Love in the Seventies

By Colleen Sutherland

Sheila pedaled home on her bike, cursing out the bell bottom pants that flapped in the wind, threatening to get caught in the gears. That happened too often. Bicycle clips never worked because bells had too much fabric. Still, she wouldn't be one of those old ladies who wore something that was in fashion decades before, refusing to change with the times. Bell bottoms were in, so she wore them.

The trailer park was at the edge of town, far away from Sheila's job, but then trailer parks are always at the edge of civilization, accessible to the occasional Midwestern tornado. It was where the young started out, where the failed elderly spent their days before going to a nursing home. It was where rednecks drank their beer in old lawn chairs propped against the sides of their trailers so they wouldn't tip over when the beer got the best of them. It was where students lived.

Sheila worked at the insurance company downtown as a secretary/receptionist. She handled claims, too, but wasn't given the title of claims adjuster because then her boss would have to pay her more. If she complained, he would find another student's wife who wouldn't.

She put up with it because she and Bill needed the money so he could continue his studies at the university. There was their future, his education ending perhaps in a medical degree if he could get his grades up enough to get into the state's medical school. It was the cheapest school in the United States, the lowest rated, but maybe even that school might not accept him. If nothing else, he would get a good white collar job, then it would be her turn to go to college.

Meanwhile, they lived in a third rate house trailer in this dusty trailer park. Bill worked as a handyman to cover the rent. When he wasn't busy mowing lawns and repairing toilets, he was supposed to study. Sheila typed his papers for him, sometimes late at night, editing them as she went along to make them fit the guidelines the college provided. Footnotes seemed to be beyond Bill, so she did a little research on her own to pad out the papers to the required length.



She did the cooking and cleaning, too. Even the garbage was too much for Bill to take out once a week.

“Your own fault for marrying such a deadbeat,” her mother said. “In my day, we chose better.”

Her mother's day was post WWII 1940's and 1950's. Sheila didn't want her mother's life either. Her parents had been married for 39 years and hated each other for 38 of those. Her mother's idea of a career was to survive long enough to be a widow.

Sheila had read the Feminist Mystique and was a member of a Woman's Liberation group started at the university. Sheila was the only woman in the group without a college degree and felt the others held her lack of education over her.

“It will get better,” she told them. “I just have to get through three or four more years of this.”

She thought she would like to work on a journalism degree when it was her turn. She talked about it with her friend Emily, two trailers down. Emily and Greg were the closest friends she and Bill had. Emily was supportive, another liberated woman.

Sheila parked her bike next to the trailer and locked it to the hitch. All the trailers had them though none of them had gone anywhere in a decade. Bill's car, a Ford Pinto, wasn't there. He must have a late class. He always drove the car. It was only twenty minutes on foot from the university but he needed to be able to get around, he always said. There were parts to pick up for the trailers, there was research at the public library, there were conferences with his professors. Her time was pretty much set by her work, but he needed to get around on a schedule that changed from day to day. If it rained, he could always run over to the insurance company, throw the bike in the trunk and drive them both home. But that depended on him noticing it was raining. If he was in the union coffee shop, he couldn't see outside.

A mangy old tom cat peered through a break in the trailer's metal skirt. It was Big Red, the trailer park cat. He didn't belong to anyone, but lived under Sheila and Bill's home. He seemed to mark his territory daily so the house always smelled of male cat piss. She caught Bill feeding the tom one day with bits of hamburger.

“I like cats,” he explained. “And Big Red isn't hurting anyone.”

“But we can only afford meat once a week,” she said.

“I do the shopping,” he said. “I'll cut corners somewhere and get him some cheap cat food.”

Big Red was already huge and getting bigger. She soon found out that other men in the court were feeding him, too. The old Tom was always around mooching. When the men guzzled their beer and held confabs, Big Red was there, too, watching for snacks to start falling on the ground as they got tipsy.

Sheila could have joined the women in their kitchens but all they talked about baking cookies and their children. She was too liberated for that nonsense, but not liberated enough for open marriage. She knew certain couples in the trailer park were experimenting with wife swapping. Bill told her about it and kidded her about joining in. “Spread our genes around,” he said. “Darwin would approve.”




Bill roared up in the Pinto. Wasn't he supposed to be in a class?

“Guess what!” He had a small box in his hand, a grocery bag in the other.

A present? He hadn't given her so much as a daisy in months. He handed her the box. She shrieked when it began to shake.

“Don't open it out here!” Bill grabbed the box and together they went inside. She opened the box there to find a kitten. “It's purebred Siamese,” he said. “My prof had one left. He says they are so rare in this county. He figures we can breed her and sell the kittens. Nice money-maker, he said. Look, she has papers and everything.”

A cat. Like they needed a cat. But Bill was convinced they could make some money and as he said, he liked cats.

“If you take care of it...and that means taking care of the cat box...OK,” she said.



And for a while it was OK. The kitten was cute, of course. She shredded the curtains but those had been in the trailer since it was new, over a decade ago. The hot Midwestern sun had already started the shredding process, the kitten just sped that up.

It was the cat box that soon became an issue. Where could one put a cat box in a small trailer? Sheila put her foot down on having it in the tiny kitchen. Bill first placed it in the bathroom, but that began to stink as he began to forget to change the litter. Finally, it went into the second of the bedrooms, the one she used as an office when she typed his papers. Typing in the living room area meant he couldn't watch television, so she shared her space with Meow Shuo Hui, the name Bill gave the cat. It meant “shiny brightness,” he said. Sheila gave up, changed the litter herself, and kept the windows open, at least until winter came. Then she tried not to breathe. It got worse as Meow Shuo Hui got older. Whenever the smell got too bad, Bill went for a walk, he said, though that usually meant visiting some others in the court. He especially liked to talk to Emily when she was baking, he said. Her kitchen always smelled so good.

The odor in their trailer became intolerable. “Horrible!” Sheila screamed at Bill one day in March. “I can't take it any more!”

His solution was to let Meow Shuo Hui outside where she could run around the trailer park pissing and pooping wherever she wanted which sometimes in children's sandboxes. Sheila certainly heard about that from the parents. Nobody ever complained to Bill. It was a woman's lot to hear complaints, she thought, and mentioned that to her feminist group, who gave her no sympathy.

“What a jerk,” was their usual comment about Bill.

Meow Shuo Hui was turning into a fine female Siamese, with long whiskers and lovely brown and beige coloring.

Then came a summer day when the men were sitting around drinking their beers just outside their screen door. Bill was in the middle of them, talking about women's liberation and how that just meant more sex and income. Sheila, looking out the office window, noticed that Big Red wasn't among them. He was sitting on top of the air conditioner looking in at her. Meow Shuo Hui was meowing plaintively at him. Mid-sentence, Bill went over to the trailer and opened the door to get a beer and the cat flashed out past him.

“Stop!” Sheila came running out of the trailer but it was too late. Big Red had Meow Shuo Hui, biting her neck and humping her with everything he had. The men cheered him on.




The three kittens were the ugliest Sheila had ever seen. It took her months to find homes for them, since Bill was against taking them to the pound.

