Autumn

Chapter 1: Feeding the Ducks

  If you're ever in New Orleans and you're looking for a sanctuary, come to City Park. Its a short drive from the French Quarter and the view is worth every penny of the $300 plus you spent on a plane ticket to get to this side of Louisiana.

      Huge willow trees cast distorted shadows from every angle and a certain time every year, there's a huge flock of geese, ducks and swans that migrate to the lake near the arched, stone bridge. I've lived in New Orleans my entire life and the landscape gets even more picturesque every time I visit.

     Its a Wednesday and my day off. On days like this, in mid-July when we get the most visitors of the year, the park is crammed with tourists; who are mostly on their cell phones, taking pictures to post to their Instagram. I passed the occasionally clueless and lost old couple and gave them directions, trying to sound as nice as possible but I think I failed. My voice is far too deep and particularly gruff on days like these when I have gotten a mere 3 hours of sleep the night before.  Puberty came far too early and had no mercy.

     Its also quite difficult to appear harmless when you're six foot two and as well built as I am at 19 years old  but Mrs. Beckford and her husband didn't seem too intimated when I directed them to a taxi back to the French quarter. Aside from the Beckford couple, I rescued some kid's remote controlled motor boat that had capsized in the lake when its battery died.

      Satisfied that I had committed my share of good deeds for the day, I sat in my spot at the edge of the lake closest to the bridge. From my backpack I produced a package of sweet rolls. I never left the house without the backpack and since I only ever left the house to go to work at the lumber yard or the grocery store, it was appropriate. I was dressed for work too: khakis, a white t-shirt and my brown Timberland work boots. My brown leather jacket was the only thing that put the outfit somewhere on the borderline of casual. I was prepared for Jeremy, my boss and the lumber yard's owner, to call me in if he needed another hand. I didn't mind. I didn't have any plans.  However, I was also content to spend the rest of the day here on the lake until sunset.

     The moment I tore open the sweet rolls' packaging, I saw Jacques come swim up to the waters edge from the opposite side of the bridge. Jacques is an adult male swan with a definitive chip in his beak that I'd been feeding for the last two years at the same spot near the lake almost everyday. I came here on my days off and immediately after work and he seemed to anticipate my visits. But I think that had more to do with the sweet rolls I brought than my company.

  He was different from the other swans I'd seen at the lake. He never left the lake to migrate back to wherever the swans came from and he didn't have a mate or friends. He was a bit of loner like me and I think that's why I liked him so much.  If I didn't recognize him by the chip in his beak, it was the way he always drifted away from the other birds in the pond that made him stand out.

   Tearing a piece of the roll, I held it out to him and he met me half way. He grunted in quiet appreciation after he'd swallowed the piece and looked up at me expectantly for another.

"Greedy Bastard," I grumbled and he cocked his head to one side. "I'm gonna be spending a lot more time at the lumber yard next week Jacques so you better enjoy this. Don't know if  I can visit you then," I inform him and offer another piece.

   For another twenty minutes or so, Jacques and I ate the sweet rolls and glanced around occasionally at the tourists. When we had depleted the rations that I'd brought with me, Jacques did something unexpected. He waddled up to me on the bank and took a seat beside me, nestling against me side.

  "I guess you do like my company after all," I murmur and scratch the feathers under his chin. The peaceful  tranquility is shattered by a shriek and my head snaps in the direction that the sound came from.