“Right,” she was saying, “Daddy says they’re on the endangered species list.”

  “Does your father do hawks too?”

  “Oh, no, he’d never,” Betty said, “not in a million years.” They were half-bending over him. Their faces swung with the room. The hawk was on the floor above his head. He could feel the leash pull at his wrist. Now and then he got a little breeze from the beating wings. Betty and Peter Sweet were bending over him, but they looked in the direction of the hawk.

  “Daddy belongs to the Sierra Club and about a dozen other conservation groups. So he knows about the endangered species list. Once anything gets on it, they almost never get off. About the only way to get off is to get wiped out.”

  “Is that so?” said Peter Sweet in a voice so full of concern and sympathy they might have been talking about a relative.

  “Right,” she said, “then they go on the extinct list. The extinct list seems to be the only way to get off the endangered one.”

  A long pause while they stared quietly at the hawk.

  “A beautiful bird,” Peter Sweet said, “a noble bird.”

  “But getting to look a little ragged,” said Betty.

  “Still a most noble bird,” said Peter Sweet.

  “I guess. I don’t know anything about noble,” she said. “Daddy’d just about shit though if he could see the thing tied down on a leash.”

  “It seems calmer to me,” he said.

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said. She made a casual wipe at George’s forehead with her cold dry palm. “Maybe it’s about manned. Christ, I hope so. I hope he can get it manned before he kills it.”

  “Manned?”

  “That’s what he calls this,” she said, “manning the bird.”

  “Very interesting,” he said.

  “So was genocide,” she said, “until Hitler actually tried it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t either,” she said.

  Beyond their heads, George could see the catafalque had been set right again. The coffin was back on it. Fred was back in it, propped at a seemly angle for viewing.

  His face glowed with life. He slept on. George searched the apple cheeks for some sign of the hawk’s talons. There was none.

  “A vet,” Betty was saying, “a large animal veterinarian.”

  “Where?”

  “Ft. Lauderdale,” she said.

  “A large animal vet in Ft. Lauderdale?”

  “There are more large animals in Ft. Lauderdale than you’d think,” she said. “Daddy’s got four vets working for him in his clinic.”

  George moaned to bring their attention back to him. “What happened?” he grunted, remembering in the most precise and awful detail exactly what had happened.

  “You fainted,” she said.

  “How is … is he?” asked George.

  “He’s fine,” Peter Sweet said, “just fine.” He looked toward Fred. “Good as new.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said.

  “How is the hawk?”

  “Better than Fred,” Betty said.

  George gave her his sternest look, but he knew it did not come off, because he had to concentrate too much on making it stern. “You’re not a good human being, Betty,” he said.

  “Some of us aren’t,” she said.

  George turned to Peter Sweet. “I’m sorry I fainted.”

  “That’s all right.” Peter Sweet gently squeezed his arm, seemed to test it between his fingers. “It’s only to be expected.”

  “You think you can get up now?” asked Betty.

  George sat up slowly, looked at the hawk, then got to his knees. “I’ll be all right,” he said. He crawled over to the hawk. He could feel Peter Sweet and Betty watching him. He felt like a child crawling toward the hawk. His mouth felt like it wanted to make baby noises. He was afraid it would start against his will. He never in his life had felt less in control. The hawk stood watching him crawl toward her. She was fluffed angrily, her half-spread wings rigid, her eyes flaring. But she did not move away from him. He gently slipped his hand under her breast. She actually seemed to press her breast into his palm. He set her on his wrist and stood up.

  “She seems … changed,” Betty said.

  “Probably just exhausted,” said George. “I’ve probably ruined her by hauling her around all over town like this.”

  But he knew just by the way she sat his wrist, by the constant pressure of her talons, that she had in fact changed. It was almost unheard of for a hawk to submit in a day and a night. The greatest of austringers were said to be able to man a bird in two days and nights. Fools sometimes took as long as nine days. But in none of the books did anybody ever say it was possible in a day and a night. The thought that he may have made the hawk his own in so short a time sent a little thrill of pleasure coursing in his blood. So sharp was the pleasure and sense of being fulfilled that he forgot completely about the boy lying propped out of the coffin behind him.

  “You can look now,” said Peter Sweet.

  “What?”

  “The boy. I’ve made it right. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Peter Sweet had taken his free arm and was turning him, taking him closer to the coffin. “You’ll want to watch that bird though.”

  “She’s all right now,” said George.

  “Keep back! Keep that thing away!” Peter Sweet looked like he would grab the bird himself.

  George deliberately put the hawk over the coffin, directly over the apple-cheeked vulnerable face. “She won’t fly again,” he said. He was glad for the hawk, glad she was there to talk about, to use to distract them. He did not want to look at the boy himself.

  “He cut on the bias,” said Betty.

  “What?” said George, but understanding already.

  “On the bias,” she said. “Along the natural contour of the bone. He’s a magician, do anything with a face he wants to.”

  “I do wish you’d move back with that thing,” Peter Sweet murmured.