“Enough is enough,” Sheila said. “When she goes in heat again, I want a purebred Siamese tom here to take care of it. Talk to your professor.” By the time the spring semester rolled around and Meow Shuo Hui was once again in heat, they were ready. They drove to Yankton to pick up the tom, with the promise to the breeder that they would pay him $75 once they sold the kittens.

Meow Shuo Hui had been yowling her loudest Siamese yowl for two days, making sleep impossible. The tom took one look at her and was ready for action but Meow Shuo Hui ran from him and hissed. “Stay away from me, you fool,” she seemed to be saying in her expressive snarls. She climbed to the back of the couch and swatted at him. Behind her, on the other side of the window, seated on top of the air conditioner, was Big Red.

“Scat.” Sheila pounded on the window, but Big Red did not move. Sheila scooped Meow Shuo Hui up and put her on the floor, holding her in place. The tom knew what to do and took care of business.

For two days, Sheila was there to round up the female for her rape by the tom, watched passively by Big Red who was always on top of the air conditioner, always watching through the glass. Meow Shuo Hui was not a happy cat but her yowling finally stopped. She settled down and the tom lost interest.

Bill put the tom in a box and drove him back to Yankton. He wasn't gone long when Meow Shuo Hui suddenly began to pace around crying to get out. Sheila was firm. “You stay put!” But when Bill got back two hours later and opened the door, Meow Shuo Hui flew out and there was her true love to meet her in a tangle of fur and paws.

In the following weeks, Bill took bets from the men around the trailer court, taking a ten percent cut. “See,” he told Sheila, “I knew that cat would make money for us.”

Then Sheila's mother got sick. Her father paid their airfare to go to Connecticut to take care of her for a while, leaving their pregnant cat with a friend in Sioux Falls. They were gone for three weeks. Everyone at the trailer park wondered not how Sheila's mother was, but how that other mother was faring. There were some that wanted to drive to Sioux Falls to find out, but with the Arab oil embargo on, no one could afford the gas to make the round trip.

When Bill and Sheila flew back, they took a side trip with boxes to pick up Meow Shuo Hui and her brood.

They arrived at the trailer court that evening. The neighbors came pouring out of the trailers like sardines out of cans. Big Red came out from under the trailer, pacing anxiously.

Sheila sighed. She plumped Meow Shuo Hui out of the back seat of the Pinto. Big Red sniffed her over. Then came the box...with the five ugliest kittens anyone had ever seen.

Bill gave his friends their winnings, though none of them won much. Almost off of the men had been betting on Big Red. They sat with their beers and lawn chairs late into the night, petting Big Red and smoking the cigars Bill bought with his pool earnings.

The next day Sheila had a miscarriage. Toxoplasmosis because of the cat litter, the doctor said.

It was just as well. Somebody had to pay the bills.

(Note:  These Decade Love Stories are very loosely based on my own life.  Some of the events happened though not always to me.  Every one has been fictionalized. My intention is to follow each decade to the present with stories.)  --  C. Sutherland)

The Magic Ball

The ball is glass and blue and purple and pink. Ellie runs all around with it, around all the grown-ups, around all the lawn chairs, around all the bigger kids. She runs into the garden and points it at a flower.

"Brrrring! Flowers unite!" she says.

She runs to the next flower.

"Brrring! Flowers unite!"

She runs to a pot.

"Brrring! Flowers unite!"

She runs to the patio.

"All right," she says, "Lets go!"

She runs past me, and has to stop because Uncle Jeff is carrying something heavy and is blocking her. I reach out for the ball. It's slimy from Ellie's hand. She pulls it away

"Hey! You can't have it unless you know Princess Haley's secret name."

I think Princess Haley is from another station, one our TV doesn't get.

"Do you know what her secret name is?" Ellie says.

I feel stupid. If Mom and Dad let me watch the show Princess Haley was on, I'd know. I'd remember. Ellie is starting to laugh at me. I shake my head.

"That's because it's a secret!"

She runs away, waving the glass ball in the air. She's going to break it. I want it before it breaks. My tears start in my belly and rise up until they spill out through my eyes.

"Lexi, what's wrong?"

Aunt Tara looks at me like grownups do when they want to help.

"Ellie won't share the ball."

"Did you ask her to share?"

If I tell her no, she won't want to help. I need her to help because she can tell Ellie what to do. It would be best if I could get Aunt Penny to tell Ellie to give me the ball because she's her mom. Ellie would have to listen to her, though she never does. I don't know why. I wish I didn't have to listen to my mom.

"Ellie said I had to know Princess Haley's secret name, and I don't know it."

"Tell you what, Lexi, let's go see if we can guess it."

Aunt Tara takes me by the hand and we find Ellie dancing around a tree. She sees me and Aunt Tara coming and she stops. Aunt Tara will get the ball for me, because she's a grown-up and she's got a big ugly nose. Ugly grownups are better because they look more mean.

"Ellie, is that your ball?" Aunt Tara says.

Ellie shakes her head yes.

"Can you share your ball with your cousin?"

Ellie puts the ball behind her back, but doesn't say anything. She shrugs.

"Is it magic?" Aunt Tara says, "Is it Princess Haley's magic jewel?"

Ellie shakes her head yes.

"If Lexi and I can guess her secret name, can she have a turn?"

Ellie looks over at the older kids and shrugs.

"What do you think it is, Lexi?" Aunt Tara says.

"I don't know," I say to Aunt Tara, "Princess Pea?"

Ellie shakes her head no.

"Cinderella?" I say.

Ellie shook her head no. This was going to take forever. Then Aunt Tara winked at me.

"Ellie, is it Sparkle Blossom?" she say.

Ellie doesn't look at us. Her face is all mad, and her lips are all scrunched up. She holds out the ball to me. I grab it. It is all shiny and slippery and warm. It makes my nose look big and my eyes all googley when I hold it up close.

"Remember to give it back to Ellie when your turn is over," Aunt Tara says. She walks back to the other grown-ups.

Ellie grabs the ball out of my hand when I'm not looking.

"Hey!" I say.

"It's not fair," Ellie says, "Aunt Tara knew the name and you didn't. You cheated."

She points the ball at me.

"Brrring! Evil witch be gone!" she says, and runs away.

I chase her around the trees, the picnic table, and the older kids. She runs through the grown-ups at the fire pit, but they make me go around. Ellie looks back at me and laughs. She laughs and shouts her magic words at me and runs and runs. She runs right into Uncle Jeff and falls on the cement. She screams really high when she sees her hands had blood on them, but I don't think it's that bad. Maybe she's afraid they'll put alcohol on it, because that hurts worse than falling down. She screams loud and fast, like a police car. Uncle Jeff is going find her mom. I find the glass ball under a bush.

I hold it out to a flower.

"Brrring! Flowers unite!" I say.

Nothing happens. I say it again and again. I try holding it different, try saying it to different flowers, but it doesn't work. Ellie broke it.

I go back to the grownups. A bunch of them are around Ellie. I want to cry, but I don't because if I start now the tears will be all gone when I find Aunt Tara.

Love in the Sixties

by Colleen Sutherland

Years later I would say to the kids, “You missed the Sixties” with pity in my eyes. Yet if it hadn't been for the 1960's, I would never have married their father.

