TWENTY-TWO
TURKEY VULTURES
Bird on a Wire
The air left the room when Leonard Cohen entered the small grungy bar. It was all gasps and whispers. A microphone was set up next to the large projection screen and he limped over to it.
“My friends, good evening. Welcome. There is a rather famous story about an encounter I had with a rather famous woman at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. This, of course, was the indomitable and incomparable, Ms. Janis Joplin. The woman who made the film you are about to see reminds me very much of Ms. Joplin. Ladies and Gentlemen, to share with you for the very first time her new and breathtaking film, please welcome the truly one of a kind, Ms. Robin Davis.”
Robin, in her stunning green dress, joined Leonard Cohen on stage. Their embrace struck Milton as a little too familiar and lingered perhaps a bit too long. Robin sheepishly waved to the audience, tucked her hair behind her ear, thanked everyone, and awkwardly said, “Play the movie, I guess.”
The lights went down, and the screen was black.
Slowly the bright white ball of a Florida sun, in a faintly grey, cloudless sky, filled the screen and flooded the room with its glow.
One turkey vulture circles into view—someone at the back of the bar whoops loudly—then another vulture. The two seem to be part of some choreographed routine. They turn in identical circles going in opposite directions. When one circle grows, the other does the same. The only sound is the faint whooshing of wings cutting through the wind.
Then another vulture joins, and another, and another, until the sky is filled with them. Silently gliding in identical circles. The camera pans down across the sky until the sun washes out the entire picture.
TURKEY VULTURES
A FILM BY ROBIN DAVIS
A couple audience members whoop and holler.
The title fades as the camera continues panning down to reveal the horizon—the swamplands of Florida—then further to reveal that we’re next to a highway. Pickup truck after pickup truck whizzes by. The camera comes to focus on a point a few miles down the road, where dozens of vultures are swooping and landing and walking their lumbering walks.
Slowly it zooms in on the crowd. The swampland blurs and disappears into the background. The highway blurs and disappears into the background. The pickup trucks blur and disappear into the background. The dozens of birds become several, become a few, become one full bird, becomes just its head, as it stands on an alligator that’s been run over by a pickup truck.
The star hisses at the other vultures, and tears some flesh from the gator. Hissing and tearing, tearing and hissing. The sound makes it visceral. The film is black and white but you can see the blood, you can feel the hot sun, you can smell the rotting gator. Hissing and tearing.
Another vulture attacks the star. They jostle and the star hops twice, and lifts into flight. As it begins to zoom back out, the camera stays trained on the vulture’s face.
Slowly the single bird becomes a few, becomes several, becomes dozens. Slowly the highway re-emerges, then the pickup trucks, then the swamplands. The camera follows the bird as it flies up. The highway and trucks and swamps fall out of frame. It’s just birds and sky. Dozens then several then a few then two. Circling around one another in some kind of dance. Then one, the vulture with the belly full of gator, circling as the camera continues panning upward towards the sun until the picture is washed out by white light.
THE END
The credits roll over “Bird on the Wire” by Leonard Cohen:
DIRECTOR – ROBIN DAVIS
WRITER – ROBIN DAVIS
PRODUCER – ROBIN DAVIS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – LEONARD COHEN
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – MILTON ONTARIO
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – JOSEPH FLIPCHUK
PRODUCTION DESIGNER – ROBIN DAVIS
CINEMATOGRAPHER – ROBIN DAVIS
EDITOR – ROBIN DAVIS
FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR – ANDREW SIMMONS
SECOND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR – LANCE POCHARD
TITLE ARTIST – ALTON SALAAM
SOUND DESIGNER – GASTON CHARLES
SOUND ENGINEER – RUDDY TURNSTON
ASSISTANT SOUND ENGINEER – AVA WEBBER
“BIRD ON THE WIRE” WRITTEN AND RECORDED BY LEONARD
COHEN COURTESY OF COLUMBIA RECORDS
SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FAKAHATCHEE STRAND STATE
PRESERVE, COLLIER COUNTY SOLID AND HAZARDOUS WASTE
DIVISION, FLORIDA STATE DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS AND
GATOR REMOVAL.
