“White or dark meat?” asked my brother Skip, who was hosting that year’s Thanksgiving dinner.
“Uh…” I said, hoping no one would notice the question. “I’ll have a drumstick,” I whispered.
“Why are we whispering?” he hissed loudly.
“I know why!” trumpeted Skye from across the room. “You’re not eating turkey, are you? How could you?”
“That’s nice,” said Mac darkly. “Now you can go home and tell Gravy you ate one of her cousins.”
“But I’m not actually eating Gravy,” I said.
“Why can’t you eat gravy?” asked Skip, who had grown used to my various obsessions. “Because of all the little flour particles that had to die?”
“Gravy is a wild turkey,” John explained. “She’s home in our clinic.”
“Mom named her Gravy,” said Mac, “even though I said it was inappropriate.”
“I named her Wavy Gravy,” I said. “I keep telling you, if you’re offended by Gravy call her Wavy. Personally,” I said to Skip, “I just call her The Turkey.”
“Wavy Gravy was before your time,” said John to my brother. “He was a counterculture hero of the sixties.”
“And now you’ve named a wild turkey after him,” said Skip. “Should I dare to ask why?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
The turkey in question had arrived a few weeks earlier, after Bonnie and Gary Van Asselt, two local birders, had watched her fall to the ground after she attempted to fly to a low branch in their yard. Searching for help, they found me through the birding grapevine. I told them to bring her over and raced off to my purple three-ring binder to look up “wild turkeys,” then hurried out to the shed to set up an area for her.
I had spent the last few weeks gathering an impressive assortment of donated items: waterproof tarps, more crates, another table, old blankets and towels, a large egg-crate foam mattress, bowls, pans, a long foldable dog pen, and various bird food items—including a large half-bag of turkey pellets. I covered one corner of the shed floor with a tarp and several layers of newspaper, then cut a rectanglar section of the egg-crate mattress and covered it with a towel. The turkey would be a double pioneer: my first wild turkey, and the first bird in my shed.
Bonnie and Gary arrived with a large cardboard box. When I lifted the turkey out she staggered, favored her left leg, and seemed slightly dazed. I wrapped her in a towel, told her rescuers they could call back in a few days to check on her, and carried her out to her hospital room. When I put her on the floor she lurched over to her towel-covered bed and sank down, regarding her surroundings with half-lidded eyes, as if it were all she could do to stay awake.
She was thin but had no wounds or broken bones, nor could I see any signs of bruising. She did seem especially warm to the touch, and I could hear a slight click in her lungs as she breathed. I gave her fluids, and an hour later she picked at a few turkey pellets soaked in warm water. Normally I never touch an adult wild bird if I can help it, especially new ones. But for some reason as I was getting ready to leave I reached out and touched her gently on the side of her face. In response she slowly lowered her head until it rested on my upturned palm, then closed her eyes.
“Bonnie!” I said through the telephone, soon afterward. “Was that a tame turkey you brought me this afternoon?”
“No,” said Bonnie. “She’s part of a big flock that comes to our feeder every afternoon, but they’re not friendly. I couldn’t get near any of them, until today.”
When I called the Croton Animal Hospital the following day I discovered it was Dr. Popolow’s day off. “But Dr. Hoskins is here,” said Charlene Congello, the receptionist, helpfully. “Maybe he can see your turkey.”
Soon I was on my way to the hospital, the turkey riding in a large dog crate in the back of the car. As I pulled into the parking lot I considered asking one of the technicians to help me carry the entire crate into the office. But since everyone at the hospital—the vets, receptionists, technicians, and animal handlers—were dealing with these wild birds and me out of the goodness of their hearts, I didn’t want to push it. I stuck my head in the office door, greeted Charlene, made sure the coast was clear, and returned to the car. Wrapping the turkey in a large towel, I carried her into an examination room.
