Sammy gave me a call yesterday afternoon that Boyce would probably be on his way to the Sleep Center, and he probably wasn’t going to be very happy. I knew Boyce would be on his way to my work, but I had no idea why he wouldn’t be happy. Sammy told me that when Boyce got to his “commercial lock repair” call that morning and found out it was the Arby’s that Sammy works at, he was none too pleased. Sammy was waiting for him at the back door holding the dead bolt in his hand that he had dismantled an hour earlier and then threw at the side of the dumpster several times. “Oh, sir, glad you’re here. I think there’s something wrong with the lock,” and then Sammy let all the pieces fall out of his hand. Ever the consummate professional, Boyce replaced the dead bolt on Arby’s back door, though all the while informing Sammy that one extra call wasn’t going to let him keep his job, and might get Sammy fired from his.
That same morning I had gone behind the Sleep Center and unscrewed the deadbolt. I didn’t know what to do with it so I heaved it back into the forest where the nesting boxes are for the Eastern Screech Owls. I called Boyce’s company and tried to play it casual, asking for, “Your best man. Perhaps that excellent locksmith, Boil Limpderder.” The secretary asked if I meant Boyce Lancaster. I wasn’t sure how I should play it, so I said, “Hm, could be. And yet I’m fairly certain his name is Boil Limpderder.” The secretary said there was no one by that name at the company, nor any one on this planet by that name. So I said, “That was my dead brother’s name!”, and hung up the phone. I had to wait a few minutes before I called back. Luckily someone else answered the phone and I asked for a Boyce Lancaster to come out to fix the Sleep Center’s lock.
When Boyce got to the Sleep Center he told me how stupid my plan was, for no other reason then if Rex Tugwell sees him, he could put two and two together. Besides, he informed me that he didn’t have the size of dead bolt that would fit in the door. That meant the two of us had to go into the forest and look for the dead bolt I heaved out there. We never found it, and we had to run out to Home Depot really quick in order to buy a right-sized lock.
While Boyce installed the dead bolt into the back door of the Sleep Center, he asked me if I’d like to go gambling with him at one of the Indian reservation casinos. I understood what Boyce was hinting at and told him that Sammy and I both would contribute seed money. I asked him if he was going to keep gambling one of his last paychecks a secret from Charlotte, but he said it was her idea.
Just as Boyce was finishing the lock Rex Tugwell came around the side. He stared at what was happening, and then got a big, mischievous smile. When he approached us, though, he shook Boyce’s hand and they talked for a couple minutes about drills and motorcycles. When Rex left us he looked at me and said, “I’m going to shoot some extra doves for this one,” and I told him that’s fine. This is Boyce we’re talking about.
When we all got together in the evening for dinner, we began to discuss what our dream jobs were. We’ve had the discussion before, and Sammy’s answer changes every time. Yesterday his dream job was to be one of those divers who goes into rivers and lakes looking for dead bodies or murder weapons. He said there’s probably no pressure to actually find anything, “Because, my god, look at the size of that lake!” Plus it’s dark under there and that could some lead to some really trippy experiences. And if you do find the body or the weapon, all of your colleagues would be incredibly impressed. You’d have some drinks while you watched the local news about how the cops caught the bad guy, and then you’d all raise your glass and give knowing looks about who really solved the case.
Boyce said he would be a hay farmer. Boyce always chooses hay farmer.
I said I was perfectly content with my job, but I wish I could be a security guard somewhere. Except the place I was securing would have to be dangerous enough to need three guards—a spot for Sammy and Boyce, of course—but not so dangerous that I’d actually have to do anything. I’d just stand outside the door and sometimes people would stop by in their cars and say, “Do you know where Hartwell Street is?” And I’d tell them and they’d say thank you, then I’d go home and pick the kids up in my arms, and Rachel would tell me dinner was almost ready. Chicken breast, again? My god, how about some variety? (In my fantasies I generally sew small seeds of discontent so that later during dinner, having sensed my reticence, Rachel will ask me what's wrong. I then sigh and explain how it's nothing she did. I tell her, "It's funny. I never thought I'd take you for granted, but I think sometimes I do." Then I look at her and it all comes back to me, how I was before her and how I was without her and how I am with her now on this endless tape loop of realized dreams, and I say the chicken is delicious, and I love her, and she pats my hand and gives our son a little piece of green bean on his high chair tray.)
Whenever this question of dream job came up with Rachel she always said she was perfectly content being a receptionist. She said she wouldn’t want a job that would make her spend even two seconds in worry or thought. “You know what a job is for?” she would say, “To make me enough money so I can do things that matter.” Sometimes, if she said that around one of her girfriends who was in business or something, she would hear, “Don’t you want to do something you love?” Rachel would say that’s something guidance counselors invented to make kids not kill themselves when they realized how many years of their lives would be spent working for people who weren't their family or friends.
Charlotte didn’t say what her dream job was, and it’s probably for the best since it might have made Boyce feel bad. I know what it is, though. She wants to write songs. She doesn’t want to perform them, she just wants to write them. One day when she’s long dead Boyce Jr. is going to tear open some floor board and find an entire evolution in music in old old shoebox.
After dinner we discussed going out to the casino this weekend. Boyce is a terrible gambler, and I told him I'd do all the leg work for him. The house always has the odds, but that doesn't mean the house always gets to win. Boyce told me he'd pick me up in the morning for a ride-along. I asked where we were going, and he said he wanted to ask me the same thing.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
A Last Week
This coming week is Boyce’s last few days on the job, and he’s agreed to let me go with him for at least one of his calls. Since I only work part time at the Sleep Center, and that often happens at night, I have plenty of time to do ride-alongs with Boyce. Boyce said he might only have one or two calls the entire week, but I told him that he was bound to get some good business as a farewell.
I used to go with Boyce on ride-alongs a lot more than I have lately. People began getting uncomfortable when a second locksmith, dressed without a uniform, would stand around and scope out the inside of the house. Once I asked Rachel to go with me to deflect any weirdness my presence might cause with Boyce’s customers. She asked me why anyone would want to do a ride-along with a locksmith, besides just to spend time with Boyce (Rachel used to say that even if I was a horrible person, she’d still like hanging out with me because of Sammy and Boyce. Compare this to my mother who constantly dared Boyce and Sammy when they were teenagers to lie on the railroad tracks and let a train pass over them). I explained to her that often times a ride-along with a locksmith was like getting to be the first witness to an epic disaster that you are under no obligation to clean up. Think driving in a motorboat down the canals of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. A lot of Boyce’s customers had locks broken due to domestic disturbances, and that meant the homes were mind-boggling. Say what you will about my mother, but you never had a cockroach fall on you from a hole in the ceiling when you were in the house. Sure, she might have called your father a piddling disaster with a backbone made from rabbit ghosts, and she may have scared all the guests the one time you had a birthday party by telling all the other eighth graders how she thought they were going to die, but she never let vermin take over the house. Besides, if you go with Boyce on a ride-along and you go to a nice house, they might make you lemonade. That is, unless they spend their time on the phone with their husband saying things like, “No, honey, I don’t think he’s a locksmith. He’s just staring at our stuff. No. I wouldn’t call him scary, but there’s something not right about him.”
Rachel did go on one ride-along with Boyce. She didn’t say much about it, but Boyce told me that when they first got to the house the woman was crying and talking to family on the phone about “finally leaving him.” Boyce said, “By the time we left that woman had given Rachel lunch and they were smiling about cities they thought were beautiful, even if they hadn’t been there before. She gave me lunch too, but I think only because she really wanted to give Rachel something.” Certainly not the experience of my ride-alongs which generally ended with Boyce asking me to wait in the van.
I called Marcel yesterday to see if he could talk to some of the higher-ups at the Sleep Center to see if Boyce could get some hours doing janitorial work with me. He told me he would do what he could. I even called Rex Tugwell, too, because this is Boyce we’re talking about. Rex was fairly civil on the phone and told me the only way he could give Boyce hours is if he took some from me. I said that was fine. Rex explained that he couldn’t really do that because Boyce would have to be hired by human resources, but he was really nice when he said it. For the amount of times I have had people explain how much pleasure they would get in causing me both physical and emotional harm, I have never heard someone complain about Rachel, Boyce, and Sammy.
I’m certainly willing to give Boyce what limited hours I have. I have very little need for money because a) I do not have a family, b) my house belonged to my mother, and is paid for, c) I have already purchased all bird-related paraphernalia I might need, and d) although it's never yet come to it, I could probably just make a living at casinos. Plus, I don't need health insurance yet because I am relatively healthy, although Rachel would said she doubted that sometimes, and then she’d touch my arm. Once I was so energized when she touched my arm that I picked up a chair in a room full of her friends. I just held onto it because I didn’t know what to do with it. I did the only thing I knew how to do in a crowd full of women and their husbands, which was to tell them something about birds: “The penguin has the strongest wing relative to its size.” Then I put the chair down. Then a couple of Rachel’s girlfriends laughed, which they always did once they were convinced Rachel was never going to be romantically interested in me. The husbands would sometimes say something a bit mean, because they didn't ever know what to think of me. Rachel would tell me, "So what? They play golf and grow goatees and wait for their bellies to come in." Then I'd tell her about how beautiful the European bee-eater is, and maybe some day I could see it. That's the closest she would let me come to telling her that she was my soul mate.
When you see the European Bee-Eater though, you realize how close she let me get.
I used to go with Boyce on ride-alongs a lot more than I have lately. People began getting uncomfortable when a second locksmith, dressed without a uniform, would stand around and scope out the inside of the house. Once I asked Rachel to go with me to deflect any weirdness my presence might cause with Boyce’s customers. She asked me why anyone would want to do a ride-along with a locksmith, besides just to spend time with Boyce (Rachel used to say that even if I was a horrible person, she’d still like hanging out with me because of Sammy and Boyce. Compare this to my mother who constantly dared Boyce and Sammy when they were teenagers to lie on the railroad tracks and let a train pass over them). I explained to her that often times a ride-along with a locksmith was like getting to be the first witness to an epic disaster that you are under no obligation to clean up. Think driving in a motorboat down the canals of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. A lot of Boyce’s customers had locks broken due to domestic disturbances, and that meant the homes were mind-boggling. Say what you will about my mother, but you never had a cockroach fall on you from a hole in the ceiling when you were in the house. Sure, she might have called your father a piddling disaster with a backbone made from rabbit ghosts, and she may have scared all the guests the one time you had a birthday party by telling all the other eighth graders how she thought they were going to die, but she never let vermin take over the house. Besides, if you go with Boyce on a ride-along and you go to a nice house, they might make you lemonade. That is, unless they spend their time on the phone with their husband saying things like, “No, honey, I don’t think he’s a locksmith. He’s just staring at our stuff. No. I wouldn’t call him scary, but there’s something not right about him.”
