Raising Consciousness
“It was a Dark-and-Stormy-Night,” David told the Morrison woman, “one part dark rum and two parts ginger beer. I learned to make it in the Bahamas last month.”
Morrison, an analyst for the immense state pension fund, was a blonde woman of intermediate-term maturity whose figure was solid. She looked up at him rather anxiously and said, “Well I don’t think I ought to have any more of that.” Then she glanced quickly around the lawn party to reassured herself that they were several croquette mallets-lengths from anyone else. “I had one glass of your Dark-and-Thingy and it almost seemed like the birds were talking to me. I swear.”
David could feel blood pressure pushing color up his face. Damn the bird!
This had started the April before last, when Faye opened the windows for the south-easterly spring air. First he had been surprised to hear his cell phone tinkling in the trees behind the house. Then, as the season of open windows progressed, he was pursued by the sound of his own electric shaver and brief abstracts from concertos (primarily flute and violin solos). Faye had commented on it, “David, I never heard such a thing. What’s flying around up in those trees? Could a parrot have escaped from somewhere?”
“Faye,” he told her, “corporate management is in no position to do anything but think positive.” David had not cared for that line of inquiry, as there had been pickets blocking the entrances to the power plant and a certain amount of hysterical gibberish disguised as thoughtful editorial writing in the papers. But he had unobtrusively retrieved their opera glasses and invested some of his time in peering up into tree-tops. The bird-book said it was a mockingbird...or mockingbirds. How did you tell one from another, anyway? They were northeast of the Limerick reactor and, further down wind, of the Peachbottom plant. Both were proven safe operators, now days. But tree-huggers would make all sorts of claims – and in court, too – if they could find anything solid at which to point. It made everyone in management extra-sensitive to these things. “Faye,” these birds will copy any song they hear. It says so right in this field guide.”
“David,” Faye had given him her look, ‘“Ascent of the Nightingale?”’
“Of course, they copy other birds all the time.” He forestalled her protest with a palm. “In the past, music was less prevalent, Faye. People didn’t play radios and television constantly, the way we do now. Probably the occasional whistling plow-boy did hear his own tune come back to him and attributed it to the effects of an echo, if he thought about it at all. Mockingbirds haven’t changed. We simply play more music.”
It had sounded good to him when he said it. But when he began to hear voices, it
sounded less certainly wise. “David,” Faye had addressed him just last summer, “I was out in the yard this afternoon cutting roses.”
“Good.” he grunted from his Second Empire arm-chair. His wife generally went out only as a means of getting to some other place, so he took that as a final statement.
“But I had to come in,” she went on. “Those little voices un-nerved me so.” He knew what she meant. Between back-up beeps, the chirps of cell-phones, creaking hinges and snatches of instrumental music (mostly solo instruments and quartets) there was now a salad of words, sung, spoken, whispered, muttered, growled, shrieked ...all diced and tossed according to the associational patterns of a small grey bird. He didn’t go out so much himself anymore.
But that was then. Now, Regional wanted to impress this analyst from the state pension fund. The state was thinking of moving into the energy sector in support of the national administration’s thrust. Personally, David thought the price of their company stock was ridiculously low and this might be the stimulus to drive up their market cap by significant figures. It wasn’t just that he happened to own a chunk of it, with options on a good deal more. No, it was that the man pointed out as responsible for facilitating, say, a twenty-percent jump in net worth would weigh a lot more in the scales of corporate judgement; and David meant to be that man.
And in the parking lot, just this morning, when he had invited Sarah Morrison and her team of five assistants to a wrap-up dinner at his home, she had drawn in the spring air and said in the most emotional tones David had heard her use, “Do you think we could do something outside, have a cook-out or something. This atmosphere is divine.”
Hence, the aproned caterers stationed about his great-room and atrium and the white-jacketed waiters idling about his evening lawn with trays of canapes and aperitifs, including his Dark-and-Stormy. He helped himself to another glass and produced a confident smile for the lead analyst of the pension fund’s team.
“I don’t know if you’ve met Dr. Binns,” David reached out an arm to include in the circle of their conversation a man wearing thin hair and an intent expression. “Dr. Binns, here, is chief environmental scientist for the Liberation Foundation. We try to always stay on top of these environmental issues.” He laughed, but Dr. Binns seemed to feel caught in some conflict of interest and he only managed a rictus. The analyst nodded her head and smiled blandly. From inside the house, strains of early Mozart could be heard very faintly. On the open lawn, late Mozart blended with the minimalist sound of crickets just as the last limb of Turneresque sun sank behind early-Sargent tree-tops. David wanted to reach out and push the glowing orb down with his post-modern thumb to silence the damn bird, which was somewhere close. He set his glass on the tray of a passing waiter.
