I dug out a Starbucks

January 01, 2004

I dug out a Starbucks #6 plastic blister pack clear iced frappacino cup, and a mangled MacDonald’s kid’s pack bag with fragments of a green and black crossword puzzle visibly pierced by the red plastic straw forced outward from inside when this mass was crammed under the passenger seat by a soccer boot or a dog’s snout or the snow chains I placed behind the seat a few days ago. The sliding side door of the pod vehicle is retracted and its time to clear out the detritus of two hundred plus child hauling missions. It was time to put the bones and skeletons to rest and get them into the cycle of decomposition and new life. It took no detective to figure out the Starbucks cup dated back to the summer. Fast food and coffee consumed quickly and remnants thrown aside with cleanup sliding farther and farther down the priority list. The cycle of life has its back eddies, hiccups and belly button lint. There are jet fuel canisters littered below the palm fronds of the war torn airfield. It will take foreign aid and a peaceful decade before the rusty hulks are finally plowed under the new industrial park. Step it up and go.
The first snowfall has quieted the ‘hood. Uncharacteristically low on the pink noise curve for being so close to the highway and a metre or two too high up the hill to benefit from the fifteen foot terra cotta noise barrier. Rain town is never prepared for this. Why is it always a surprise? Insurance companies should pay for driver’s education courses padded with swag -- free coffee, outdoor wear, bonus cell phone minutes and mountain discounts. Take the course and reap the benefits of west coast living. Learn to drive even when the road might be slippery. There is no snow component to current education. The school of hard knocks can be avoided.
The littlest one scrapes away gleefully below the front window with a shovel longer than he is tall. Helping us all out with his contribution to a cause he doesn’t see as a losing one at all. Snow keeps falling. He keeps shoveling. Perfect. I am across and up the yard with my feet on the sidewalk and my body bent into the mini van searching out more garbage bag treasures. There is a dull thump and a shudder of hard materials recovering quicky from impact. He cries out, “Dad! Guess what. A bird just fell off the roof. Come and see”. I can see a gray mass in front of him. Shovel blade up and handle in his right hand just like how he usually holds a hockey stick when standing at rest. He has overheated and has tossed his tuque in favour of a dusting of snow and steam on his crazy blond curls. He’s down to a T-shirt. I reply, “what do you mean?” and move toward him mini van sludge clutched to my chest.
The bird has not fallen from the roof. More detective work is unnecessary. If the front window had not been there this beautiful big thrush would have made it clear through the living room, then the dining room, and maybe met its demise against the inside of the back sliding glass door. If it had been summer he might have made it all the way. No. It was a plan that was foiled by snow. The untouched blanket of snow on the front lawn has taken away any identifying reflected images that might have indicated a glass wall was in the way. High up in the middle of the large centre pane is a yellowed smudge where the crest feathers of the bird have somehow left traces of their glorious hue. If crushed then brightly coloured feathers must give up their essence. Maybe ancient cultures employed this technique to make dyes and paints. This impact point is at head height for me. Flying low and in search of shelter this bird just did it all wrong. Typical west coast snow surprise. Mother thrush provide no instructions on either migration or local navigation. I guess nobody around here has the skills.
My boy is fascinated and sad as he notices the blood pooling outward in a bright claret circle around the bird’s head. Its beak is bent down to its breast unnaturally and its face is pressed into the cool anesthetic snow. The ruby syrup diffuses slowly from snowflake to snowflake giving its perimeter a soft fade from dark wine into bright white. It is both sickening and strangely captivating. Its last blast of adrenaline must be floating outward through the air as a vapour. You can almost taste it on your tongue. We can feel its little soul in transition form one plane to another. Its so quiet and the form the bird has taken emphasizes the stillness. It is as still as it has ever been. When you freeze a body so radically designed for extreme aerial motion and flexibility it can seem more inert than inert -- blackish gray bird with yellow stripes lying still on a bright white cold cotton canvas, its head emanating a bright red glowing corona.
Then came the unsavoury funerial duties. I always took on this job as a kid in order to guarantee that the job was handled with respect and decency. I thought my dad would probably just huck any poor animal in with the garbage or down the toilet. This just didn’t seem right. I was a middle child. My middle child’s first words, upon being third to the scene, were, “whatever you do Dad don’t throw it in the garbage.That would be wrong”. I asked him to hold the bag as I gingerly cradled the bird on the flat blade of the spade and slid it slowly inside. I told him he didn’t have to look. There was no place in the yard that the dog couldn’t find freshly tilled soil and start to dig. A trip out to the woods was in order. A proper burial. A tree will grow there. A thrush will light in the tree once in a while. A proper burial keeps the story simple. It completes the cycle in the young mind. Order to accident to order once again. The cycle of the Starbuck’s plastic cup I have not been able to figure out in the same simple way.That is on a longer curve. That one is a long shot.