Relax and Move On Pt. 2

We reached a row of oak trees that shielded interminable fields of onion and broccoli. A lone mangy coyote picked his way along one of the empty ponds.
“That’s a magnificent animal.”
“I hate coyotes. One went after Sancho, my cat,” said a heavy, Hispanic lady who looked like a WWF wrestler with her giant arms squeezed through the sleeves of her puffy vest, two sets of binoculars and a long-lensed camera dangling at her massive bosom. “I had to throw bleach in his eyes.”
“That’s illegal, Carmen. You can get a fine for that,” Tom snapped angrily.
“What am I supposed to do when he’s roaming in my backyard, Tom? Tell me.”
“If you tell a coyote to take a hike, he’s gonna listen. Coyote’s a smart animal. Gotta be.”
“I wasn’t going to risk it with Sanchito. He’s sixteen and can barely see.”
“Very simple, keep Sancho in the house. Don’t let him go out.”
“That’s where his potty is though.”
“Put the potty in the garage. C’mon, use some common sense, Carmen.”
“Coyote’s are stupid.”
“Not at all. How do you think they can survive with mankind laying waste to their habitat? Relax and move on.”
“Hey Tom, I thought you said there were ducks on this walk,” Carl Feinberg said and the air suddenly got as thick as frozen margarine with the tension.
“There are,” Tom said taken aback.
“I haven’t seen a single duck,” Carl Feinberg said.
“There were ducks four days ago after the rains.”
“Where’s the ducks? You should have checked it yesterday,” Carl said testily, waving a hand in the air as a sign of dismissal.
“I couldn’t yesterday, Carl, I drove my mom to the DMV to renew her license.”
“Do you see water? How can there be ducks?”
“There’s no ducks, Carl.”
“Why don’t you check it beforehand?”
“I told you, there was water four days ago, Carl, but it seeps into the soil.”
“And you didn’t know this?”
“I did.”
“VCAS had a walk to the Ojai Meadow Preserve and I missed it for this worthless thing.”
“Then you should have gone to the Ojai Meadow Preserve, Carl.”
“Plus it’s ten minutes closer to my house.”
“You can leave anytime, Carl. You’re not obligated to be here.”
“I’m here. What am I going to do? Drive thirty minutes and show up late like a moron?”
“It’s a free country, Carl. So I made a mistake, big deal.”
“Every walk you do is a mistake. No ducks. No water. Last time, we stood in a parking lot for three hours.”
“I had to wait for Triple A. My battery died.”
“Yeah, your battery died. Your battery always dies.”
Tom looked distraught. His face turned beet red and he strode away, holding his breath, looking like he was about to implode. Jacob and Degan covered their mouths to shield their laughter.
Barbara caught my worried expression. “He blows up at least once every time he leads. Don’t worry about it. He’ll be okay.”
I watched Tom rubbing his forehead and pacing in circles. Carl calmly unwrapped a Hostess Cupcake and munched lazily as if nothing had happened.
The next instant I heard a shriek followed by a curse that sounded like “whorefucker!” Then Tom was dragging himself over the lip of the pond, one of his Air Jordan’s coated in mud. He limped around, clutching his knee.
“That’s it. I’m done. I heard a pop.” He held a hand over his knee. “That’s my bad knee. I’m totally fubar, people”.
“Big surprise,” Carl mumbled, shaking his head.
We offered to help Tom back to the car but he refused any aid. Then it got to the point where he couldn’t walk any longer and just sat down in the gravel and removed his knee brace.
“Feels like my Meniscus. Bet you anything.”
“Was it messed up before?”
“It’s been messed up since forever.”
“How’d you do it?”
“Last time? Skateboard.”
“When was that?”
“June.”
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people who ride skateboards but when you’re middle-aged and still riding skateboards, I tend to form opinions.
Jacob and I each took an arm and helped Tom up.
Back at the cars, Tom was subdued. Most of the people left early but we stayed with him as did Degan’s parents, Fred and Suzanne.
“This is an industrial area. Was he really expecting us to see any good birds here?” Fred whispered to me as he placed his scope in the leather case.
“I don’t know. When I read the newsletter it said, ‘Saticoy Ponds’, which sounds like a natural kinda place.”
“That’s what we thought too,” Suzanne said.
“This sucks, big time,” was Degan’s astute summation of the excursion.
Tom stretched his knee out in the cab of his pickup.
“See this, J-2, appreciate it,” Tom said pouring bottled water over his knee. “Ever step you take in this life means something. Don’t take nothin’ for granted.” Again my son offered his “you’re full of crap but I’m being polite” forced grin and nod.
“Well, we’re out of here. Thanks for having us, Tom,” I said offering my hand.
“Damn! Damn!” Tom pounded the cab.
Fred and Suzanne thanked Tom and my son exchanged email addresses and cell phone numbers with Degan.