Rachel did go on one ride-along with Boyce. She didn’t say much about it, but Boyce told me that when they first got to the house the woman was crying and talking to family on the phone about “finally leaving him.” Boyce said, “By the time we left that woman had given Rachel lunch and they were smiling about cities they thought were beautiful, even if they hadn’t been there before. She gave me lunch too, but I think only because she really wanted to give Rachel something.” Certainly not the experience of my ride-alongs which generally ended with Boyce asking me to wait in the van.
I called Marcel yesterday to see if he could talk to some of the higher-ups at the Sleep Center to see if Boyce could get some hours doing janitorial work with me. He told me he would do what he could. I even called Rex Tugwell, too, because this is Boyce we’re talking about. Rex was fairly civil on the phone and told me the only way he could give Boyce hours is if he took some from me. I said that was fine. Rex explained that he couldn’t really do that because Boyce would have to be hired by human resources, but he was really nice when he said it. For the amount of times I have had people explain how much pleasure they would get in causing me both physical and emotional harm, I have never heard someone complain about Rachel, Boyce, and Sammy.
I’m certainly willing to give Boyce what limited hours I have. I have very little need for money because a) I do not have a family, b) my house belonged to my mother, and is paid for, c) I have already purchased all bird-related paraphernalia I might need, and d) although it's never yet come to it, I could probably just make a living at casinos. Plus, I don't need health insurance yet because I am relatively healthy, although Rachel would said she doubted that sometimes, and then she’d touch my arm. Once I was so energized when she touched my arm that I picked up a chair in a room full of her friends. I just held onto it because I didn’t know what to do with it. I did the only thing I knew how to do in a crowd full of women and their husbands, which was to tell them something about birds: “The penguin has the strongest wing relative to its size.” Then I put the chair down. Then a couple of Rachel’s girlfriends laughed, which they always did once they were convinced Rachel was never going to be romantically interested in me. The husbands would sometimes say something a bit mean, because they didn't ever know what to think of me. Rachel would tell me, "So what? They play golf and grow goatees and wait for their bellies to come in." Then I'd tell her about how beautiful the European bee-eater is, and maybe some day I could see it. That's the closest she would let me come to telling her that she was my soul mate.
When you see the European Bee-Eater though, you realize how close she let me get.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Some Days are Better than Others
A couple nights ago I asked Sammy and Boyce if they wanted to save a Northern Mockingbird. There is generally a silence on the other end of the line when I ask these things, as though they’re both saying, “Another bird thing…okay.” Boyce’s silence, however, went a little longer than usual and was accompanied with a sigh, though he agreed to pick up Sammy and I around 9 pm. It’s not true that mockingbirds sing only at night, but dusk is around the time people really begin to notice their song, just as everything else is getting quiet. Of course, we were all in Boyce’s van by the time I realized I had no idea where Janice lived. I called Marcel, which as you can imagine was very exciting, but he didn’t know where she lived. You know that Marcel is a really cool guy when you’re never entirely convinced he knows who anyone is who isn’t standing right next to him. “Janice…” he said, like maybe I was bringing up a Janice from my fourth grade physical fitness award ceremony. Even when he answered the phone and said, “Hey brother, what’s up,” I felt like I needed to say, “It’s Cyrus. Cyrus Wetherbee. From the Sleep Center. I’ve been in your apartment.” Sometimes I try to pretend like I don’t remember people’s names just so I can seem like I’m cool enough to forget those kinds of things, hiding under a nonchalant, “Oh, yeah, right—I’m just not good with names.” It never works, though, and I am generally exposed as a cool-fraud. Both Sammy and Boyce can tell you about #3, the third time I was hit in junior high or high school. It revolves around an exposure of cool-fraud when I tried to pretend like I didn’t remember the name of Francine Bruhm, the popular-by-pity, wheelchair-bound diabetic girl. When she asked me one day how I was, I awkwardly said, “Do we know each other?”, as though we were in a bank line rather than sitting next to each other in English. She said that we’ve known each other for quite a while, and I replied, “Oh yeah, the one with the wheelchair.” She leaned forward in her wheelchair as best she could and slapped me across the face. I don’t know why, but Sammy loves to hear that story every Fourth of July.
After Marcel said he didn’t know Janice’s address I called Rex Tugwell. Rex begins most conversations with me by laughing, and I always half-expect him to lunge at me like some kind of rabid wolf. Even on the phone. When I said why I called, he asked me, “You gonna put salt in her garden?” This confused me intensely and made me feel like a sexual deviant, so I told him I was going to steal a mockingbird by her bedroom, which confused Rex intensely and may have made him feel like a sexual deviant. Apparently, Rex’s son, Rexford Tugwell VI, told his father that Janice’s son, Lucas, is a very unlikeable freshman in high school. Janice’s home is constantly terrorized by hoodlums, whether it be egging, toilet papering, or pouring gasoline on their asphalt driveway and setting it on fire. I told Rex all I wanted to do was snatch the bird, and he said, “You go get her, Typhus.” Maybe part of the reason Rex is so mean to me is because he thinks everything I say is code for horrifying acts of perversion.
We drove to Janice’s house which wasn’t terribly far away from where Boyce lives. It’s on the east side of town where it opens into farm country. Boyce’s house is a small farmhouse on a few acres, and so was Janice’s: plenty of space for ne’er-do-wells to practice their art. We parked Boyce’s van down the road a bit, and walked along the property line to the side of Janice’s house. I wasn’t sure which bedroom window was hers, and since there were big maple trees on both sides, I chose the northern side first. We sat against the house, which was already dark despite the fact that it wasn’t yet ten o’clock, and I told them my plan of catching the bird. I explained that I would climb the tree first and see if there were signs of a nest. Unless there were feathers or eggs I wouldn’t be sure whether a nest belonged to a Northern Mockingbird, but it was worth a try. I had brought a butterfly net to catch the mockingbird. Mockingbirds are notoriously unimpressed with people, and you can actually get very close to them without inducing fear. In fact, the only fear will be yours as the mockingbird may attack you for intruding on its territory. Therefore, while I distracted the mockingbird, Sammy or Boyce could catch it with the net.
I climbed the maple and looked around for a nest but couldn’t find one. Northern Mockingbirds generally don’t make a nest more than ten feet off the ground, but I kept climbing just to see what I could find. Lo and behold, I discovered a nest the right size, though with no feathers or eggs. I called Sammy and Boyce to climb up and both joined me about twenty feet in the air. They didn’t even ask how long we had to sit in the maple tree. We each found a comfortable nook to lean into and talked. We were almost even with the bedroom window, and while Boyce began to speak I looked in at the decorations on the wall. Maybe if Boyce hadn’t talked about what he did I would have noticed that Janice wouldn’t have so many hearts and rock posters on her bedroom wall.
While sitting in the tree Boyce told us that he was getting laid off. His hours as a locksmith had been reduced so low that the company couldn’t justify keeping him on staff any longer. Add to that the family’s only transportation was through the van, which actually belonged to the locksmith company, and Boyce was feeling like he forgot to bring a rope with him. Sammy patted Boyce on the arm and I told him that if it made him feel any better, we could go hide in the bushes and watch the mockingbird get shot with a pellet gun. Boyce said he was glad he was in the tree with us, because ever since he told Charlotte it’s been tough to be around her. “She doesn’t have much reaction to it because she thinks I’ll work it out, but that makes it even harder to work it out,” he said.
We both told Boyce that we’d help him out where we could, but sometimes a man just wants to say the world sucks, so that’s what we were letting him do. At about that time we heard a voice down at the bottom of the maple tree. Sammy whispered, “Can mockingbirds do that?” Although the mockingbird can imitate the human voice, along with cell phones, alarm clocks, and barn animals, it cannot imitate the pubescent voice of a punk who shouts, “Dani! Dani! Open the window! I’m here!”
We did our best to look through the branches, but all we could see was a teenage boy dressed in black standing underneath the bedroom window. That’s when the bedroom window opened, and a blonde with black streaks in her hair leaned out. Apparently, this was Dani, Janice’s daughter, and that wasn’t the right bedroom for catching a Northern Mockingbird. We heard her whisper, “I’m coming!” Dani climbed out the window and we realized she was going to use the tree we were in to get down. The three of us scrambled to get down that tree, but there wasn't room, and since it was dark we had to reach out our feet to find good branches to step on. I reached for the bird nest and grabbed it—just in case—and took it down with me. I was climbing down first, followed by Boyce, then Sammy. I hit the ground with a thud, but about that time we could hear the screams of Dani in the tree. She nearly ran into Sammy on that branch as he waited for space after Boyce. It probably didn’t help that Sammy held up his hands as though to say “Don’t scream!”, but that only exposed his missing fingers. Dani kept screaming, and Sammy thought better of reasoning with her, so he just dangled from a branch and let himself fall. The boyfriend was staring at all this happening in shock: first I came down holding a bird nest and butterfly net, then Boyce, then suddenly from nowhere Sammy fell all the way straight to the ground. To give Sammy time to recover from his long fall I threw the bird’s nest in the boyfriend's face. Boyce immediately burst into laughter when I did that, and when Sammy screamed, “Okay, run!” I thought Boyce was going to hyperventilate from joy. We ran across their front yard as fast as we could and jumped into the van. Boyce floored it out of there and it wasn’t long before we were just driving around country roads wondering how many months until Dani was pregnant with a daughter she would name Karma or Destiny.
It was close to midnight and we asked Boyce if he wanted to go home or drive around some more so he could talk about his job. He said he was going to lose this van in a couple days so we should keep driving, just to put some more miles on it before it’s gone. I’m not sure who it was, but one of us proposed going back to Janice’s house to see if there was any aftermath. We looked from the road but couldn’t see anything different. I asked Boyce if there was anything we could do to make him feel better, and he said, like he’d been thinking about it for a while, “I’d like to rip that mailbox out of the ground.” Sammy and I didn’t question it so we helped Boyce get a chain from out of the back of the van and wrap it around Janice's mailbox and then to Boyce’s fender. When he put the van into gear he looked at both of us and said, “I needed this,” and then floored it. The van jerked really hard. Apparently, Janice’s mailbox has been destroyed so many times they put some concrete into the ground. We still managed to tear it out, dragging some of the concrete, but it did nearly tear Boyce’s fender off. We got out of the van to inspect the damage and Boyce smiled at the fender that was going to scrape on the ground all the way home. I unhooked the mailbox from the chain and dragged it into a little trench by the road. I think Rachel wouldn’t mind tearing out Janice’s mailbox if it made Boyce feel better, but she would want me to return it. And since that thing had concrete at the base, the best I could do was roll it into the trench.
