Megan Bergman - Birds of a Lesser Paradise - Stories

At six a.m. Zydo touched his cold nose to my shoulder, a leather lead in his mouth. I put overalls over my nightgown and grabbed a cup of feed from the garage.

I kept an urban coop in the backyard stocked with silkie bantams. An ornamental breed, they produced tiny eggs and paraded around the coop like Solid Gold dancers, their legs ensconced in black feathered pantaloons, heads topped with Afro-shaped tufts. The hens were gentle and broody, good mothers who’d go so far as to raise eggs that weren’t their own.

Zydo and I fed the silkies each morning. We walked out to their fenced-in coop, crouching down inches away from the gate. The ladies sprinted from their henhouse down the wooden ramp, lunging at the ground in fevered hunger.

The first time I saw a chicken run to food, I was inspired. A full-on sprint, stride like a split. That’s how you get what you want, I thought. Go all out or give up.

The morning was cool. I could see the barbed wire atop the tall prison fence a block away. I stretched from side to side, trying to warm up my body. These days I woke feeling stiff, mechanical. Old.

As my hens clucked and the lone rooster postured, I imagined a baby’s lips tugging at my breast. Hot breath on my skin, innocent eyes.

I’m sorry I eat your children before they hatch, I said to the hens.

One of the perks, I told Sam later that morning, is that you can take home produce every day.

I was going for the hard sell.

Tiny Hanson sat on the sidewalk with her feet spread out in front of her. The cuffs of her snowsuit pinched her swollen ankles. There was gum on the bottom of her scuffed leather pumps. Tiny took one off and rubbed her heel. She trailed Sam with suspicious eyes.

I don’t know if I like kale, Sam said.

You learn to love it, I said.

The truth was, every year I reached a point where I couldn’t look at another leaf of kale, another fanned-out collard the size of my face. Hot sauce, garlic, and brown sugar be damned — by the end of the summer I only had eyes for ice cream.

Last September, while pounds of kale and chard wilted in the back of my sweltering truck, I sucked down a milkshake at the Dairy Barn and let Zydo lick the cup when I was done. I lay down on a picnic table and looked up at the sky, one hand on Zydo’s belly.

Waste not, want not, I had lied to myself.

The sound of children laughing, the sight of their ice-creamed faces had made my body cramp with need. I wanted to lay my hands on their sun-kissed cheeks, comb their soft hair with my fingers.

While Sam weeded, Tiny approached me, shoved her bad breath and broken teeth in my face.

What, she said. I’m not enough help? You don’t love me no more?

I love you just fine, I said, stepping back. Sam’s just here to learn.

Ain’t no love gon’ fix me now anyway, Tiny said, scratching her neck.

Let me see that, I said, peering at the scaly rash underneath her chin.

I’ll bring calamine lotion Monday, I said. Don’t scratch. You might spread it.

I cupped the back of Tiny’s head.

You’re going to be okay, I said.

Sam came up to us. She had dirt on her forehead and a million questions behind her eyes.

How do we feed everyone? Sam asked. You can’t eat an uncooked potato.

Tiny sauntered off, muttering: And who’s the prized whore now?

We don’t have to worry about potatoes until June, I said. But there’s a stack of black stockpots in the shed. If I’m not around, just start a fire in the pit, put the grate down, and boil the potatoes.

The boys and girls will bring their own ketchup packets, duck sauce, salt. Smashed peas aren’t bad for flavor.

A fire? Sam said.

The tomatoes are what you have to worry about in the summer — they go fast, I said. The customers won’t riot, but they get grabby. No one but Tiny really likes turnips — you can leave those in a grocery bag for her.

I don’t think I can do this, Sam said. I thought I was just volunteering to water plants.

Just stay on until Monday, I said. Please. Mac and I are out on the boat this weekend. Managing the garden’s not as hard as it sounds — just different.

Sam rubbed the back of her neck and raised her eyebrows.

I need this weekend, I pleaded.

She fiddled with the Velcro on the outside of her glove.

Maybe you could be a surrogate mother, I thought, looking at Sam’s unlined face and strong legs.

I think I’d be better off doing advocacy work, Sam said.

When the sun is setting and you’ve got ten or so customers sitting on the sidewalk, quiet as can be with their mouths full, you’ll see, I said. They’ll drift away, and you’ll find yourself alone in the garden, kale to your knees, feeling good. I always sit for a moment in the center, eating strawberries, and watch the sun disappear.

I don’t want to be here alone, Sam said.

Tiny will help you, I said. Tiny always helps.

Sam was quiet.

I’ll pay you under the table, I said. Whatever it takes.

I went home to pack for the boat trip. I groped for my travel toothbrush in a drawer full of ovulation indicators, my digital basal thermometer, and an ovulation chart. I was my own science fair project.

Zydo was on his back in our bed, rooting through the pillows, dirt from his nails marking the sheets. I didn’t care. I’d let him do anything. Lick my cereal bowl, chase the chickens. I would atone forever.

I thumbed through old clothes, clothes I thought I should give to Tiny. Frayed sweatshirts, grass-stained shorts.

Mac and I had promised each other we’d stay out of the customers’ personal lives, but I had made exceptions. Recently, I’d purchased bedroom slippers for Tiny so she could rest her feet at night. I slipped anti-inflammatories and Tums to Saint Charles to soothe his stomach.

Without realizing it, I had let Mac’s Urban Garden become more mine than his. These days, I might not know myself without it. My therapist said I had a garden full of orphans.

It’s too much, I’d told her, and yet not enough.

I spied my negative pregnancy test in the trash can.

Piss on it, I said.

Driving to Beaufort, Mac pointed out his family farm, the old farmhouse now a hay barn for someone’s heifers.

There are pieces of me everywhere down east, he said. An uncle here, a cousin there. Most with no teeth to speak of.

All the reason to make more pieces, I said. Better pieces.

Sam called as Mac and I were settling in on the boat. Mac whisked two bags of groceries into the galley. I figured he was disappearing on purpose. He was more concerned with future projects — a weekly farmer’s market in the poor area of town, an environmentally friendly fishmonger on Blount.

Jesus Christ, Sam said, panting into the phone. Saint Charles took a disproportionate share of collards. Phil Collins with a Mustache is selling our zucchini flowers for a profit at the farmer’s market on Blount Street.

That’s okay, I said. I wish Phil had asked, but we don’t use the flowers.

Not Grandmaster Flash bit into an onion like an apple, Sam said. Tiny tied prayer flags into the pea fencing.

Not all bad, I said.

But that’s not the worst, Sam said. This morning Our Neil Diamond pulled his penis out and danced around the cantaloupe patch, screaming, “Impotent melons! Impotent melons!”

What’s important, I said, is that you keep the shears and the hoe close to you, and cultivate a sense of authority.

I quit, she said.

The day we retrieved Zydo from Animal Control, he was limp with exhaustion and had just come off intravenous fluids. He thumped his tail once or twice upon seeing us.

I did not say it, but I blamed Mac, whom I could hardly speak to after seeing Zydo’s weak body. Mac was too easygoing. He did not play worst-case scenario. Next time I would listen to my gut.