Эд Макбейн: Last Summer

“Shut up,” Sandy said.

“She thinks she’s in a Walt Disney movie.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re only going to kill him quicker,” David said.

“He’s in shock,” Sandy answered, and tilted the soup into his open beak. Naturally, the bird gave another shriek. She backed away from him again, but she wasn’t quite as frightened this time, maybe because he was all wrapped up in the towel and couldn’t move.

“See?” she said, as if she had proved some idiotic point.

“Yeah, he doesn’t like it,” David said.

“Gulls like everything,” Sandy said. “They eat all kinds of crap,” and glanced toward the screen door. I figured her mother was inside the house. “See?” she said, forcing more soup down his throat. “He does like it.”

“He’s going to have convulsions any minute,” I said.

“No, he won’t.”

“Besides, gulls are scavengers. You should let him die.”

“Sure,” David said. “They’re like sharks.”

“He’s a sweet old bird,” Sandy said, and fed him another spoonful of soup.

“Wait’ll that sweet old bird bites you,” David said.

“What kind of soup is that?” I asked.

“Chicken noodle.”

“It smells good.”

“You can have what’s left over.”

“Thanks, from his mouth?”

“What’re you gonna do with that damn bird, anyway?” David asked.

“Make him my pet.”

“What’ll he do, sleep at the foot of your bed?”

“What’ll you name him? Rover?”

Sandy didn’t even look up at us. She merely kept spooning soup into the bird’s mouth. I was sure he would choke at any moment. Finally, she put down the spoon and the bowl, and stood up, and nodded, and walked toward the screen door again. “Watch him,” she said, and again she went inside. We looked at the bird. He didn’t look any better than he had on the beach.

“I give him about ten minutes,” David said.

“Five.”

“Maybe less.”

“That soup sure smells good.”

“Why don’t you finish it?” David said, and gave me an elbow and a grin.

“Yeah, yeah.” I looked at the gull again. “You think its a male?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you tell if it is or not?”

“The males have pricks, same as you and me.”

“Shh,” I said, and glanced toward the screen door.

David shrugged, “When he dies,” he said, “we’ll take a look.”

“ If he does.”

“Oh, he’ll die, all right.”

“Not if she has anything to say about it.”

“A sea gull for a pet,” David said, and shook his head.

“I knew a girl at camp had a raccoon for a pet.”

“Raccoons aren’t sea gulls.” He boosted himself up onto the deck railing. The sun was behind him, limning his head. He began humming. The bird gave a little peep just then, as though trying to sing along.

“When he dies,” I said, “let’s go over to The Captain’s for some hamburgers.”

“Okay,” David said.

“You want to ask her to come?”

“She’ll probably have to attend the funeral,” David said.

The screen door swung open.

“Is he still alive?” Sandy asked.

“I figure another three or four minutes,” David said, and winked at me.

“Go to hell,” Sandy said. This time she did not bother to look toward the screen door. She was holding a long piece of clothesline in her hand.

“What’re you gonna do with that?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” she said, and bent down over the bird again. His feet were sticking out of the bottom of the towel, he looked like a consumptive old man at a Turkish bath. Sandy knotted one end of the clothesline around his right leg, and then carried the other end to the deck railing. She looped it swiftly around one of the stanchions, made a double knot in it, stood up, put her hands on her hips and said, “There.”

“Very good,” David said. “You’ve got a half-dead bird tied to the deck railing.”

“All I need now is a box,” she said, and went into the house again.

“I think she’s nuts,” David said.

“I do, too. Let’s split.”

“Look at him.”

We both looked. He was still working his beak, gasping for air, his eyes closed.

“What’s that in his neck there?” David said.

“Where?”

“There, what is that thing?”

“Where? I don’t see...”

“Look at it! Can’t you see it?”

“Oh, God!”

“That’s a fishhook. He’s swallowed a fishhook!”

“Oh, man, that’s disgusting.”

“Sure, that’s the tip sticking out of his neck!”

“God, look at that!”

“What is it?” Sandy said, rushing out of the house. The screen door slammed shut behind her. The deck was suddenly very still.

“He’s got a fishhook caught in his throat,” David said.

Sandy looked down at the gull. She was carrying a cardboard box which she dropped to the deck behind her. Then she knelt quietly beside the bird and stared at the protruding tip of the hook.

“I didn’t see it,” she said, “did you? I mean before? ”

“No,” David said.

“I didn’t see it, either.”

“But there’s no blood.”

“No.”

“You’ll have to take it out,” Sandy said.

“Me?” David said. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Please,” she said.

“Absolutely not.”

“I couldn’t do it, really,” she said. “I can’t even take one out of a fish.”

“Uh-uh, not me,” David said.

“Peter?” she said, and looked up. I didn’t answer at first. She kept looking at me, her eyes on my face, one hand extended toward me. “He’ll die otherwise.”

“So what?” David said. “He’s just a crumby gull.”

She did not take her eyes from me. Her voice had sounded doubtful, but her eyes were confident; she knew damn well I couldn’t leave that hook in the bird’s throat.

“All right,” I said, “hold him.”

“Who?” David said.

“Come on.”

“ Me? ”

“I’ll hold him,” Sandy said.

“Never mind, I’ll hold him,” David said. “I swear to God, if he bites me...”

“He won’t bite you.”

“Okay, let’s do it already,” I said.

“I’ll hold his feet,” Sandy said.

“We don’t need anybody to hold his feet,” David said. “Just get the hell out of the way.” He made a move toward the bird’s head, and just then the beak opened and closed again. He pulled his hand back, watching the bird warily. Then he reached out suddenly with both hands and grabbed the beak, immediately forcing it open. “Hurry up,” he said, “pull the damn thing out.”

I got the hook out pretty fast, considering. There wasn’t any blood while it was still in the gull’s throat, but the minute I eased it loose, the blood began to flow, pouring into the bird’s ruff. David got some on his hands; I could just imagine how much that thrilled him. I kept thinking of my grandmother. I was wondering why someone hadn’t stuck his hand down her open throat and pulled out the cancer, just the way I’d pulled out the hook. Sandy ran inside for peroxide and bandages, and finally we got the gull all cleaned up and bandaged and tucked away in his towel inside the cardboard box, with one leg tied to the porch railing.

So we asked Sandy, after all, if she’d like to have a hamburger with us down at The Captain’s.

That Saturday night, they held a dance at the firehouse for all the teenage kids on the island.

The firehouse was down by the bay, the first thing you saw when you came over from the mainland. It was almost directly back of the ferry slip, and on the right of it was the post office, and on the left was the general store run by Mr. Porter, who everyone said was a millionaire, but which probably wasn’t true. The firehouse was built in 1945 immediately after the big fire that destroyed the pine forest in the center of the island. The forest had always terrified me. I had been to it only once or twice, but it was the bleakest spot imaginable, with charred dead Australian pines, a ghostlike silence hanging over the entire place. Just miles and miles of burned-out trees, black and twisted against the sky, surrounded by stunted second growth.