Whether it was his own use of the phrase or simply a fondness the mockingbird had recently developed for Faye’s Broadway show tunes, David hardly paused to wonder. “Environmental issues, environ-mental issues,” whined mosquito-like in his ear, to the first bars of, “Some Enchanted Evening.” “Say, Dr. Binns,” David boomed abruptly, “what was it you were telling me just a little while ago about that study on down-stream water purity?”
The little man, who David knew for a fact to be a bit hard of hearing anyway, nodded his head and replied as agreed, “Why, yes, I had reviewed the conclusions on some data one of our researchers developed.”
“Three-leggèd tadpole–tweet-tweet–three-leggèd tadpole–burble-of-a-cell-phone” the sounds now seemed to be piped onto the dusky lawn party from somewhere higher in the trees. The Morrison woman was looking around distractedly.
“That’s very interesting,” David interjected, maybe just a little too heartily. “Perhaps we might move indoors, to get away from the evening chill? Dr. Morrison?” He made to usher them all toward the French doors, now beginning to glow with lamp light against the growing dusk. “You know, we get a lot of criticism from the tree-hugger community,” he murmured good-naturedly, bending over the woman as he walked. “They have to grind their axe. Wouldn’t want them to be out of work, they might wind up on Welfare. Ha! But we really have a very clean environmental record, you know. Dr. Binns, here, is just the man to fill you in on our contributions in that area.” “...contribution to...little contribution to...put it in your pocket, save it for a ra-ainy da-ay...” twittered the sleepy bird. It wasn’t so clear anymore, and hope stirred in David’s breast that Morrison hadn’t heard.
“Say,” she said in a bemused voice, “do you hear anything funny?”
“Yes, well,” Dr. Binns began, “much of public concern centered on the, ah, utilities industry revolves around waste storage and disposal. I can assure anyone who is willing to examine our research, that tales of, oh, environmental impact are totally lacking in foundation. In fact, aside from some controversial, anecdotal data, almost nothing with, ah, statistical validity, there appears on close examination to be no impact at all in marker species such as the tubifex worm and common starling.
“That’s a relief to hear,” the analyst said as they proceeded across the now-dusky garden. “One hears so much about the frogs disappearing and so forth. Could I have a copy of your data, do you think?”
“To be sure,” David promised.
“Certainly,” Dr. Binns assured, almost simultaneously.
Three or four guests, it was hard to be certain in the growing dusk, were grouped together by the side of the house. Sarah Morrison broke from their course to step toward the small group, calling out, “Maynard, Abbie, is that you?”
A woman motioned hastily with one hand for them to approach, and David could do nothing other than follow the analyst as she moved to join the cluster. As they neared, the woman, apparently one of Morrison’s team, guided her supervisor’s sight, with a surreptitious finger at waist-level, toward the side of the house, where the garden hose hung coiled neatly on its plastic rack. David straightened his spine to get a clear view over the Morrison woman’s head.
Against the shadowed wall, seemingly undisturbed by the respectful watchers who had gathered, small dark forms moved. David saw it was a pair of the racoons that had invaded the nearby golf course. They stood erect on their hind legs, and with the combined strength of their clever paws, they were struggling to turn the handle of the hose tap. As his pupils dilated to take this in, David saw the circular handle advance a fraction and one of the racoons fell to all fours, licking at the trickle which emerged from the dangling nozzle. The other racoon, which had remained standing with its paws on the faucet handle, seemed somewhat larger, perhaps a parent. When it gave a chirrup, the second one rose again. The two of them seized the looped hose and began to pull it off the wide hook on which the gardeners had coiled it. In seconds the racoons had disappeared into the ilex shrubbery along with yards of hose.
“Clever little devils, aren’t they?” David’s mind leapt from possibility to possibility, searching for that favorable light which deserved to be shed on the performance. “I, uh, saw on the tv that they like to wash their food.” His voice had risen in pitch. “What say we move on into the house and see what the little woman has had the caterers prepare for dinner?” He hoped he sounded dismissive. But, as he spoke, the Morrison woman turned hooded eyes on him.
