For Autumn McWilliams, life on the streets isn’t easy. But a Pekin duck named Cardi D shows her ‘unconditional love.’
No one took a second look at the young woman pushing the maroon stroller through the concrete tangle of downtown Los Angeles. From a distance, Autumn McWilliams could have been any mother out with her baby — until passersby drew near and caught sight of the creamy white feathers.
McWilliams was born in the city of Atascadero, a little more than 200 miles north of Los Angeles. Her mom, she said, abandoned her at the hospital so she could get high. Her parents were in and out of her life. Around the same time, McWilliams was prescribed Ritalin for hyperactivity and Ativan for anxiety. When she was 15, she stopped taking the medication and cut her wrists with a razor blade. She wound up in the hospital.
On a morning in early July, four bodies were crowded onto a twin bed inside a blue Coleman tent: McWilliams; her boyfriend, Jack; their gray kitten, Daddy; and Cardi D.The couple layered puppy pee pads over the sheets to guard against the duck’s incontinence. They kept a mini-air cooler inside to protect Cardi D from heatstroke. They’d replaced their air mattress with a real one, after her claws accidentally popped her inflatable pool.
Cardi D also eats watermelon, mealworms, crickets, cockroaches and even cereal. Cocoa Puffs are a favorite. McWilliams shops with Cardi D at a CVS store downtown. “Ducks aren’t quite as social, evolutionarily, as chickens are,” said Richard Blatchford, a poultry extension specialist at UC Davis. But, he added, ducks can “definitely imprint on people.”
“I’ve never known anyone with a duck for a pet,” said McWilliams’ friend, Brooke, who asked that her last name not be used due to privacy concerns. Jack had found their first duck in 2017, crammed into a tiny cage outside of a pet shop. He called McWilliams and asked: “What would you do if I brought a duck home?”They named their first duck Charlie after Eddie Murphy’s brother, who had recently died. But while they were living on skid row, someone snapped the duck’s neck in front of her. The second one came to them with a broken foot that never healed properly, and she died. Another got sick.
“They were telling me [about] all the help you can get down here and if you want to get sober all the programs you can do. I said, ‘I’m not going back. I’m going to stay here and start a new life,’” McWilliams recalled. “And I’ve been here ever since.” McWilliams splashes water as Cardi D cools off in a fountain on 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles. In her first four months of life, she has become an “emotional support duck” for McWilliams, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression and anxiety.
As they continued their trek, they passed the Biltmore Hotel, the Park Fifth Tower Apartments and Pershing Square, where they come some nights so Cardi D can hunt cockroaches. Once McWilliams spotted a smoke shop, she parked her duck out front, still within eyesight. “You wait for Mommy,” McWilliams said. But as soon as she turned away, Cardi D tried to jump down and follow.