Boyce drove us home and we didn’t tell him again that we’d help him out where we could. He already knew that, and he deserved forgetting his problems for a moment to bask in the glory of tearing out the mailbox of a stranger whose daughter sneaks around with the biggest, pimply tool you’ll ever meet.
After Marcel said he didn’t know Janice’s address I called Rex Tugwell. Rex begins most conversations with me by laughing, and I always half-expect him to lunge at me like some kind of rabid wolf. Even on the phone. When I said why I called, he asked me, “You gonna put salt in her garden?” This confused me intensely and made me feel like a sexual deviant, so I told him I was going to steal a mockingbird by her bedroom, which confused Rex intensely and may have made him feel like a sexual deviant. Apparently, Rex’s son, Rexford Tugwell VI, told his father that Janice’s son, Lucas, is a very unlikeable freshman in high school. Janice’s home is constantly terrorized by hoodlums, whether it be egging, toilet papering, or pouring gasoline on their asphalt driveway and setting it on fire. I told Rex all I wanted to do was snatch the bird, and he said, “You go get her, Typhus.” Maybe part of the reason Rex is so mean to me is because he thinks everything I say is code for horrifying acts of perversion.
We drove to Janice’s house which wasn’t terribly far away from where Boyce lives. It’s on the east side of town where it opens into farm country. Boyce’s house is a small farmhouse on a few acres, and so was Janice’s: plenty of space for ne’er-do-wells to practice their art. We parked Boyce’s van down the road a bit, and walked along the property line to the side of Janice’s house. I wasn’t sure which bedroom window was hers, and since there were big maple trees on both sides, I chose the northern side first. We sat against the house, which was already dark despite the fact that it wasn’t yet ten o’clock, and I told them my plan of catching the bird. I explained that I would climb the tree first and see if there were signs of a nest. Unless there were feathers or eggs I wouldn’t be sure whether a nest belonged to a Northern Mockingbird, but it was worth a try. I had brought a butterfly net to catch the mockingbird. Mockingbirds are notoriously unimpressed with people, and you can actually get very close to them without inducing fear. In fact, the only fear will be yours as the mockingbird may attack you for intruding on its territory. Therefore, while I distracted the mockingbird, Sammy or Boyce could catch it with the net.
I climbed the maple and looked around for a nest but couldn’t find one. Northern Mockingbirds generally don’t make a nest more than ten feet off the ground, but I kept climbing just to see what I could find. Lo and behold, I discovered a nest the right size, though with no feathers or eggs. I called Sammy and Boyce to climb up and both joined me about twenty feet in the air. They didn’t even ask how long we had to sit in the maple tree. We each found a comfortable nook to lean into and talked. We were almost even with the bedroom window, and while Boyce began to speak I looked in at the decorations on the wall. Maybe if Boyce hadn’t talked about what he did I would have noticed that Janice wouldn’t have so many hearts and rock posters on her bedroom wall.
While sitting in the tree Boyce told us that he was getting laid off. His hours as a locksmith had been reduced so low that the company couldn’t justify keeping him on staff any longer. Add to that the family’s only transportation was through the van, which actually belonged to the locksmith company, and Boyce was feeling like he forgot to bring a rope with him. Sammy patted Boyce on the arm and I told him that if it made him feel any better, we could go hide in the bushes and watch the mockingbird get shot with a pellet gun. Boyce said he was glad he was in the tree with us, because ever since he told Charlotte it’s been tough to be around her. “She doesn’t have much reaction to it because she thinks I’ll work it out, but that makes it even harder to work it out,” he said.
We both told Boyce that we’d help him out where we could, but sometimes a man just wants to say the world sucks, so that’s what we were letting him do. At about that time we heard a voice down at the bottom of the maple tree. Sammy whispered, “Can mockingbirds do that?” Although the mockingbird can imitate the human voice, along with cell phones, alarm clocks, and barn animals, it cannot imitate the pubescent voice of a punk who shouts, “Dani! Dani! Open the window! I’m here!”
We did our best to look through the branches, but all we could see was a teenage boy dressed in black standing underneath the bedroom window. That’s when the bedroom window opened, and a blonde with black streaks in her hair leaned out. Apparently, this was Dani, Janice’s daughter, and that wasn’t the right bedroom for catching a Northern Mockingbird. We heard her whisper, “I’m coming!” Dani climbed out the window and we realized she was going to use the tree we were in to get down. The three of us scrambled to get down that tree, but there wasn't room, and since it was dark we had to reach out our feet to find good branches to step on. I reached for the bird nest and grabbed it—just in case—and took it down with me. I was climbing down first, followed by Boyce, then Sammy. I hit the ground with a thud, but about that time we could hear the screams of Dani in the tree. She nearly ran into Sammy on that branch as he waited for space after Boyce. It probably didn’t help that Sammy held up his hands as though to say “Don’t scream!”, but that only exposed his missing fingers. Dani kept screaming, and Sammy thought better of reasoning with her, so he just dangled from a branch and let himself fall. The boyfriend was staring at all this happening in shock: first I came down holding a bird nest and butterfly net, then Boyce, then suddenly from nowhere Sammy fell all the way straight to the ground. To give Sammy time to recover from his long fall I threw the bird’s nest in the boyfriend's face. Boyce immediately burst into laughter when I did that, and when Sammy screamed, “Okay, run!” I thought Boyce was going to hyperventilate from joy. We ran across their front yard as fast as we could and jumped into the van. Boyce floored it out of there and it wasn’t long before we were just driving around country roads wondering how many months until Dani was pregnant with a daughter she would name Karma or Destiny.
It was close to midnight and we asked Boyce if he wanted to go home or drive around some more so he could talk about his job. He said he was going to lose this van in a couple days so we should keep driving, just to put some more miles on it before it’s gone. I’m not sure who it was, but one of us proposed going back to Janice’s house to see if there was any aftermath. We looked from the road but couldn’t see anything different. I asked Boyce if there was anything we could do to make him feel better, and he said, like he’d been thinking about it for a while, “I’d like to rip that mailbox out of the ground.” Sammy and I didn’t question it so we helped Boyce get a chain from out of the back of the van and wrap it around Janice's mailbox and then to Boyce’s fender. When he put the van into gear he looked at both of us and said, “I needed this,” and then floored it. The van jerked really hard. Apparently, Janice’s mailbox has been destroyed so many times they put some concrete into the ground. We still managed to tear it out, dragging some of the concrete, but it did nearly tear Boyce’s fender off. We got out of the van to inspect the damage and Boyce smiled at the fender that was going to scrape on the ground all the way home. I unhooked the mailbox from the chain and dragged it into a little trench by the road. I think Rachel wouldn’t mind tearing out Janice’s mailbox if it made Boyce feel better, but she would want me to return it. And since that thing had concrete at the base, the best I could do was roll it into the trench.
Boyce drove us home and we didn’t tell him again that we’d help him out where we could. He already knew that, and he deserved forgetting his problems for a moment to bask in the glory of tearing out the mailbox of a stranger whose daughter sneaks around with the biggest, pimply tool you’ll ever meet.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Monsieur Moriarty, Bird Expert
It’s rare when someone solicits my advice for something. It occurred this morning, however, at the Sleep Center when Janice stopped me while I mopped one of the rooms. She asked me how to get rid of a mockingbird that lived outside of her bedroom window.
Even though I was thrilled with the question, I asked Janice why she didn’t ask God to get rid of the mockingbird for her. Janice is very religious, which I don’t mind. Rachel always talked about God, too. When bad things happened around, Rachel, though, she’d say, “Glory to God” and then shrug her shoulders. When bad things happen around Janice, she says, “It’s not my fault,” even though both her God and I saw that tupperware of spaghetti blow up in the microwave.
Janice told me God had more important things to do than worry about her mockingbird, but I told her I doubted that, since he cared more about a mockingbird than most kids on this planet if I was judging by nutrition, and some times, even life spans. I always like saying things like that to Janice. I used to say the same things to Rachel but she’d tell me I was full of crap: “See, Cyrus, you believe in God. It’s just a really stupid God you’ve picked up from really stupid people.” Then she would offer me something in the room and explain it was better I believed [said object] was God. Once when she said that she picked up a stress ball on the coffee table. Then she looked at it a second and said that the stress ball really was what most people thought God was. Whatever, Rachel. Sometimes it was a lucky thing she was so pretty.
Janice must have been having a lot of trouble with that mockingbird because she said, “Oh Cyrus, one day you’ll see.” Then she asked me again about the mockingbird. She told me she tried hanging a strong magnet she bought at an outdoors store. I asked her why she would do that and she had some convoluted explanation about magnetic fields and a bird’s sense of direction. That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. I told her that she should try hanging a whole bunch of blueberries in the tree. I told her this because the Northern Mockingbird loves blueberries. Plus they are a very expensive fruit.
I couldn’t keep up the charade though, and told her the best thing she could do was to wait out the mockingbird. It’s spring so he's probably nesting or still looking for a mate. Her best chance was to hope he moved on. She wasn’t going for that, so I told her she could buy a fake owl and put it in the tree, but there’s no way the mockingbird will be fooled by it. The best thing she could do, even better than waiting for him to move on, is to fall in love with the mockingbird. It’s actually a very intelligent, comedic bird prone to dive-bombing animals and chasing off larger birds it should, by all measure, be terrified by.
“Yeah well, we need our sleep. I’ll just have my husband shoot it with a pellet gun,” Janice said.
“That’s a great solution, Janice. I suppose that’s what you did when your kids were babies and they cried at night.” She walked out of the room, though, mumbling under her breath that I was either a "madman monster" or "Monsieur Moriarty." I feel like that bird had a better chance of survival if I had just never said a thing to Janice. I should have stopped with the blueberries suggestion.
I think maybe I’ll see if Sammy and Boyce want to save a mockingbird.
Even though I was thrilled with the question, I asked Janice why she didn’t ask God to get rid of the mockingbird for her. Janice is very religious, which I don’t mind. Rachel always talked about God, too. When bad things happened around, Rachel, though, she’d say, “Glory to God” and then shrug her shoulders. When bad things happen around Janice, she says, “It’s not my fault,” even though both her God and I saw that tupperware of spaghetti blow up in the microwave.
