Creative Supplement edited by Evelyn Goessling

The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

On the second floor of an old Victorian house, in the third room to the right, Henry Jones sagged at his desk. The house, kept in pristine condition, was poised alone on a hill far from the bustling life of the nearest town. It sat regally in the emptiness, silent apart from the occasional resonating creak. The sun reflected off its shingled turrets and stained-glass windows, making the intricate, multi-faceted structure gleam like a diamond—perfect, elegant, cold. Inside, paintings dangled on ivory-colored walls and dust coated the expensive marble counters. Henry wore a lavish black suit with an extravagant crimson tie and a well-ironed shirt. His blue eyes pierced through his wrinkled face, which wore an expression of permanent irritability. This house was the fruit of his toils, the result of years of work, and his rightfully deserved prize. Yet, even with his goal accomplished, Henry felt hollow, like an empty shell. In his pale, liver-spotted hands he held a leather bound journal. Attached to the front cover was an old newspaper clipping: Rare bird sighting in Louisiana.

A painful memory, a memory that his greed and ambition had gagged and silenced, now resurfaced. Like a creeping fog, the memory invaded Henry’s mind. He tried to push it away, but he was old now, old and alone, and the memory could not be kept at bay. With sickening sorrow Henry began to read.

January 14, 1971.
It sure is cold today, but I don’t mind. I love watching the snow fall outside my window and sitting near the fireplace with Henry. He is so absorbed in his work all the time, always studying for something or another. He never has time for his little sister anymore… But it’s all going to pay off for him, he’s going to be a big-shot lawyer someday, he is. Mark my words. Anyways, I have really important news. There has been a sighting of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Louisiana! I’m going to ask Henry to see if he wants to come and try to catch a glimpse of it with me. I can only imagine the woodpecker’s beautiful shiny black plumage, its red crest, and its signature ivory bill. You know, journal, it has been my dream since I was ten years old, since Daddy told me about it, to find the Ivory-billed woodpecker…
Anyways, I have to run. Until next time then,
Love, Jenny

Henry traced the words with his shriveled finger and closed his eyes. He remembered very well the day his sister had come up to him, her golden locks bouncing with excitement, to tell him that the famed ivory-billed woodpecker had been seen somewhere in Louisiana. He had been scratching away at a law school essay at the time and had only half-listened to her babbling until he heard her say, “Henry? Henry, could you come down to Louisiana and see it with me?” He had promptly refused; missing a week of law school would end all chances of him finishing at top of his class. He had chosen work over family, work over dreams. Henry opened his eyes again and kept reading.

January 15, 1971.
Henry said no. Henry is busy. Henry doesn’t want to come. I don’t understand. I miss the old Henry… He went off to college one day, and when he came back he was never the same again… I practically had to rip his textbook out of his hands to get him to attend Daddy’s funeral. There has to be a way to get the old Henry back. Journal, can you keep a secret? I’m going to buy two tickets to Louisiana anyways, it’ll be a surprise! I’m sure that Henry will change his mind. I know it. He loves the ivory-billed woodpecker too! The way Daddy used to talk about it, Henry was entranced. “The ivory-billed woodpecker is beautiful, unique and exceedingly rare.” Daddy used to say, “it is so fragile: only a few steps away from extinction. One day we’ll all go look for it, together.”
Those memories are tough. I guess that’s it for today.
Love, Jenny.

Jenny had always reminded Henry of the rare bird. At twenty, she was young, beautiful, innocent, unique and rare, but at times so fragile in her own way. All that mattered to her was Henry, her only family, and the ivory-billed woodpecker, her only dream. All that mattered to Henry was money, and Jenny never understood that. When Henry still refused to go with her a week later, Jenny had fled the room in tears. To her, the Ivory-billed woodpecker meant hope, hope of restoring her family. Henry had crushed that hope.

January 22, 1971.
I hate him. I hate Henry. How could he choose law school over the ivory-billed woodpecker? Over me? Well, I don’t need him. I have gone to pursue my father’s dream, my dream, on my own. I will search every inch of the Louisiana Basin until I find the bird, and then I will never talk to Henry again.
Jenny.

