Scream-of-Consciousness

The Turkey Buzzards

Well, here it is, the first short story I've actually managed to FINISH, not just throw in a box and forget, in more years than I care to admit. Okay, it's not *finished* finished, but at least it has an ending. I still need to work on it some. But all the bits are there.
This is based on actual events. All the things that happen, really happened.

*****************************************************************

The birds had at least chosen the right house – a two-story mock-Tudor with overgrown boxwood hedges tucked in-between a split-level ranch and a pink stucco monstrosity. No, the house was perfect for the peculiar visitation, I decided. What was all wrong was the weather… the cloudless and postcard-perfect late Spring California morning. There should have been thunder, a cold splattering of rain, the kind of weather to make Mr. Poe or Mr. Lovecraft weak in the knees.
Yet there they were, twelve fat turkey buzzards, leering down from the roof, daring the world to make something of it.
“There should at least be thirteen of them,” I said, a little crossly, “even if they can’t get the weather right.”
“The birds don’t make the weather,” my husband drawled, a little more reasonably than I would have liked.
We stood on the sidewalk across the street, staring at the birds, the house, and wondering what was to be done about it.
“Time was,” my husband said, “even twenty years ago, you’d have known the folks who lived there, you’d have known if one of them had been sick, and there wouldn’t be any speculation as to what was wrong because the ladies in the neighborhood would be dropping by every other day with a covered dish and to see what needed tending to. Still is that way, most parts of Texas.”
I stared at him as if he were only marginally stranger than the buzzards.
“It doesn’t work that way, except for in the South,” I said. “At any rate, that hardly helps us now.”
Our dog, bored out of his jackrabbit mind, was straining at the leash. This was not the walk we had promised him.
“The problem is,” I continued, “that folks don’t really believe in omens anymore. If you walk up to that door and ring the bell, you’re liable to wake up some poor schmo who’s only trying to sleep off his hangover and couldn’t care less about a dozen carrion birds on his roof.
Ding, dong…
‘Whaddaya want?’
‘Well, sir, I was walking my dog and I couldn’t help but notice these ominous birds of portent and/or calamity on your rooftop—which, you must admit, is by far the most gothic and gabled in the neighborhood, and so lends itself rather well to this type of thing—so I thought I’d just knock on your door and make sure you’re not dead.’ ”
“Mock-Tudor isn’t Gothic,” my husband pointed out.
“That’s not the point! I mean, what in the hell do you say in a situation like that? You’ll end up sounding like a total ass, and he’ll think you’re out of your mind. Let’s just go.”
But neither of us moved.
A young woman in a black leather jacket and bleached hair approached us, chattering happily on her cell phone. She paused to see what we were staring at.
“Ooh! Wonder who’s dead?” she remarked, and then strolled on past us, continuing her conversation.
“Oh, nothing, it was just the weirdest thing… a bunch of vultures or something on a roof… kinda creepy… anyways, what was I saying?”
My husband turned to me and smiled, as if the girl had just proven a point in the argument we hadn’t really had.
“That doesn’t mean a thing,” I said. “She didn’t really believe it.”
A thirteenth buzzard, one we hadn’t seen before, flew onto the roof from a nearby tree. Two more buzzards left the roof and flapped onto the roof of the house next door.
“Goddammit,” I said, “they’re toying with us.”
“Well, what do you want to do?” my husband sighed. “Either we go over there, or we get on with our walk. I don’t want to just stand here all day.”
“What, like that blonde? Just leave, so we can tell people later, Ooh! You’ll never guess what I saw!”
“So you want to go over there.”
“I didn’t say that… but I almost feel like I have to.”
“Yeah. But are you going because you really believe in the omen, or so you’ll be able to write about it later?”
He wasn’t being snide; it was a fair question. I grinned.
“If I don’t go over there,” I said, “I’ll never know how the story ends.”
We walked across the street and stopped outside the gate in the hedge.
“Do you want me to go up with you?” my husband asked.
We were dressed for a morning romp with the dog, not a social call. He was wearing striped overalls and a flannel shirt, and his hair was a little long even by California standards.
“I think I’d better go by myself,” I said.
Inside the gate, the yard was a bit disappointing. The hedges were only slightly overgrown, the lawn was just a little brown, and on the concrete porch were a ceramic jack-o-lantern and a vaguely weathered wooden Santa Claus. The overall impression it gave was not one of haunting and forlorn romance, but rather that the owner was simply too busy to bother much.
A flat brown package lay on the porch. I picked it up for closer inspection. It was from Amazon.com. I set it back down in disgust—really, sometimes the universe just had no sense of narrative propriety—and leaned over the porch railing to peer through the front window. The house was dark and most of what I could see was in shadow. In the living room window, underneath the lace sheers, was a decidedly English red-and-cream striped sofa across from a fireplace. A staircase led up to the second floor. All the interior doors were closed. I could see no photographs, no magazines, no random display of personal articles that might give me a clue as to the nature of the occupants.
I gave the doorbell a good, long ring and went back to the window. After a minute, a cat leapt up onto the back of the sofa to look out the window, decided I was unimportant, and settled down on the sofa for a nap. The cat was white, fluffy, and well-groomed… the sort to make Auric Goldfinger proud. She didn’t appear to be mourning a recently deceased owner, and didn’t seem to have missed any meals.
I gave the bell a second, half-hearted ring, waited a moment, and then slouched back up the path after noting the house number and the name on the package.
We finished our walk in a mixture of silence and speculation. My husband kept asking me questions about the house; I was surly and laconic. By the time we got home, I was wishing I hadn’t gone up to the door at all.
Angrily, I got onto the internet and tried to locate a phone number for the house, first searching by the street number, then by the name on the package. The record came up as “unlisted”.
I don’t know what I might have said if I had been able to call.
If you believe--as many writers do—that God or the Devil is “in the details” (I’ve heard it said both ways), you begin to expect a certain level of quality from your casual observations. It’s no fun when they disappoint.
“Darling,” I said, “where is your digital camera? If I write this up, I’ll want a grainy black-and-white of the house and the birds to go along with it.”
My husband went to fetch his camera from the desk and I drove back over to the house.
The buzzards had all gone.

posted by lisamarlene @ 5:55 PM