Even though Sammy and Boyce took me out Wednesday night, when Friday came around I couldn’t stand being around Antonio anymore. I was willing to lose the bet and have The Thunderbirds be pro-bird-ownership until the end of time, but I wasn’t willing to let Julia Albert have him back. He clearly didn’t want to be with her—how could he? When I went to work at the Sleep Center I put up a sign in the kitchen lounge: “Please enjoy my peach-faced lovebird. I will pay you. Ask Cyrus for details.” For the next couple hours I got a few horrified looks by all the women working that day. Marcie, one of the attendants, kind of spat at me when she said, “You know, there are other places to go for that.” I told her I wasn’t going to just put an ad up on Craigslist. “What if someone hurt it?” I asked. Marcie shook her head like I was chewing puppy-flavored gum. Marcel had to take me aside and tell me what the problem was.
I hadn’t really spoken much with Marcel since the Virgil Ray incident, so it was nice to have him around again. He asked me what I was trying to say with the sign, and I told him about Antonio, the peach-faced lovebird. Marcel said he wanted to help me but he wasn’t interested in having a bird. I told him naturally, and smiled really big. When Rex Tugwell came on shift that morning and was apprised of the whole event, he didn’t even make a joke about doing something with Antonio. He only wanted to know if he could keep the sign I made, and I told him sure.
Sammy and Boyce tried to convince me to give it back to Julia Albert, but that’s because they clearly didn’t understand how unhappy Antonio was. I explained several times that there was no way Antonio could go back to that horrible woman. Charlotte was in the room and she asked how I could know. I said, “I just do,” and she nodded her head like she got it.
That night I asked if Boyce would take me back to Hank’s grave, and he said he actually had an appointment in the morning but if I just stayed over at their place I could take the van. So I did, and to the sound of a couple night herons in the marsh and the fairway sprinklers I took Antonio back to Hank. We talked for a while and I explained that the night before, for the first time, I had a dream about Rachel. On the way home I even stopped at Big Lets again, but nobody from Wednesday night was there. There were a few very angry people at the bar and when I brought in the bird cage, one of them told me to get the hell out, which I promptly did. I took Boyce's van back home with me and then dropped it off at his place on Saturday on my way to the park.
The agreement with Julia Albert was that I’d bring Antonio back to her at the Saturday morning Thunderbirds meeting. When I got there I had the sheet over the cage. I walked it over to Julia Albert who was looking really curious, because she must have been thinking that she lost the bet. As I set the cage on the table Julia Albert began to say, “I don’t care what—” but then she stopped because she looked under the sheet and saw Antonio wasn’t there.
She began shouting about the lovebird, but I had to correct her and say its name was Antonio. She tried to explain that the bird was named Francis, after her late husband, but nice try. It’s Antonio. The other Thunderbirds began to gather as Julia Albert got hysterical, saying, “Where’s Harold? Where’s Harold?” I told her that if the bird was so precious she shouldn’t have given it to me. She was clearly upset and fondled her earrings as though they were going to fall off. “You and I don’t like each other, Cyrus, but I always thought you would take care of a bird. I never thought you would hurt a bird, Cyrus!” She wasn’t getting me with her witchcraft, though. She kept an exotic bird caged up for over ten years, so she couldn’t play the sympathy card now. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Tough,” and walked away. She was shouting about never setting foot at a Thunderbirds meeting again. Whatever. I was already banished, and I knew Sammy and Boyce would love that I got re-banished.
When I told Sammy and Boyce about what happened at the park their first question was where is Antonio. They asked me if I gave it away to a friend, but besides them there’s really only Marcel, and I told them that Marcel never saw Antonio. Boyce smiled kind of funny and asked me if Antonio was dead. I said he was. Antonio died very late Friday night. I explained that he was old and lonely and it was to be expected. It was unfortunate timing since I only needed to make it one more morning in order to complete the restoration of The Thunderbirds' earlier glory. Sammy asked if you kill a lovebird like you do a chicken, and I told him that you could, but I didn’t kill Antonio. He died. They asked me if I set Antonio free and was just assuming he died, but I said no, he was an imprisoned bird until the very end. Boyce came out and asked, “So where the hell is the bird, Cyrus?”, but Sammy wanted to keep guessing, and for twenty minutes the two guessed a variety of demises: electrocution, flash flood, liver disease, suffocation due to playing with a plastic bag, run over by a bus, run over by a motorcycle, run over by a moped, run over by a 4-square ball, methamphetamine overdose, fall from a great height, and naturally, suicide. All were wrong, though.
It’s Boyce who asked the question that led them to the answer: “Did you bury Antonio?” I said no, but I would like to. That’s when they both knew what happened. We immediately got into Boyce’s van and went to the Sleep Center.
On Friday night, when I returned with Antonio from Hank’s grave and was disappointed by my stop at Big Lets, I went to the Sleep Center. I took Antonio out of the cage and gave him a little scratch on the head. He was finished with all of this, and I knew it. I tied some string around one of his legs and then got the ladder from behind the Sleep Center. I put it up against the tree where I mounted the nesting box and climbed up. I tied him to the top of the nesting box and scratched his head again.
On the way to the Sleep Center with Sammy and Boyce, I explained to them that Eastern Screech Owls are only about 10 inches, but they eat birds, too. They can’t swallow them whole so they kill them and then eat them in parts. Nevertheless, it was possible neither of the two owls that live there have eaten Antonio yet. They could think that Antonio was just a weird, crippled, diseased bird that was best ignored. (We've all been there, haven't we?)
When we went behind the Sleep Center we put the ladder up against the tree. I climbed up and all that remained was the string still tied to the top of the nesting box. Sammy wondered if a raccoon could have gotten Antonio first, but I reached into the nesting box and saw that couldn’t be. The owls weren’t there, but a couple owl pellets were. And unless a result of the hantavirus in mice is to produce nice rosy pink and peach feathers, Antonio went through the gullet of an owl.
And back again!