Janice told me God had more important things to do than worry about her mockingbird, but I told her I doubted that, since he cared more about a mockingbird than most kids on this planet if I was judging by nutrition, and some times, even life spans. I always like saying things like that to Janice. I used to say the same things to Rachel but she’d tell me I was full of crap: “See, Cyrus, you believe in God. It’s just a really stupid God you’ve picked up from really stupid people.” Then she would offer me something in the room and explain it was better I believed [said object] was God. Once when she said that she picked up a stress ball on the coffee table. Then she looked at it a second and said that the stress ball really was what most people thought God was. Whatever, Rachel. Sometimes it was a lucky thing she was so pretty.
Janice must have been having a lot of trouble with that mockingbird because she said, “Oh Cyrus, one day you’ll see.” Then she asked me again about the mockingbird. She told me she tried hanging a strong magnet she bought at an outdoors store. I asked her why she would do that and she had some convoluted explanation about magnetic fields and a bird’s sense of direction. That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. I told her that she should try hanging a whole bunch of blueberries in the tree. I told her this because the Northern Mockingbird loves blueberries. Plus they are a very expensive fruit.
I couldn’t keep up the charade though, and told her the best thing she could do was to wait out the mockingbird. It’s spring so he's probably nesting or still looking for a mate. Her best chance was to hope he moved on. She wasn’t going for that, so I told her she could buy a fake owl and put it in the tree, but there’s no way the mockingbird will be fooled by it. The best thing she could do, even better than waiting for him to move on, is to fall in love with the mockingbird. It’s actually a very intelligent, comedic bird prone to dive-bombing animals and chasing off larger birds it should, by all measure, be terrified by.
“Yeah well, we need our sleep. I’ll just have my husband shoot it with a pellet gun,” Janice said.
“That’s a great solution, Janice. I suppose that’s what you did when your kids were babies and they cried at night.” She walked out of the room, though, mumbling under her breath that I was either a "madman monster" or "Monsieur Moriarty." I feel like that bird had a better chance of survival if I had just never said a thing to Janice. I should have stopped with the blueberries suggestion.
I think maybe I’ll see if Sammy and Boyce want to save a mockingbird.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
What?!?
Are you aware there’s been an oil spill in the Gulf Coast? I asked Sammy and Boyce why they didn’t bring it up. Boyce said he didn’t know. Sammy calls him an event-medievalist, because the only way Boyce allows himself to be informed of current events is either by his next door neighbor, a man four acres away who is obsessed with his lawn, or if armed men come riding on a horse demanding he join the king’s army. Anything that doesn’t make his neighbor run four acres or cause his forced entry into an infantry unit, Boyce says isn’t worth knowing. This means Boyce actually knows more about birds than he does American Idol and the stock market. Once when he was on a locksmith call the homeowner had the tv on in the background. The tv announced that celebrity Anna Nicole Smith’s baby’s father had received permanent custody, and Boyce threw his tools down on the carpet and screamed, “Damn it, now!” He didn’t want to waste a single moment of his life on that piece of information. The homeowner, however, brought him a ginger ale and told him to sit down for a bit, saying that it was all in the child’s best interest. The ginger ale was apparently homemade, but Boyce said it wasn’t worth the cost. Sammy said he knew about the oil spill but didn’t know how to break it to me with all that was happening with Antonio. No argument, there. Overload.
In the break room of the Sleep Center we watched a bit about the spill on tv, and I informed Rex Tugwell that those birds down there have never seen oil and may think it’s harmless or even nesting mortar, like spider webs and mud. Rex said any bird dumb enough to take a beakful of crude deserves to have its stomach come out its backside. That got a few people to laugh, but I asked Rex what he’d do with a pygostyle if I put it in front of him. He said, "If that's a bird, I'd cook it on the grill and eat it." The joke, however, is on Rex: the pygostyle is the ossified end part of a bird's spine. People still laughed at what he said, though. God, I hate him.
I’ve actually been to some of the Louisiana wetlands to do some bird watching. I rented a car at the airport and asked the clerk the best place to see the "wild life." He gave me directions to an over-populated, tourist-soaked beach. I wandered around but all I could see were pathetic terns and gulls eating garbage and sitting in flocks on dock posts, undoubtedly wondering—like some momentarily contrite junkee weeping at the foot of his anemic daughter’s bed—why they are unable to resist popcorn and sand-covered Sun Chips. On that beach I saw a couple kids heaving Alka-seltzer into the air for the terns and gulls to eat. I watched them do it for a while and then informed them that what they were doing made no sense. They were emphatic that Alka-seltzer makes birds explode. I said, "First, a bird will never eat that. Second, birds can release gas just like you. And, you know Alka-seltzer is perfectly safe for people, right? You're not throwing antifreeze up there." It took five minutes but I eventually convinced them. So instead of heaving Alka-seltzer tablets, they began throwing stones and shells they found. I was so angry I spent nearly the rest of my trip gambling on a steamboat. I won over four hundred dollars, and used that money to take a private wetland tour for exotic birds. If I had a dollar for every time gambling saved a vacation gone haywire, I would have six or seven dollars. But I would then gamble that, and get even more.
It’s a good thing my father isn’t around to see this spill. He died only three weeks after the Exxon Valdez spill occurred in 1989. He was very old and weak at that time, but I’m convinced that’s what finished him off. All he did for three weeks was wander around the house calling out the Latin names of birds. He’d say, “The Histrionicus histrionicus…the Phalacrocorax auritus.” He was so sad he even called my mother. I got on the other line because I had only known my mother and father to interact a few times. He whispered into the phone, “Oh, Teresa. They made the sea kill the sky.” I was young and didn’t understand what he meant, and apparently neither did my mother, because she just burped loudly into the phone and hung up.
I told a lot of stories to Rachel about my mother and father, neither of whom she ever met. I think it was that story though that finally made her say, “How were you even born, Cyrus?” I told her, “That’s exactly what my mother used to say!”
My uncle finally came over for the last week of my father’s life. My uncle was actually my mother’s eldest brother, but he and my father grew up together. So he came over and drank with my father. I think my father knew, whether it was because of the Valdez spill or not, that his time was up, because he let my uncle tell stories about traveling the country on a motorcycle, and my uncle would let my father tell stories about Ragnarok, the unstoppable apocalypse in Norse mythology. Rachel never met my parents, but she did meet my uncle. I warned her he would be very drunk, and he was, but after we spent the evening together she kissed him on the cheek and told my uncle he was a good man.
In the break room of the Sleep Center we watched a bit about the spill on tv, and I informed Rex Tugwell that those birds down there have never seen oil and may think it’s harmless or even nesting mortar, like spider webs and mud. Rex said any bird dumb enough to take a beakful of crude deserves to have its stomach come out its backside. That got a few people to laugh, but I asked Rex what he’d do with a pygostyle if I put it in front of him. He said, "If that's a bird, I'd cook it on the grill and eat it." The joke, however, is on Rex: the pygostyle is the ossified end part of a bird's spine. People still laughed at what he said, though. God, I hate him.
I’ve actually been to some of the Louisiana wetlands to do some bird watching. I rented a car at the airport and asked the clerk the best place to see the "wild life." He gave me directions to an over-populated, tourist-soaked beach. I wandered around but all I could see were pathetic terns and gulls eating garbage and sitting in flocks on dock posts, undoubtedly wondering—like some momentarily contrite junkee weeping at the foot of his anemic daughter’s bed—why they are unable to resist popcorn and sand-covered Sun Chips. On that beach I saw a couple kids heaving Alka-seltzer into the air for the terns and gulls to eat. I watched them do it for a while and then informed them that what they were doing made no sense. They were emphatic that Alka-seltzer makes birds explode. I said, "First, a bird will never eat that. Second, birds can release gas just like you. And, you know Alka-seltzer is perfectly safe for people, right? You're not throwing antifreeze up there." It took five minutes but I eventually convinced them. So instead of heaving Alka-seltzer tablets, they began throwing stones and shells they found. I was so angry I spent nearly the rest of my trip gambling on a steamboat. I won over four hundred dollars, and used that money to take a private wetland tour for exotic birds. If I had a dollar for every time gambling saved a vacation gone haywire, I would have six or seven dollars. But I would then gamble that, and get even more.
It’s a good thing my father isn’t around to see this spill. He died only three weeks after the Exxon Valdez spill occurred in 1989. He was very old and weak at that time, but I’m convinced that’s what finished him off. All he did for three weeks was wander around the house calling out the Latin names of birds. He’d say, “The Histrionicus histrionicus…the Phalacrocorax auritus.” He was so sad he even called my mother. I got on the other line because I had only known my mother and father to interact a few times. He whispered into the phone, “Oh, Teresa. They made the sea kill the sky.” I was young and didn’t understand what he meant, and apparently neither did my mother, because she just burped loudly into the phone and hung up.
I told a lot of stories to Rachel about my mother and father, neither of whom she ever met. I think it was that story though that finally made her say, “How were you even born, Cyrus?” I told her, “That’s exactly what my mother used to say!”
My uncle finally came over for the last week of my father’s life. My uncle was actually my mother’s eldest brother, but he and my father grew up together. So he came over and drank with my father. I think my father knew, whether it was because of the Valdez spill or not, that his time was up, because he let my uncle tell stories about traveling the country on a motorcycle, and my uncle would let my father tell stories about Ragnarok, the unstoppable apocalypse in Norse mythology. Rachel never met my parents, but she did meet my uncle. I warned her he would be very drunk, and he was, but after we spent the evening together she kissed him on the cheek and told my uncle he was a good man.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Another Burial
I took the two owl pellets we found in the nesting box to the Lancaster house the next day. I had told Boyce Jr. on the telephone that I’d let him dissect the pellets in order to pull out as many of Antonio’s bones as we could find. Boyce Jr. was excited about the whole thing, and sometimes he’d point the tweezers and Xacto-knife in the air and tremble all over. I hadn’t seen him this excited since Boyce bought him a sticker for his guitar case that read, “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.” Boyce Jr. didn’t know what that means anymore than I did, but he knew the word “kills,” so he was thrilled.
An owl pellet is a clump of hair, bone, plant matter, and other assorted debris that the owl can’t digest. He has to vomit it in order to avoid a bowel obstruction. Boyce Jr. was therefore, under my tutelage, separating small parts of several animals in order to get what there existed of Antonio. To the right on a white piece of paper we assembled an Antonio skeleton and feather pile, and every time we got an easily recognizable part like an upper beak or part of the skull, Boyce Jr. made a kind of nutso laugh from deep in his sinuses.
