An unlikely omen

Turk walks slowly, unable to match the gait normally seen in his fellows.

It was the car that did it, the one that passed on La. Highway 57, right where it turns into Bayou Sale Road, in lower Dulac.

But walk he does. And thus far, he appears to survive.

He was given the name by Chance McCorkel, who is a dock foreman in Dulac, where shrimp come in on boats and go out on trucks. Chance has a lot to worry about like making sure all the work gets done; he and his wife Jamie have three little boys and that can be a chore in itself. But Chance takes it all in stride because he is one of those guys who is just like that. Not a lot of drama. Not a lot of complaining. And a big heart that lets him know where to draw the line between attracting odd visitors to the workplace – like Turk – and just being a guy who lives and lets live.

So back to Turk, whose name is appropriate since, in all respects, he is appears to be an American turkey vulture. After the incident with the car, he could have turned onto Bayou Sale Road, which might have made for some food, at least, for a while.

But there are lots of other things out there like alligators and bobcats – someone saw a really big bobcat on that road not so long ago – and for a turkey vulture with one functioning wing that just wouldn’t do. He took his chances instead with the seafood dock, which is open and has shrimp, which sometimes fall to the ground off the conveyers when it’s very busy, and with all the activity going on who is going to notice a turkey vulture anyhow.

Vultures, or buzzards – take your pick, the words are interchangeable – are not the most appealing birds, to say the least.

Observed in flight, they are graceful masters of the air, soaring and swooping with their great black wings stretched to the limit.

Closer, on the ground, they would appear less impressive.

Gathered in fields and on roadsides, drawn by scents of death, they awkwardly hop from place to place, squabbling for individual opportunities to ingest some unfortunate road-killed mammal or bird, sometimes a reptile, with wrinkled bald faces and leathery, naked feet.

Unbothered by stench, they tear and gorge. The physiology that allows them to do this and live to eat another meal is at once wondrous and distressing. Another thing that should be mentioned here is that vultures, far from being pariahs of the animal kingdom as regards its relation to humans, have been celebrated throughout ancient histories. The Romans, Zoroastrians and a plethora of near-to-far eastern cultures see the vulture as a symbol of renewal, not as a symbol of death. The Egyptian vulture held a particularly high place of esteem.

A vulture, nonetheless, is not something you want to see at a seafood dock. Adept at snatching up cast-off shrimp – likely competing with the cats that occasionally appear – Turk likely thought he had reached vulture nirvana, an always-open seafood buffet.

As big a heart as Chance and all the other people at the dock might have, practicality needed to prevail. And so once Turk was noticed, once people were done with the loading and unloading, cleaning and straightening on the dock’s big concrete apron, someone thought it best to return Turk to other parts, and so he was taken a ways up Bayou Sale Road and left in the brush.

Turk appeared to have other ideas, and after a day or so showed up at the dock yet again, gobbling cast-off shrimp and limping out of the way of people or so he might have thought. Again he was taken to the mysterious and desolate marsh, where a few days ago he was observed, closely watching some folks fishing on the roadside, unseen and unnoticed by them.

But again, he showed up at the dock. And so the cycle goes, and will likely continue, until the bobcats or coyotes get their way, or Turk’s wing heals.

For those who see vultures as an ill omen, the bird’s presence in Dulac’s shrimp central could be seen as a harbinger of this year’s shrimp season, which is already off to a rocky start.

Or the entire tale of Turk’s comings and goings, ability to thus far beat the odds and insistence – despite a severe handicap – on being where he wishes to be, therefore could be seen as a sign of resilience, of beneficent renewal, and so something good.

Whether that analogy can actually hold up, however, remains to be seen.