Birdy. William Wharton
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down. Well, this once, Alfonso decides to cut this mob down. He comes over and pecks the nearest one till he breaks off his song and flutters to the bottom perch. The next bird turns and half jumps up with his wings spread and his mouth open to fight, the way birds do, but old Alfonso gives him two quick pecks near the eyes and he’s had enough. The third bird takes off while this is happening. Poor Birdie watches as her cheering squad is wiped out. Alfonso gives her one look, then flies against the wires of the cage with his mouth open in the canary equivalent of a roar. Birdie almost falls off the perch.
Anyway, I decide that’s the one I want. Birdie’ll have to learn to love him. He’s dark and has a flat head like a hawk, a long body with only a slight difference between the grass green of his breast and the moss green of his back feathers. There’s not a white feather or even a yellow one to be seen anywhere on him. His legs are long and black and his feathered thighs show under his tight, slim belly. He’s really a fearful-looking bird. His eyes seem to pin you down; bright black and close together for a bird. It’s hard to believe he’s only a seed-eating canary.
When I tell Mr Lincoln that’s the one I want he tries to talk me out of it. He says it’s hard to breed this bunch because they beat the females up something awful and sometimes even turn on the babies when they come out of the nest. He says they’re nothing but trouble. The females are good mothers, but the males can break your heart.
It doesn’t do any good talking to me. I’m crazy in love with the way he flies. He flies as if the air isn’t even there. When he flies up from the bottom of the cage, he’s two feet in the air before he opens his wings. When he drops from the top perch, he closes his wings and only opens them once just before he hits the bottom of the cage. I have the feeling you could pull all the feathers out of his wings and he could still fly. He flies because he isn’t afraid and not just because it’s what birds are supposed to do. He flies as an act of personal creation, defiance.
Mr Lincoln sells him to me for five dollars. He’s worth fifteen at least. Mr Lincoln says he wants me to try him and come back to tell what happens. If it doesn’t work, I can bring him back and he’ll give me another bird. Mr Lincoln’s a terrific person. I wish there were more people like him.
When I get home, I put Alfonso in the cage where I used to keep Birdie before I built the aviary. Then I hang that cage in the aviary where Birdie lives. I’m afraid to put them together right away. Mr Lincoln said he might kill her and I have to be careful.
Just catching him was really something. He’d flown like a mad thing and when Mr Lincoln finally cornered him, he shrieked out and twisted his head trying to bite the hand that was holding him. He was completely helpless, held down, but when I put my finger out to pet him, he twisted his head and gave me a hard peck. Birdie was sitting on my shoulder watching all this. I wondered what she was thinking. She did give me some serious questioning queeEEP’s when I put her in her traveling box. I put Alfonso in a cardboard box to carry him home; I was half afraid he’d chew his way out.
Well, it’s fun to watch. Of course, Birdie is all excited. She flies to his cage and tries hanging onto the side looking in. He gives her a couple sharp pecks at her feet and breast as she hangs there. One time he snatches a few feathers out of her breast.
He seems happy enough in his new cage; eats, drinks and generally makes himself at home the first day he arrives. It’s as if all he wants is to be left alone. I’m waiting to hear him sing. I’d never heard him sing at Mr Lincoln’s. Mr Lincoln’d blown away his vent feathers to show me his little dong, as if there were any question about his being a male, but I don’t know if he can sing. Mr Lincoln said he didn’t remember ever hearing him but he didn’t listen for it. He couldn’t care less if a canary sang. I don’t think I care that much either, but I’m anxious to get him in the big cage so I can watch him fly.
That afternoon, I go visit with Birdy again. I’m beginning to think there’s not much use. The trouble is I’m not sure I really want Birdy to come back. It’s such a rat-shit world and the more I see, the worse it looks. Birdy probably knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t have to worry about anything, somebody’s always going to take care of him, feed him. He can live his whole life out pretending he’s a lousy canary. What’s so terrible about that?
Christ, I’m wishing I could get onto something loony myself. Maybe I’ll play gorilla like that guy across the hall; just shit in my hands every once in a while and throw it at somebody. They’d lock me up and I’d be taken care of the way I was in the hospital at Metz. I could do it. Maybe that means I’m crazy. I just know it’s not so bad letting somebody else make the decisions.
God, it’d be great to be a running guard again; feel the mud sticking in my cleats, smell the mold in the shoulder pads around my ears, hear my own breathing inside a helmet. Everything simple, just knock down anybody with the wrong color shirt.
Who the hell knows who’s really crazy? I think this Weiss is crazy along with his spitting T-4. They know Birdy’s crazy and probably think I am too. I should talk to that CO. He’s been around looneys long enough, probably knows more than most doctors. One thing I’ve learned; you want to know where an OP is, never ask an officer. He’s liable to send you to a Post Office.
I’m even beginning to wonder if the way Birdy and I were so close all those years wasn’t a bit suspicious. Nobody else I’ve ever known had such a close friend; it was as if we were married or something. We had a private club for two. From the time I was thirteen until I was seventeen I spent more time with Birdy than with everybody else put together. Sure, I chased girls and Birdy played with birds but he was actually the only person I was ever close to. People used to say we sounded alike, our voices I mean; we were always coming out with the same sentences at the same time too. I’m missing Birdy; I needed him back to talk to.
I sit there for over an hour between the doors not saying anything. I’m not particularly watching Birdy either. It’s like a long guard duty, I’m turned inside myself, only half there. I don’t know how I get to thinking about the dogcatching; maybe I’m remembering how it was all such a shock to us, especially hanging around the squad room talking to the cops. That was a quick injection of life-shit all right.
– Hey, Birdy!
He tenses up; he’s listening to me. What the hell. I don’t feel like talking to him about it. What good would it do. It’s not what I want to talk about anyway. Birdy hops up and turns around to look at me. He cocks his head both ways looking out of one eye, then the other, like a pigeon.
– Aw, come off it, Birdy; quit this bird shit!
It was the summer before our junior year when Birdy and I got the job as dogcatchers. Actually, we invented the job. There’d never been any dogcatchers in Upper Merion and so there were whole packs of dogs running around wild. This was especially true in the poor part of town, our neighborhood.
These packs would have ten or twenty dogs in them and they didn’t belong to anybody. People’d buy their kids a puppy for Christmas or a birthday and then when they found out how much they ate, they’d throw them out and the dogs would find each other. It was like a jungle. Mostly they were mangy-looking mongrels, with short legs and long tails or pointed faces and thick fur; all kinds of strange-looking animals.
They’d roam around in the early morning knocking over garbage cans and spreading crap around. Daytimes, they’d usually avoid people and mosey around independently or sleep. Sometimes they’d even go back to the people who owned them; but at night they were regular wolf packs.
Once in a while they’d gang up on a kid or some cat or the garbage men and there’d be a big fuss in the newspapers. This happened just as we were about ready to get out of school that summer. I got the idea of trying to pick them off with my twenty-two. By then, I’m already a real gun nut. I don’t know if I would’ve ever done it but I told Birdy. He said we should go to the police and tell them we’ll work over the summer as dogcatchers. He already has all those canaries and big feed bills.
Surprisingly, the police buy the idea; the commissioner signs procurement slips and in only two weeks it’s all set up. They rip the back off one of the old patrol wagons, build a big cage