We met in a corner bar on Clark Street. I was trying to avoid the neighborhood bag lady who wandered in and out of local establishments. She smelled of oatmeal and booze and sweat. She wore all her clothes on her back, which worked in the winter but was not so good an idea on a hot spring day.

I made the mistake of doing something socially responsible once after I'd been to a lecture at Hull House. We were supposed to care for the poor back then so I helped carry her filthy bags down the street. After that, whenever she spied me she trailed me to talk to me about my lack of morals. All that winter she showed up wherever I was. When I took my wash to the Surf Street laundromat, there she was, staying warm on frigid days. For extra warmth, she stuck her bum into a warm dryer whenever someone had just finished using it. I took to taking a bus to the next available laundromat.

She was a communist, she said. Back in the days before photo IDs were required, I would see her patiently waiting at the library polling place to vote. The poll workers tolerated her whims, because after all, what was one or two commie votes? She was crazy but they left her alone.

It was fine for them but whenever she spied me, she was after me, talking about the loose morals of women in their mini skirts and tie died shirts and lack of bras. Back then I didn't need a bra. No droop, no point to it.

That afternoon, I saw her coming down Fulton Street and ducked into the bar. I was close to my apartment and I sure didn't want her to know where I lived or she would be pressing my buzzer over and over, day and night.

“Give me a lemonade,” I told George, the barkeep. Back in those days, I wasn't a big drinker. Pot was cheap and available so why wreck my liver on booze unless some guy was paying the tab? Times change. Laws change. Highs change.

I was sipping and reading the notes taped to the bar mirror when I smelled the oatmeal, booze and sweat. She slid on to the bar stool next to me and started a mumbling rant against the establishment and demanding a drink.

“You buying for her?” said George.

I shook my head and turned my stool to the right. Two stools down, there was a guy reading a newspaper, looking at the want ads.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“Not much.”

I slid over next to him and started to flirt, leaving George to deal with the crazy woman. That was his job, not mine. My social responsibility phase was over.

That was how I met Bill. He was unemployed and hairy, but he was wearing peace beads and his body looked OK and I didn't have any one else to do that week. We arranged to meet at another bar that night, but a better offer came along, so I didn't show.

The next day we ran into each other again at a peace rally. He bopped me with his Make Love, Not War sign. The war was a boon to guys on the make. Politics and sex were a good mix.

“Where were you?”

“Here and there,” I said, ducking behind him to avoid the bag lady, who was ranting about the war at the edge of the crowd and scrounging for free food. At least there, a communist fit in. We protestors wanted the draft to end but she wanted the North Vietnamese to win. Our wants intersected, so she was tolerated.

Bill sussed the situation. “Want to blow this rally and go down to the lake?” He handed his sign off to another protestor.

The day was sunny and the wind gentle and steady. On the way over to Lincoln Park, we stopped at a store and bought cheap kites. Back in those days a kite was ten cents and a ball of string fifteen. There was a stone wall to sit on and Lake Michigan could be counted on for a strong enough wind. We got the kites up with no trouble.

I found out he was unemployed except for a part time job at a McDonald's. He found out I worked for a big firm in the Loop. During the week I pretended to be a big time capitalist but on the weekends I went where it was happening and that meant being a hippie. Bill had spent the previous year at Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, but now he was crashing in a flat with a bunch of protestors. I had my own apartment. We were just beginning to getting to the point of kissing with a bit of petting when there she was again. The old bat had followed us.

“Whore! Jezebel!” She sure had read enough of the Bible for a communist. Too much Bible study can drive some to godless anti-capitalism.

I took fingernail scissors out of my rucksack and cut the strings. The kites floated out over Montrose Harbor and we took off, leaving the string behind. When we looked back, she was carefully winding it up and putting it in one of her filthy bags.

We ran all the way to my apartment and spent the rest of the day in bed. It was post-pill and pre-AIDS, so there was nothing to worry about that a little trip to the local clinic and a shot of penicillin wouldn't take care of.

It was the Sixties and he was good at the bed thing. We wrestled on my grandmother's antique quilt under the aspidistra, drank herbal tea and ate Swedish limpa bread slathered in cream cheese and honey. Then we smeared the honey all over our bodies and went at it again. When we needed a breather, we shared a joint.

Sometimes, when I wasn't in the mood, he gave me fabulous back rubs, slowly working up my spine till he straddled me, worked his fingers down my sides and played with my boobs until I was in the mood.

In a few days, he had moved in with me. He quit his fast food job, but he managed to find around $50 a week somewhere toward food and bills. He could have been dealing drugs but nobody minded that in those days. I went to work each day, he stayed in bed reading the three Chicago newspapers I brought home each night, looking for jobs. At the end of the day, the want ads were marked, but he didn't seem to get very far on the job search. I didn't mind. My job was good and he was a decent fuck.

We went out to bars where he would could hustle pool players to make enough to pay for his drinks and my Cokes. I cooked at the apartment or we went to protests where food was being handed out. We wore peace beads and fit in with the crowds. We talked politics. He agreed with me on every point then dragged me back to bed.

A week later, he proposed. I refused. It was the Sixties and I was liberated. What was the point?

Perhaps he wore me down. Perhaps it was the Alice B.Toklas brownies he made. Perhaps it was the old woman questioning my morals every time I went out the door. She represented my Midwestern parents who weren't around to nag me. Whatever. I finally accepted.

We went down to the free clinic for our blood tests. Back in those days, the only reason for a blood test was to get married. When he fainted, I found out he was afraid of blood. The anti-war stuff began to make sense. Three days later the doctor called to apologize. One of the vials of blood broke on the way to be tested at the lab. It was his vial and we had to go back. This time, he brought his own smelling salts.

When the blood tests were finally OK d, he met me downtown to get our marriage license at city hall after work. We were there when the news broke that Martin Luther King was assassinated. The riot was already happening, starting on the south side and moving north.

“Go home,” the city hall clerk said, but first we had to go get our wedding rings at Marshall Fields. In those days there was only one, the one downtown. I paid for the rings with my charge card, one of the first issued. We bought two silver bands, $19 each.

By then, the streets were filled with blacks. (They weren't African American for another decade.) We ducked into a movie theater and decided it was probably safer there than on the street. It was an old movie theater subsidized by the University of Chicago that showed nothing but classic film twenty four hours a day. To make it more available to the students, the charge was only 99 cents, but that meant it was always filled with drunks and weirdos instead of kids. Downstairs was a combination of booze and piss. Upstairs was put aside for women only, but the lesbians were going at it up there. We found a spot downstairs, covered the seats with napkins, and watched Marx Brothers comedies for three hours as old men and women beside us mumbled about whatever was on their mind. It could have been a bag lady convention.

I had my own commie bag lady up on Surf Street and finally had enough. We went to the lobby, peered out and listened to glass breaking up and down the street. A Clark Street bus came rumbling. We jumped on board, the only two passengers with a petrified driver. He kept asking us if we wanted to get off at various places so he could take his bus farther north and abandon it somewhere.