It made me think of disassembling owl pellets with my father when I was a little child. I wouldn’t get to laugh like Boyce Jr. did, and to be fair, I never really wanted to. My father had his thick glasses on and was huddled over the pellet. He’d pull the bones out of the pellets and ask me to assemble the animals, whether it was a mouse, chipmunk, or bird. Then I’d go to school and my kindergarten teacher would ask me what I did over the weekend. I always said, “I played football,” because that’s what my father told me I should say. Once, in the second grade, I heard some kids talking about whether their fathers could slam dunk a basketball or not. I mistakenly thought one of them made eye contact with me in order to invite me into the conversation, so I blurted out that my father and I regularly disassembled the regurgitated materials of owls. One of the kids took my shirt off and choked me with it. Other than that, I always said, “I played football.”
While Boyce Jr. was trying to figure out some of the bone patterns from the pellet, Boyce asked me why I tied Antonio up. I only had a matter of hours before I returned him and altered The Thunderbirds for the better. “The options are either you didn’t want to see that group banning bird ownership, or you really wanted Antonio to die. You didn’t have to give him back to that lady. You could have tried harder to find him a home.”
I told both Sammy and Boyce that I knew what was best for Antonio, and that he wanted to go. There wasn’t any way better for him than those Eastern Screech Owls. Charlotte waited for Sammy and Boyce to get distracted by smelling the pellet to say to me, “It’s getting worse.” Maybe I would have got mad at her for saying that—I don’t know, I’ve never been mad at Charlotte—but she said right afterward, “I could use some Pizza Rolls,” and god, I could, too. So I ignored what she had said and listened to Boyce Jr. cackle and shake a leg bone in the tweezers.
When Boyce Jr. was put to bed and I had eaten my fill of rolled pizza goodness, the three of us took Antonio’s remains out to Roger Malvin Country Club. We buried him next to Hank’s tombstone and I pulled out of my bag some drinks and a book that Rachel had given me. It’s called Bright Wings, and it’s a book of poems about birds with paintings by the bird-maestro himself, David Allen Sibley. I gave the book to Sammy and told him to read one because he could do it better than me. He tried to find a poem about a lovebird but there wasn’t one, so he did the next best thing and found one about an owl. “Antonio was a sport. He wouldn’t mind,” Sammy said. Then he read “The Owl” by Edward Thomas:
I couldn't concentrate to understand the poem but I did like the sound of Sammy reading it. I raised my bottle and said, “That’s nicer than anything we read at my mother’s funeral,” and we drank. My mother’s funeral was just my uncle and I in the middle of the night burying her ashes by the flagpole of a Ruby Tuesday’s as she requested. She also requested me to read the following note when we finished: “Nothing but crabgrass going to grow on this patch. Up your ass, Applebee’s.” My uncle and I were unsure if my mother was confused about which restaurant had wronged her, or if she simply wanted to defame another eatery after her death. Either way, the poem for Antonio was a lot nicer.
An owl pellet is a clump of hair, bone, plant matter, and other assorted debris that the owl can’t digest. He has to vomit it in order to avoid a bowel obstruction. Boyce Jr. was therefore, under my tutelage, separating small parts of several animals in order to get what there existed of Antonio. To the right on a white piece of paper we assembled an Antonio skeleton and feather pile, and every time we got an easily recognizable part like an upper beak or part of the skull, Boyce Jr. made a kind of nutso laugh from deep in his sinuses.
It made me think of disassembling owl pellets with my father when I was a little child. I wouldn’t get to laugh like Boyce Jr. did, and to be fair, I never really wanted to. My father had his thick glasses on and was huddled over the pellet. He’d pull the bones out of the pellets and ask me to assemble the animals, whether it was a mouse, chipmunk, or bird. Then I’d go to school and my kindergarten teacher would ask me what I did over the weekend. I always said, “I played football,” because that’s what my father told me I should say. Once, in the second grade, I heard some kids talking about whether their fathers could slam dunk a basketball or not. I mistakenly thought one of them made eye contact with me in order to invite me into the conversation, so I blurted out that my father and I regularly disassembled the regurgitated materials of owls. One of the kids took my shirt off and choked me with it. Other than that, I always said, “I played football.”
While Boyce Jr. was trying to figure out some of the bone patterns from the pellet, Boyce asked me why I tied Antonio up. I only had a matter of hours before I returned him and altered The Thunderbirds for the better. “The options are either you didn’t want to see that group banning bird ownership, or you really wanted Antonio to die. You didn’t have to give him back to that lady. You could have tried harder to find him a home.”
I told both Sammy and Boyce that I knew what was best for Antonio, and that he wanted to go. There wasn’t any way better for him than those Eastern Screech Owls. Charlotte waited for Sammy and Boyce to get distracted by smelling the pellet to say to me, “It’s getting worse.” Maybe I would have got mad at her for saying that—I don’t know, I’ve never been mad at Charlotte—but she said right afterward, “I could use some Pizza Rolls,” and god, I could, too. So I ignored what she had said and listened to Boyce Jr. cackle and shake a leg bone in the tweezers.
When Boyce Jr. was put to bed and I had eaten my fill of rolled pizza goodness, the three of us took Antonio’s remains out to Roger Malvin Country Club. We buried him next to Hank’s tombstone and I pulled out of my bag some drinks and a book that Rachel had given me. It’s called Bright Wings, and it’s a book of poems about birds with paintings by the bird-maestro himself, David Allen Sibley. I gave the book to Sammy and told him to read one because he could do it better than me. He tried to find a poem about a lovebird but there wasn’t one, so he did the next best thing and found one about an owl. “Antonio was a sport. He wouldn’t mind,” Sammy said. Then he read “The Owl” by Edward Thomas:
Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;When Rachel got me that book I really only paid attention to the Sibley art, despite the fact that she wrote on the first page, "I know you're only going to look at the Sibley art, but poetry is people trying to sound like birds." I've never heard a bird song sound remotely like a person saying big words in strange order, but it was a gift from Rachel so I didn't mind the inaccuracy.
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.
Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry
Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went.
And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
I couldn't concentrate to understand the poem but I did like the sound of Sammy reading it. I raised my bottle and said, “That’s nicer than anything we read at my mother’s funeral,” and we drank. My mother’s funeral was just my uncle and I in the middle of the night burying her ashes by the flagpole of a Ruby Tuesday’s as she requested. She also requested me to read the following note when we finished: “Nothing but crabgrass going to grow on this patch. Up your ass, Applebee’s.” My uncle and I were unsure if my mother was confused about which restaurant had wronged her, or if she simply wanted to defame another eatery after her death. Either way, the poem for Antonio was a lot nicer.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Antonio, Antonio!
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!
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!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Bruce Barenburg and a Night at Big Lets
I can’t say things are getting better with Antonio. Boyce and Sammy have invited me to their places every night this week just to get away from him, but I find myself unable to leave. He is, of course, a beautiful bird, yet his very existence is a nightmare to me. I can’t leave him, though. Even when he bit me through the bars I didn’t get very upset at him. I can blame him for biting me no more than he can blame me when a drop of my blood fell into his food tray.
Even though I can’t leave Antonio, I can’t stand to be around him either. Two nights ago Sammy and the Lancasters came over to help distract me, but Boyce Jr.’s delight at the bird only made things worse, especially when he told Charlotte that he wished I had stuffed birds that he could play with. I showed him a couple of teddy-bear-like stuffed birds that I never had the nerve to give to Rachel, but Boyce Jr. said, “Those are for babies. I want the ones that were once alive.” Later that night I lurked in a support group chat room for parents whose children had committed grizzly murders. When their stories encouraged me enough to share my own, I wrote that my name was Cyrus, and one of my best friends’ boy thinks stuffed birds are cool. When someone asked whether I understood what the chat room was for, I wrote, “I mean the ones that were once alive!” Everyone ignored me from then on.
Last night I simply couldn’t sleep because of Antonio. His movements in the cage were so irregular that I would imagine for a moment that he wasn’t there, then I’d hear his clipped wing ruffle or his cage shake a bit. I thought about just losing the bet and letting Antonio go outside. A cat would get him pretty quickly, but I don’t think he’d mind going that way. I didn’t know his mate, but I bet she was pretty great, and Antonio is probably wondering why he didn’t die instead. But since he’s just a bird, his consciousness would only allow him to think, “She’s not here,” over and over. Or even worse, she’s completely absent from his bird memory so that all he knows is that he's incomplete.
At about one in the morning I called Sammy and asked him if we wanted to go out for a while. Sammy, of course, said yes, and we immediately called Boyce. Boyce is getting less and less hours as a locksmith, so he said he didn’t have anything to wake up early for. Boyce picked Sammy up first and when he came to my driveway gave a little honk. I rushed out with Antonio’s cage by my side. I could see both of their faces in the glass, and it was pretty clear they didn’t know I was going to bring Antonio. By the time I got into the van though, they were asking the bird how he was doing.
Of course no place was open besides a bar, so that’s where we went. It was one-thirty on a Wednesday so there were only a couple bars still open, and neither do we frequent. We decided on Big Lets. That’s not the real name of it, but no one really calls the place by its real name. On the side of one wall is, in big letters, the word BAR. So everyone in town just calls it Big Lets. When we walked into Big Lets there were only a few people there, but they were all gathered around the bar. They were all very happy, but momentarily very puzzled when I walked in with a bird cage. Sammy immediately said to them, “Ladies and gentlemen, Antonio.” A tall man walked out of the bathroom. He held his hands out to us and said, “For them, too! What do you have there, a bird? For him, too!”
Turns out the tall man is named Bruce Barenburg, and he was at the end of a very good day. We tried to sit at a table in the corner but Bruce called us over to his small group and got us free drinks. The bartender at Big Lets seemed to be nervous that he was losing control of his bar’s reputation. First, a gregarious, gentle looking man was buying drinks for everyone who walked inside, and now people were bringing exotic birds. When we joined Bruce’s group we found out that none of them knew him before tonight, but since Bruce had already bought them several rounds they were happy to let him tell his story again. Bruce said he was a real estate agent who that afternoon showed a house that just came on the market to a young couple. The house was an old Victorian house right in the middle of the city. On the outside it looked like it was falling apart, but inside it was immaculate. This couple that Bruce showed the house to weren’t newlyweds, but Bruce said they acted awfully happy. The wife was deaf, and she and the husband signed back and forth to one another. Sometimes though, when Bruce would forget that the wife needed to read lips, he’d speak with his back to her.
“Weird thing is,” Bruce told us, “When I figured out what I was doing and turned around the wife was nodding her head. She understood me. The husband, he hadn't signed anything. She understood me by herself. So I asked her, ‘What’s the deal, honey? Are you faking me out for a deal or what?’” The couple started to laugh, and the husband said that the wife’s hearing, which she lost during some viral infection as a child, was coming back. Every couple weeks she could hear a little more, and the doctors had no idea why. Now she could almost hear perfectly, but she still signed because she thought it was a beautiful way to communicate, and she had a lot of friends who were deaf.