MADE WITH THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF TELEFILM CANADA,
CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, ONTARIO FILM FUND, ONTARIO
ARTS COUNCIL, MISSISSAUGA FILMIC ARTS INVESTMENT FUND,
AND THE HAMILTON PUBLIC LIBRARY.
. . .
The Story of Isaac
The bar remained silent through the credits; dozens of people closed their eyes and listened to “Bird on the Wire.”
When the screen went black, and the bar went dark, the place erupted into deafening applause and whistles and cheers.
The music, though, continued. Just the same few chords being repeated. A spotlight lit the stage and there was Leonard Cohen with his guitar. He stepped to the mic and sang a live version of “Bird on the Wire.”
Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in the midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
The cheering and screaming and hyperventilating was louder than the music. The entire bar throbbed. People’s ears would be ringing for days just from the frenzy of seeing Leonard Cohen on stage with his guitar.
When the song ended, Leonard Cohen continued to strum, and he spoke.
“I’m an old man now, past my prime, it’s been 40 years since the Chelsea Hotel, it’s been at least that long since I was in Greece and saw some birds sitting on a wire and wrote this song. So, as I slowly crumble, way must be made for the new generation of poets —such as Ms. Davis. What a beautiful film, my dearest Robin, thank you for that. We have also been graced, rather unexpectedly, by an up-and-coming young poet, one whose work has been featured in no less than The New York Times. I first saw him read his poetry on this very stage, many months ago. It was... it was something to behold. I would like to call him to the stage to share some of his work with us. Please welcome Mr. Milton Ontario.”
Milton’s name emerged from Leonard Cohen’s lips in slow-motion. Milton could see the words, see his own name, tumble like heavy bricks out of Leonard Cohen’s mouth and crash holes through the stage at his feet.
Milton. Crash. Ontario. Crash.
Then time slowed again even slower as slowly, slowly, slowly Leonard Cohen pointed and every face in the packed bar turned towards Milton.
Robin’s jaw hit the floor.
He was in hell.
His face burned red hot. This was the payback. This was his punishment for almost killing the most powerful and dangerous man in all the land. This was the revenge for crossing Leonard Cohen.
The crowd started chanting.
“Milton! Milton! Milton!”
Noddy cackled in his ear.
“Fuck ’em up, b’y!”
Georgette pushed him towards the stage.
He stumbled towards the spotlight and a dozen more hands hoisted him up beside Leonard Cohen, who smiled and nodded as if to say: “I’m your man. And you are, and will always be, my bitch.”
“Go on, son, sing a song for the people.”
The only poetry Milton had on him were chicken-scratched ramblings in an expensive waterproof Gannet Islands Seabird Census Research Project notebook that was covered in dried bird shit.
In the light of civilization, everything he wrote on the island read very much like the ravings of a crazed, lovesick castaway.
He stepped to the mic.
“Um... thank you. I... uh... I...”
His executioner grinned like an idiot as he strummed the same dumb chord on his dumb guitar over and over again.
“Like a... ahem... a bird...”
The crowd howled in laughter or disdain or approval, Milton couldn’t tell.
He balled his loose hand into a fist at his side, glared at Leonard Cohen, and leaned into the poem’s first line:
like a bird on a Wire
i sit on this rock
in this endless shitstorm
of 75 326 birds
Someone in the crowd booed, someone else hurled a beer bottle and it shattered on a large speaker hanging not far from where Milton stood. He read on:
like a bird on a Wire
my heart is filled With smoke
and feathers
and the shit
of 75 326 birds
Milton grew an inch or two as the crowd whooped and another beer bottle smashed on a lighting rig over his head and rained beer and broken glass down on him.
He grew an inch or two taller as Leonard Cohen, the Leonard Cohen, kept strumming that one dumb chord in accompaniment.