We wound up at the same bar where we'd met. George was there, with a shot gun across the bar and a pistol in his hand ready to protect his establishment. We stood outside for a while watching Chicago go up like a fireworks display. It looked like the fires wouldn't come this far north but it was a night to stay awake. Bill pulled a couple of joints out of his wallet and we lit up. After an hour or two, we went behind the bar with George's pistol and took turns shooting rats, laughing with every shot, until a patrol car came up to the front, lights flashing. We dropped the gun and ran down the alley back to my apartment.

We found out later the bag lady had wandered into a riot and got herself killed.

Three days later, we were married at city hall during my coffee break. Friends bought us a wedding pizza sprinkled with pot instead of oregano.

A week later I came down from a marijuana haze and I realized I had made the biggest mistake in my life. Bill gave up giving me back rubs, became a Republican and railed against the deadbeats on welfare. He told his friends that he believed in women's liberation saying he allowed me to continue working. The Sixties were over as far as he was concerned.

I regretted not being nicer to the bag lady that first day in the bar on Clark Street. Funny how a little thing like that can change your life.     

Phenology - A Love Story

by Colleen Sutherland

     When do we know we are in love? For some it is a smack in the center of their being, as instant and painful as a Neanderthal clubbing his true love and dragging her off to a cave. For some it is a growing thing, like the gradual greening of the earth. But for me, it was falling, falling, falling.....

     We met in a used bookstore on a half price day. He was roaming through non-fiction, I was in the romance aisle. The two intersected when we rounded the corners of our stacks heading for the check out with our piles of books. Our books crashed to the floor, meshing into a jumbled heap. We sat down on a nearby soft couch while we sorted through the mess. It was embarrassing how easy it was.

     His were scientific tomes about global warming. Mine were trashy novels. The covers with their half naked, long maned men and bosomy women gave them away.

     I babbled, “Research. I'm doing research for a book I'm writing.”

     “Same here,” he said.

     “Different topic.”

     “Not so different,” he said. I figured he was being polite.

     “No, really,” he said. “I'm a phenologist.”

     “Bumps on the head?”

     “No, that's phrenology. My specialty is phenology.”

     “What's the difference?”

     “I observe the changes in nature and journal them. That's science, not mumbo jumbo. Come out back and I'll show you.”

     Behind the book store was an abandoned railroad line. The grass had overgrown the old steel rails. It was slated to become a trail through the city, he said, but meanwhile it was a chance to observe nature taking over from humans.

     He was a slight fellow, with too long hair and the beginnings of a beard. Unkempt, I thought. Probably unmarried. No woman would let him leave home looking like that.

     It was a warm spring day in a June week that had suddenly showed up in March. The dry grasses tickled my toes through my sandals.

     He pointed down the sides of the embankment to a scummy looking pond.

     “Caltha palustris,” he said. His voice was soft, calm, soothing.

     “What?”

     “Caltha palustris. That's marsh marigold to the non-scientist.”

     Just a few of the gold flowers were open. They would probably be pretty in a few days. He took a notebook and pen from his pocket and jotted a few notes. Then he slid down the bank, picked a blossom and handed it to me. He pointed at a yellow flower.

     “What's that?”

     “Senecio vulgaris ”

     “Senecio vulgaris?”

     “Senecio vulgaris, also known as ragwort. I'm watching the progress of this rail bed. It's amazing how soon nature takes over. It doesn't really belong here, so it's all right to pick it. Oh look!” He pointed at another flower.

     “Taraxacum officinale.”

     “I bet you mean that dandelion.”

     “You're catching on.”

     In less than an hour, I had a bouquet of wildflowers as he added more notes to his journal, but then I looked at my watch. “Have to run,” I said.

     “Wait a minute,” he said. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a card. “You can always find me here,” he said.

    I still had the flowers when I met my friend Sue Marie at the diner.

     “How pretty,” she said. “From an admirer?”

     “I'm not sure. I may have had a romantic morning. Or not.” I looked at the card he had given me. He ran the arboretum at the university. “Oh,” I said. “Probably not.”

     Still, I was curious, so I soon was at the arboretum looking at the displays, and for him. I could see him at his desk at the back, examining something through a microscope.

     “I wondered if you would show up,” he said when he caught sight of me.

     “More flowers?” I asked, looking at his work.

     “Mold.”

     “Yuck.”

     “Not so much, it all serves a purpose: procreation. Say, are you busy tomorrow morning?”

     “A writer's time is her own, so I guess I'm free.”

     “I'm counting cranes for the crane foundation tomorrow and my volunteer backed out. Can you take notes?”

     “That I could handle if there's no Latin involved.”

     “Meet me here at 5:00 am.”

     I gulped. But he wasn't wearing a wedding ring and I hadn't met any interesting men lately.

     March had returned, cold and dreary. Following his instructions I was dressed in a padded winter jacket which covered jeans and pullover which covered long underwear. I only had some old sports shoes, but he found an extra pair of his boots for me, plus some wool socks to fill out the space in the overlarge footwear. I appreciated his thoughtfulness as we slogged through a swamp as the sun rose. We settled down to watch for sandhill cranes. We saw some, but mostly we were listening for their cries. He identified many territorial calls but he said we mostly wanted to listen for gurgling “unison calls”.

     “When we hear those, we know the cranes are mating,” he said. For two hours, I shivered and wrote down the notes as he called his observations. From time to time, we saw the long legged birds fly overhead and I wrote down those. “Look, that one has a band,” he said, and I marked that down as well.

     We met more volunteers, mostly graduate students, back at the arboretum for coffee and sweet rolls. He collected everyone's notes.

     “Well done,” he said. “I'll make a naturalist out of you yet.”

     And that was how our spring went. I would meet him some place where nature was erupting. We filmed frogs copulating, piling on each other, peeping in ecstasy. We guarded six foot long sturgeon thrashing on rocks as they laid their eggs.

     We went to ponds to see the spring migrations, counting the waterfowl. He gave me my own copy of Birds of the Northeast. I started a birding life list and started another list of my own expectations. It was him and me and every fornicating creature. Spring was cropping out all over, life was happening, and he hadn't so much as kissed me.

     I woke one morning to rain and snuggled back under my comforter. I would get up in an hour or two an attack my overdue writing projects, I thought, but the phone rang.

     “Hurry,” he said. “We have to get moving.”

     Yet another adventure. This was getting wearing and going nowhere.

     “I think I'll stay in bed,”

     “No morels for you if you do.”

     Now that was a threat. Morels? The best mushroom in the world! We were soon in another swamp, wading through a stream to get to the exact spot he wanted. Sure enough, morels, and we soon filled two bags, one for him and one for me.

     Morels or no morels, I decided that it was time to pin this man down.

     “Where are we going?”

     “To that spot over there.”

     “No, I mean us. I don't know what my role is here. Am I a student, a volunteer, or are we a couple?”

     “You don't know?”

     “No.”

     “I thought I made my intentions clear.”

    “Then you don't want...I mean, when you first gave me those flowers, I thought it might mean something. Was I wrong?”

     “When a man gives a woman flowers, it means something.”

     “But you've never even approached me. I mean...” Then I got to the point. “What about sex?”

     “I've shown you nothing but sex, but you never seemed interested.”

     “Shown me?”

     “I've shown you flowers, frogs, birds, sturgeon. It was all about sex!”

     I had missed what he meant as cues. “You dolt! How would I know that! I'm not a scientist.”

