After 15 years of working at the wildlife refuge, my boss said I’d been furloughed, nonessential he laughed, the guy who always answers visitor questions about waterfowl.
“Consider it a paid vacation,” he said.
The last shutdown had dragged on for about a week; this looked like a repeat performance coming at the height of the migratory season when thousands of snow geese rise up in the air before settling back down on the wetlands like a white tablecloth, maybe giving me a chance to do other stuff— like build a ramp for Cathy. We’d been living together for five years now. She was the most graceful girl I’d ever met, long arms and legs. Should’ve been a ballet dancer. Instead, she worked at senior centers as a hairdresser.
I left the Visitor’s Center. Checked that the tractors were locked and parked in the yard, watched a Snowy Egret flap its fringed wings and plunge into the sky. The marsh was always the one place where I could think clearly. Now I didn’t know what to think…
By the time I pulled into the carport, Cathy had heard the news. She was never one to get upset, even when the surgeon told her that it might be a year before she walked again if she walked at all. “He doesn’t know me,” she said, insulted that he’d underestimated her will power.
I knew she had a strong spirit, but I was afraid. There had been the accident…Some uninsured kid driving back from the mall with a bunch of friends texting on their cellphones had rammed into her rear bumper. And to make things worse, another car had hit her door.
Ever since the accident I’d been worried about paying for Cathy’s physical therapy. My medical plan didn’t cover those bills. The shutdown didn’t help. I tried to get work. But I was the guy who answered questions about waterfowl. Some dunce suggested I volunteer at the airport. Which made me head out to the refuge just to watch the geese, shovelers, pintails, egrets and herons, the coots bobbing in and out of the water, listened to their comforting cacophony.
On day five of the shutdown, I sat at the kitchen table. Cathy wheeled herself around from the TV and faced me. “How long do you think it’s gonna last?”
“Don’t know. But it feels like forever.”
“Wish we could fly away.”
“That makes two of us.”
Her face became contorted. “If I leave before you do, will you promise to find me?”
“Don’t be morbid,” I said. “You sound like one of those seniors who can’t wait to die.”
“I just don’t want to be a burden.”
She talked about moving to another city, another part of the ongoing discussion we’d had so many times before. But that wasn’t an option, especially not right now.
Cathy was in front of the tube listening to CNN. “They’re arresting families. Kids are dying at detention centers.” She folded her fingers and held on to them, sawed them down at the knuckles like they were itchy. The shutdown had been going on for exactly a month now.
“You cold?”
“Just doing my part to cut down on the gas bill!” Cathy was buried in blankets up to her chin. She smiled, and uttered an odd cry, pressed down on the chair’s armrests and balanced in the air for thirty seconds, hovered there. I couldn’t move. She was covered in white feathers sticking out from her arms. She kicked open the door and threw herself outside.
I ran after her. “Cathy!” But I was too late. I watched her fly away to another world.
To all my readers: Scroll down past the links. I invite you to leave a reply in the comment box below!
Read More »Fly Zone
