4.11.97

Parking Lot East of Anchor's Aweigh

2:30 am. I'm just off work, an amazingly annoying night. I park in the usual spot. I'm going to stop by Anchor's to see who's there, get a cup o' Joe to take home and chase my whiskey with, pay my tidings those drunks that left my bar an hour before. There is only one parking spot in this lot that is, during normal day hours (which I have never seen here) reserved for witnesses at the courthouse on the corner. I close the car door, shrink up into my jacket against the unusually cold April air, and two car lengths later, damn near trip over a tiny, solid shadow.
It's a duck. It makes painful sounds I've never heard before and runs from my clumsy feet. I'm a bit startled, even more surprised. This is a parking lot downtown in a fairly large metropolitan city, and there's a duck waddling around. A duck.
A damn cute one at that, I find myself thinking. I look around the area, wondering if he's a pet of someone who's nearby. Nope. He's jet black in this late night light, and I lean down and try to talk to him soothingly. The usual stuff suckers like me say to animals, as though he understands... trying to coax him to me . Is he hurt? Why can he not fly away? What is he doing in this place? Do I call someone? When I lean down, he just runs away with a beautiful quack. I chase him tentatively. His webbed feet amaze me. I think of the family that lived a block away from me when I was in high school that raised ducks. We thought those people strange. I'm understanding the attraction now.
So I finally walk into Anchor's and tell those I know that there is a duck in the parking lot.

"A what?"

A duck. No shit.

"Cool," they say, "we can do Japanese tonight."

Um, no. Not what I had in mind. I huff at the thought of a stray dog and Chinese food.

I speak to the usual group of people-I-mostly-don't-care-about and rush back to the parking lot. The car the duck was hiding behind is now gone, and I wonder if that car's occupants even noticed his presence. Probably not. I actually consider calling the police but then I have two revelations: 1) I'd probably end up on some damned "Can You Believe They Said That" kinda newspaper articles, and 2) there's a cop less than a block away, checking out someone in a car that looks threatening to authority figures this time of night, and, of course, he'll be damned if he's gonna quit that situation for a lost, lame duck.
Well, fuck'em all, I think. I want to pet the duck's orange bill goodbye before I leave, but he runs away again.

I'm thinking this duck and I have much in common. Stuck. You find help, run like a motherfucker. It's often safer that way.

I had a very disturbing dream last night about my sister. She's schizophrenic, and I always fear the day she becomes my responsibility, as much as I love her. Margaret (yeah, same name as that stripper I always talk about, go figure that one out ). She's four years older than me, born on Christmas, and in this dream, for some reason I was living with her and I was her guardian, which I will someday be. She was having one of those moments where those voices she hears are coming from inside the walls, and, she logically decides, probably from people who know all the'horrible' things she's done. She screams, she's terrified. She does this sometimes. And, in this dream, as she freaks out on me, and I lose my temper. I cannot handle her. I cannot deal with her psychosis. The details of my reactions have faded, as dreams do, but I clearly remember waking up and feeling the thick film of guilt on my face, near tears, wondering if that's how I will actually react when the day does come that I become my beautiful sister's keeper.

I do not have the needed strength. I think of the moments I've had with my dog Rollins, the lack of patience, the selfishness, the love I cannot sometimes handle.

I've developed an odd talent. I can now create enough suction with just my tongue to actually draw blood from my gums. I think I may be falling apart.

wwood