     “Come here,” he said, and led me over to a tree that had fallen over, with one end resting on another log. He gallantly spread his jacket over the tree.

     “That doesn't look safe.”

     “It'll be fine. It's only been here for a year.”

     I sat beside him. He put his arms around me and kissed me. Then I knew it was going to be sexifying lustful love. It was spring. Time to mate.

     With a crack, the tree collapsed and we ended on our backs in a mucky mix of swamp water, deer excrement and mold.

     I lay there stunned, then he pointed up a nearby tree. “Hey, there's a pileated woodpecker. And look at those clouds. Cumulus.”

     Years later, he insisted to our children that he had planned the whole thing. “It's how I got her to fall for me.”

     He was right.

Cigarette Man Saves the Day

I often wonder how Superman would have made his way in the world if he wasn't bulletproof. What if he didn't have super strength, x-ray vision, or couldn't fly? What if all he could do is turn socks purple? Would he still fight Lex Luthor's world domination schemes, or would he seek out a smaller cause?

“Hey Vic, can I bum a cigarette?” Larry asks.

“It's my last one,” I say. “Besides, aren't you trying to quit?”

“Aw, come on man. This damn patch just ain't cutting it.”

I shrug and open my empty cigarette case, hammered bronze and worn shiny at the edges, like Humphrey Bogart's dad would carry. With a split-second's concentration, I make a cigarette appear in the case, just under the retaining clip. I could have just as easily made the cigarette appear in my hand, between my fingers, or if I were closer, Larry's shirt pocket. I sometimes pass off my pathetic super power as slight-of-hand, but there are fewer questions when I use the case.

Larry's face relaxes as he takes the first drag. “That's the stuff.”

“Is it safe to smoke here?” a voice says.

I turn and see the new graphic artist digging through a purse. Larry introduced her last week, some flower name. Daisy? No, that wasn't it. Rose? We pass every day in the hall, why can't I remember?

“Can you see the building from where you are?” I say.

“Just a bit,” she says.

She seems nice enough, though I wouldn't have pegged her as a smoker. There's something funny about her stomach, like she's pregnant but hiding it. Heather, that's the name.

“Take a couple steps further until you're out of sight. The building manager watches this corner like a buzzard,” I say.

“Like a below-quota cop on the last day of the month,” Larry adds. “Lorena's busted me twice since the new rules came down.”

“The ones from the building owners?” Heather says.

“From Redwood Wellness, 'the provider that's a breath of fresh air.' ”

“That's their slogan?” Heather says.

I shrug.

“We offered our services, but they haven't taken us up on it.”

Larry blows out a smoke cloud and laughs. “How about 'Redwood Wellness, picking up where the gestapo left off.'”

“That bad?”

Heather fishes out a cigarette from the purse and puts it in her mouth, then starts digging back in. I hold out my lighter.

"Thanks," she says.

It's a little thing, but I like to do it. We lost these little gestures with the smoking culture. We used to be civil with each other. You lit a woman's cigarette and discussed the day's issues while she leaned back and enjoyed a smoke. If you liked each other, she would let you invade her personal space again to light a second. Today instead of sophisticated banter we bitch about being outside, huddled in a circle against the wind, sucking on the cancer sticks as fast as we can to get a fix before running back inside.

"Damn, I wish it were summer," Heather says. "The least they could do is let us smoke in our cars."

Larry blows out a cloud and puts on a nasally voice. "The car's on the parking lot and the parking lot is part of the property."

“I'm surprised they allow red meat in the building,” she says.

“Just you wait, that's next,” Larry says.

“Larry here got caught twice smoking in his car. One more strike, and he gets to have a conference with Lorena and Mister Reed himself,”

“Yeah,” Larry says, “in her office. The Old Man hates being summoned.” Larry looks down at Heather's  waist, and he chucks his head. “What's up with the shirt?”

Heather holds her cigarette out with one hand, reminding me of a forties movie star. She glances down at shirt tails peeking out from under her jacket.

“Camouflage. I spilled some coffee this morning and stained my slacks.”

“Oh good,” Larry says. “I thought it was a maternity top or something.”

“It what?”

“It makes you look pregnant,” Larry says.

“Well I'm not, jackass.” Her arm drops, and I figure she's ready to flick the cigarette to the pavement a split second before she clocks Larry.

“Good to know. If anyone tries spreading a rumor, I'll tell them you're clumsy, not knocked up."

He's not the sharpest man I know, but he must sense how close he is to having to go to HR for more sensitivity training because he turns to me.

"Hey Vic, show her the trick.”

“It ain't nothing,” I say. I doubt the world's worst super power can blunt a false pregnancy accusation.

“What's the trick?” Heather says.

“Vic can make a cigarette appear anywhere. He's like Houdini crossed with the Marlboro Man.”

“Houdini?” she says.

“Just go with it,” I say, “Last time he said I was Siegfried and Roy.”

To my amazement, she laughs. In that case, why the hell not show her? I hold my arms toward her palms out.

“Now hold your hands out like this.”

Heather hitches the purse over her shoulder and copies me.

“Okay. Nothing in your hands right? Now clasp them together like you're holding a baby bird.”

When she closes her hands together, I put mine a few inches above and below hers. I don't need to, but there's a certain expectation about how magic tricks are done. If you don't do it with a bit of showmanship, you disappoint people. I realize I don't want to disappoint Heather. So I squint a little, as if concentrating, then relax. I snap my fingers.

“Open them."

Heather peels back her top hand and her eyebrows shoot up.

“No fucking way,” she says.

She holds out her hand to Larry, cupping a cigarette.

“I told you,” Larry says. His face clouds for a moment, and he looks at me. “Hey, I thought you said you were out.”

“I did, I was, I am.” I take out my cigarette case and show them it's empty. “Magic.”

Heather holds the cigarette out to me. “That's damned amazing. You should be in Vegas.”

“I'm still trying to saw a lady in half without getting blood all over the floor. You keep it.”

She stares at it, and I can tell she doesn't want it. My cigarettes make the cheap ones look glamorous. I bet she'll say she only smokes name-brands, slims, or menthols.

“Is it organic?” she says.

That was a new one. “Hell if I know.”

“Then you keep it,” she says, “I only smoke organic.”

Damn, and I was beginning to like her too.

“Hey, why aren't you smoking?” Heather says to me.

“Don't feel like it right now.” It's easier to say that than admit I don't smoke.

“Then why are you out here?”

“It beats sitting at a desk, doesn't it?”

"For a little while." She smiles, and I decide not to write her off just yet.

"I gotta get back," she says.

"Yeah, I suppose." I say. "Come on, Larry."

We walk across the parking lot. Larry takes a last drag and hustles after us, tossing the butt next to his car.

As we approach, a thin woman with hair piled on her head in what I think they call a French twist stands in the glass-walled entryway. Lorena Stevens stands with a poise that comes from perfect balance. She's like a yoga instructor in a business suit.

“She's waiting for us. Damn it all.” Larry says.

“Take it easy. No one has tobacco on them right?” I say.

“I thought it just had to be out of sight,” Heather says. She clutches at her purse.

“Technically, you can't bring it on premises, but it's not like they can search you,” Larry says. "I looked it up."

