THE MAUAIESE PHEASANT (Another true story)

[sd gross]

The Mauaiese Pheasant
by sd gross


Laurie was going home tanned, rested, but without her feather. A Dallas native, generally pale and nervous, her two weeks on the Island had left her relaxed and her muscles were acquiring some tone, - but the feather would have aced her trip.
We began our hike out of Haleakela Crater as the eclipsed full moon peeled off its shadow, washing the ancient cinders with ghostly light. A thousand feet from the rim, Laurie flushed a ring-neck pheasant which exploded straight into the rosy sunrise. An introduced bird, they've competed well with Hawaii's four dozen indigenous species. She made a diligent search for a wayward feather, but in vain. She had a little arrangement of feathers at home she'd collected on various journeys. We'd found mynah and apapane feathers, but pheasant plumage is far more exotic. Laurie ached for one. She was disappointed.
We made our way down to the car, and headed toward the airport in Kahului. Dusty and sweaty and with three hours until our ten o'clock flight, we decided to stop at one of Mauai's roadside parks for a shower. Changing into bathing suits (they were outdoor showers), we shivered in the morning chill when something sticking out of a nearby refuse can caught Laurie's eye. Long and tapering, the morning sun glinted seductively off its golden tip. Her tan turned chalky by the chill, and in her tiny black bikini on that wide green swale, Laurie strode toward the garbage can looking as vulnerable as a meadow mouse at a hawk convention. I saw her face glowing in anticipation, and she began to tug at the object more forcefully. She waved a no-longer-pale,less skinny arm which got my attention so I joined her and the tail feather she was trying to pluck from the trash can. Feathers, usually readily pluckable, become harder to pluck when they're securely fixed in the bird. Feathery pheasant fantasies followed by the sight of an entire ring-neck pheasant in a garbage can become more remarkable upon learning it's intact, stuffed and mounted on a wooden base. The serendipitousness of it all was enough to give us major goosebumps. After much tugging, I managed to dislodge the bird, and we stood there in blessed admiration, pondering why anyone would toss out such a flea market-worthy object. I wondered for a moment if this was how Bernadette felt at Lourdes. Then Laurie conjectured, "It seems so odd - I wonder if it's stuffed with something valuable - like jewels or drugs ...", "...and this is like, the Drop Off Point where the connection is supposed to....", and suddenly Laurie's idyll was interrupted by dust and gravel flying and the sound of screeching rubber.
The doors of the big Cadillac flew open and two large men in suits erupted, one from each side, and headed directly toward the cache, our trash can. Heads down, flinging refuse in every direction, they didn't seem to notice us or the pretty bird Laurie was now desperately trying to conceal behind her back. Our expressions were a tapestry of irony threaded with disbelief. Wearing a very spare bikini, and surrounded by acres of short-grass lawn, there was nowhere to hide anything. Abruptly yanking an empty beer bottle from the can, one of the men ran to a nearby water fountain. Smoke billowed from the Cadillac's innards as the other man lifted the hood and undid the radiator cap. Our swimsuits still wet from the shower, whether we wet our pants at that moment was our secret. We made our plane, me toting the pheasant in my arm as "carry on" luggage.
I had the pheasant for years, never having had the heart to dissect it, often (especially during a lunar eclipse) wondering - "What was it doing in that garbage can?" I thought often about cutting it open, especially after it became miserable and ratty. But it was a treasured memento, so I put it off. It sat on a shelf, got dusty, grew mangier. Then one day my mother-in-law. Carmen, was rearranging and organizing everything she could reach, as God intended her to, and she abducted the vile pheasant and tossed it out with the trash.
And so it is. How the pheasant found it's way into that Mauaiese beach park's garbage can shall always remain a secret - I'll never know if some kind of treasure map or a nugget or two of someone's incredible stash nestled within it's ratty remains... and I'll look at the garbage collectors and wonder - is it possible history really could repeat itself?