Go West, Life is Peaceful There

A few weeks ago, I found a dead crow in my front yard, the obvious victim of a shoving match with a mini-van. I did what any modern, right-thinking woman would do; I begged Consort to make it go away and then I Tweeted about what a hypocritical feminist I am, letting the man I love deal with dead things in the yard. A few hours later, a friend wrote me a quick email. I was an amateur, she said, because she had two dead crows in her yard. No, she wasn’t touching them either, because even though there wasn’t a mark on either one, they were icky. She had already alerted her husband at work to try to remember where his “Touching dead things” gloves were hiding.

My interest flared. I wrote back to confirm that there wasn’t a single mark on them, they just appeared to be some new variety of crow which sleeps on the lawn in the middle of the day? Yes, she wrote back, like that. I typed back so quickly I almost sprained a finger. Her husband couldn’t just throw them away, they might have West Nile virus. She had to contact the city to pick them up. I sent her links to phone numbers. I sent her links to pages on West Nile. I sent her links to the historical patterns of virus transmission. I offered to visit her when the city bird-person arrived with his or her city-approved Glad bags. I noted her luck in having potentially virus-laden birds in her yard. She wrote back thanking me for all of my information and support and noting she hadn’t seen me this excited since the first reports of the H1N1 virus in humans had surfaced. She also suggested it might be weird if I were there when the city bird-person arrived, what with me giggling and asking for his autograph. I extracted a promise from her that she call me just as soon as he left.

She called the next day. I believe I said something like, “Tell me everything and don’t leave anything out.” Maybe I asked what the bird-taker was wearing. I had dimly hoped for a Hazmat suit and a rolling lab. He was in civilian clothes and he drove a hatchback. He bagged the birds and told her they’d contact her within two weeks.

“That was it?”

“Well, I offered him a Diet Coke.”

“Did he take it?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Wait, there was one more thing. He said because there were two of them, my house was automatically considered a cluster spot.”

Some people have all the luck.

Two weeks later, I was waiting for the kid to finish a class when my phone rang; it was my friend. I answered “West Nile?”

“Hi to you, too.”

“Sorry, hi. West Nile?”

“Yes. But only in one of them.”

“Wait, what? But both were unmarked, five feet from each other and both were dead. They both were dead, right?”

“They didn’t seem to object to be crammed into plastic bags so I’m thinking that yes, they were dead.”

I stared off into the distance at the park, thinking.

“Maybe,” I mused aloud, “the bird that was negative for West Nile had it, but didn’t have enough of a viral load to measure and died of it because of an underlying condition.”

There was a silence.

“Sure, okay. You want to call the bird-person and tell her your theory? Maybe they can do a full autopsy.”

I thought about it and then decided it was possible she was mocking me.

“It’s not an autopsy,” I said briskly, “it’s a necropsy. Anyway, so what happens now?”

“Well, we’re supposed to empty any standing water. Since no one in the house is old or sick from something else, we probably won’t get it.”

I nodded vigorously; so far, nothing a disease-geek like me didn’t know.

“Did she tell you that dogs either don’t get it or get a very mild case?”

“Something like that. Honestly, I had kind of tuned out.”

Youth is wasted on the young. Disease clusters are wasted on civilians. And, it turned out, the city of Los Angeles. The city wouldn’t be sending out a letter in her neighborhood, nor would they be checking the area for any other dead birds.

“She said something about the city sending out a press release, because it’s the first positive test results of the season.”

I brightened up.

“But only if nothing more interesting happens in the city.”

Heathens.

I thanked her for letting me play along at home, but my mournful tone gave me away. She said, “If it helps, I had the woman mail me a brochure about the signs of rabies in squirrels. I thought you’d like it.”

It’s no squadron of men in Hazmat suits sealing off a city block, but it would have to do.