King of Fire Island

Abstract

King of Fire Island Mark Doty (bio) Hard by our fence in tea dance light,he seemed the very model of his kind: a buck in velvet at the garden rim,bronze lightly shagged, split thumbs of antlers budding. That odd way deer holdextra still, as though there were degrees of stasis. We were objects of his regal,mild regard. Did I really say tea? Measure the afternoon by a bar event?Here it's a fixed point, gnomon of the day; our island's scattered men gather,near seven, and stand with cocktails in the thick of buzzing bodies, intentin quick talk, though their subtle eyes won't miss a trick. Here, after all,tea dance started—wise strategy for an island with no streetlamps,boardwalks pitching along the dunes: scary, after drinks, far better navigatedbefore nightfall. He stepped toward us, [End Page 60] an unexpected lurch, and thenwe saw: one front leg merely tapered to a whisper, like the torsoof a cartoon ghost. No hoof. He gladly accepted a carrot,a gesture plainly familiar. Where else could he have lived?No cars, no hunting, visitors who'd bring him kitchen scraps,nothing to trouble but cameras buzzing their automatic flash,or dance music booming from some big box rental.And ticks; he wore a small crown of swollen passengersbetween his two brave ears, where he could not bite them,and no other deer provided the seemingly secret groomingthey perform. He exhaled a small puff of carrot-scented wind,handsome face expressive, not much in doubt of the human.We'd see him, evenings, up the walk, browsing the cranberry bog;he hauled himself through gardens, intently working tufts of grass,muscled shoulder pulling him ahead. A hoof's a deft accomplishment,that hard-sheened shoe of blue-black carbon, [End Page 61] but he'd learned to do with what he had.I brought him celery. He liked corn silk but not the husks,and seemed to prefer the leaves of sassafras, with their faint spice scent;something—did I imagine it?— seemed to pass across his gazeas he took them in, lower jaw working horizontally, a faint tearing sound.Then he'd take his tongue to my hands. They startled me at first, those sucking lipsaround my fingertips, careful, as if he were grooming anotherof his kind. I felt I could lay my hand on that long slope of forehead,or stroke behind the ears, though whatever was leftof his wildness needed to stand. I tried to name him; he wanted no wordfrom me. More likely I should be subject to this monarch of holly,hobbling prince of shadblow grove, our island's crippled king.When July mounted to its zenith his antlers turned in oddly,each mirroring the other —wouldn't they collide?What grows in toward itself, how can it find company amongits kind? I went looking, spent daylilies [End Page 62] in hand, but if a white tail flashed,it wasn't his. Paul said, You can't will him to show up. Out there somewherein the leaf-realms of August, lurching alone through all that glory!In the distance the party thundered, season climbing to its apogee, big speakers dragged out to the shorewhere midnight lapped the snow fence and dreamers swayed and danced,held one another or themselves, and though the artificial mist triedto complicate the twittering skyfield of laser lights,a real fog put the false to shame. In November, Paul saw himgrazing a thicket by the yellowing bog. Not again. Then, late winter,a hushed, not quite scrutable rumor on the ferry: a deer's headfloating in the bay, wreathed with flowers, evidence of—ritual murder, santeria?— never to be mentioned again.Bad for business, knowledge no summer renter required.My friend? Have I any right to call him that? He could hardly flee.But listen: I saw my own severed head [End Page 63] slip to the floor, a glazed, paltry thing,open eye looking up toward—my subjectivity?— as if through a bloody gel. So muchfor the notion you...