He grew an inch or two taller as he wrapped his arms around his death sentence.
This wasn’t a mistake. This wasn’t putting on airs. This wasn’t pretense. This was war. And he, in that moment, thought he was winning.
He was Edward Hilroy. He was Benjamin Frankin. He was em-effing John George Diefenbaker tearing Lester B. Pearson a new one.
So, he went off script. So, he spoke directly to Robin in that moment.
My heart
My heart may be young
But it beats just like yours
My eyes might be brown
But they see just like yours
And I don’t love you because of who you are now
But because of what you will be
But because of what I will be with you
He sang the last few lines in a shaky, halting baritone, Leonard Cohen-like, to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s one shaky chord.
He fell to his knees.
He raised his one balled fist towards the sputtering and shorting out light swinging above him.
Leonard Cohen laughed drily and wiped a fake tear from his eye.
“I apologize, my friends, but that was particularly bad.”
The crowd roared with laughter. Leonard Cohen kept strumming.
A very large, very mean-looking man grabbed Milton and hauled him off stage.
“The Godfather wants to have a word with you upstairs.”
He was dragged up into the piss-smelling office and thrown on the couch Robin had been sitting on earlier, to await the execution of his final sentence.
. . .
Moses
Milton could hear Leonard Cohen downstairs launching into another song, a new one he didn’t recognize, with the organs and the backup singers and perhaps a saxophone.
Like the Lord leading Moses
You’re a pillar of light
I brandish my rod
And you give me new life
The song lasted 14 minutes, including a three-minute saxophone solo, and wrapped up with a less than subtle verse about Leonard Cohen wanting to get with Robin:
Your breast is like fire
Your eggs like water
I haven’t been so tempted
Since Eve crossed our Father.
Milton didn’t much care for it.
Not the song. Not the organs. Not the backup singers. Not the perhaps-a-phone. Especially not the fact that Leonard Cohen was hitting on his, Milton’s, not-quite girlfriend.
Once the applause and ovation and deafening roar died down and things returned to the usual La Baraque simmer, a herd of elephants clomped up the stairs to where Milton was being guarded by Stoneface McBikertattoos.
Robin and Noddy came and joined Milton on the couch, followed by Leonard Cohen and two old men, who Milton recognized immediately—Guillaume and Gweltaz from the used bookstore on Parc, between the Y and the Library.
Apparently, when they weren’t running the worst secondhand bookstore ever as a really poor money-laundering front, they moonlighted as two of the deadliest octogenarian hitmen in the world.
The small office became extremely crowded and the smell of whiskey and old man mixed with the stench of piss wafting up from the bar.
“Ah, the poet. So good of you to join us. I’m so pleased you were able to share your talents with the room just now. Our degenerate friend here forgot to mention he had brought you along.”
“Hello, uh... Godfa–”
“Buddy, what are ya at up there? I don’t know much about poetry, but that thing you read didn’t rhyme or nothin’, b’y.”
“Enough of these niceties, my friends. We have much to celebrate!”
“Fuckin’ eh, b’ys, let’s get shittered!”
“Might I propose a toast?”
McBikertattoos popped a cork and began handing around red plastic beer cups with a splash of cheap champagne.
“To our esteemed guest of honour, the most glorious Ms. Davis.”
Robin blushed. Milton gritted his teeth.
“You have touched this old man’s frail body with your mind, and reminded me once more the power of love.”
Milton made an audible gagging sound. Robin laughed.
“Oh Leonard, you know I have a boyfriend.”
Milton sat up a bit taller. A never-ending grin began stretching across his face.
“Yes, and he’s quite a specimen, isn’t he?”
“Robin! Really? You mean it?”
He put his hand on her knee. This was it. At last.
“Yeah, I met someone. Didn’t I tell you? He’s really sweet. A small-town guy with big dreams. Leonard introduced us. He wanted to be here, but his flight was delayed out of Miami.”
“Miami?”
