"She's quick," Coleman says.
"Yes, but that's supposed to be quick."
There are three other children with three other Reading Recovery teachers in other parts of the large room, and so all around him Coleman can hear little voices reading aloud, rising and falling in the same childish pattern regardless of the content, and he hears the other teachers saying, "You know that—u, like 'umbrella'—u, u—" and "You know that—ing, you know ing—" and "You know I—good, good work," and when he looks around, he sees that all the other children being taught are Faunia as well. There are alphabet charts everywhere, with pictures of objects to illustrate each of the letters, and there are plastic letters everywhere to pick up in your hand, differently colored so as to help you phonetically form the words a letter at a time, and piled everywhere are simple books that tell the simplest stories: "... on Friday we went to the beach.
Saturday we went to the airport." "'Father Bear, is Baby Bear with you?' 'No,' said Father Bear." "In the morning a dog barked at Sara.
She was frightened. 'Try to be a brave girl, Sara,' said Mom." In addition to all these books and all these stories and all these Saras and all these dogs and all these bears and all these beaches, there are four teachers, four teachers all for Faunia, and they still can't teach her to read at her level.
"She's in first grade," Lisa is telling her father. "We're hoping that if we all four work together with her all day long every day, by the end of the year we can get her up to speed. But it's hard to get her motivated on her own."
"Pretty little girl," Coleman says.
"Yes, you find her pretty? You like that type? Is that your type, Dad, the pretty, slow-at-reading type with the long blond hair and the broken will and the butterfly barrettes?"
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to. I've been watching you with her," and she points around the room to where all four Faunias sit quietly before the board, forming and reforming out of the colorful plastic letters the words "pot" and "got" and "not." "The first time she spelled out
'pot' with her finger, you couldn't take your eyes off the kid. Well, if that turns you on, you should have been here back in September.
Back in September she misspelled her first name and her second name. Fresh from kindergarten and the only word on the word list she could recognize was 'not.' She didn't understand that print contains a message. She didn't know left page before right page.
She didn't know 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears.' 'Do you know "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," Faunia?' 'No.' Which means that her kindergarten experience—because that's what they get there, fairy tales, nursery rhymes—wasn't very good. Today she knows
'Little Red Riding Hood,' but then? Forget it. Oh, if you'd met Faunia last September, fresh from failing at kindergarten, I guarantee you, Dad, she would have driven you wild."
What do you do with the kid who can't read? The kid who is sucking somebody off in a pickup in her driveway while, upstairs, in a tiny apartment over a garage, her small children are supposedly asleep with a space heater burning—two untended children, a kerosene fire, and she's with this guy in his truck. The kid who has been a runaway since age fourteen, on the lam from her inexplica-ble life for her entire life. The kid who marries, for the stability and the safeguard he'll provide, a combat-crazed veteran who goes for your throat if you so much as turn in your sleep. The kid who is false, the kid who hides herself and lies, the kid who can't read who can read, who pretends she can't read, takes willingly upon herself this crippling shortcoming all the better to impersonate a member of a subspecies to which she does not belong and need not belong but to which, for every wrong reason, she wants him to believe she belongs. Wants herself to believe she belongs. The kid whose existence became a hallucination at seven and a catastrophe at fourteen and a disaster after that, whose vocation is to be neither a waitress nor a hooker nor a farmer nor a janitor but forever the stepdaughter to a lascivious stepfather and the undefended offspring of a selfobsessed mother, the kid who mistrusts everyone, sees the con in everyone, and yet is protected against nothing, whose capacity to hold on, unintimidated, is enormous and yet whose purchase on life is minute, misfortune's favorite embattled child, the kid to whom everything loathsome that can happen has happened and whose luck shows no sign of changing and yet who excites and arouses him like nobody since Steena, not the most but, morally speaking, the least repellent person he knows, the one to whom he feels drawn because of having been aimed for so long in the opposite direction—because of all he has missed by going in the opposite direction—and because the underlying feeling of rightness that controlled him formerly is exactly what is propelling him now, the unlikely intimate with whom he shares no less a spiritual than a physical union, who is anything but a plaything upon whom he flings his body twice a week in order to sustain his animal nature, who is more to him like a comrade-in-arms than anyone else on earth.