“Just make sure your purse is closed, and you'll be fine.”

As we enter, I see a door open across the entryway, the door leading to Reed and Associates. The Old Man himself barrels through with face like stone, and ears flushed bright red.

“Defcon One,” Larry says, “It's been nice working with you all.”

“Steady, big guy.  She can't have anything on you.”

I hold the door open and let Heather and Larry through. Lorena has already turned toward Mister Reed.

“Charles, how accommodating to come down on such short notice.”

“What's all this about, Lorena?” Mister Reed says.

“I believe one of your employees is in violation of this building's tobacco policy.” She turns. “Isn't that right, Larry?”

Larry looks uncertainly from Lorena to the Old Man. “I -uh- only have two strikes – warnings, that is.”

“Why Larry, I'm confused. Didn't I just see you toss a used cigarette in the parking lot?”

“What? No. I was smoking, sure, but off property.”

“True, but then you brought it on the property as you and your merry band finished up your little smoking break.”

“He ground it out on the pavement, that can't count.” Heather says.

“I'm sorry, but this property's boundaries are quite clearly defined.”

“But the grass on the median strip is all dry.” Heather says. “Would you rather he grind it out there and start a fire?”

“I would rather people not smoke at all." She looks pointedly at Heather's abdomen. “Especially women in your condition. Do you have any idea what that does to a fetus?”

Heather's fists ball up. “I'm not pregnant.”

"Really?" She stares at Heather's waistline, then runs a hand over her own tailored jacket, smoothing a front pocket. "If you say so, dear."

Heather's eyes narrow in a way that would make Clint Eastwood flinch. But before she can lay into Lorena, the Old Man pipes up.

"Is this true, Larry?" he says. "Did I get called out of my office because you can't follow the rules?"

Larry's head swivels between the Old Man's and Lorena. "Well maybe, Mister Reed, but come on, this is over the top, even for a crazy policy like this. Isn't it? For some reason, she has it in for me."

“I don't find the policies so onerous, Larry. I had some hand in their drafting, and I assure you they apply equally to everyone.”

I get an idea.

"Really?" I say.

"Most assuredly."

"Then you don't have any tobacco on you."

"What?" She looks at me like I just accused her of leprosy. "Why of course not."

"It's funny, because I usually recognize the closet smokers." I can't. My super power would never give me anything remotely that useful. Instead, I just have to act like I know what I'm doing. Fortunately, I'm in advertising.

I'm not a superhero, but I play one on TV.

"You strike all the bells, Lorena. Why, I bet you have one on you right now," I say.

"I have never smoked, not once in my life, and I most certainly do not have a cigarette on my person."

"Prove it. Show us what's in your jacket pocket."

"Victor, don't antagonize the lady," Mister Reed says.

"You're confusing the issue," says Lorena.

"You're avoiding it." I say. I take a step toward her, almost within arm's reach, but I keep my hands at my sides. "I'm sure if you have nothing to hide, you won't mind?"

I know, it's the police state's favorite line. I feel a little guilty, but I'm no Superman.

"If it will get us past your nonsense," Lorena says.

She reaches toward the jacket pocket, and I hope I'm close enough. Super powers, don't fail me now. As she places one hand in the pocket, her body goes rigid.

"Yes, Lorena?" The Old Man says.

To her credit, she squares her shoulders and pulls out the cigarette. Heather sucks in air through her teeth. Larry mumbles something like 'holy crap,' and looks at me. It takes all my willpower to keep my face relaxed and not spoil the magic.

"I do not know how this got here, it is not mine." Lorena says.

The Old Man chuckles.

"I tried that line once when a cop found a reefer on me in '72. Said it didn't impress him much. Now I know how he feels."

He turns and heads for the office door. "If we're all done here, Lorena, I need my employees back. I'm sure they have better things to do."

Lorena stands there, tight-lipped as the Old Man holds the door open for us.  Maybe I don't have the most glamorous super power, but I begin to wonder what I would look like in a cape.

Island Fever - Part Three

          Two days passed. Craig carried the pellet gun with him whenever he went out, looking for more gulls, he said. They seldom spoke but when they did, they sniped at each other in the bleak grayness of the day. Sometimes, she could see him staring at her. Once Craig said, “Wish Kris were here.” Well, she wasn’t, Adrienne thought, and how long before Craig started making passes at her? She read the journals long into the night, looking for clues.

          Another writer named Pat wrote about a big fight between Kris and Craig. Kris regrets ever coming to this island, Pat wrote. Craig insists they are going to get married but Kris is having doubts. Craig thinks it's all island fever. Those two were meant for each other.

          The “accident” was mentioned briefly. Kris fell on the rocks. Taken away by the Coast Guard helicopter. Someone had written that Kris was in a coma on the mainland, but that was the last mention she found. Had Kris recovered or was she buried somewhere in a Maine cemetery? Adrienne was afraid to ask. Anything could set Craig off.

          The wine bottles were emptied on the seventh day. Perhaps she had had too much to drink, but she slipped on a fog-silvered rock coming back from taking the murre decoys back to the boat house. Her hands were covered with blood from a gash in her hand. Craig was up on the lighthouse trying to count terns. She would handle this herself, she thought.

          The first aid kit was in disarray. Things were unmarked. Looking for disinfectant, she opened a bottle and sniffed. It was smelling salts. Bleeding and sneezing, she dropped the kit and everything went rolling. She began to cry.

          Craig came in, took one look, swabbed her head with a pad and placed a band-aid on her cut. “Wash up,” he said. “That'll do. And quit crying. Head wounds bleed a lot, but it looks worse than it is.”

          He gave her no sympathy. Adrienne sniffled around the cottage. She couldn't seem to help weeping any more. Her eyes were red, raw from the salt water and her emotions.

          Late that afternoon, Adrienne climbed the lighthouse to get away though she didn't go through the trapdoor to the top level. It would be too slippery up there with the floor covered with mist. Through the rain she could see the lights in the closest island, but the waves blew up so high over the rocks, the lights flickered on and off. Tears stung her eyes. She longed to be home.

          The eighth day came, the day they were scheduled to leave. Adrienne heard the rain stopping the the night before. When the gray daylight showed through the fogged window, she leaped out of bed and packed all her gear before coming down to breakfast.

          “All packed!” she said. “I am so ready to get off this island.”

          Craig glanced up from his coffee. He had already been out to check the lighthouse and was jotting his bird counts into his log.

          “Ready?” he asked. “Have you looked outside?”

          Fog swirled around the lighthouse. The light went around and around, doing its work, piercing the area around the island. 

          “I’ve already taken the water temperature,” he said. “The waves are still high. I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”

          Adrienne turned to the weather radio. Karl gave the bad news in his unemotional monotone. Marine craft were warned off the ocean. The automated voice droned on and on. The weather was getting worse again.

          “Shut up,” she said. “Damn you, shut up!”

          Craig looked up. “That doesn’t do any good, you know.” His voice was as calm and as unemotional as Karl’s.

          “You can shut up, the both of you!” She began to cry.

          “More tears,” Craig said in disgust.

          “At least it’s something! At least it’s human!”

          “And I’m not?”

