.” Benji, who was completely non-confrontational and an exceptional mediator, offered a statistic to pacify the situation. The quiet kid, Beanie, in an attempt to avenge his big sister, snuck up on Dolf quietly and stomped on his toes, which didn’t have much effect because of Dolf’s knee-high leather boots but it pissed him off.
“Hey, control your children!”
“Sorry,” said Joe, who clearly didn’t have much control over his kids, “alright, Bean, come here.” The silent five-year-old planted himself squarely between his sister and Dolf. He was calm and staring. Then Robin saw a few long-necked birds in a tree and decided to bring it up.
“Hey, what are those?” He pointed to a group of low branches in one of the spruces about forty yards off.
“Good spot,” replied Benji. “It looks like we have got a group of Green Herons roosting in the spruces. That’s very unusual, they don’t often stay in groups like that. And what’s this?” he trained his binocs on two bird of prey traveling south, fast, toward the same mudflat that Benji was leading the group to, “Peregrine Falcons.” Everyone was frozen and had binocs to their eyes with the exception of Robin and Sis who squinted to see the birds at all. Even Beanie with his plastic set of binocs was tracking the pair of silver predators as they plunged earthward and out of sight.
“Those birds just killed something. I know it,” said Alice.
“Yeah, that’s how the world works, kid,” said Fred Makungan with his binocs pointed at another part of the sky. “I got something else coming in, I think it’s a Harrier, there are a lot of prey birds around, which means lots of prey. We’ve got to get out to this flat, it’s looking pretty birdy from here.” The group was seized with urgency. There could be birds out at the flat that were going to fly off soon.
Benji had already set the scene for the afternoon back at the hotel. Most of the birds they were going to see were migrating shorebirds who fed in shallow mudflats. Mudflats are all over when the tide is out, but when it is in there are fewer places to eat so the flocks condense around inland brackish pools. By August many of these pools are gone but the one the tour was heading to that afternoon was still wet and chances were high of there being a big diversity of species around. At least for several hours. They needed to hustle, but the group had some low common denominators when it came to moving over the piles of bleached driftwood and uneven ground. Fred and Sally weren’t that mobile to begin with and they kept geeking out on the birds instead of watching where they were going. At one point Fred actually fell off of a slippery log and landed hard on his hip. He said he was alright but he started limping pretty heavy after.
Collected at the forest’s edge, they were looking at a big sandy flat. There was clearly water out there in the middle because it was reflecting a perfect image of the sky, but the birds were walking around in it and it seemed to be no more than several inches deep, though it covered at least three acres. Robin shook his head and directed a disappointed comment at Sis.
“This is what we came to see?” she shot him a scathing glare and went to stand near Benji who was orienting everyone to the spot.
“Okay, here we are everybody. Let’s have some fun. Sometimes we see hundreds of birds out here, already we can see terns-”
“There’s a scaup!”
“Greater or Lesser?”
“Greater I think, I’m going to put it in the scope.”
Jane Silver also had one of the tripod scopes along with her. The single lens units were far more powerful than binoculars but hard to hold still enough to look through because of their sensitivity, so they needed to be mounted and set. But once a bird was found and focused in the eyepiece a person could get a real detailed look. Jane set up her scope nice and low so Alice and Beanie could see the scaup. Dolf asked Robin if he would like to view the bird through his scope and Robin thanked him cautiously and said sure. He closed his right eye so no light would interfere with his view and placed his left eye firmly in the cup and allowed his vision to steady. The image was in focus, but there was no bird, only reeds, he wasn’t sure if Dolf was fucking with him or not.
“Did you see it?” asked Dolf, when Robin pulled his head away.
“Yeah, I saw it,” he said.
The group picked up and started moving closer to the water. Benji’s plan was to walk them up to the northwest edge of the flat, so that the light would be behind the group, which was optimum for viewing and identifying. The Peregrine Falcons were flying low along the dunes again, tracing big arcs and scaring all the little creatures below. The pair of birds was in an obvious attack formation. One of them pulled its wings back and hovered a few feet above the ground for a moment, then dropped and sunk its claws into a plover. The falcon carried its kill to a driftwood stump beached in the center of the pool where it tore the head off its lunch and sunk its hooked black beak into the plover’s breast in front of the birders and all of the other birds. The group was spellbound, they all liked watching the kill.