And what do you do with such a kid? You find a pay phone as fast as you can and rectify your idiotic mistake.
He thinks she is thinking about how long it has all gone on, the mother, the stepfather, the escape from the stepfather, the places in the South, the places in the North, the men, the beatings, the jobs, the marriage, the farm, the herd, the bankruptcy, the children, the dead children... and maybe she is. Maybe she is even if, alone now on the grass while the boys are smoking and cleaning up from lunch, she thinks she is thinking about crows. She thinks about crows a lot of the time. They're everywhere. They roost in the woods not far from the bed where she sleeps, they're in the pasture when she's out there moving the fence for the cows, and today they are cawing all over the campus, and so instead of thinking of what she is thinking the way Coleman thinks she is thinking it, she is thinking about the crow that used to hang around the store in Seeley Falls when, after the fire and before moving to the farm, she took the furnished room up there to try to hide from Farley, the crow that hung around the parking lot between the post office and the store, the crow that somebody had made into a pet because it was abandoned or because its mother was killed—she never knew what orphaned it. And now it had been abandoned for a second time and had taken to hanging out in that parking lot, where most everybody came and went during the course of the day. This crow created many problems in Seeley Falls because it started divebombing people coming into the post office, going after the barrettes in the little girls' hair and so on—as crows will because it is their nature to collect shiny things, bits of glass and stuff like that-and so the postmistress, in consultation with a few interested townsfolk, decided to take it to the Audubon Society, where it was caged and only sometimes let out to fly; it couldn't be set free because in the wild a bird that likes to hang around a parking lot simply will not fit in. That crow's voice. She remembers it at all hours, day or night, awake, sleeping, or insomniac. Had a strange voice.
Not like the voice of other crows probably because it hadn't been raised with other crows. Right after the fire, I used to go and visit that crow at the Audubon Society, and whenever the visit was over and I would turn to leave, it would call me back with this voice. Yes, in a cage, but being what it was, it was better off that way. There were other birds in cages that people had brought in because they couldn't live in the wild anymore. There were a couple of little owls.
Speckled things that looked like toys. I used to visit the owls too.
And a pigeon hawk with a piercing cry. Nice birds. And then I moved down here and, alone as I was, am, I have gotten to know crows like never before. And them me. Their sense of humor. Is that what it is? Maybe it's not a sense of humor. But to me it looks like it is. The way they walk around. The way they tuck their heads. The way they scream at me if I don't have bread for them. Faunia, go get the bread. They strut. They boss the other birds around. On Saturday, after having the conversation with the redtail hawk down by Cumberland, I came home and I heard these two crows back in the orchards. I knew something was up. This alarming crow-calling.
Sure enough, saw three birds—two crows crowing and cawing off this hawk. Maybe the very one I'd been talking to a few minutes before.
Chasing it. Obviously the redtail was up to no good. But taking on a hawk? Is that a good idea? It wins them points with the other crows, but I don't know if I would do that. Can even two of them take on a hawk? Aggressive bastards. Mostly hostile. Good for them. Saw a photo once—a crow going right up to an eagle and barking at it. The eagle doesn't give a shit. Doesn't even see him. But the crow is something. The way it flies. They're not as pretty as ravens when ravens fly and do those wonderful, beautiful acrobatics.
They've got a big fuselage to get off the ground and yet they don't need a running start necessarily. A few steps will do it. I've watched that. It's more just a huge effort. They make this huge effort and they're up. When I used to take the kids to eat at Friendly's. Four years ago. There were millions of them. The Friendly's on East Main Street in Blackwell. In the late afternoon. Before dark. Millions of them in the parking lot. The crow convention at Friendly's.