          “Barely. Damn good thing you and Kris didn’t get married!”

          “Don’t you even think of mentioning Kris to me! That’s none of your business.” Glaring his hatred, Craig went out the door, slamming it behind him.

          Adrienne dialed up Rose, mostly for the sound of another human voice, but the connection was poor. She could hear excitement in Rose’s voice. “Good news….Kris….out of the coma…Craig.” Then Adrienne lost the connection. Kris was out of the coma? Should she tell Craig? If he was responsible, there might be police waiting for them when they got back. She decided not to mention it to him.

          She went back to her room and unpacked.

          Craig came in later to tell her he had checked the puffin burrows. Most of them were flooded and he had found a couple of dead puffins floating in a tide pool. He said nothing more. It would have been a day of silence, except for the terns and the fog horn and Karl’s droning voice. Craig kept to the kitchen, and no matter how cold it was, she stayed in the sitting room, guarding the phone so that he would not hear about Kris. Late that afternoon, while Craig was out, she tried the phone herself. The batteries had died. Unless the solar panels worked, they were on their own until Jake came with the boat. Who knew when that would be?

That night, Adrienne huddled in her sleeping bag, too frightened to sleep.

She waited the next morning until Craig left the cottage. When she came downstairs, he was off somewhere on the island, sulking, she thought. What was he doing? The fog had cleared off, yet he still hadn’t recorded a lighthouse reading. The forms were still unmarked.

Where was he? She didn’t want him back but she wanted to know where he had gone. The pellet gun was gone. She paced from room to room, went down to use the outhouse and took the temperature reading. She looked at the rubbing alcohol in the medicine chest and considered mixing it with water and drinking it. She needed something to calm herself down. She played solitaire. She ate the last of the chocolate bars. She cried.

She couldn’t go looking for him out on the rocks. That was another “accident” waiting to happen. She didn’t want to see him, but she had to know what had happened to him.

There was only one place to get a good look. She pulled on her rainproof jacket, jammed on her wool hat, hung her binoculars on her neck and edged out the door. She hesitated, looking up at that pale column, towering over her. She opened the door and stared at the metal steps, her hands clenched. She would go up and come right down. She ascended slowly on the damp steps, her footsteps echoing up and down the silo. She reached the first ledge and went around, using the binoculars to scan the island for signs of Craig. Nothing.

She opened the trapdoor and climbed to the higher level as the fog horn blared. The rain was starting again. She wiped the lenses on the binoculars and worked her way around, holding on to the metal railing for support from the wind. The terns circled, screeching. Her eyes were focused on the far end of the island when she heard it. The echo of footsteps coming up the shaft.

“Adrienne, where are you?”

He was coming. She scurried around the ledge and slammed the trap door shut. She sat on it, sobbing, rain falling on her face, screaming at the elements, crying like one of the terns circling above.

“Adrienne, don't be an idiot.”

She felt him below her, pushing at the trapdoor.

          

           When Jack entered the hospital room, Kris wasn’t there. He heard noise in the adjacent bathroom and waited. When Kris emerged, Jack could see that he had shaved. He was weak, shuffling his feet a bit, but he was moving.

          “Jack,” he said. “It’s great to see you!” There were some side affects from the eleven month long coma, a little slurring of words. His dark hair had a few gray streaks and his once muscular arms were flabby, his legs skinny under the hospital gown. His skin was pale and wrinkled.

Kris caught Jack’s stare. “A few weeks in the gym and some sunshine and I’ll be fine. I’m just lucky to be alive.”

          Jack hesitated. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he said.

          “Craig is still stuck on the Rock?”

       

          “Worse. We lost radio contact three days ago. When I finally got out there this afternoon, we found the bodies. Craig and his volunteer were both dead.”

          Kris whimpered, his eyes filling with tears. “No. It can’t be. Not Craig! How, how did it happen?”

          “No one is sure. They were at the base of the lighthouse. They must have fallen off. The Coast Guards are talking murder/suicide, but why would that be true? I don’t suppose we will ever know but I am guessing Adrienne broke through the railing. You know how rusty it was. And that Craig tried to save her and was pulled after.”

          Kris began to cry. “That’s just like Craig. He saved my life, and had to go try saving someone else.”

          “He was a great guy,” Jack agreed. “and your best friend.”

          “More than a friend!” Kris wailed, his body shaking with grief. “Craig and I were going to Massachusetts after we we finished on the Rock last year! I thought we would go this year, as soon as I recovered. We were going to be married!”

          The island lay in the sunshine of a September morning. The last of the volunteers swarmed around the lighthouse, clearing, packing, watching the few birds left. Few of the graduate students would return. Their professors would send out a new crop the following year.

          Soon the Rock would fall silent save for the fog horn, waiting through winter for the next year’s broods. The terns were on their way to Antarctica for their next summer vacation. The puffins had finished raising their chicks and had gone back to sea, to live solitary lives for the next three years until the cycle of life drew them back.

          The blood stains at the base of the lighthouse had been washed away by summer storms. In a year or two, no one would remember Craig or his volunteer.

          Nature is like that.  

Island Fever – Part Two

          There was no need for the little alarm clock Adrienne had brought. There were no curtains on the windows and as the summer solstice approached, the light shone in as the birds shrieked their joy at the day’s beginning. She had slept snug in her heavy duty sleeping bag, and felt the same joy. The ear plugs had worked.

          Craig fairly flew out the door to chase up the steps to the lighthouse while Adrienne brewed their coffee and got the first reading from the weather radio. The automated male voice told her that though the sun was shining, the day would get progressively darker. Small craft were warned about setting out. She took down the temperature readings the voice reported, taken from various buoys in the area.

          She threw on her heavy jacket and went out to take visual readings. She stopped to use the outhouse. Through the open side she watched a row of puffins watching her. Her bodily functions were a peep show for birds.

She could barely see the nearest island, some twenty miles away. A fine mist seemed to be covering it. She shivered and went on to the boat house. A herring gull who had taken refuge there scuttled out of her way dragging a wing. She unhooked the bucket with the rope attached and picked up the long thermometer. She carried them down the boat ramp. The waves were higher today and splashed against her rubber boots as she leaned over to drop a bucket off the side for some ocean water. She stuck a thermometer in it. As she waited to do her reading, she used her binoculars to sweep the surface of the island. The birds seemed to be hunkering down, not as active as the day before.

          They decided to explore the island before the storm hit. They clambered over the rocks. There were no paths. Craig was a mountain goat, jumping easily from rock to rock, as Adrienne struggled on behind, trying to keep up. They climbed higher and higher from boulder to boulder as the wind howled around them, shouting to be heard. They visited nesting sites. Craig flattened himself on a rock and reached his hand into a burrow, but no puffins were using it yet. Later on, the researchers would go out daily and sit in blinds keeping track of the little guys, but the puffins were just arriving.

          He stopped for a moment and pointed out a piece of marble engraved with an angel.

          “Tombstone,” he said. “Keeper’s daughter.” She had died a century before. Adrienne thought they should put flowers on the grave, but there were none on the Rock. Neither were there bushes and trees, just endless boulders. Ocean storms scoured the rock of anything green except for the moss that clung to the stones.