There was a gang of Brown Pelicans perched on a fallen tree, probably on their way to Santa Monica. Jane Silver loaned Sis a set of binoculars that she wasn’t using and she looked like she was having a great time looking at all the birds. She asked Benji about different types of seagulls and Robin eavesdropped on his overly intimate response. He confessed to the Washington native Glaucous-winged Gull being his favorite gull and he pointed out to her Mew Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, California Gulls, and the Caspian Tern, which he told her as though it were a secret, is also technically a gull. Robin was getting fed up with the underhanded tour guide who he felt was trying to impress his wife with by showing off his disturbing obsession with birds, all of which looked to him like regular old white seagulls.
“Ducks!” shouted Alice, and sure enough, overhead, was a V formation of ducks traveling south along the coast. The flock followed their leader who descended slowly, banked northeast and brought the crew down for some food and a break on their journey to wherever they were going.
“Those are Northern Pintail Ducks,” said Benji, very excited, “they breed in Alaska!”
“My friend Allison has a pet Pintail Duck!” another strange came comment from the enthusiastic Alice.
“She does not. Kid, do you even have a friend named Allison? Or any friends at all?” Dolf made his rude remark out of the side of his mouth without taking his head away from his scope, which was trained on a bird that was rare to the region called a Hudsonian Godwit, although he wasn’t sharing the information with anyone.
“Hey mister, why don’t you just enjoy the birds and leave my kid alone?” said Joe, in a sorry display of mock-toughness. Dolf offered another of his insincere apologies and went back to studying the godwit. Like many of the birds at the flat, the godwit was medium-sized and rather non descript. But it was a worthy traveler and getting to see it was an intersection of fates.
The tour set up base camp along the southwest corner of the oval pond. The light was incredible, the sky was gorgeous, and the birds were more than any of them could have hoped for. Benji, who explained that he was familiar with conducting bird censuses from his research missions to the Galapogos, estimated ten thousand birds at the mudflat. Most of those numbers came from migrating plovers, sandpipers, and dowitchers. Those birds were eating marine worms mostly, and mini-crustaceans, but they had attracted birds that liked eating other birds, and the pelicans and the gulls and the herons and the ducks all seemed to be there, like the birders, in a spectator’s capacity. It was a condensed ecosystem of bird activity and the serious birders in the group were euphoric. Robin was being offered plenty of chances to view birds through the scopes of other members of the group and he felt like he was learning some things. Although he avoided the creepy Dolf, who kept mainly to himself unless the kid spoke up.
Robin assumed that his group were the only nut cases out there looking at birds. But after a while he started noticing two other birders with scopes across the flat. They looked serious.
Sis was using Benji’s good pair of binocs at this point and really soaking up the birding talk from Benji. When Robin tried to get her to step aside and talk to him briefly she said not now. The whiskey buzz was gone and Robin started getting bored. He was also pissed that his wife was giving all of her attention to another guy. Of course he knew it wasn’t just because of what happened in bed that morning. The honeymoon road trip had had its good moments but it had been trying overall. And it was his fault. They stopped off at her parent’s house in Sacramento and he got so drunk on red wine from Napa that he keeled over into their grandfather clock causing significant damage to the gears and losing one of his front top teeth in the process. He was planning on getting it fixed by his own dentist after they got home and was aware of how much less sexy he must appear with the tooth gone. That wasn’t the only mishap either. In Reno they got a nice room at the Hilton and had fabulous cuts of porterhouse for dinner. Afterward Sis wanted to hang out with him on the big round bed but Robin talked her into letting him hit the blackjack tables for half an hour while she took a bath. In the gaming room Robin had nothing but bad luck. Before he knew it he was down a grand and taking an advance on their credit card. Sis passed out in her red teddy waiting for him to come back. At five am she got dressed and went looking for him. She found him in the cocktail lounge lamenting his colossal losses over gin and tonics with a wasted showgirl in a sequined mini-skirt and a white feather boa.
Dotty and Herbie were smoking cigarettes and sitting down. The kid was listening to music on his headphones and his mother looked like she could use an oxygen tank. She looked content enough, she was just laboring to breathe. The weight of the binoculars seemed way too much for her.
Archie and Stan were taking copious notes and high-fiving each other every time they found a new species. It was truly binge birding and it wasn’t an opportunity that came along often, even for Benji.
Sally and Fred Makungan had stopped using scopes and binocs. It wasn’t even necessary with so many birds up so close. They were standing with their feet at the edge of the water just watching the rivers of birds swooping around and landing in ancient formations in front of them. Fred had his arm around Sally. Robin watched Sally drop her hand into Fred’s back pocket and squeeze his rump.