“Right then,” Bruce said, “We’re on the second floor of this house, right? And the closet opens up. Listen to me, no one lives in this house. There’s no furniture. No one’s lived here for a while. The closet door then opens right up and out walks this guy. This guy just walks out of the closet right in front of us! Looks like he hasn’t bathed in weeks, wearing some knit cap like a bum. And in his hand—get this here—in his hand is a knife. The little shit is holding a knife. All three of us kind of freeze. He’s standing there at the open closet door, holding that knife. He says, ‘My sister is deaf.’ Then he puts the knife on the window sill, looks at us for a second, and walks down the stairs. We just listen to him—clump clump down the wooden stairs with these nasty boots. We hear the front door open and then close. Just like that. Are you kidding me? Just like that!”
There wasn’t any more to the story. Bruce had no idea who the man was, how he got there, and what he was going to do with that knife. He said he could have been living in the house, but the house didn’t have running water and it sure didn’t smell like he’d been living there. “I told that wife,” Bruce said, “you got some kind of charmed life, darling. You’re an angel. Your hearing comes back for no good reason and now psychopaths waiting to kill you are putting down their weapons.”
Bruce said he’d been celebrating the entire day, telling anyone who was willing to celebrate with him. Boyce said we were happy to join, and everyone in the entire group raised a glass. The only person who wasn’t thrilled was the bartender. He seemed to be more comfortable with someone breaking a chair over Bruce Barenburg’s head than clinking glasses with him. At one point Boyce asked Bruce if he knew a real estate agent named Keller Bigsby, the guy who hit me in the ear in high school, then took me to the emergency room. He said he knew “K-Bigs,” but that if we wanted to sell or buy we should go with Bruce who might provide us with a miracle, too. Sammy and Boyce both told Bruce the story about Keller Bigsby making me lose my hearing for a little while, and Bruce shouted this was no coincidence and called for more drinks. No one ever asked us why we had a bird in a cage with us. I figure after his day Bruce was willing to accept anything at face value.
When Big Lets closed Bruce and some others climbed into a cab and told us to follow them in “that sweet van.” I had other plans with Antonio, and I told Sammy and Boyce that I’d like to go see Hank’s grave if they didn’t mind. They agreed to go, and we went to the Roger Malvin Country Club and headed out to the little wood by the 14th hole where we buried Hank’s ashes. The tombstone had some pine cones and dirt on it, but otherwise it looked great. Sammy and Boyce let me tell Hank about Antonio and what just happened at Big Lets.
On our drive home Boyce said, “I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but did any of you think that Bruce was making it all up? Maybe none of it happened, and he’s just lonely. He makes up crazy stories and buys people drinks celebrating this stuff he invented.” Sammy said he couldn’t think of a better way to be lonely. “That’s water to wine, Boyce. Water to wine,” he said. Boyce conceded the point, but then thought maybe the bartender was angry because he goes through this all the time, that Bruce is always doing this. He’s this real estate agent by day but by night always trying to make up for some big hole in his heart. When it got quiet Sammy asked Antonio what he thought. I interrupted to say I needed to get rid of that bird.
Even though I can’t leave Antonio, I can’t stand to be around him either. Two nights ago Sammy and the Lancasters came over to help distract me, but Boyce Jr.’s delight at the bird only made things worse, especially when he told Charlotte that he wished I had stuffed birds that he could play with. I showed him a couple of teddy-bear-like stuffed birds that I never had the nerve to give to Rachel, but Boyce Jr. said, “Those are for babies. I want the ones that were once alive.” Later that night I lurked in a support group chat room for parents whose children had committed grizzly murders. When their stories encouraged me enough to share my own, I wrote that my name was Cyrus, and one of my best friends’ boy thinks stuffed birds are cool. When someone asked whether I understood what the chat room was for, I wrote, “I mean the ones that were once alive!” Everyone ignored me from then on.
Last night I simply couldn’t sleep because of Antonio. His movements in the cage were so irregular that I would imagine for a moment that he wasn’t there, then I’d hear his clipped wing ruffle or his cage shake a bit. I thought about just losing the bet and letting Antonio go outside. A cat would get him pretty quickly, but I don’t think he’d mind going that way. I didn’t know his mate, but I bet she was pretty great, and Antonio is probably wondering why he didn’t die instead. But since he’s just a bird, his consciousness would only allow him to think, “She’s not here,” over and over. Or even worse, she’s completely absent from his bird memory so that all he knows is that he's incomplete.
At about one in the morning I called Sammy and asked him if we wanted to go out for a while. Sammy, of course, said yes, and we immediately called Boyce. Boyce is getting less and less hours as a locksmith, so he said he didn’t have anything to wake up early for. Boyce picked Sammy up first and when he came to my driveway gave a little honk. I rushed out with Antonio’s cage by my side. I could see both of their faces in the glass, and it was pretty clear they didn’t know I was going to bring Antonio. By the time I got into the van though, they were asking the bird how he was doing.
Of course no place was open besides a bar, so that’s where we went. It was one-thirty on a Wednesday so there were only a couple bars still open, and neither do we frequent. We decided on Big Lets. That’s not the real name of it, but no one really calls the place by its real name. On the side of one wall is, in big letters, the word BAR. So everyone in town just calls it Big Lets. When we walked into Big Lets there were only a few people there, but they were all gathered around the bar. They were all very happy, but momentarily very puzzled when I walked in with a bird cage. Sammy immediately said to them, “Ladies and gentlemen, Antonio.” A tall man walked out of the bathroom. He held his hands out to us and said, “For them, too! What do you have there, a bird? For him, too!”
Turns out the tall man is named Bruce Barenburg, and he was at the end of a very good day. We tried to sit at a table in the corner but Bruce called us over to his small group and got us free drinks. The bartender at Big Lets seemed to be nervous that he was losing control of his bar’s reputation. First, a gregarious, gentle looking man was buying drinks for everyone who walked inside, and now people were bringing exotic birds. When we joined Bruce’s group we found out that none of them knew him before tonight, but since Bruce had already bought them several rounds they were happy to let him tell his story again. Bruce said he was a real estate agent who that afternoon showed a house that just came on the market to a young couple. The house was an old Victorian house right in the middle of the city. On the outside it looked like it was falling apart, but inside it was immaculate. This couple that Bruce showed the house to weren’t newlyweds, but Bruce said they acted awfully happy. The wife was deaf, and she and the husband signed back and forth to one another. Sometimes though, when Bruce would forget that the wife needed to read lips, he’d speak with his back to her.
“Weird thing is,” Bruce told us, “When I figured out what I was doing and turned around the wife was nodding her head. She understood me. The husband, he hadn't signed anything. She understood me by herself. So I asked her, ‘What’s the deal, honey? Are you faking me out for a deal or what?’” The couple started to laugh, and the husband said that the wife’s hearing, which she lost during some viral infection as a child, was coming back. Every couple weeks she could hear a little more, and the doctors had no idea why. Now she could almost hear perfectly, but she still signed because she thought it was a beautiful way to communicate, and she had a lot of friends who were deaf.
“Right then,” Bruce said, “We’re on the second floor of this house, right? And the closet opens up. Listen to me, no one lives in this house. There’s no furniture. No one’s lived here for a while. The closet door then opens right up and out walks this guy. This guy just walks out of the closet right in front of us! Looks like he hasn’t bathed in weeks, wearing some knit cap like a bum. And in his hand—get this here—in his hand is a knife. The little shit is holding a knife. All three of us kind of freeze. He’s standing there at the open closet door, holding that knife. He says, ‘My sister is deaf.’ Then he puts the knife on the window sill, looks at us for a second, and walks down the stairs. We just listen to him—clump clump down the wooden stairs with these nasty boots. We hear the front door open and then close. Just like that. Are you kidding me? Just like that!”
There wasn’t any more to the story. Bruce had no idea who the man was, how he got there, and what he was going to do with that knife. He said he could have been living in the house, but the house didn’t have running water and it sure didn’t smell like he’d been living there. “I told that wife,” Bruce said, “you got some kind of charmed life, darling. You’re an angel. Your hearing comes back for no good reason and now psychopaths waiting to kill you are putting down their weapons.”
Bruce said he’d been celebrating the entire day, telling anyone who was willing to celebrate with him. Boyce said we were happy to join, and everyone in the entire group raised a glass. The only person who wasn’t thrilled was the bartender. He seemed to be more comfortable with someone breaking a chair over Bruce Barenburg’s head than clinking glasses with him. At one point Boyce asked Bruce if he knew a real estate agent named Keller Bigsby, the guy who hit me in the ear in high school, then took me to the emergency room. He said he knew “K-Bigs,” but that if we wanted to sell or buy we should go with Bruce who might provide us with a miracle, too. Sammy and Boyce both told Bruce the story about Keller Bigsby making me lose my hearing for a little while, and Bruce shouted this was no coincidence and called for more drinks. No one ever asked us why we had a bird in a cage with us. I figure after his day Bruce was willing to accept anything at face value.
When Big Lets closed Bruce and some others climbed into a cab and told us to follow them in “that sweet van.” I had other plans with Antonio, and I told Sammy and Boyce that I’d like to go see Hank’s grave if they didn’t mind. They agreed to go, and we went to the Roger Malvin Country Club and headed out to the little wood by the 14th hole where we buried Hank’s ashes. The tombstone had some pine cones and dirt on it, but otherwise it looked great. Sammy and Boyce let me tell Hank about Antonio and what just happened at Big Lets.
On our drive home Boyce said, “I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but did any of you think that Bruce was making it all up? Maybe none of it happened, and he’s just lonely. He makes up crazy stories and buys people drinks celebrating this stuff he invented.” Sammy said he couldn’t think of a better way to be lonely. “That’s water to wine, Boyce. Water to wine,” he said. Boyce conceded the point, but then thought maybe the bartender was angry because he goes through this all the time, that Bruce is always doing this. He’s this real estate agent by day but by night always trying to make up for some big hole in his heart. When it got quiet Sammy asked Antonio what he thought. I interrupted to say I needed to get rid of that bird.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Name That Bird!
On Monday night I took the bus to the pet store and bought the bird some food. At the register the lady asked, “What kind of bird do you have?” I said, “Even more important—what kind of owner does the bird have? Evil. An evil one,” then walked off with the food and my receipt. Sammy thinks I made that cashier’s day by saying something weird back to her. He still remembers the guy from eight years ago who responded to Sammy’s have-a-nice-day with, “Right. And you tell Antonio that if I see him again I’ll cut his throat.” Sammy says sometimes he just lies in bed and wonders what Antonio did. A few times I’ve noticed Sammy staring off into space. I'll ask, “Antonio?” and Sammy whispers, “Antonio.”