          They climbed higher. Here the terns would nest, there the guillemots. Each were marked. They reached the farthest point. Far below the waves pounded on the shore, splashing over the rocks. Craig pointed down and shouted, “That’s where Kris fell.” His face contorted. He turned away and began loping across the rocks before Adrienne could ask how it happened.

          The terns wheeled around like children who needed strong doses of Ritalin.

          They finished off the first bottle of wine that afternoon and took a tibble from the second as well. Adrienne began to talk, but Craig said that the glimmer was to be enjoyed in quiet, as a sort of Japanese tea ceremony.  Obedient, Adriennewas quiet, but she felt conversations bubbling up, topics she wanted to discuss. The island was becoming too quiet, despite the birds’ squawks and the incessant fog horn.

          The rain began that night. At first, it was fine mist, almost indistinguishable from the fog that covered the island at night. The wind rattled the panes in the window next to Adrienne’s bed. She got up and looked around for something to stuff in the crack where the two windows joined. There would be no reason to open those windows while they were here. She found a bit of foam rubber and stopped the rattling. In the room next door, Craig snored. She used the piss bucket and crawled back into the sleeping bag. She was so cold. She reached inside the sleeping bag and drew out the gloves and woolen hat she had stowed there to keep them dry and warm, jammed them on and went back to sleep, only her nose sticking out of the bag.

          There was no reason for Craig to go up to the lighthouse that morning. The Rock was fogged in and a film of frost had formed on anything it could cling to. Adrienne pulled on her slicker and slid down to the boat house to take the water temperature. The herring gull was still there, dragging a wing, she observed. She decided to call him Sven and made a mental note to bring him some bread crumbs.

          When she returned to the cottage, Craig was busy with his books She recorded the temperature, 48 degrees, visibility at zero and listened to the droning voice of the weather radio. She decided to give the voice a name. Giving things name made it seem like there were more people on the island. Karl, she thought, naming him for a dull teacher from her high school days. Karl gave no good news. The storm was gathering strength over the East Seaboard. A hurricane in the southern states was moving up the coastline.

           “How will the rest of them get here today?” Adrienne asked.

“They won’t." Rose called from the mainland while Adrienne was outside. The others had reached Maine but the weather had them stuck there. It would be several more days before they could get on the fishing boat and get out to the Rock.

          Craig suggested they busy themselves bringing the murre decoys in from the boathouse. Ornithologists were trying to get the murre to set up a colony on the far end of the island. There were boxes and boxes of the metal decoys, each one a facsimile of the black and white seabirds, and a metal rod stuck to the bottom to affix them to holes drilled in the rocks. Many of the decoys needed to be repainted, a simple job in black and white. Craig found the tightly sealed paint cans with the remnants of paint from the year before. They set up shop in the third bedroom.

          As they worked, they talked about their lives. At first their chatter was about birding but it soon morphed into more personal matters. Craig was single, he said.

“You never married?”

“I was going to, once.”

“Didn’t work out?”

Craig didn’t answer. Adrienne looked up and saw the sadness in his eyes. He shook his head. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

Adrienne quickly changed the subject and talked about her life. She chattered about her awful father, his addictions, his abuse.

“He probably wasn’t as bad as you make him out to be,” Craig said. “Some women need a firm hand, you know.”

            A spatter of rain hit the window. The storm was getting worse. There was no glimmer that afternoon, but they finished up the second bottle anyway.

           The next day passed slowly. The smell of damp paint permeated the cottage. The warmest room was the kitchen so they closed the area by covering the open doorways with spare blankets from the bedrooms and sat at the kitchen table reading. Her bones ached. She took aspirin she found in the medicine chest to take off the edge.

They could not go out and do anything more than take the water temperature. She took some bread crumbs out to Sven, who screeched and gobbled before any of the other sea birds showed up.

Adrienne went up to the top of the lighthouse once but she could see nothing but the fog. The railings were slippery. Once her foot skidded a few inches along the ledge as she screamed. She didn’t look down again. She quickly lowered herself through the trap door.

The rain beat against the window panes. Adrienne explored the sitting room looking for 

something to occupy them. There were no board games but she found a deck of cards. They began to play, finding out what card games they knew, then used the library’s copy of Hoyle’s to learn new ones. The day passed slowly, interrupted only by meals. The solar panels became ineffective as the day grew darker, the lights flickered. To save energy, they turned off the lights and played in the dim light, drinking the third bottle of wine from mugs.

          The games became more competitive. Craig didn’t like losing. Neither did Adrienne. They began to argue about points. Whenever the arguing became heated, they switched to another game. It was too dark to read, they could barely see to play cards. The solar panels no longer generated enough electricity.

          They went to their respective bedrooms early. She took along the journal to make her daily entry by flashlight. When that was finished, she read some more of the old journal entries. Some were amusing, but then she caught another of Kris’s entries.

          “Craig told me not to talk so much. He might be right. But what else is there to do on an island? He can be so bossy.”

          The next morning, rain was pelting against the door. Whenever they went out, water seeped in. Adrienne mopped up the water and put it in a bucket but if she opened the door to throw it out, more rain blew in. She finally dragged the full buckets up the stairs and threw the water down the old bathroom drain, the only part of the plumbing that worked.

          They wore their boots and slickers inside now, to keep warm. They played cards wearing gloves. They drank the fourth bottle of wine in one sitting, for warmth. They tried the short wave radio, looking for news or music, but it didn’t work. She had no idea what was going on in the outside world.

Adrienne no longer initiated conversation. Anything that she said, Craig contradicted. He began to question her expertise as a birder. It was true, she knew next to nothing about seabirds, but test her on Midwest warblers, she retorted, and tried to talk about her adventures in Wisconsin, but Craig always had bigger and better adventures in Costa Rico, Australia. She felt small, meaningless.

Her friends were far away, in another place, comfortable in their warm, well insulated homes. They had hot water and furnaces. What had she been thinking!

From time to time, she caught Craig looking at her thoughtfully. She no longer put on makeup or did anything to make herself attractive. She stopped washing up. Her body took on a rank smell.  

Karl gave no good news. In his monotone voice, he told them the storm was stuck over the Eastern Seaboard. There would be no let up. Rose called from the mainland, almost unintelligible as the phone registered more and more static. The other volunteers had given up. They would not be coming. The next band of volunteers would be coming when they could get through. Jack would pick up Craig and Adrienne as soon as the weather cleared, which should be in two days.

“At least we have Karl and Sven,” she said.

“Who’s Sven?”

“He’s the herring gull with the broken wing that hangs out in the boat house. I’ve been feeding him…”

“You’ve been feeding a gull? You idiot, they eat puffin and tern eggs.”

Craig stood up and went to the storage closet in the old furnace room. He took out a pellet gun, checked it for ammunition, and strode to the door.

“What are you doing?” she screamed.

She chased him down through the deluge, down the slippery ramp to the boat house. He was already there, gun raised and before she could stop him, he killed Sven with one shot. He picked up the carcass and swung it around his head several times to get a good heft and threw it into the ocean.

“Remember why we’re here,” he said.'

Adrienne began to cry.

“Isn’t that just like a woman. Tears.” Craig stomped back up the ramp, leaving Adrienne to mourn her friend.