Jane Silver had eased up on finding birds and was hanging out with the little silent kid and his sister. She was digging in the sand with Beanie and listening to Alice go on and on about nest parasites like the Brown-headed Cowbird. Jane must have already known that the mama Brown-headed Cowbird left her eggs in the nests of other birds, where her babies would hatch and be raised and fed by the parents other species like robins and warblers.
“Did you know that the Brown-headed Cowbird has driven the Kitchin’s Warbler nearly to extinction?” said Alice, “my friend Allison told me that.” Jane pretended it was new information.
The two people that Robin had seen birding across the mudflat were on the move and headed toward the group. Benji broke away from his conversation with Sis to introduce himself. The pair turned out to be a father and son and all of the serious birders flocked as birders do to hear what they have seen and share in the glory of what was obviously a jackpot day of birding. Archie and Stan touted recording over forty-five species since leaving the parking lot.
The son turned out to be a home-schooled birding prodigy; a lanky thirteen-year-old in a baggie blue hoody named Zanter Golding. Benji recognized the lad’s name immediately and filled the tour group in on all of his accomplishments. He was celebrated that year by the Washington State Ornithological Society for a census that he conducted personally from an ocean front location near his family’s home on Chuckanut Dr., south of Bellingham, Wa. The results of his study were used by conservation groups to protect the coast from development. He was awarded a fifteen thousand dollar scholarship for that year and put the money in a bank account with the scholarship money that he had won the previous year for a paper that was published in Junior National Geographic on the range of Bald Eagles, which he very clearly explained in his paper was longer than most people realized. In some cases they traveled from Canada, to locations as far south as the Sierra Madre Mountains in northern Mexico.
The kid and his dad had to be carrying five grand in optical equipment. Not only that, they were hauling fold-out stools, a little red cooler, and what looked to be a mandolin case. They explained that they had been at the flat since eight a.m. The freckled kid looked exhausted and in need of some nourishment but the he was also hyper. Young Zanter was anxious about a bird called a Hudsonian Godwit, which he had thought he had spotted. He said it would have been a first time sighting for him and he and his dad were following it when they ran into the group. He asked if anyone had seen it, and no one said they did, even though Dolf was right there and had already had a good look at the bird. The group started peppering the anxious kid with questions. Instead of getting on with his mission, the polite kid stayed and talked with the tour for a bit. Robin seized upon the moment to pry Sis away from the group, and Benji, who was grinding on his sobering nerves. Sis reluctantly agreed to talk to him and they walked downwind to where they couldn’t be easily heard.
“What do you want?”
“Sis, look-”
“Don’t say my name.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Sis, I’m sorry. I know-”
“I said don’t say my name like that.”
Robin was losing track of what he had meant to say. Sissy’s jade eyes were obscured behind the lenses of the cheap shades that she had picked up earlier at the gas station. He had to take a few breaths before talking and he struggled not to use her name when he spoke.
“I know I haven’t been the best since the honeymoon started, but don’t-”
“You know I talked to Maria today? She said I never should have married you,” Maria was Sissy’s best friend, they worked together at the salon. “Look at you, Robin. Would it have killed you to wear a clean t-shirt?” Robin had a mound of hash browns and ketchup slip off of his fork at breakfast and leave a gruesome stain on the front of the white shirt he was suddenly embarrassed not to have changed.
“So wait. It’s okay for you to use my name?”
“Oh, so now you want to start an argument? And in front of all of these nice people.”
“Is this all about the kid thing? I know I may have said after we were married would be a good time. But I meant a while after-”
“Both of my sisters have kids already, Robin. And Maria and Brad are starting to try-”
“So this is about Maria. You want to be pregnant with Maria.”
“It would be nice if I could have the experience along with my girlfriend, yeah. What’s so wrong with that?”
“Kids are serious work, Sis. And they cost a lot of money.”
“Stop saying my name, Robin. I don’t like it when you use my name like that.” Robin’s temper was starting to flare. His arms and legs shook when he got uncontrollably angry, as if trying desperately to hold back the torrent of frustration he was feeling.
“Look around you, Si-would you look at these kids that are here today. They’re all a wreck.”
“A wreck? Robin, what the hell is the matter with you? These kids are all adorable.”
“Adorable? The fat one won’t shut up, and her little brother just stares at everyone with those beady little eyes of his and doesn’t say a goddamn th-”
“And what about Zanter. Huh, Robin. That boy is a genius. I suppose you think he is a wreck too?”
