Turkey Vultures and the Bridesmaid Dress

By M. Eileen

Letter One 

What happened was when I walked past the gate they have around the dumpster, this squirrel, round like a globe, or like a tire, he was like a tire, almost as big as one, almost as round and almost as tall, he leapt onto the metal and shook the gate and scoffed at me. I know you laughed at me on the phone for how I described the size, but I stand by my description. It was as big as a car tire. I swear. 

 “I don’t want any of your garbage,” I pleaded, “I’m going to go, I’m not going to bother you.” And he hissed at me so I started to run and I stumbled because the slabs of stone here are all uneven and shattering, and I got my foot caught in a crevice, I didn’t fall, but I was running through the squirrel playground—their designated land, no one will fight them on it, it has a clear path to the dumpster, some tall trees that they can skimper up into…I think if more people were less attached to technology, the way I want to be, they would notice that the squirrels are forming a collective, or think about how they have the whole system of hiding their food and remembering where it is months later—actually, who’s to say that they haven’t moved on to hiding other things? They could have a whole intricate system underground of all the things they would need in case of a battle, and no one thinks about that. It’s just, “Oh, preparing for winter, better put some acorns underground” but what if they’re not? What if they have knives? 

I think it’s poison, personally. The way I saw one squirrel walking the other day with some other squirrels, I swear they hushed whenever a professor or upperclassman came by. Poison would also explain how those few squirrels are so big, maybe they’ve been experimenting on some hormone booster, something to get them to be the size of a tire. 

Now, I know what you’re thinking: this isn’t possible, because where would the squirrels do their work? A-ha. This place has secret tunnels that no one uses anymore. I know because Patricia’s husband used to do maintenance here in the 80s and that, she told me once, was when they blocked the tunnels off.

Letter Two

Did I ever tell you about the pigeon? It’s not an important story as much as you imagining the coloring of the pigeon that is important. 

Imagine a pigeon. With the coloring of a dove. That’s the color of the walls. 

The walls are actually the sides of a box and someone very talented cut out these wonderfully intricate details of buildings and trees and things that look like people and animals but aren’t really people or animals, which is why I get scared when I see them because if they aren’t people or animals, what are they really under those suits? The carved and cut buildings slip into the box into little slots, there are little slots they slip into. So someone took their box that their favorite shoes came in, cut buildings out of cardboard and slid them into place, painted it all the color of a pigeon that is the color of a dove and then the pigeon took me by the scruff of the neck, the fur part of the hood of my jacket, my arms dangling like legs so I pretty much have four legs, swaying, until they dropped me into the box with my coat. 

We had some pigeons back home in parking lots. I don’t know if you lived there long enough to notice them. The village was figuratively eaten by those turkey vultures, the ones that would sit outside our office window? And you’d call my name to come and see? The ones that looked like someone overturned a tub of oil on them? You researched the proper name for a group of them once. Did you know, before they went to the offices, there were some that lived near my house and animal control, the government, was called because there were so many and the town was terrified and kids were too scared to get off school buses after one got picked up by the backpack and the turkey vultures selected this one house where all the turkey vultures lived, this one roof of the house of this old man named Lincoln, I think. So what the government did to dispel the birds was apparently the protocol, there’s a protocol for this, which was to kill one turkey vulture and hang it on a tripod on the roof of that house. 

Most of the birds left, so it was mostly successful, but a few stayed, maybe two or three. I remember being driven to the bus stop and always looking out the window to check Lincoln’s house, there was a stop sign right there, and I would try to avoid looking at the dead one dangling diagonally by its one claw-concluding ankle, but I would see the other two, alive, with their backs turned to the dead one, but still on the roof, like, fuckers, we’re going to stay here even longer now, just because we know it bothers you. 

And the ones that left the roof? They took over the village hall and the school buildings. Tell me that wasn’t intentional. 

The reason I wrote this is that I can’t talk on the phone anymore. My throat is stopped up with feathers. I can write things down but even now I don’t know what the right words are. I just really want to reassure you that the girl you saw in the bridesmaid dress is in here somewhere. I can’t find her, but she is here. I’m telling you—I come back. I included a picture of her so you can remember. The wedding photographer took it in the hills behind the venue with the cows. She’s smiling so big, you can see the bones in her neck and the sunlight is changing the color of her hair. 

I’m just asking that you be patient. I will come back in the bridesmaid dress. I will come back to you. The person who made the cut outs didn’t make road signs so I feel perpetually lost here. But my hands will stop shaking, my eyes will start moving again, and they’ll take the lock off my ribcage. It’s only a matter of time. Just please, please be waiting for me for that matter of time.