Despite her condition she was a striking bird. Her feathers, beautifully patterned in white, brown, and black, had a dazzling metallic sheen and her head, wrinkled and wattled, was a delicate watercolor of red and blue. She lay quietly, surveying the room with huge brown eyes. She looked kindly but startled, like someone’s elderly aunt who, after several days of feeling poorly, had suddenly found herself dumped into the middle of a busy casino.
In a few minutes a tall man wearing a lab coat entered the room. “Bruce Hoskins,” he said, extending his hand.
Working with Dr. Hoskins is the closest I will ever get to vet school. Whenever he examines one of my birds he gives me an impromptu tutorial on the injury, the system involved, the surounding skeletal structure, and the pros and cons of various drugs, until my head feels like it will explode with information. Few experiences can be more terrifying to a wild bird than a veterinary exam, but Bruce’s gentle manner always seems to make a bad situation better.
Bruce listened to me recount her history, looked her over, and then took her into the back for an X-ray. The X-ray showed no lead—always a possibility—but did show a cloudiness in her lungs. “What do you think?” I asked.
“Hmm,” he said gravely, looking up from his notes. “I’d say 350 degrees for four hours.”
I burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” I said to the turkey, wiping my eyes. “But you have to admit you’re kind of a comical figure.”
Bruce said it could be pneumonia and prescribed a round of antibiotics, adding that if she didn’t improve he would do blood tests. I gathered up the turkey and headed home, hoping that antibiotics, food, and rest would do the trick.
She spent the next three days either resting or sleeping on her towel-covered bed. For two days she wouldn’t eat, so I had to syringe liquid food through a long rubber tube down her throat and into her crop. On the third day she started picking at the food I’d left in her pen. The following day I opened the door and found that a good portion of her food had disappeared and she was standing and preening, a clear indication that she was feeling better.
By coincidence, one afternoon I received one of those “nuisance wildlife” calls, a few dozen of which I had fielded during the summer. Usually the caller, who has just moved into a brand-new subdivision ripped and blasted out of a formerly beautiful woodland, is exasperated to find that there are actually wild animals in the vicinity and wants to know how to get rid of them. I learned at the conference that “I’m sorry, but I’ve already promised the animals that I’d help them get rid of you,” is not the correct response, and that I should seize the opportunity for education. I try, but some callers are more difficult than others.
“My name is Dr. B——,” said the male voice. “And I’m having a terrible problem with a wild turkey. I live in a very exclusive area and I paid a great deal of money for our home. This turkey is injured, he can’t put any weight on his leg, and he keeps hanging around and doing his…his…business on my imported limestone. Can you come and get rid of him?”
“Uh-oh,” said Skye, looking up from her homework and seeing my expression.
“You’ll have to catch him,” I said. “Throw a blanket over him, then pick him up and put him in your garage. I live an hour away from you, so I don’t want to drive down and find out he’s not there.”
“Oh, no!” said Dr. B——. “I’m not going to touch him!”
“Look,” I said, “try to work with me here. If he can’t put any weight on his leg it’s probably broken, so he won’t be hard to catch.”
“Broken!” said the astonished Dr. B——. “Turkeys have bones in their legs?”
“Do turkeys have bones in their legs?” I repeated. “What kind of a doctor are you?”
“An orthopedic surgeon,” he replied.
Meanwhile, our turkey was feeling better. I debated putting her in the flight cage. On one hand, the clicking in her lungs was gone and she needed more space; on the other, she hadn’t gained any weight and the October nights were chilly. I ended up putting her into the more natural environment of the flight cage. I was quite pleased with my decision until the following morning, when I went to feed her and discovered a nasty wet rasp emanating from her chest. I described it over the phone to Bruce, and soon the turkey and I were back in his office.
I had chalked up her original tame manner to sickness and weakness, but she remained docile and easy to work with despite her improvement in health. Bruce entered the room, looked at the turkey standing matter-of-factly on the table and me leaning casually against the wall, and raised his eyebrows; in return I gave him an elaborate shrug, and we went on from there. He listened to the turkey’s loud, rattling breathing, then anesthetized her for a tracheal wash, in which a tiny bit of liquid is syringed directly into the lungs, sucked back out again, and analyzed. Afterward he took another X-ray, then held it up to the light and pointed to her lungs.