  “A magician,” said Betty. “An absolute magician. It was something to see.” She pulled impatiently at George’s arm. “Look. Look at the way he did it.”

  But George had already inspected the face. In spite of himself, his eyes had been pulled down to the smooth rounded contours of his nephew’s face. There was not a mark on it.

  “Oh, that’s too generous,” said Peter Sweet. “Really is too generous.”

  George had taken a feather out of his pocket and was stroking the hawk’s breast with it. He made cooing noises with his mouth. Stroking the bird with the feather, he imagined he was totally absorbed by what he was doing and at the same time he wanted desperately to leave. The boy’s face, repaired, disguised, hidden, camouflaged, made him breathless and faint. It was worse than seeing the gaping bloodless wound the scalpel had made.

  “… generous, but I do make every effort.” Peter Sweet had come closer to wave his supple hands over the body propped out of the casket. He made quick fluid gestures as he talked. “Anybody can learn to embalm, anybody can learn to prepare the deceased, but the art,” he raised a thin finger in trembling emphasis, “the art is in the face. That’s what people buy. That’s what they expect. I have an uncle who really is a magician. He can rebuild a face with only ten percent of it left and a good photograph. Do you follow that? Just bring him an ear and a cheek—and a good photograph to work from—and he’ll give you the rest of the face. With any expression you want: defiant, accepting, happy, quizzical, anything. Uncle Hubert can do anything with a face but make it breathe again.”

  “The hawk needs air,” said George, turning from the coffin.

  “What?” said Peter Sweet.

  “Air … air,” gasped George rushing from the room.

  At the iron grilled gate, Peter Sweet shook his hand with the welder’s glove still on it. It was daylight but the sun was hidden behind a dark cloudy horizon. It felt like rain. The hawk’s head drooped, swinging from left to right with the movement of his arm. She felt as tame as a chicken on his wrist.

  “It’s been an unusual night,” said Peter Sweet.

  “Yes,” said George, anxious to leave.

  “But we try to be prepared here for anything.”

  “You done good,” Betty said, patting his smooth shoulder. “You kept it all together and you done good.”

  “Look,” said George, “I’m sorry about the …”

  “It’s all right,” said Peter Sweet.

  George started across the parking lot.

  “You take care of that hawk,” called the undertaker.

  “How’s that?” said George, pausing.

  “I said take care of that hawk, you must think a lot of it.”

  “I do.”

  “Then take care of it. It’s beginning to look run down.”

  “They look like that in training,” George said.

  “Yeah, they take a lot of bad gas in training,” Betty said.

  “It can’t be helped,” said George.

  “I know how that is,” Peter Sweet said.

  They left him standing there and went across the lot to Betty’s car. Peter Sweet was still standing in the door waving as they drove off down the street. The hawk rode George’s fist, her head bobbing and rolling. She was trying to sleep. He rubbed her neck and breast with the long feather. Her head sank lower. He brushed her gently on the side of the head. She straightened up, blinking and snapping her crooked mouth.

  “He didn’t turn out to be a bad guy,” she said. “I helped him with the operation.” She glanced at him. “It wasn’t bad after he got started. After he made that first cut, there was hardly anything to it.”

  “You don’t …”

  “What knocked me out was how light it was. I helped him pick it up off the floor. Like a feather. Jesus. Which of course was because …”

  “You don’t have to go into it,” he said. He slapped the hawk with the feather. She lifted her head, darted a look at the street, and immediately began to doze again.

  “You’ve broken your bird,” she said.

  “You don’t break’m,” he said. “You man’m.”

  “You’ve broken that one,” she said. “Jesus, quit slapping it!”

  “You man’m, you don’t break’m,” he said. “And if I quit slapping it it’ll go to sleep.”

  “Break, goddamit, break! Call it by the right name.”

  “You’re somebody to talk,” he said bitterly, “A doctor’s daughter!” He saw the quick flush of color in her cheeks and thought he’d struck a nerve. “You play at being poor and you’re a goddam doctor’s daughter—from Ft. Lauderdale, no less.” He mimicked her voice: “Daddy’s got four vets working for him in his clinic.”

  He couldn’t forgive her that. He felt his own face burning in anger. She had come into his shop looking like something from World War Two. The ass had been worn out of the denim trousers she was wearing and had been patched with something pink and faded. Her shirt was wrinkled and dirty. She was barefoot and looked starved. And she’d come into his shop looking for a job, saying she was willing to do anything, which turned out to be true.

  “Pretending to be poor is worse than pretending to be rich,” he said, pretending disgust.

  She was staring straight ahead, her face gone back to its natural color. But her lips were thinner than ever. It reminded him of the way she did her mouth when she was about to pretend to have an orgasm. “Where do you want me to drop you?”

  “I’ll go back with you. To your place.”

  “You don’t want to do that,” she said.

  “I can’t go back home now,” he said. “The hawk needs more work. And they’ll only chase me if I go now.”

  “Maybe they won’t.”

  “But they might. I’ll go with you.”

  “If that’s what feels good,” she said, “you can come. I don’t really give a shit one way or the other.”