Letter Three

When I’m worried, I picture you telling me that you’ve left a small spare room in our house for me to write in and I am so joyful I squeal and jump up and kiss you and you say we can paint the room the perfect shade of blue, like the veil of the Mother Mary and we can put the typewriters and the books on one wall and I can have a white desk facing out the window and I can see the river and I can breathe and we have our van Gogh and Wyeth paintings up and tickets from concerts and the tea canisters from Elise where I keep all my editing pens. I write, I revise. I write, I revise.

Letter Four

They sit in the trees, I think, I don’t know, maybe they are in wiring or windows or something and they make this quick chet sound, like they are biting down on nothing and they do it again and again and again and I swear it is a warning sign. I’m walking on this path, with oaks lining either side and as I pass each tree, a squirrel issues a call, down to the next tree, two calls, to the next, three calls, on and on and on until I’m running down this path begging them to shut up and I keep going keep going and then I see a rabbit and I stop and I say hello and the rabbit does not run away. This is clearly a speaking rabbit, and I am supposed to speak with him! He has something to tell me; that’s the only reason he’s not running away, you know how rabbits always run or hop or do something that involves movement, so I stay where I am and I try to speak to him, you know, introduce myself, compliment him, remind him that the Lord loves him, and before I get the chance to ask what he wants to tell me, he lays down on his stomach, flattens out and nibbles on a flower. So I just told him, I don’t know what that means, I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, please tell me please tell me, we are running out of time, other people are coming.

I never found out what he was trying to say.  

To answer your question from the last phonecall, I can’t talk about the animals on the phone because they can hear me. They can’t hear my handwriting though, which is why letters are safe. I know you think I should go to the doctor and I will because I want to be able to focus and I’m sure there’s a medicine that can make you tune animals out, there’s a medicine for everything; they might even have one based on what animal it is, like a special one for crustaceans.

Letter Five

I don’t have much against raccoons, though I’ve been told to be afraid of them. They can be quite vicious about the garbage in my grandparents’ neighborhood. For years, my mother wouldn’t even make my sister or I take the garbage out when we visited because of the raccoons, but when finally I think my sister was 17 and smoking, my grandma said, “Send her out with the raccoons to smoke” and I went as far as the porch and let my sister go down the cobblestone path, down the stairs and to the curb. We never saw the raccoons, but we heard them. They were kind of like bugs, in that way. 

Somewhat similarly, once when I was at school, last year before we started dating, it was the middle of the night in the winter and the fire alarm went off and everyone was pounding fists on everyone else’s doors. I took my phone because it was next to my bed, and put slippers on and grabbed a coat and I ran out of the building. A lot of other people were carrying things out and I was confused, and mostly cold.  The building wasn’t on fire. I thought it had to be a drill. But it did smell awful. 

Several emergency agencies showed up and we were all brought into another building and told to contact our parents that there was a gas leak but we had been evacuated and were safe. I remember my mother’s sleep-sodden voice as I explained I was sorry that I hadn’t taken anything important with me, that I didn’t know it was a gas leak, that I thought it was just a fire drill, I was sorry. And she told me it was alright. 

A few hours later, I texted her to let her know that we were allowed back into the building. It wasn’t a gas leak at all. A skunk had got into the pipes or the air system or whatever and was panicking like hell and just spraying everywhere because he was terrified. We had to sleep with all our doors and windows open that night to try to air things out. As far as I know though, the skunk was never found. So I imagine, he just died, panicked, in the air vents or the pipes. Maybe had a little skunk heart attack from a panic attack. It breaks my heart. He was begging for help, making his presence known, telling us all that he was stuck, he needed help, and what did we do? We ran screaming out of the building. That was tough on me for a while and still is, honestly. It still makes me cry.

Letter Six

You said you wanted to know what happened at the doctor, which is nice of you, but also unnecessary in that I know how to go to a doctor. 

She asked what stressful things have happened because this is probably triggered by stress. I said nothing. I can’t think of anything. Things are pretty ideal. 

She said to me, “But you do know that the animals aren’t communicating, right? You do know that?”

And I said, “No, I don’t know that. They are communicating.” 

“But they aren’t talking about you or other humans? It’s just how animals communicate to one another.”

“I think they are. I think they know I know what they know.” 

I’ll try the medicine. I was never not going to. I’m not going to deny that the animals are taking up a lot of my time where I should be focusing on work. My doctor says yes, this medicine will help me focus on my work, so I’m really interested in it. 

I hope you’re well. I’m sorry I haven’t been picking up the phone. I haven’t had much of anything to say. That’s why it took three whole weeks to gather enough to write this one letter. 

