Parting Glances
Seagulls came inland to Michigan and Ontario shores to stay — for their better, our worse — once freighters stopped dumping garbage into Lake St. Clair decades ago.
These clannish birds gather in clusters near the International Riverwalk General Motors has so generously turned into a new and grand Detroit River venue. They hobnob along Chene Park's man-made lagoons, and boldly — noisily — convene in parking lots fenced off for future landscaping.
(A trustworthy friend — not given, like myself to occasional unfettered poetic embellishment — says once near Chicago's Buckingham Fountain she saw a gull swoop down and snatch a hot dog from a startled kid's hand. I believe it.)
Gulls are clever. They're also scavengers. (See kleptoparasitism; add topic to your next cocktail banter.) They're also prolific as pigeons. Meaner. Aggressive. Territorial, they squawk box over insignificant tidbits. (Like Hitchcock's "The Birds," they're migrating north into Ferndale, Royal Oak, Pontiac, for suburban takeover.)
It's six o'clock. I relax in front of the white/blue canopied Carousel at Riverwalk's eastern end. My bike sits nearby. There's a lighter than inhalation breeze stirring. Overhead gulls perform an aviary Cirque du Soleil. Sky-high acrobats. Showoffs . . .
Each floats on thermal currents, circling higher, wider. Gliding. Wings motionless. Now and then a feathery ace twist-dives sharply into a new circle of expanding and contracting motion. He soars. It's all so effortless. Breathtaking. Elegant . . .
I bike carefully along a path that's now filled with people. A weekend multiplicity of races. Languages. Ages. Saris. Burkas. Sun suits. Sandals. Shorts. Thighs. Namaste! Everyone celebrating life in leisurely style. All outwardly content to be part of a stunning Renaissance setting that will one day stretch from the Ambassador Bridge to Belle Isle. (We're not in De-e-e-toit! anymore, Toto.)
In my many bike jaunts here I've heard as many music groups, watched children play in the 150 sprays of ground-level fountains (skirting its edge to wash mud from my tires), seen a Jewish wedding being blessed, clocked eager crowds boarding the Diamond Queen and Detroit Princess for two-hour excursions, checked out visitors tallying names at Hart Plaza's buy-a-brick pavement near Ed Dwight's heroic sculpture, The Gateway to Freedom, commemorating the Underground Railroad.
This evening I half hope to see war-etched "Mark," back in America after a grueling Iraq duty tour. When I first encountered him I noted two things: his exceptional ruggedness (I biked back for a second look) and his hand-lettered sign, IRAQ VET, Please Help . . .
Sitting nearby I hesitantly ask, Are you honestly an Iraq Vet? His easy responses seem authentic . . .
He says he was a Bravo Company Combat Team member. He saw two of his buddies killed. He was wounded, sent home. (He shows me scars.) "You look like you're 35," I say. He says he's 40. From Dallas, Texas. Divorced. One son. Unemployed. Came to Michigan because someone said he'd find work. A lie. "I'm having a real hassle trying to get vet disability. I'm being offered much, much less than I'm due. I signed up for patriotic reasons. I was mistaken." Did you kill anyone? I ask quickly. "At a distance," he says almost inaudibly.
"We're not in Iraq to protect citizens," he adds. We're there to keep terrorists in check. It's a never-ending, no-win situation. Catch 22."
Leaving I encounter ten gulls sitting neatly on as many stainless steel guardrail posts. As I slowly ride pass (close as I dare) one by one each zips off. I'm pleased as hell to disturb their smug complacency. (Sitting ducks all in a row.)