‘Miami’ came out as nothing more than a puff of air. Like a dying man’s last breath.
“He’s great. You’d really like him.”
“Ouch, b’y, if that don’t make your dink shrink!”
Not only did Milton’s “dink shrink” to nothing, but what was left of his heart turned to dust and blew away.
“Actually, my dear, I’ve pulled a few strings, and well...”
Leonard Cohen nodded to the thug by the door who nodded down the hall.
“Yo, Robi, you up here?”
“Oh my god! You didn’t!”
Robin squealed with delight and tears of joy welled in her eyes. She skipped to the door, threw her arms around him, and planted a deep, long, sloppy kiss on Joey Flipchuk.
. . .
Joseph
Joey Flipchuk.
a.k.a. Horace Khack, a.k.a. Milton’s nemesis, a.k.a. world-renowned adult film star, a.k.a. owner of the world’s largest penis thanks to Milton’s spoiled super-bedbug revenge plot.
Joey flipping Flipchuk.
“Joey?”
The name Milton hadn’t uttered in years came out involuntarily.
“Milt, is that you! No way! You sonofabitch! It’s been forever. How are ya man? How are your folks?”
Joey, and his three legs, strode powerfully across the room, hand extended to Milton. Milton stayed sitting and limply offered his hand back. Joey wouldn’t have it. He pulled Milton up and wrapped him in a bear hug. Milton could feel Joey’s massive dong crushing against his leg.
“Robi, you didn’t tell me you knew Milty Onterrible.”
The bear hug had turned into a headlock and noogies. Milton was brought face-to-face with the enormous bulge in Joey’s pants.
“We grew up together. We were best friends when we were small. I used to shoot him in the ass with my BB gun. This is wild.”
Joey’s knuckles grinding into the top of his throbbing head was the last thing Milton felt, as all feeling and will to live left his body. He slumped back onto the couch as Joey made his way around the room shaking hands and patting shoulders with murderers and mob bosses with the kind of confidence that can only come with having a circus Johnson.
“Have we met before, b’y? Where have I seen ya to?”
“I’m an actor, you may have seen one of my movies?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t watch much TV. You just got one of them faces, b’y, like I knows ya.”
The last in the circle was Leonard Cohen.
“LC, very nice to see you again. Thanks for letting me use your plane. And, as always, for introducing me to this beautiful woman.”
As Joey and Robin kissed again, Milton melted into a puddle of humiliation and regret, leaving a Milton-sized grease stain on the already very greasy, stained office couch.
“It was my honour, Mr. Khack.”
“Aw fuck, no way, b’y. You’re Horace Khack! Holy shit. You’ve got a huge dick, buddy! I jerks it to When Harry Humped Sally all the time. Dies for it.”
As Noddy and Joey high-fived, Milton, a puddle of heart dust and regret grease, flopped his head back and stared at the very greasy and stained office ceiling.
“Thanks, bro.”
“I mean, his bird is massive, b’ys, like a party sub.”
“Only a six-footer though, man.”
As everyone laughed and laughed, Milton closed his eyes, and his brain, his stupid waste of an otherwise perfectly good brain, began playing reruns from his life, his miserable life, like some cliched movie life-flashing-before-your-eyes scene that reveals what you have to live for. But at that moment, the timing of everything, it was more like his brain was just piling on more misery.
As Noddy held his arms out fish-story style to McBikertattoos—“You seen his gear, b’y? Like this, no kidding.”—Milton was back at the first day of kindergarten with Ashley D. walking through the door, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“I always thought I’d be good in porn. I likes to fuck. Ask your missus there.”
“Sick, dude. I might be able to hook ya up.”
“I ain’t packing near as big a tackle as you, b’y, but she’s a hairy bird, I calls her the jungle.”
Noddy began to undo his pants but was halted, mercifully, by the loud protests of everyone except for Milton and the mute Gweltaz.
“What, b’ys, you’ve all seen ’er before.”