The bird has not made much of a racket, but I do blame it for my disrupted sleep patterns. I’ve been sleeping on my couch just to be nearer to it. If it starts to squawk I want to be close to heave an item at its cage. It hasn’t made much noise so far, but it’s upsetting my dreams. For the past two nights I have dreamed about my father’s funeral. There are only a few people there and I don’t recognize any of them besides my uncle. My mother isn’t there. There isn’t a priest— just a funeral director, and he says that the deceased’s son has prepared some music for the service. He hits a button and the songs of birds begin to play. It goes on for ten minutes, and I hear one of the people I don’t recognize say, “How long is this going to go?” I am only ten, so it really scares them when I scream in response, “If you don’t like it then get out! Go on!” When I found my father in his bed, real peaceful like he said some day he’d be, I grabbed the tape recorder and ran knee-deep into the marsh behind the house. I recorded the birds for hours.
All that really happened at my father’s funeral, and that’s exactly how it happened in my dream, too. But in the dream, all the bird songs finish and sitting next to me is Julia Albert with that lovebird on her shoulder. I tell her she isn’t supposed to be here, and she says she is. Then she tells me to hold still and tries to pull off my face.
I’ve had that dream two nights in a row, and I blame the bird. I never dream about my father’s funeral, just like I never dream about Rachel. I don’t need to dream about them. They’re always right there. When I told Boyce about the dreams, he said maybe it’s because the bird doesn’t have a name. I told him it was more likely that birds make me think of my father. He said if that's all it was then I’d have the dream all the time.
Perhaps, but Boyce's dream interpretation skills are decidedly poor. Once he dreamed that he was Abraham Lincoln and I was sitting next to him at Ford's Theater. John Wilkes Booth walked into the box and, apparently, I saw him right before he was going to shoot. Rather than warning A-boyce-aham Lincoln I just fell down and cried. I tried to interpret the dream for him as it relates to grief and the ceaseless march of time but he just kept laughing and saying, "Thanks for the help, friend." Nevertheless, I told him that if the lovebird's anonymity was causing the dream, then he needed to help me out and name the bird. He said this was more of a Sammy thing, and we got him on the phone. “Name the bird,” I said.
Sammy didn’t miss a beat. “Antonio.”
The bird has not made much of a racket, but I do blame it for my disrupted sleep patterns. I’ve been sleeping on my couch just to be nearer to it. If it starts to squawk I want to be close to heave an item at its cage. It hasn’t made much noise so far, but it’s upsetting my dreams. For the past two nights I have dreamed about my father’s funeral. There are only a few people there and I don’t recognize any of them besides my uncle. My mother isn’t there. There isn’t a priest— just a funeral director, and he says that the deceased’s son has prepared some music for the service. He hits a button and the songs of birds begin to play. It goes on for ten minutes, and I hear one of the people I don’t recognize say, “How long is this going to go?” I am only ten, so it really scares them when I scream in response, “If you don’t like it then get out! Go on!” When I found my father in his bed, real peaceful like he said some day he’d be, I grabbed the tape recorder and ran knee-deep into the marsh behind the house. I recorded the birds for hours.
All that really happened at my father’s funeral, and that’s exactly how it happened in my dream, too. But in the dream, all the bird songs finish and sitting next to me is Julia Albert with that lovebird on her shoulder. I tell her she isn’t supposed to be here, and she says she is. Then she tells me to hold still and tries to pull off my face.
I’ve had that dream two nights in a row, and I blame the bird. I never dream about my father’s funeral, just like I never dream about Rachel. I don’t need to dream about them. They’re always right there. When I told Boyce about the dreams, he said maybe it’s because the bird doesn’t have a name. I told him it was more likely that birds make me think of my father. He said if that's all it was then I’d have the dream all the time.
Perhaps, but Boyce's dream interpretation skills are decidedly poor. Once he dreamed that he was Abraham Lincoln and I was sitting next to him at Ford's Theater. John Wilkes Booth walked into the box and, apparently, I saw him right before he was going to shoot. Rather than warning A-boyce-aham Lincoln I just fell down and cried. I tried to interpret the dream for him as it relates to grief and the ceaseless march of time but he just kept laughing and saying, "Thanks for the help, friend." Nevertheless, I told him that if the lovebird's anonymity was causing the dream, then he needed to help me out and name the bird. He said this was more of a Sammy thing, and we got him on the phone. “Name the bird,” I said.
Sammy didn’t miss a beat. “Antonio.”
Monday, April 26, 2010
Lovebird
Yesterday afternoon I received a knock on the door. When I opened it I saw a teenager with eyeliner standing behind a square bird cage with a black cloth over it. He had his head to one side like he was trying to read something upside down. “Here’s your bird,” he said. I tried to tell him it wasn’t my bird but he wasn’t interested.
I took the bird cage and asked the teenager if he wanted to come inside. He said no and left. Apparently he had to get back to sewing gun holsters into a trench coat. Even if I lost the bet, I take comfort in the fact that Julia Albert has to take an extra drink of mojito before she comes up with something to say when her friends at the country club ask about her grandchildren.
I put the bird cage on the kitchen table and took off the cloth. She had given me a lone Peach-faced Lovebird, native to Africa. It was a choice that suggested some diabolical intention, as was clear in the note that came attached to one of the bars.
As I watched that nameless lovebird stare off into nothingness—probably wondering why someone doesn’t just shoot it—I thought Julia Albert is way too wicked to be a grandmother driving a Chrysler. Where are the maternal instincts that says this lost bird doesn’t belong in prison? Is she blind? Peach-faced Lovebird, I can’t give you a new mother. If you want to eat before I get to the pet store, however, I can give you a can of Spaghetti-O’s. Otherwise you’ll have to wait.
I took the bird cage and asked the teenager if he wanted to come inside. He said no and left. Apparently he had to get back to sewing gun holsters into a trench coat. Even if I lost the bet, I take comfort in the fact that Julia Albert has to take an extra drink of mojito before she comes up with something to say when her friends at the country club ask about her grandchildren.
I put the bird cage on the kitchen table and took off the cloth. She had given me a lone Peach-faced Lovebird, native to Africa. It was a choice that suggested some diabolical intention, as was clear in the note that came attached to one of the bars.
Dear Cyrus,
Congratulations on your new pet, a lovely peach-faced lovebird. Since you know your birds, you’ll know that it’s just a myth that lovebirds need a mate to be happy. Birds and people can be happy alone, can't they? Be aware, however, that this peach-faced lovebird is nearly ten years old, and only three weeks ago lost its mate it had lived with its entire life. Poor bird, he might need some attention!
Its wings, of course, are clipped so don’t try freeing it. My grandson has been instructed to stop by several times during the week to make sure you haven’t given the bird away. I didn’t include food or toys but I did write a check to you that will cover the expenses. Enjoy your trip to the exotic bird section of the pet store!
See you in a week!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Bet is On!
Boyce called me in the morning to make sure I wasn’t going to be upset if Charlotte took Boyce Jr. to the spring lunch sponsored by The Thunderbirds bird watching group. I asked him if he wasn’t going too, but Boyce just laughed real low into the phone for a long time, like he was remembering when his worst enemy fell down a flight of stairs. I assured him that I would never be resentful to Charlotte or Boyce Jr. In fact, I told him I’d love a report on how everything went. Boyce laughed again.
After hanging up the phone I laced up my bird-watching boots. I couldn’t stay away. Someone had to protect Boyce Jr. I love Charlotte, but I knew those Thunderbirds could have Boyce teaching a toucan to speak before she even drank her first glass of world-class lemonade from group-member Karen. I caught the bus to the park about thirty minutes before the lunch was supposed to begin. I could see them putting some tablecloths down, and then a few people came in bringing rather large subs. Not wanting to be noticed, I stationed myself on a bench about fifty yards away and hid from view thanks to a trash can.
It wasn’t long before the entire Thunderbirds group was assembled. There were pitchers of Karen’s lemonade on the table, and a flood of emotions came rushing back to me. I wasn’t sure how I should feel. Did I want a local bird watching group to prosper despite its unjust practices? Or did I want to bury my hands into the grass at my feet and beg sweet mother earth to rise up and swallow the entire group, sparing only Karen's lemonade? I couldn’t decide as I watched them mingle and eat their giant subs.
After a while visitors began to show up, and finally I saw Charlotte and Boyce Jr. To my surprise, I then saw Boyce and Sammy show up too. They were laughing pretty hard while they were putting some chips on their plate. Sammy and Boyce at a bird watching event? It was something I had dreamed about for years, and now that it was happening I was banished behind an empty garbage can. Oh, irony, you vampire harpy who feasts upon all promise of happiness! Succubus of all that is dreamt in innocence and purity! Slut!
Julia Albert then appeared from behind some of the members of The Thunderbirds. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but everyone was listening to her. The visitors and members gave polite applause when she finished. Boyce and Sammy kept laughing it up, having a gay old time, and pointing to the sky like they were thanking the heavens. I watched plates get set down at the end of picnic tables while binoculars were passed from The Thunderbirds to the visitors. When Sammy got a pair he pointed it way too low to see any birds, and Boyce must have warned him because he put his hand up in the air again. And then they laughed. Oh how they laughed.
I knew that showing up was a mistake. Seeing The Thunderbirds was difficult, seeing Julia Albert getting applause from strangers was murder, but seeing Boyce and Sammy enjoying birds was just too much. I had to take a stand. I breathed deep and marched over to the table. I went straight up to Sammy and Boyce and asked them why, after over twenty years of trying to get them to go bird watching with me, did they decide to do it now. I was pretty hot and bothered but Boyce just laughed, and said, “I knew from the moment I heard your voice on the phone that you were going to show up today. So we had to come. We’ve been waving to you for the last thirty minutes. Sammy looked right at you with the binoculars. I waved. You didn’t wave back.” Then Charlotte added that all the Thunderbirds knew it was me and had been having a pretty good time about me hiding behind a trash can.
Julia Albert approached me with a grin on her face. I stopped her before she spoke and said that I would take my complimentary slice of giant sub, a glass of Karen’s lemonade, and then be on my way. She said she was hoping I had a change of heart and wanted to let bygones be bygones. I informed her that so long as one clipped wing could be found in a Thunderbird home, I would never join the group. She said, like I asked how her birds were, “They’re doing great, thank you. I was thinking of getting a new one and calling him Cyrus.” I have been punched by a woman before, but never have I been so stung. I announced to the visitors that The Thunderbirds allowed bird ownership. The visitors didn’t quite understand my meaning, and applauded politely.