“Come on, now, we’re all business people here,” he forced a smile and went on. “This is America. We all understand that nothing much could really be wrong.”
Morrison, an analyst for the immense state pension fund, was a blonde woman of intermediate-term maturity whose figure was solid. She looked up at him rather anxiously and said, “Well I don’t think I ought to have any more of that.” Then she glanced quickly around the lawn party to reassured herself that they were several croquette mallets-lengths from anyone else. “I had one glass of your Dark-and-Thingy and it almost seemed like the birds were talking to me. I swear.”
David could feel blood pressure pushing color up his face. Damn the bird!
This had started the April before last, when Faye opened the windows for the south-easterly spring air. First he had been surprised to hear his cell phone tinkling in the trees behind the house. Then, as the season of open windows progressed, he was pursued by the sound of his own electric shaver and brief abstracts from concertos (primarily flute and violin solos). Faye had commented on it, “David, I never heard such a thing. What’s flying around up in those trees? Could a parrot have escaped from somewhere?”
“Faye,” he told her, “corporate management is in no position to do anything but think positive.” David had not cared for that line of inquiry, as there had been pickets blocking the entrances to the power plant and a certain amount of hysterical gibberish disguised as thoughtful editorial writing in the papers. But he had unobtrusively retrieved their opera glasses and invested some of his time in peering up into tree-tops. The bird-book said it was a mockingbird...or mockingbirds. How did you tell one from another, anyway? They were northeast of the Limerick reactor and, further down wind, of the Peachbottom plant. Both were proven safe operators, now days. But tree-huggers would make all sorts of claims – and in court, too – if they could find anything solid at which to point. It made everyone in management extra-sensitive to these things. “Faye,” these birds will copy any song they hear. It says so right in this field guide.”
“David,” Faye had given him her look, ‘“Ascent of the Nightingale?”’
“Of course, they copy other birds all the time.” He forestalled her protest with a palm. “In the past, music was less prevalent, Faye. People didn’t play radios and television constantly, the way we do now. Probably the occasional whistling plow-boy did hear his own tune come back to him and attributed it to the effects of an echo, if he thought about it at all. Mockingbirds haven’t changed. We simply play more music.”
It had sounded good to him when he said it. But when he began to hear voices, it
sounded less certainly wise. “David,” Faye had addressed him just last summer, “I was out in the yard this afternoon cutting roses.”
“Good.” he grunted from his Second Empire arm-chair. His wife generally went out only as a means of getting to some other place, so he took that as a final statement.
“But I had to come in,” she went on. “Those little voices un-nerved me so.” He knew what she meant. Between back-up beeps, the chirps of cell-phones, creaking hinges and snatches of instrumental music (mostly solo instruments and quartets) there was now a salad of words, sung, spoken, whispered, muttered, growled, shrieked ...all diced and tossed according to the associational patterns of a small grey bird. He didn’t go out so much himself anymore.
But that was then. Now, Regional wanted to impress this analyst from the state pension fund. The state was thinking of moving into the energy sector in support of the national administration’s thrust. Personally, David thought the price of their company stock was ridiculously low and this might be the stimulus to drive up their market cap by significant figures. It wasn’t just that he happened to own a chunk of it, with options on a good deal more. No, it was that the man pointed out as responsible for facilitating, say, a twenty-percent jump in net worth would weigh a lot more in the scales of corporate judgement; and David meant to be that man.
And in the parking lot, just this morning, when he had invited Sarah Morrison and her team of five assistants to a wrap-up dinner at his home, she had drawn in the spring air and said in the most emotional tones David had heard her use, “Do you think we could do something outside, have a cook-out or something. This atmosphere is divine.”
Hence, the aproned caterers stationed about his great-room and atrium and the white-jacketed waiters idling about his evening lawn with trays of canapes and aperitifs, including his Dark-and-Stormy. He helped himself to another glass and produced a confident smile for the lead analyst of the pension fund’s team.
“I don’t know if you’ve met Dr. Binns,” David reached out an arm to include in the circle of their conversation a man wearing thin hair and an intent expression. “Dr. Binns, here, is chief environmental scientist for the Liberation Foundation. We try to always stay on top of these environmental issues.” He laughed, but Dr. Binns seemed to feel caught in some conflict of interest and he only managed a rictus. The analyst nodded her head and smiled blandly. From inside the house, strains of early Mozart could be heard very faintly. On the open lawn, late Mozart blended with the minimalist sound of crickets just as the last limb of Turneresque sun sank behind early-Sargent tree-tops. David wanted to reach out and push the glowing orb down with his post-modern thumb to silence the damn bird, which was somewhere close. He set his glass on the tray of a passing waiter.
