A call in the night

At 6 a.m. in my parents' neighborhood, the moon hangs like a spotlight above the oaks and the gentle ssssp-ssssp of automatic sprinklers is the only sound that breaks the morning silence. A man jogs past with four dogs on leashes--no, five--and then another man pedals past wearing a bike helmet topped with flashing red lights. "Where's the emergency?" I want to ask, but instead I turn away from traffic and toward a quieter neighborhood near a lake. My internal map is out of date here I spend some time going in circles on brick streets where tiny granny houses sit side-by-side with McMansions of the Rich and (maybe) Famous. Finally I find the lake and step back onto Genius Drive.


This is the point where we used to get off our bikes and push them through heavy sand through an orange grove. We would carry a bag of stale bread to toss toward the peacocks that wandered among the trees or perched on branches sending out their piercing call.


In 1972 when my father preceded the family to Florida, he rented a house in a quiet neighborhood but kept being awakened in the middle of the night by what sounded like a woman calling for help. A few times he got up in the night and went out to the yard trying to pinpoint the direction of the call, and he kept expecting to see news reports about murder and mayhem invading the area. Finally, a neighbor filled him in on the source of the calls: peacocks in the orange groves on the other side of the lake.


I heard that distinctive "Help!" again today but didn't see any peacocks--or any orange groves either. The old dirt road is paved now and lined with fresh new ostentatious houses all looking as if they were squeezed out of the same McMansion factory. It's a great place to walk and even though I didn't see any peacocks, I did spot a blue heron soaring over the lake. On the way back I walked past our first home in Florida, the house where my dad first heard the peacocks. It's orange. It wasn't a particularly attractive house when it was green, but now it's simply hideous.

Orange house but no orange groves: I can see why people would want to live in such a lovely place, but the heat is oppressive and walking on hard pavement gives me blisters. I feel selfish for wanting so badly to get back to Ohio, but I need my gravel roads and my hills and my dog and my birds and my blackberries. Today we'll help my mom celebrate her 75th birthday in the rehab center and tomorrow I'll pack my bag. It was a call for help that brought me to Florida and when I'm back in Ohio, I'll be constantly alert for that distinctive call that can pierce the night and reach across the miles: "Help!"

Only one of these times it won't be peacocks.