As Noddy tucked his hairy ass back into his jeans, Milton was overcome with the smell of Ashley D.’s lip gloss at Ashley B.’s 14th birthday party. With the wisps of her hair in the prairie wind at recess. With the softness of her grimace as the same prairie wind froze her eyelids shut.
“Dude, people are into all kinds of weird shit these days. Hairy porn is all the rage. We’re shooting Titty Dickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Pubes next month in Miami, we’re still looking for someone to play Curly.”
“Yes, b’y! I’m your man.”
As Noddy and Joey high-fived again to seal their newly formed acting partnership, Milton fast-forwarded through the heartbreak and torment of losing Ashley D., the first time to Joey and the next time to Dr. McClutchsmoke, through finding hope and then solace in poetry, in Leonard Cohen records, in the possibility of escaping Bellybutton, of escaping Moose Jaw, of escaping his infinite flatness to find something, to become someone somewhere like Montreal—the most romantic city in North America.
“Well, it’s been nice meeting everyone. But I just got off a plane. I’m starving. I could eat a horse. What’d ya say, Robi, wanna go grab a bite?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Mind if I comes with you’se? I’m buying. I wants to hear about how ya gets on with that giant rod.”
“Sure dude. If you’re buying.”
“Milt, can I borrow a few bucks? I’m flat out.”
As Noddy grabbed Milton’s backpack and fished out the last of the drug money, Milton replayed that first flash of Robin’s smile in that vermin slaughter-house potluck party, the terror and ecstasy of that first poetry reading, that first hug, that first accidental kiss.
“Thank you for gracing us with your unusually large presence, Mr. Khack.”
“An honour as always, LC.”
As Robin gave Leonard Cohen a hug and a kiss on the cheek, Milton could smell her hair, could feel her warmth next to him, could feel what her laugh used to do to his heart before it had been reduced to a puddle of dust.
“Thank you for everything, dear Leonard.”
“My dear, it was my pleasure.”
As Leonard Cohen took Robin’s hand and kissed it, Milton felt the months of searching and pages of poems piling up, burying him, the hopelessness, defeat, despair, all erased by one fleeting glimpse of those deep brown eyes.
As Robin sat back down on the couch next to the Milton stain, Milton relived the fame and misfortune, the shitty jobs, and meeting his hero, the great Leonard Cohen. He relived the gun to his head that first meeting, the gun to Noddy’s head the second. He relived finding an image of Robin’s smile in every moment of terror to give him the strength to go on.
“You want to come with us, Milton?”
As Milton didn’t answer, because he had no more words, he was a puddle, a stain, his unhelpful brain screamed through the drug dealing, the endless rolls of money, the turtlenecks and fedoras and scotches on the rocks, the diet-pill smoking puppeteer back-alley hand jobs, and all the confidence that comes with having a circus-sized box of extra money in your tiny closet of a bedroom.
“No? Ok.”
As Robin put her arm around Milton and pulled him in for a kiss on the cheek, he felt her arms around him that night, pulling him in for a deep, wet kiss, hands wandering down his back, to his ass. He felt her weight, the substance of her very being, pressed against his. Undressing in his dark room. The feeling of her warm, soft skin. The excitement. The anticipation. The dreams coming true. The destiny being fulfilled.
As Robin planted a kiss on his cheek, Milton, miles away in a fantastical retelling of a story that never quite happened, was about to feel Robin’s lips on his that one last time. Feel the soft, moist warmth of her tongue on his, in his dark bedroom that one night, ages ago. Back on the couch, in the real world, the puddle Milton turned his head just as Robin tried to kiss his cheek and met her mouth with his, open, tongue groping for hers, for forever, or something, but only finding half an upper lip and a nostril.
“Ew! What the hell, Milton?”
For a split second, thanks to a half-playful, fully disgusted slap from Robin, he returned to earth, to that couch, to drink in one last bit of embarrassment.
“Sorry,” the dying man gasped.
“Yeah, well, call us later if you want to meet up or something.”