“I bet you that kid is a social misfit. And he is awfully pretentious about this birding thing.”
There was a whoosh and a shadow crossed their faces. They both looked up to see a mature Bald Eagle flap its wings one time and then soar north across the sky above the mudflat. It had to be a female because it was enormous. There wasn’t any doubt about who was in charge. Even the peregrines roosted in frozen reverence until it disappeared.
“Screw you, Robin,” Sis turned her back on him and rejoined Benji and the others.
The birding group was getting on the move. Everyone was now on a mission to find the Hudsonian Godwit, led by the promising Zanter, who the birds were putting through college. When Robin, who was seething with anger at that point, caught up with the them, Zanter was explaining that the Hudsonian Godwit has long legs like the other godwit species but is differentiated by its long, skinny, pink bill that has an upward curve to it, and that the other godwits have straight bills. The bird nested on the shores of Hudson Bay, Alaska, and traveled all the way to South America for the winter. It would be a very lucky sighting as they were never anything but passing through. Robin lingered at the back of the pack with Herbie who was chain smoking and definitely thinking about something other than birds. Maybe girls. More likely video games.
Zanter would walk a few paces with the group behind him, scanning with his binocs, then he would stop when he thought he saw something and swiftly set up his spotting scope. The group kept bunching up behind him, everyone wanting to be the one to find the godwit. Zanter’s dad was the one who really spotted it. It was on a sandbar in the middle of the pond with three Ruddy Turnstones. He nudged his son and told him where to look. Zanter was then able to announce the sighting and take credit for it. It turned into a big celebration and Robin was absolutely disgusted by it. Especially seeing as the bird looked like a fucking pigeon. They had found the Hudsonian Godwit. All the group’s scopes were trained on the bird. Benji had spotted a vagrant Hudsonian Godwit while birding in Australia in ’82, and Jane Silver had seen one of them in Chile. But up until then Dolf was the only memeber of the group who had seen one in the United States. Zanter was emotional and so was his dad. They didn’t cry, but they were on the verge. Robin sulked. Sis admired the bird with Benji’s binoculars. Dolf, once again, offered Robin a chance to look at the bird through his scope.
“I don’t want to look at the stupid fucking bird!” shouted Robin. The group was stunned and an eerie silence ensued. Benji was trying to think of something to say. Sis was shaking her head, looking at her husband as though he didn’t belong to her. It was Joe, the overburdened father, who spoke up first.
“Hey, mister. I would appreciate you not using profanity like that around my kids.”
“Don’t use profanity around your kids? Your fucking kids are annoying. That one won’t talk, and that one won’t shut up, and for some reason they are-my wife--hmmmh--when the fuck is this tour going to be over?” It was an awful, embarrassing and stilted speech and Robin was instantly sorry that he opened his mouth. Dolf smiled. He obviously liked watching Robin make an ass of himself.
Suddenly the silent kid stepped forward and erupted.
“Mister, stick a dick in your ass! You eat donkey pussy! You’re a cock sucking butt monkey! You’re a shit smelling, fish licking, moldy piece of poop!” Then he started listing all the profanity he seemed to know. “Ass, tits, titties, dick, balls, nuts, plums, sex, hairy monster!” The last thing he said was, “Before the cancer, my mommy had huge tits!” Joe cupped a hand over the boy’s mouth. He picked him up and ran off toward the dunes to comfort him. His big sister Alice flipped Robin the bird and then ran to catch up with her dad and her brother. All of the jubilation from the godwit spotting and the incredible afternoon of birding vanished. Joe started yelling at everyone from the not far off dunes.
“What the hell is the matter with you people? I just wanted to take my kids out to see some birds, because my daughter likes birds. Why the hell are you people so mean?” his voice was shaky. It was very apparent to everyone suddenly that this family was going through hard times, and all of the birders, except Dolf, were suffering and ashamed of Robin’s outburst. Sis, Jane and Benji ran to them to be of some comfort. Benji was determined not to allow the crude behavior of Robin and of Dolf to reflect upon the tour’s sponsors at the Washington State Ornithological Society or the Seattle Audobon Society, or the calm and virtuous activity of admiring native and transient birds.
The young Zanter was Zen after spotting his godwit and approached Robin with a maturity way beyond his years.
“Why don’t you go to your car, sir? So we can all enjoy the birds.”