  The house was quiet, everybody apparently still asleep when they got there. The day had grown darker. The eastern horizon was black with rain clouds. George got out of the car and followed her across the weedy yard and down the long hall to her room. Enormous drops of rain were striking the dirty glass of the window and the room darkened as though night was coming.

  “Bad weather,” said George.

  She said nothing but stood where she was at a chest of drawers. She had her back to him and he could not see what she was doing. Directly she turned and took a little metal box to the table and sat down. She opened the box and took out a cellophane bag.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Rolling a joint,” she said.

  “You mean marijuana?”

  “That’s what I mean,” she said, licking the paper she had expertly rolled into a thin tight cigarette.

  “I read that stuff causes brain damage,” he said.

  “God, I hope so,” she said.

  “That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “I guess.”

  He sat on a chair and groaned.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My arm’s breaking off,” he said. “The whole right side of my body hurts.”

  “You ought to do a number with me,” she said. “Take that thing off your arm and get your head fucked up with me. Man was not meant to live with his head always straight.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Listen,” she said. “They’ve said marijuana will give you everything from schizophrenia to hemorrhoids. Don’t pay any attention to that brain damage shit. Doing a joint is like drinking a glass of beer, only better.”

  “I can’t take the hawk off my arm,” he said.

  “Whatever feels good,” she said, lighting up. “I don’t really give a shit.”

  He sat watching her smoke. He’d never seen anybody smoke marijuana. Some of the smoke came to him across the table. Sweet, smelled good. He could hardly believe how short she smoked it, down to less than a quarter of an inch, and then popped the live butt into her mouth and swallowed it.

  “Doesn’t that make you sick, eating it?”

  She gave him a low and gentle smile. “Nope.”

  They sat regarding each other. Somewhere in the house, a toilet flushed. Rain drummed at the window. The room grew darker. The hawk seemed about to collapse. He had to constantly brush its neck and head to keep it from sleeping.

  “I’ve got an idea,” she said. The smile remained on her mouth, meaningless, forgotten. It gave her face a slightly crazy look. “Let’s make us an artificial arm and hand. Put the glove on it. Put the hawk on the glove. Put a joint in your hand and get Humpty Dumpty together again.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said.

  “Now you’re talking,” she said.

  “Is it really like drinking beer?”

  “Precisely and exactly,” she said. The crazy smile seemed to get deeper, more intimate.

  “I could do with a beer now,” he said. “I really could.”

  “Watch this and try to believe it.”

  She went to the chest of drawers and brought back a long white sock. She wadded up some sheets of newspaper and stuffed the sock full. From a shelf over the bed she took down a roll of adhesive tape. She wrapped the sock with the tape until the roll was empty. She came over to where he was and took the welder’s glove off his left hand and jammed the taped sock down in it as far as it would go. She got a dictionary and an art history book from beside her bed and put them on the floor with the glove between them. The glove was propped up at a forty-five degree angle.

  “What do you think?” she asked, still on her knees beside the glove.

  He didn’t say anything, couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “More important,” she said, “what does the hawk think?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, feeling inexpressibly stupid.

  “We won’t know, won’t ever know, if we don’t put her on it.

  “She won’t stand for that.”

  “Try her,” she said. “Wrap the leash around the bottom book and set her on the glove. See what happens.”

  His shoulder was breaking. The thought of taking the hawk off his aching arm made him giddy with pleasure. Still he sat where he was. It seemed wrong to put the hawk on a phony arm while the real arm rested. There was no doubt in his mind at all that it was an evil thing to do. But the pain, Jesus! Since he had started thinking about it, it had got worse. He found himself leaning toward the glove propped out of the books and Betty reached up and took his arm and drew him down beside her. Without thinking, he moved the hawk toward the phony hand. When her talons touched it, she stepped to the glove. He moved his sore and aching arm up and down slowly. Now that the hawk was off, it only seemed to make it hurt worse.

  “Looks to take right to it,” said Betty.

  “We better wait and see how long she stays there before we talk too much.”

  “You want that joint now?”

  He didn’t say anything and she got up and brought the little metal box back to where he was sitting on the floor in front of the hawk. He stroked the hawk with the feather and she twisted together a cigarette. He took it when she held it toward him.

  “Suck it good and deep,” she said, “and hold it. That’s right. Get a little air with it. Yeah. Here, let me.” She took the joint and showed him. He took it back. “Right,” she said. “Now you’re getting it.”

  He handed her the feather and she stroked the bird while he smoked. The joint caused the back of his throat to burn. He was slightly nauseated and he felt that the marijuana was doing absolutely nothing to him but maybe making him a little sicker.

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  “You don’t know if you like it or not,” she said, “give it a chance.”

  “It’s not doing anything.”

  “In a minute, you’ll shake your ass and your head will fall off. You’ll see.”

  She had twisted together another joint. And while they split it, they talked.

  “You’ve made a believer out of that bird,” she said as George slapped the hawk up side the head with the feather.

  “You don’t know anything about it,” he said.

  She closed one eye and focused on the bird.

 

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