“You guys want to drive down a little ways? Sometimes there’s water in the back ponds and a lot of the sea bids collect there,” Tom said with boyish enthusiasm and the first tenderness I had seen in his eyes.
“Nah. I think we’re good. I got a few errands to run today,” I replied as affably as possible.
“We’re gonna have to pass too, Tom. Again, thank you,” Suzanne said resolutely.
Tom was crestfallen.
“Please. It’s only…” he checked his cell phone, “not even 10:30.”
“Nah, we better, you know, head out,” I said, placing the lens caps on my binoculars.
“Please. Five minutes. That’s all I ask. Give me that,” Tom said imploringly, his eyes begging for mercy.
Fred and Suzanne looked at each other, slightly disturbed.
A sadistic side of me wanted to stick the knife in and beat it but I couldn’t do that to Tom. There was an earnestness to him that I found endearing. Maybe that’s what brought the others here today too. He was one of those great sufferers you run into a few times in your life who seem to have the world pitted against them, but as you get to know them better, realize they make their world pitted against them. They won’t have it any other way.
“This guy’s a dumbass, let’s just go,” Jacob said, again loud enough for Tom to hear everything.
“Give him five minutes. It obviously means a lot to him.”
“But the guy’s an effin’ idiot.”
“He’s not an effin’ idiot and don’t curse.”
“Effin’ isn’t a curse word, dad.”
I looked at Fred and Suzanne and she was shaking her head at me. Fred’s eyes were more empathetic.
Finally, we gave in and agreed to let Tom lead us further back down the dirt road, not really sure what to expect but wishing we could get this over with and get on with our Saturday.
As we rounded a bend, we came upon a lake dotted with sea birds. Sunlight sparkled resplendently on the surface. A flock of Canadian Geese soared overhead and glided into the brilliant water runway.
I looked over at Tom and the deep lines in his forehead were gone, the shadows under his eyes vanished, the grooves at his brow had smoothed away. His whole countenance softened and I thought I actually saw a tear glint in one eye.
“Damn, look at that, will you. This is where we shoulda gone in the first place.”
I glassed the pond and through the deep focus of my binoculars, and with the high contrast lighting and long focal length, saw, in heavenly detail, the rich varieties of birds, the whole image having an ethereal quality, almost as if I were gazing into another world. I thought of Buddha’s Pure Land which describes a wondrous place of clear waters, gentle breezes, and an amazing assortment of birds. I wanted to keep looking through my binoculars forever. It was like a window directly into heaven. I saw Mallards, Egrets, Coots, Canadian Geese; the Bufflehead, Ring-neck, Canvas-back, and Green-winged teal ducks. I saw Widgeons, Pied-billed Grebes, Ring-billed Gulls, and the majestic Great Blue Heron. There were a series of tiny bird houses along the waterway which Tom explained were erected by a woman for migratory swallows to replace the tree homes that were cut down during construction of the water reclamation plant. As a result, myriads of swallows filled the air around these ponds in the springtime.
Tom limped out along the waterway using a hockey stick as a crutch. We focused our birdwalk on the area around the central pond and found a plethora of specimens: Killdeer, Red-tailed Hawk, California Thrasher, Says Phoebe, Semipalmated Plover, Cattle Egret (which Tom explained was introduced into North America by a small flock of the birds being trapped in a hurricane in Africa and carried across the Atlantic Ocean); Junco, Starling, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Mockingbird, Kestral, Savannah Sparrow, Turkey Vulture, American Pipit, Spotted Towee, Black Phoebe (Grassdipper), Peregrin Falcon.
“Larry! Larry!” Tom started shouting and waving his arms, dropping the hockey stick in the dirt. I saw a large bird circling high overhead but couldn’t make out the markings. Finally I found him in my binoculars. I saw the distinctive white head and the broad, majestic wing span. I didn’t even know we had bald eagles in Southern California. Fred and Suzanne were delighted. Even Jacob and Degan were enthralled. Larry, the bald eagle, disappeared over the rolling hills toward Sulphur Mountain.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, just made this worth blowin’ my damn knee again,” Tom said, pumping his fist and throwing his hands up, celebrating. “YEAH! YEAY, BABY! GO LARRY!”
Tom high-fived each of us and slammed my son on the back again, almost taking a nose dive into the dirt as he did.
“How did you like that, youngblood?! Almost as good as the blond’s cell number.”
My son just nodded.
“Let’s wrap this thing. Chargers got a playoff game at one.”
Tom got on his cell phone and I deduced he was talking to his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend by all the yelling and cursing that commenced. We waited for a while for him to hang up so we could say our parting words, but he didn’t. Fred and Suzanne looked at us with puzzled expressions and finally we hopped in the car and drove off.
“Hey dad, remind me never to go birdwatching with you again.”
“Hey, you met a friend. You learned something.”
“What did I learn today, dad?”
I had to think about that for a minute.
Relax and move on.