Morning comes over the loudspeaker with its relentless goodwill.
There will be activities at the clubhouse and the swimming pool. Some kind of luau on the concrete deck. Expect leis. And don’t forget the hike with Jeff, the champion birdwatcher.
You’ve seen him, haven’t you, hanging about on the edges of things with his field glasses and khaki shorts? Incongruous argyle socks slipping down over knobby knees? He’ll be at the trailhead at the edge of the marsh where the path leads, in a little ways, to the lake that most of you have never seen, preferring, as you do, water made of chlorine.
Morning seems to be hectoring us now through static and feedback and oldies tunes. There are pancakes and an ice cream social when noon takes over; a cookout on evening’s shift with Dan grilling burgers and hotdogs for the kids.
I get up, if only to get away from it all. I wander past the milling that will, eventually, form a line for pancakes, everyone emerging in an hour or so, bloated with carbs they didn’t need and small talk that circles needlessly.
I make my way down the road to the edge of the marsh where Jeff is standing so close to the trunk of a tree that I almost don’t see him, bathed, as he is, in shadow.
But he’s there, sure enough, checking his watch.
I watch from a distance.
The people will be there soon, talking about the pancakes they just ate. The woman who can’t give up her cell phone. The guy with the belly and the ball cap making a joke about the Crested Tit. And Jeff, who needs the money, choking out a laugh that strangles somewhere in his long neck and emerges as a cough.
I think of the weariness that will come over him the third time the little boy with the bag of Cheetos breaks free from his mother’s grasp and goes waving his arms at a thrush.
It’s a split-second decision. I see them coming and move towards Jeff in a rush. Stage whisper in his ear, “Go on, go on, I’ll hold them off!”
Minutes stretch. I bloat the time with small talk until the man with the belly and cap begins to mumble about the money he’s paid.
“Hang on,” I say, “I’ll go down the trail aways and see if I can find him.”
I find him.
Wading into the water at the edge of the lake until he’s shoulder-deep. I watch his head submerge, come up again, neck graceful now and craning.
They’re coming. I can hear the swirl of their talk like the buzz of wasps about the Magnum wrappers in the wire trash can.
“So where’s he got to?” says the man, a bit of violence beneath his laugh.
I shrug my shoulders then, turning, point.
“Look,” I say, “a crane.”
And there it is, rising from the water. A Sandhill. Khaki, almost, against a sky gone suddenly gray. It folds its knobby knees up and spreads its wings as if to embrace that first roll of thunder; those gentle drops of rain.
Gentle, then, soon, furious. Drops pelting them like pellets, like sheets, like waves.
Sends running back up the hillside towards the clubhouse where snacks are and possibly a movie about nature.
I let the rain fall on my head and back, run down my cheeks, get in my eyes.
I spread my arms as if to embrace the thunder.
As if I know how to fly.
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