I’m staying positive.

Letter Seven

Last night, a bird tried to break through the window. I don’t think it was a turkey vulture. It was as oily black as one, but smaller and had shaved its beak down to a skeleton key to try to pick its way through my window. It screamed at me too. I know it was there for the medicine. It wanted the medicine. After I beat on the glass, and double-checked the locks, it flew away. Quick then, so quick, it came soaring at the window and I was certain there would be blood and feathers and organs all over the window, and I could imagine the oily feathered carcass slowly melting down the window pane leaving streaks of excrement and other bodily fluids gushing in squirts out of the punctured organs. But that didn’t happen. As it was about to hit the window, it settled into a bush and after a beat, retreated into the bent arms of the tree. It watched me from there. I woke up about every hour to check the window for cracks or carcass and I didn’t find a thing and the bird wasn’t staring at me when I woke up so I guess he went to tell other birds that it was a bigger mission. I’m not certain what he did. But he didn’t come back.

Letter Eight

The visions and sounds have stopped. I think now we can just go back to being a couple in our 20s. When summer comes, we’ll feel even better, our toes dancing with waves. How beautiful our lives will be! Imagine—it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. 

I hope you like this postcard. There’s something freeing about a postcard, maybe it’s just the image in my mind, seeing it float on the wind, so lightweight, travelling directly to you, over the water, between power lines, along the highway. The goldfoil letters on the front design catch light everywhere, say, “I’m going somewhere, I’ve got a destination.” 

Turns out two of my friends have the same thing, both boys. One was diagnosed when he was a child, so he’s been successfully fighting for a whole 20 years. It’s remarkable. A support group, in this case, is rather remarkable.

You know, they say the psychosis comes from the trauma, the trauma you’ve always refused to hear about. I guess what I’ve been wondering is, if you don’t know about it, how much do you know me? Does it matter a whole lot? If it led to this? I go back and forth. What do you think? I guess that’s what I’ve been thinking these days.

Letter Nine

Someone moved into Lincoln’s old place. I could tell because when I was driving home, I noticed they had holiday lights up, but these were a special kind, a kind that projected back and threw up on the house siding and rained, a light show. There weren’t any birds. 

There is, now, a swingset in the backyard, and it has a very simple setup and shadow, reminiscent of the tripod, and I wonder if that is why the turkey vultures don’t come back. 

I miss your phonecalls, but I understand that you are busy.  

I miss you all the time. But we’ve almost made it to the summer when we’ll be together again. 

I’ll redact this before I send it: I love you.

Letter Ten

I saw Elise the other day and as we sat down at the table at the coffee shop, she said to me, “So, how does it feel to not be crazy anymore?” 

I assume she meant that the psychosis has been, if it was a fire, covered by a damp blanket. It’s not extinguished, but it’s shushed and sputtering and can’t get it up. The blanket is the depression and the dampness is the pills. Or maybe the pills are the blanket and the dampness is the depression. I don’t know. What I’m trying to say is that my depression is taking control of the fire, all eyes on the depression, in its shiny gown of absolutely nothing shiny, just a bunch of lit up lies like, staring at a wall feels good, listing the things you hate about yourself feels good, acknowledging that everyone hates you—yeah, that’s just the truth and it feels good too. 

I’m tired. That’s not a lie. I still jump when I see the squirrels. I miss home. I don’t know what it is, my mom said it’s that these are city squirrels plump with garbage, but back home the squirrels are so much smaller and don’t look at me like a tree they want to claw open and burrow into. The ones at home have a little less color to them, a sepia lens over them. It’s a colder and quieter life, I guess, for the most part. They meet more animals than people. They learn from deer how to not make noise instead of how to leer and jeer like the sound system in a boy’s first car. 

It’s just enough to keep me operating. I don’t have to call you, weeping, when I’m trying to leave the room because I’m too scared to do it, anymore. I just walk. Can you believe that? I was standing outside today and I thought, wait, I just walked through five doors and I didn’t hesitate at a single one. I was really amazed, maybe even impressed with myself for a minute there, and then I started walking again. Can you see it? I just walked. I would’ve called you in celebration, but I remembered you were at work. 

I did it myself; I walked. I imagine you’re proud. 

Letter Eleven

When I was little, after I saw The Wizard of Oz, I had a nightmare that I was a house and there was a tornado and all the houses blew away and left only their basement shelters, except for me. I was untouched. And I was so preoccupied worrying about how weird I looked still standing, how dare I still stand, that the stress bloated my windows and doors shut and all of the people looking for shelter couldn’t get inside. 

