of what this amused baring of teeth implied. Not ‘ just fear shivered
through me, either, but also a delicious chill of wonder and giddy
excitement.
Although such an act would have been out of character for him, I
actually wondered if Roosevelt Frost had spiked the coffee. Not with
brandy. With hallucinogenics. I was simultaneously disoriented and
clearer of mind than I’d ever been, as if I were in a heightened state
of consciousness.
The cat hissed at me, and I hissed at the cat.
Orson growled at me, and I growled at him.
In the most astonishing moment of my life to this point, we sat around
the dinette table, grinning men and beasts, and I was reminded of those
cute but corny paintings that were popular for a few years: scenes of
dogs playing poker. Only one of us was a dog, of course, and none of
us had cards, so the painting in my mind’s eye didn’t seem to apply to
this situation, and yet the longer I dwelled on it, the closer I came
to revelation, to epiphany, to understanding all of the ramifications
of what had happened at this table in the past few minutes -and then my
train of thought was derailed by a beeping that arose from the
electronic security equipment in the hutch beside the table.
As Roosevelt and I turned to look at the video monitor, the four views
on the screen resolved into one. The automated system zoomed in on the
intruder and revealed it in the eerie, enhanced light of a night-vision
lens.
The visitor stood in the eddying fog at the aft end of the port
finger
of the boat slip in which the Nostromo was berthed. It looked
as though it had stepped directly out of the Jurassic Period into our
time: perhaps four feet tall, pterodactyl-like, with a long wicked
beak.
My mind was so full of feverish speculations related to the cat and the
dog-and I was so unnerved by the other events of the night-that I was
prepared to see the uncanny in the ordinary, where it did not in fact
exist. My heart raced. My mouth soured and went dry. If I hadn’t
been frozen by shock, I would have bolted to my feet, knocking my chair
over.
Given another five seconds, I still might have managed to make a fool
of myself, but I was saved from mortification by Roosevelt. He was
either by nature more deliberative than I was or he had lived so long
with the uncanny that he was quick to differentiate genuine eldritch
from faux eldritch.
“Blue heron,” he said. “Doing a little night fishing.”
I was as familiar with the great blue heron as with any bird that
thrived in and around Moonlight Bay. Now that Roosevelt had named our
visitor, I recognized it for what it was.
Cancel the call to Mr. Spielherg. There is no movie here.
In my defense, I would note that for all its elegant physiology and its
undeniable grace, this heron has a fierce predatory aura and a cold
reptilian gaze that identify it as a survivor of the age of
dinosaurs.
The bird was poised at the very edge of the slip finger, peering
intently into the water. Suddenly it bent forward, its head darted
down, its beak stabbed into the bay, it snatched up a small fish, and
it threw its head back, swallowing the catch. Some die that others may
live.
Considering how hastily I had ascribed preternatural qualities to this
ordinary heron, I began to wonder if I was attributing more
significance to the recent episode with the cat and the dog than it
deserved.
Certainty gave way to doubt. The onrushing, macking wave of epiphany
abruptly receded without breaking, and a churlychurly tide of confusion
slopped over me again.
Drawing my attention from the video display, Roosevelt said, “In the
years since Gloria Chan taught me interspecies communication, which is
basically just being a cosmically good listener, my life has been
immeasurably enriched.”
“Cosmically good listener,” I repeated, wondering if Bobby would still
be able to execute one of his wonderfully entertaining riffs on a
nutball phrase like that. Maybe his experiences with the monkeys had