Robin hung his head. Sis was nowhere in sight and wanted nothing to do with him anyway. He commenced his walk of shame back to the parking lot alone to cool off.
A giant flock of sandpipers escorted Robin along the trail back to the car. The tide was pushing out and while the area was still choked with birds, some of the species were scattering as other places to feed became available. Robin was feeling ashamed of his behavior and for the first time started really believing that Sis might leave him. They hadn’t known each other all that long. Maybe she would listen to that melodramatic Italian hairdresser friend of hers and leave him if he refused to start a family with her. He began to consider the possibility of children. That Zanter kid sure seemed to be having a nice time with his dad. Robin could see enjoying having a kid like that. He started to fantasize about a boy that he and Sis might have. One that he could teach how to be a plumber. He saw a kid that looked like him, only better built. They were swapping out a hot water heater together. Shortly after that, he imagined the two of them trenching in a sewer line. He would have to give up drinking every night at The Poggy to have a kid. And his dart team would probably take it pretty rough. But they could manage without him in time.
Traveling alone back through the thicket Robin was excited that he found it familiar and still teeming with birds. He thought he may have been a little too hard on the birders. It wasn’t like watching football but it was a decent enough hobby. The whiskey felt finally like it was all the way out of him and his mood was getting better. A black and orange Western Tanager nibbled at the deep purple twinberry fruit to the left of the path. He decided to apologize to the group when they all got back. And later to Sis. Sincerely. They were married and he had been acting like a doofus the entire honeymoon and he knew it. He was going to say he was sorry and tell her that she should go off of birth control if she wanted to. He also figured it was a good way to insure that he would keep getting laid a lot. At least in the short term.
Robin leaned against the hood of Dolf’s car, thankfully upwind from the awful smelling Honeybucket. Since he had some time to kill he rung up the cable company back home so he could get aunt Phyllis’s TV back up and running.
The group took forever getting back. By the time they actually showed up, Robin had dealt with the cable guy, thought up a heartfelt apology, rehearsed it, fallen asleep on a patch of gravel in the sun, and woken up bitter again. And parched.
Once the group was back in the lot the tension reappeared. Everyone was afraid to talk. The various groups avoided each other like boats in an ocean. Cars were quietly packed up. Beanie and Alice fell asleep as soon as Joe put them in their car seats in the truck. The exhausted dad half-ass waved at Benji and took off without another word. Fred, Sally and Jane were mostly packed up but they were in no hurry. They were leaning on the hood of Jane’s car, still with their binoculars around their necks, chewing Wheat Thins and casually scanning the skies. They invited Dotty over to share their snack. Archie and Stan bade farewell and drove off muttering something about burgers. Herbie really wanted his mom to hurry up. Fred spotted another Marsh Wren, which couldn’t have been less exciting, but everyone looked at it politely and oohed and aahed.
Robin and Sis were stone silent in the backseat of Dolf’s car, waiting for their driver who had decided at the last second that he needed to relieve himself.
Herbie finally had his mom in the passenger seat, buckled up and ready to go. The impatient kid threw the Chevette into reverse and hit the accelerator so hard that the little car went flying backwards into the Honeybucket.
Dolf was inside pissing when the outhouse door caved in sharply. The unit tipped up from the force of the impact and teetered on its edge. The Honeybucket was obviously bottom heavy but Herbie rammed it so hard with the rear bumper that the displaced contents of the tank came up through the vent pipe like it was the blowhole of a whale. Something about the way Dolf must have been flailing away inside made it eventually go horizontal. On impact the holding tank released the entirety of its contents in a torrent through the lid of the toilet, dousing Dolf in two hundred gallons of shit mixed with tampons, toilet paper, and piss; all dyed blue to mask the unsightliness. The material was seeping rapidly out the Honeybucket’s seems and the stench was unbearable.
From inside Dolf could be heard coming unglued.
“Schise! Schise! Blutige Sau!”
Herbie was outside of the Chevette trembling and clawing at his pimply cheeks. Dotty was the first to come to Dolf’s aid. She pulled at the door of the Honeybucket but it was stuck. Dolf switched to gurgling English.
“Open the fucking door! Open the fucking door!”
Robin couldn’t hold back a laughing fit when he saw the soiled Dolf finally escape from the capsized outhouse and take off sprinting back down the path to the mudflat. Sis walked right up to him and spit in his face.
When an American Robin lit down on the tipped over outhouse Fred couldn’t help pointing it out.