As Robin took Joey’s hand and followed him out the door. Noddy not far behind, asking if Joey required special pants to fit his “massive dank,” Milton tried to pull himself together. He tried to fight his way back to reality, un-puddle himself, and follow behind.
There was some small figment of his imagination that still had a beating heart. That was still capable of dreaming of a way to just get up and walk out on Leonard Cohen, go for a beer with Robin and Joey and Noddy and turn the tables on them. On this whole horrible thing. That he could expose Joey for being a phony. For being a bumpkin hiding behind a mutant dick. For not being Robin’s type. For not being anyone’s type. For being a stupid idiot with a dumb stupid idiot face and an ugly tree-trunk dick who, when Todd Strubey first played “Famous Blue Raincoat” to their grade 9 English class, laughed and called it gay.
That fading last flicker of light in his head clung to the notion that Joey was no good for Robin, that Robin needed to be saved, and Milton was the one to do it.
He struggled out of the puddle and to his feet to follow after them.
“I...”
McBikertattoo pushed Milton back down into the puddle. He wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t saving anyone.
“I... I don’t have your number.”
As they disappeared down the stairs.
. . .
Job
With one look from Leonard Cohen, the biker thug and geriatric hitmen left the room and clomped back downstairs.
Leonard Cohen and Milton sat in the room alone. Milton in his puddle of despair and utter ruination, Leonard Cohen whistling the first few bars of “So Long Marianne.”
They sat like that for what seemed like hours.
If someone had told 23-year-old Milton that he’d be sitting in a room, alone, with Leonard Cohen, he never would have believed it. Yet, here he was, 24-year-old Milton, sitting alone in a room with Leonard Cohen, and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Leonard Cohen was a bad guy. The worst guy. Well, the second worst guy, Joey Asshead Floppy Dick Flipchuk was the worst guy.
They just sat.
Leonard Cohen whistled.
They sat for a long time.
“I saw this... this child, get up on that very stage downstairs many months ago and start sputtering this utter nonsense, and I thought to myself, I thought, well now, this may be a useful idiot, this man-child with his mix of ambition and ignorance. Who speaks in tongues. Who revered me so. I can play him like a harp. And so I did, Mr. Ontario. And my, did you sing. For the past year, my entire enterprise has operated without fear of discovery thanks to coded messages we made up using that rambling nonsense you published in The Times. You hand delivered me millions in merchandise in just a few months. But I underestimated you. I underestimated how foolish and weak you truly are. How beholden you are, not to your ambitions, but to your impossible dreams of all this being something, meaning something. How you honour those impossible dreams over all else. Over respect for your elders and especially over your very own life. I had thought that vile nincompoop partner of yours was the cancer, the trouble, the problem. But I was mistaken. He is the useful idiot in the end. And you, my boy, you are but a parasite. An albatross.”
Milton didn’t have anything to say in his defence. He was a puddle.
“Don’t you have anything to say in your defence?”
He half-heartedly shrugged.
Leonard Cohen became enraged. He stood and boomed over the Milton puddle.
“Job answered Jehovah, and said, ‘Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee? I lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, and I will not answer; Yea, twice, but I will proceed no further.’”
All Milton could do was shrug. Leonard Cohen kept yelling.
“Jehovah answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, ‘Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Wilt thou even annul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be justified? Or hast thou an arm like God? And canst thou thunder with a voice like him?’”
“I don’t… I don’t even know.”
. . .
Abraham
“Now the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.’”
Leonard Cohen took his Hallelujah gun out of his jacket and begun slowly turning the cylinder. Click-click-click.
“And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order.”
He spun the cylinder one last time, quickly. Click-clkclk-clk-clk.
“And bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood.”
Leonard Cohen held up his gun, the same gun Milton had kept under his pillow for the past year, and pressed it hard against Milton’s forehead.
“And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son.”
“I just want to go home.”
“And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, ‘Here I am’.”
Milton wept.
“And the angel said…”
Click.