Whether it was his own use of the phrase or simply a fondness the mockingbird had recently developed for Faye’s Broadway show tunes, David hardly paused to wonder. “Environmental issues, environ-mental issues,” whined mosquito-like in his ear, to the first bars of, “Some Enchanted Evening.” “Say, Dr. Binns,” David boomed abruptly, “what was it you were telling me just a little while ago about that study on down-stream water purity?”
The little man, who David knew for a fact to be a bit hard of hearing anyway, nodded his head and replied as agreed, “Why, yes, I had reviewed the conclusions on some data one of our researchers developed.”
“Three-leggèd tadpole–tweet-tweet–three-leggèd tadpole–burble-of-a-cell-phone” the sounds now seemed to be piped onto the dusky lawn party from somewhere higher in the trees. The Morrison woman was looking around distractedly.
“That’s very interesting,” David interjected, maybe just a little too heartily. “Perhaps we might move indoors, to get away from the evening chill? Dr. Morrison?” He made to usher them all toward the French doors, now beginning to glow with lamp light against the growing dusk. “You know, we get a lot of criticism from the tree-hugger community,” he murmured good-naturedly, bending over the woman as he walked. “They have to grind their axe. Wouldn’t want them to be out of work, they might wind up on Welfare. Ha! But we really have a very clean environmental record, you know. Dr. Binns, here, is just the man to fill you in on our contributions in that area.” “...contribution to...little contribution to...put it in your pocket, save it for a ra-ainy da-ay...” twittered the sleepy bird. It wasn’t so clear anymore, and hope stirred in David’s breast that Morrison hadn’t heard.
“Say,” she said in a bemused voice, “do you hear anything funny?”
“Yes, well,” Dr. Binns began, “much of public concern centered on the, ah, utilities industry revolves around waste storage and disposal. I can assure anyone who is willing to examine our research, that tales of, oh, environmental impact are totally lacking in foundation. In fact, aside from some controversial, anecdotal data, almost nothing with, ah, statistical validity, there appears on close examination to be no impact at all in marker species such as the tubifex worm and common starling.
“That’s a relief to hear,” the analyst said as they proceeded across the now-dusky garden. “One hears so much about the frogs disappearing and so forth. Could I have a copy of your data, do you think?”
“To be sure,” David promised.
“Certainly,” Dr. Binns assured, almost simultaneously.
Three or four guests, it was hard to be certain in the growing dusk, were grouped together by the side of the house. Sarah Morrison broke from their course to step toward the small group, calling out, “Maynard, Abbie, is that you?”
A woman motioned hastily with one hand for them to approach, and David could do nothing other than follow the analyst as she moved to join the cluster. As they neared, the woman, apparently one of Morrison’s team, guided her supervisor’s sight, with a surreptitious finger at waist-level, toward the side of the house, where the garden hose hung coiled neatly on its plastic rack. David straightened his spine to get a clear view over the Morrison woman’s head.
Against the shadowed wall, seemingly undisturbed by the respectful watchers who had gathered, small dark forms moved. David saw it was a pair of the racoons that had invaded the nearby golf course. They stood erect on their hind legs, and with the combined strength of their clever paws, they were struggling to turn the handle of the hose tap. As his pupils dilated to take this in, David saw the circular handle advance a fraction and one of the racoons fell to all fours, licking at the trickle which emerged from the dangling nozzle. The other racoon, which had remained standing with its paws on the faucet handle, seemed somewhat larger, perhaps a parent. When it gave a chirrup, the second one rose again. The two of them seized the looped hose and began to pull it off the wide hook on which the gardeners had coiled it. In seconds the racoons had disappeared into the ilex shrubbery along with yards of hose.
“Clever little devils, aren’t they?” David’s mind leapt from possibility to possibility, searching for that favorable light which deserved to be shed on the performance. “I, uh, saw on the tv that they like to wash their food.” His voice had risen in pitch. “What say we move on into the house and see what the little woman has had the caterers prepare for dinner?” He hoped he sounded dismissive. But, as he spoke, the Morrison woman turned hooded eyes on him.
“Come on, now, we’re all business people here,” he forced a smile and went on. “This is America. We all understand that nothing much could really be wrong.”