Because I haven’t been able to tell what’s real and what’s not from my memories (how do people do that? When we have imagination? Something that makes things up and tricks us?  How could we ever know if what we know is real?) I’ve been relying on photographs. I know the wedding was real. I know I cried there. I know I was maid of honor. I know I read off of something that I wrote on a piece of paper from a notebook with trees on it. 

I know you smiled in the summer. You put your arm around me, your hand the size of my face, out in Brooklyn, kissed me while the sun set behind us. You smiled at me back home, your palm around my hip, and your smile was that uneven way you hate and always try to hide, but someone somehow caught it in a photo and I smile wider and with deeper dimples than ever before, because I’m looking right at you and you’re looking right at me and I keep these photos small, in my wallet for when I forget.   

In and out, in and out. It’s fickle, my confidence is fickle. It’s like a ballerina in training, learning to balance on her tip-toes and that very specific, very precise motion of the arch of the foot and the ankle collapsing from elevation down to the floor. Then up to try again, then down again. Up again, shaky, down once more. But I keep trying again. Even if I fall. I try again. 

Letter Twelve

On the drive home, it was funny to me to notice that it was exactly when we reached the mile marker, ten miles from home, that I swore I saw the shadows of the turkey vultures, and ten minutes later, arriving at the apex of town, the streetlight, a gathering of six turkey vultures rising towards the sky as if in one of those skydiving classes, their feather tips overlapping to make a circle like ring around the rosie, look at us a-hunting, because you know, and my mom said it, when you see them in the circle like that, over and over and over again, trailing themselves, “they’ve found a carcass,” she says and for a second I get a flash to the Esopus and a carcass there that belongs to me and I try to see what color my eyes are because my flesh is all the color of my eyes but then the medicine takes over and the vision is gone and I’m back to being in the car with my mom, watching the turkey vultures hula hoop above the powerlines and I wish for a moment I could speak to them, tell them about the squirrels that are giving me trouble, but that’s not exactly treating others the way you want to be treated, so that’s wrong and I shouldn’t do it. I try really hard to treat everyone the way I would want to be treated.

Letter Thirteen

I know you were at certain places with me. 

Just like I know now that you are nowhere with me, you are places by yourself. I might be there with you, you might keep a small piece of me with you, maybe a small stone, emerald green, but you don’t come with me. 

You made coffee for us every morning. And you adored the vision of me in the bridesmaid dress, some heavenly vision your religion forbids. 

I suppose I see how it’s for the best. You never wanted to know the ways that I became strong. You panicked, hid for cover when my mother’s illness came up. She’s a strong woman too. Do you not like our origin stories? The origin stories of strong women? Aren’t these bits an origin story? Of how I learned to live? An origin story of how I was with you and am no longer? Of how I realized I can write all the letters I want, and you’ll never write one back? Not even a birthday card?

Letter Fourteen

I have an urge to write a letter to you, but I know that would be wrong. So I’m going to write this and then rip it up and tear it up some more into tiny squares and then thrust them into the dumpster, dancing in the shredded paper, little blossoms of letters of words. That is what you should’ve done with those last few things you said to me. In what situation did I need to know those things? You really need to learn the art of letter writing. When it’s just to get something out, they tell you to write it down and then burn it, but you know I’m afraid of fire. You were the one always setting the fires, the fire pits with your friends where they approved and welcomed me and now there are new fires where they forget me. 

But now that I’ve said, “I have an urge to write a letter to you,” I don’t really know what to say. I have a suspicion that you’re going to be okay eventually, so if you have doubts about that, know that I don’t. And thanks for helping me get out the door sometimes when I was convinced there was nothing but a box waiting for me outside. And thanks for taking me seriously in the moment, even if you held it against me in the end. And thanks for telling me that you don’t think I can take care of myself, because all it did was remind me exactly how good I am at being on my own. 

Thanks for not making me come back in the bridesmaid dress because that was something I wore a year ago and I’ll never wear again. There are photos, forever, of course, which can be helpful when I’m confused, but I was never going to be that bridesmaid again, and thankfully, by ending this, I didn’t have to be. I don’t have to travel backwards. 

About an hour before you broke up with me, I called you, and you said, “It’s okay, everything’s okay, Babe, I’m here.” 

I’ll keep it in mind. 

Most importantly, thank you for surprising me with tickets to that concert. It showed me what I deserved. And walking me onto my train when, hours after I fell, my knee had swollen so badly that it wouldn’t bend and I was crying in the art exhibit. Those were true moments. And it was true, too, when you said you knew I was still here. That’s something I might even remember in the writing room. 

I’ll have the writing room. I just might have it by myself, and that’s okay, you know.