What is it with crows and parking lots? What is that all about? We'll never know what that's about or anything else. Other birds are kind of dull next to crows. Yes, bluejays have that terrific bounce. The trampoline walk. That's good. But crows can do the bounce and the chesty thrust. Most impressive. Turning their heads from left to right, casing the joint. Oh, they're hot shit. They're the coolest. The WHAT DO YOU DO. . .? caw. The noisy caw. Listen. Just listen. Oh, I love it. Staying in touch like that. The frantic call that means danger. I love that. Rush outside then. It can be 5 A.M., I don't care. The frantic call, rush outside, and you can expect the show to begin any minute. The other calls, I can't say I know what they mean. Maybe nothing. Sometimes it's a quick call. Sometimes it's throaty. Don't want to confuse it with the raven's call. Crows mate with crows and ravens with ravens. It's wonderful that they never get confused. Not to my knowledge anyway.
Everybody who says they're ugly scavenger birds—and most everybody does—is nuts. I think they're beautiful. Oh, yes. Very beautiful. Their sleekness. Their shades. It's so so black in there you can see purple in there. Their heads. At the start of the beak that sprout of hairs, that mustache thing, those hairs coming forward from the feathers. Probably has a name. But the name doesn't matter.
Never does. All that matters is that it's there. And nobody knows why. It's like everything else—just there. All their eyes are black. Everybody gets black eyes. Black claws. What is it like flying?
Ravens will do the soaring, crows just seem to go where they're going.
They don't just fly around as far as I can tell. Let the ravens soar. Let the ravens do the soaring. Let the ravens pile up the miles and break the records and get the prizes. The crows have to get from one place to another. They hear that I have bread, so they're here. They hear somebody down the road two miles has bread, so they're there. When I throw their bread out to them, there'll always be one who is the guard and another you can hear off in the distance, and they're signaling back and forth just to let everybody know what's going on. It's hard to believe in everybody's looking out for everybody else, but that's what it looks like. There's a wonderful story I never forgot that a friend of mine told me when I was a kid that her mother told her. There were these crows who were so smart that they had figured out how to take these nuts they had that they couldn't break open out to the highway, and they would watch the lights, the traffic lights, and they would know when the cars would take off—they were that intelligent that they knew what was going on with the lights—and they would place the nuts right in front of the tires so they'd be cracked open and as soon as the light would change they'd move down. I believed that back then. Believed everything back then. And now that I know them and nobody else, I believe it again. Me and the crows. That's the ticket.
Stick to the crows and you've got it made. I hear they preen each other's feathers. Never seen that. Seen them close together and wonder what they're doing. But never seen them actually doing it.
Don't even see them preen their own. But then, I'm next door to the roost, not in it. Wish I were. Would have preferred to be one. Oh, yes, absolutely. No two ways about that. Much prefer to be a crow.
They don't have to worry about moving to get away from anybody or anything. They just move. They don't have to pack anything.
They just go. When they get smashed by something, that's it, it's over. Tear a wing, it's over. Break a foot, it's over. A much better way than this. Maybe I'll come back as one. What was I before that I came back as this? I was a crow! Yes! I was one! And I said, "God, I wish I was that big-titted girl down there," and I got my wish, and now, Christ, do I want to go back to my crow status. My status crow.
Good name for a crow. Status. Good name for anything black and big. Goes with the strut. Status. I noticed everything as a kid. I loved birds. Always stuck on crows and hawks and owls. Still see the owls at night, driving home from Coleman's place. I can't help it if I get out of the car to talk to them. Shouldn't. Should drive straight on home before that bastard kills me. What do crows think when they hear the other birds singing? They think it's stupid. It is. Cawing.
That's the only thing. It doesn't look good for a bird that struts to sing a sweet little song. No, caw your head off. That's the fucking ticket—cawing your head off and frightened of nothing and in there eating everything that's dead. Gotta get a lot of road kill in a day if you want to fly like that. Don't bother to drag it off but eat it right on the road. Wait until the last minute when a car is coming, and then they get up and go but not so far that they can't hop right back and dig back in soon as it's passed. Eating in the middle of the road. Wonder what happens when the meat goes bad. Maybe it doesn't for them. Maybe that's what it means to be a scavenger.