“This is a different view, but you can still see the cloudiness,” he said. “I took some blood, which I’ll also send out. But if she’s also not gaining weight it’s probably aspergillosis.”
Aspergillosis is a respiratory disease caused by fungus. Many wild birds harbor the fungus, which does them no harm unless they become sick or stressed. I moved the turkey back into the shed, where it was warm and dry. Since there were no other birds in residence, at night she slept in a large crate and during the day she was free to move around. She either walked about the floor or hopped up on the table next to the window, where I’d see her small head peering out at me when I approached.
“It’s asper,” said Bruce, calling later that week with the test results. “I’d like to put her on ciprofloxacin as well as itraconazole, but these drugs are expensive. I’ll call the prescriptions into one of our pharmacies, then you can call and find out how much we’re talking about.”
I dialed the number, apprehensively wondering how much it could be. What if it was…say…a hundred dollars?
“A month’s worth of the two prescriptions…” said the pharmacist. “Let’s see; that would come out to about eight hundred dollars.”
“What?” I sputtered. “Are you kidding?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “And if you do give the turkey the drugs, you have to check with the Food & Drug Administration to see how long you have to keep her off them before you let her go.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because if you let her go and somebody shoots her and eats her, they could be affected by the drugs she’s been on.”
“Get out,” I said weakly.
“I’m going to make a file, just in case you decide to do it,” said the pharmacist. “Does the turkey have a name?”
I sat for a moment, trying to come up with a name but unable to ignore the absurdity of the larger picture. I had just started putting together the paperwork for my nonprofit corporation, so I had yet to take in any donations. Eight hundred dollars for one bird was not in the cards—especially a turkey who, if all went well, would be released in the middle of turkey hunting season. I tried to fend off an attack of existential angst by concentrating on coming up with a name.
Logically, of course, I didn’t have to. But damn it, I was going to solve at least one part of this problem, and I was going to do it right then and there. Unfortunately, my brain was not cooperating. “Lassie,” I thought. “Mr. Ed.” I contemplated some of the more florid names bestowed by sentimental rehabbers, and wondered if the pharmacist could fit “Most Precious and Beloved But Ultimately Unaffordable Gift from the Heavens Above” onto a little pill bottle sticker.
“Are you still there?” asked the pharmacist.
“Her name is Gravy,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“No—it’s Drumstick,” I said, and immediately felt a pang of remorse. I returned to the less offensive Gravy, which a furious bout of free-association turned into Wavy Gravy. Perfect, I thought. Who better to understand the absurdity of my predicament—and life in general—than the man who said, “I am an activist clown and a frozen dessert”?
“Her name is Wavy Gravy,” I stated firmly. I was rewarded by silence.
After hanging up the phone I sat at the kitchen table, trying to figure out how I could come up with the $800. With the drugs she would live, without them she would die, and I was in too deep to call the whole thing off. I called around to see if I could find a cheaper drug source, and discovered that one of the reasons ciprofloxacin was so expensive was because it was being stockpiled by wealthy New Yorkers in case of a post–9/11 anthrax attack. It didn’t take long for me to work myself up into a state of white-hot indignation.
“Hi,” said John, innocently entering the room.
“Damn these selfish yuppies!” I shouted in response. “Hoarding all the cipro when I have a turkey who really needs it! What are the odds of an actual anthrax attack, anyway?”
“Gotta go,” said John, heading back out the door.
“No, wait!” I called after him. “Come back! Listen, that turkey has a fungal infection and I need $800 to fix her.”
“What?” he said, looking at me as if I’d suddenly lapsed into an African click language. “Now I’ve really gotta go,” he said, and disappeared.
“And they say rehabbing is all fun and games,” I groused.