Henry blinked several times as a tear slid down his cheek. He had made a choice that day. He had chosen not to take the plane, to abandon his Ivory-billed woodpecker. He had chosen to stay in school; he had chosen wealth, materialism, emptiness. He had chosen wrong. Henry never saw his sister again. Shortly after writing her last journal, Jenny disappeared into the Basin and had never been seen again. There were no more sightings of the Ivory-billed woodpecker.

And forty years later, here he was: greying and alone. True to Jenny’s prediction, he had become a successful lawyer, quickly amassing wealth and prestige. He had bought himself a big, expensive, empty house. Time and time again Henry chose work over dreams, wealth over friends. In his mind the Victorian house floated in a cloud of illusion, and in one of its many room he had lost his woodpecker, and killed it out of neglect.

Aesthetic Spaces

At the foot of Mount Royal, McTavish street slopes upwards to the furthest heights of the hill overlooking the rest of the city. Both sides of the street are lined by flimsy steel fences which form a narrow labyrinth from one side to the other. However, the center of the street, stretching all the way up to Mount Royal, is consigned to an eternal condition of disgust. This space is first and foremost dominated by towering mechanical beasts which, during the day, roll steadily up and down the hill, ploughing along or clawing into the ground to no discernable effect or purpose. Besides the crunch of the grainy turf by their grinding wheels and the sharp scratching of their jaws digging into the earth, they continuously blare their sirens to remind every soul, day after day, of their grueling and endless operations. Not uncommonly, the hard thudding of a jackhammer against concrete or the escalating roar of a mechanical saw will delight one’s ears, and start an uproar in one’s breast. After dusk, when the loud drone of their engines finally cease, the shadows of the machines are still carved starkly against the black of night, where they were last active, and their angular arms and jaws and ploughs hang suspended in still and bleak silence, prepared to wake at dawn.

From its beginning at Sherbrook, the immediate stretch of asphalt covering McTavish has been savagely beaten and wrenched from the ground, and the remaining surface constitutes a vast and cluttered path of mud and refuse. All around, the street is a sea of abominable disorder: miles of rubber tubing lay coiled in this corner or the next, long, winding cables lie across the uneven terrain, mountains of dark sediment sit heavy and untouched—some toppling over the muddy slope—fat bundles of damp wood lie neglected against any available wall, square cinderblocks and pylons are stationed generously throughout the space, next to the innumerable holes and trenches which have been abandoned as soon as they have been burrowed. When it rains, the mud swallows the street, carrying in its unstoppable stream the sloppy amalgam of industrial dirt; and in the winter, fresh, powdery layers of snow, falling upon the hill, soon darken into a putrid brown and rapidly enter into a watery union with the mud. Throughout this entire space, a pungent aroma of broiled tar permeates the air—occasionally blended with a whiff of smoke or gasoline. The few trees which have formerly presided over an unmolested boulevard now sit before a scene where Nature dare not tread. Even in the summer, when the foliage blooms bright and green on the branches, these last articles of earthly beauty do little to ease such immovable ruin.

Further up McTavish, the sidewalk ceases and the only means of proceeding is through the most elaborate and most wretched courses of passage hitherto constructed on this earth by man. On the left side of the street, there sits a monstrous work of scaffolding that ascends to Doctor Penfield Avenue. A mash of beams, pipes, platforms, plywood, and nuts and bolts have created an imitation of three discontinuous staircases. When the wind is strong this fragile skeleton wavers, but not more than the shaking and rattling of the thin iron boards when two people dare to use this contraption at once. Passing through a narrow passage between thin steel fences, one is obliged to walk up the makeshift stairs onto an even narrower platform, then repeat this process again with another set of stairs and platform, and—if any cinders of life remain in their breast—crawl up to the Avenue. Still better, this joyful trial repeats once more whenever one returns down the hill.

All these words only do meager justice to the full nature and scale of McTavish Street. However, I assure those who appreciate the more refined sights of Montréal will not want for more once they venture onto the spectacle detailed above. At any rate, no one should worry over the prospect of change affecting the present state of the street, for the past year has assured myself that, from day to day, from year to year, from century to century, this testament to the sublime will persist until oblivion.
–Montréal, QC, 2017