Them and the turkey vultures—that's their job. They take care of all of those things out in the woods and out in the road that we don't want anything to do with. No crow goes hungry in all this world. Never without a meal. If it rots, you don't see the crow run away. If there's death, they're there. Something's dead, they come by and get it. I like that. I like that a lot. Eat that raccoon no matter what. Wait for the truck to come crack open the spine and then go back in there and suck up all the good stuff it takes to lift that beautiful black carcass off the ground. Sure, they have their strange behavior.
Like anything else. I've seen them up in those trees, gathered all together, talking all together, and something's going on. But what it is I'll never know. There's some powerful arrangement there. But I haven't the faintest idea whether they know what it is themselves.
It could be as meaningless as everything else. I'll bet it isn't, though, and that it makes a million fucking times more sense than any fucking thing down here. Or doesn't it? Is it just a lot of stuff that looks like something else but isn't? Maybe it's all just a genetic tic.
Or tock. Imagine if the crows were in charge. Would it be the same shit all over again? The thing about them is that they're all practicality.
In their flight. In their talk. Even in their color. All that blackness.
Nothing but blackness. Maybe I was one and maybe I wasn't. I think I sometimes believe that I already am one. Yes, been believing that on and off for months now. Why not? There are men who are locked up in women's bodies and women who are locked up in men's bodies, so why can't I be a crow locked up in this body? Yeah, and where is the doctor who is going to do what they do to let me out? Where do I go to get the surgery that will let me be what I am?
Who do I talk to? Where do I go and what do I do and how the fuck do I get out?
I am a crow. I know it. I know it!
At the student union building, midway down the hill from North Hall, Coleman found a pay phone in the corridor across from the cafeteria where the Elderhostel students were having their lunch.
He could see inside, through the double doorway, to the long dining tables where the couples were all mingling happily at lunch.
Jeff wasn't at home—it was about 10 A.M. in L.A., and Coleman got the answering machine, and so he searched his address book for the office number at the university, praying that Jeff wasn't off in class yet. What the father had to say to his eldest son had to be said immediately. The last time he'd called Jeff in a state anything like this was to tell him that Iris had died. "They killed her. They set out to kill me and they killed her." It was what he said to everyone, and not just in those first twenty-four hours. That was the beginning of the disintegration: everything requisitioned by rage. But this is the end of it. The end—there was the news he had for his son. And for himself. The end of the expulsion from the previous life. To be content with something less grandiose than self-banishment and the overwhelming challenge that is to one's strength. To live with one's failure in a modest fashion, organized once again as a rational being and blotting out the blight and the indignation. If unyielding, unyielding quietly. Peacefully. Dignified contemplation—that's the ticket, as Faunia liked to say. To live in a way that does not bring Philoctetes to mind. He does not have to live like a tragic character in his course. That the primal seems a solution is not news-it always does. Everything changes with desire. The answer to all that has been destroyed. But choosing to prolong the scandal by perpetuating the protest? My stupidity everywhere. My derangement everywhere. And the grossest sentimentality. Wistfully remembering back to Steena. Jokingly dancing with Nathan Zuckerman.
Confiding in him. Reminiscing with him. Letting him listen.
Sharpening the writer's sense of reality. Feeding that great opportunistic maw, a novelist's mind. Whatever catastrophe turns up, he transforms into writing. Catastrophe is cannon fodder for him.
But what can I transform this into? I am stuck with it. As is. Sans language, shape, structure, meaning—sans the unities, the catharsis, sans everything. More of the untransformed unforeseen. And why would anyone want more? Yet the woman who is Faunia is the unforeseen. Intertwined orgasmically with the unforeseen, and convention unendurable. Upright principles unendurable. Contact with her body the only principle. Nothing more important than that. And the stamina of her sneer. Alien to the core. Contact with that. The obligation to subject my life to hers and its vagaries. Its vagrancy. Its truancy. Its strangeness. The delectation of this elemental eros. Take the hammer of Faunia to everything outlived, all the exalted justifications, and smash your way to freedom. Freedom from? From the stupid glory of being right. From the ridiculous quest for significance. From the never-ending campaign for legitimacy.
The onslaught of freedom at seventy-one, the freedom to leave a lifetime behind—known also as Aschenbachian madness.