That’s when Sammy wiped his mouth and stepped between us. He was still chewing his last bite but he was already smiling, and I knew he was working on an idea. He said, “Ms. Albert and Mr. Wetherbee, you both want something. Cyrus wants this group to ban bird ownership. Ms. Albert, you want to show Cyrus that having birds is a good thing. We can solve this. We can fix this all with a friendly bet.” Julia Albert gave a polite laugh like the way a mother does when her ninth grade son tells her he’s a communist. She put her hand on Sammy’s shoulder and called him a sweet boy, but that she didn’t care what I thought at all. Sammy told her that wasn’t the spirit. On a nice spring afternoon in the park, the only thing we needed more than lemonade and birds was a friendly wager. “If Cyrus wins, you make The Thunderbirds ban bird ownership. If you win—well, Ms. Albert, what do you want?” She laughed again. She said she didn’t want anything but for me to realize I was wrong. “Fine,” Sammy said. “If you win, Cyrus has to have a pet bird.” That’s when Julia Albert got real excited and laughed in a different way. She said she’d love to see me eat crow, and I said it’s no mistake such filthy language comes from a bird owner.
“We just need a bet,” Sammy said. Boyce offered up the idea of who could eat the most chicken wings in under ten minutes, but Julia Albert politely pooh-poohed him like he was a grandchild. Boyce Jr. then shouted it should be whoever can shoot the most birds, and then air-shotgunned a few blasts into the air. What have you done to that boy, Thunderbirds?
Julia Albert is the one who decided the bet. At first I said no, that it went against everything I felt was good and right. Sammy and Boyce both assured me I could do this, and when I did, The Thunderbirds would officially be anti-bird ownership. So I shook Julia Albert’s hand and agreed to the bet. She told me how the girls at the country club were going to love hearing about this—“And they do love my Cyrus Wetherbee horror stories,” she said.
Sammy, the Lancasters, and I walked away after the bet was made. Sammy and Boyce were clearly very excited, and complimented me on bringing out the worst and most selfish in aging women. Boyce hugged me hard and picked me up a little. Even though the bet was that I had to keep a caged bird in my home for a week, I still smiled really big because thirty minutes earlier I thought Sammy and Boyce had betrayed me. Now I knew they were always my friends. Who else is going to help arrange my bizarre bets over bird ownership with a rich widow who hates me? Cheers to Sammy and Boyce.
And to you, Julia Albert? Jeers. Jeers in the worst way.
After hanging up the phone I laced up my bird-watching boots. I couldn’t stay away. Someone had to protect Boyce Jr. I love Charlotte, but I knew those Thunderbirds could have Boyce teaching a toucan to speak before she even drank her first glass of world-class lemonade from group-member Karen. I caught the bus to the park about thirty minutes before the lunch was supposed to begin. I could see them putting some tablecloths down, and then a few people came in bringing rather large subs. Not wanting to be noticed, I stationed myself on a bench about fifty yards away and hid from view thanks to a trash can.
It wasn’t long before the entire Thunderbirds group was assembled. There were pitchers of Karen’s lemonade on the table, and a flood of emotions came rushing back to me. I wasn’t sure how I should feel. Did I want a local bird watching group to prosper despite its unjust practices? Or did I want to bury my hands into the grass at my feet and beg sweet mother earth to rise up and swallow the entire group, sparing only Karen's lemonade? I couldn’t decide as I watched them mingle and eat their giant subs.
After a while visitors began to show up, and finally I saw Charlotte and Boyce Jr. To my surprise, I then saw Boyce and Sammy show up too. They were laughing pretty hard while they were putting some chips on their plate. Sammy and Boyce at a bird watching event? It was something I had dreamed about for years, and now that it was happening I was banished behind an empty garbage can. Oh, irony, you vampire harpy who feasts upon all promise of happiness! Succubus of all that is dreamt in innocence and purity! Slut!
Julia Albert then appeared from behind some of the members of The Thunderbirds. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but everyone was listening to her. The visitors and members gave polite applause when she finished. Boyce and Sammy kept laughing it up, having a gay old time, and pointing to the sky like they were thanking the heavens. I watched plates get set down at the end of picnic tables while binoculars were passed from The Thunderbirds to the visitors. When Sammy got a pair he pointed it way too low to see any birds, and Boyce must have warned him because he put his hand up in the air again. And then they laughed. Oh how they laughed.
I knew that showing up was a mistake. Seeing The Thunderbirds was difficult, seeing Julia Albert getting applause from strangers was murder, but seeing Boyce and Sammy enjoying birds was just too much. I had to take a stand. I breathed deep and marched over to the table. I went straight up to Sammy and Boyce and asked them why, after over twenty years of trying to get them to go bird watching with me, did they decide to do it now. I was pretty hot and bothered but Boyce just laughed, and said, “I knew from the moment I heard your voice on the phone that you were going to show up today. So we had to come. We’ve been waving to you for the last thirty minutes. Sammy looked right at you with the binoculars. I waved. You didn’t wave back.” Then Charlotte added that all the Thunderbirds knew it was me and had been having a pretty good time about me hiding behind a trash can.
Julia Albert approached me with a grin on her face. I stopped her before she spoke and said that I would take my complimentary slice of giant sub, a glass of Karen’s lemonade, and then be on my way. She said she was hoping I had a change of heart and wanted to let bygones be bygones. I informed her that so long as one clipped wing could be found in a Thunderbird home, I would never join the group. She said, like I asked how her birds were, “They’re doing great, thank you. I was thinking of getting a new one and calling him Cyrus.” I have been punched by a woman before, but never have I been so stung. I announced to the visitors that The Thunderbirds allowed bird ownership. The visitors didn’t quite understand my meaning, and applauded politely.
That’s when Sammy wiped his mouth and stepped between us. He was still chewing his last bite but he was already smiling, and I knew he was working on an idea. He said, “Ms. Albert and Mr. Wetherbee, you both want something. Cyrus wants this group to ban bird ownership. Ms. Albert, you want to show Cyrus that having birds is a good thing. We can solve this. We can fix this all with a friendly bet.” Julia Albert gave a polite laugh like the way a mother does when her ninth grade son tells her he’s a communist. She put her hand on Sammy’s shoulder and called him a sweet boy, but that she didn’t care what I thought at all. Sammy told her that wasn’t the spirit. On a nice spring afternoon in the park, the only thing we needed more than lemonade and birds was a friendly wager. “If Cyrus wins, you make The Thunderbirds ban bird ownership. If you win—well, Ms. Albert, what do you want?” She laughed again. She said she didn’t want anything but for me to realize I was wrong. “Fine,” Sammy said. “If you win, Cyrus has to have a pet bird.” That’s when Julia Albert got real excited and laughed in a different way. She said she’d love to see me eat crow, and I said it’s no mistake such filthy language comes from a bird owner.
“We just need a bet,” Sammy said. Boyce offered up the idea of who could eat the most chicken wings in under ten minutes, but Julia Albert politely pooh-poohed him like he was a grandchild. Boyce Jr. then shouted it should be whoever can shoot the most birds, and then air-shotgunned a few blasts into the air. What have you done to that boy, Thunderbirds?
Julia Albert is the one who decided the bet. At first I said no, that it went against everything I felt was good and right. Sammy and Boyce both assured me I could do this, and when I did, The Thunderbirds would officially be anti-bird ownership. So I shook Julia Albert’s hand and agreed to the bet. She told me how the girls at the country club were going to love hearing about this—“And they do love my Cyrus Wetherbee horror stories,” she said.
Sammy, the Lancasters, and I walked away after the bet was made. Sammy and Boyce were clearly very excited, and complimented me on bringing out the worst and most selfish in aging women. Boyce hugged me hard and picked me up a little. Even though the bet was that I had to keep a caged bird in my home for a week, I still smiled really big because thirty minutes earlier I thought Sammy and Boyce had betrayed me. Now I knew they were always my friends. Who else is going to help arrange my bizarre bets over bird ownership with a rich widow who hates me? Cheers to Sammy and Boyce.
And to you, Julia Albert? Jeers. Jeers in the worst way.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Progress on CBdB
Sammy has been trying to figure out different ways to celebrate The Year of Charles Brockden Brown, Sammy’s ancestor who used to write stories. Sammy said he was America’s first real novelist, but I told him I’m America’s first real dream-gambling-ornithology guru, but no one’s buying any of my books. Boyce said he was America’s first locksmith Aquarius who currently has all the albums of Freddy Fender under an antique four-post bed (Boyce believes that all of Freddy Fender’s albums look great because, well, Freddy looks great).Nevertheless Sammy was looking for ideas about spreading the news of The Year of CBdB. Last weekend Boyce gave him the idea of writing quotes by CBdB on the back of a receipt roll at Arby’s. That way all the customers, when they were triple checking that no one put their fourth roast beef sandwich in the bag, would be enlightened. It took a bit of an effort, but Sammy tried it. We went over to his apartment and wrote at different points on an un-curled receipt paper roll. Sammy drew lines every five inches or so and said after each transaction he would pull the paper out to the next line to make sure no one got half a quote. So for an hour or so Boyce and I wrote as neatly as we could different quotes from Sammy’s books by CBdB. It ended up being something of a disaster, since Charles Brockden Brown writes disturbing novels. Most of the quotes we took from his books only served to frighten those customers who actually noticed the writing on the back. Some examples:
“Of all kinds of death, that which now menaced me was the most abhorred. To die by disease, or by the hand of a fellow-creature, was propitious and lenient in comparison with being rent to pieces by the fangs of this savage.”It’s not easy to keep a customer happy when they read on the back of their receipt, “The sacrifice is incomplete—Your children must be offered.” Sammy calmed that customer down, but I’m not sure how worried he was about their irritation since his explanation was, “They must be pranking us down at the receipt factory.” Sammy always says the best thing about fast food is that bad customers are replaced even easier than bad workers.
“He was teacher of the negro free-school when he died.” [As Sammy had to point out to one urban customer, the location of the dash is very, very important.]
“From these I was delivered only to be thrown into the midst of savages, to wage an endless and hopeless war with adepts in killing, with appetites that longed to feast upon my bowels and to quaff my heart’s blood.”
“Catharine! I pity the weakness of thy nature: I pity thee, but must not spare. Thy life is claimed from my hands: thou must die!”
I suggested to Boyce that maybe Sammy needs to get on the radio. There are a few local stations that might be interested in a short lecture on a 18th century novelist between the latest offerings in country or rap. Boyce and I are going to do our best to get Sammy on the radio so he can talk about the Year of Charles Brockden Brown.
The great thing about Sammy is that you can never go wrong. If anything is good, he’s happy. If anything is a disaster, he’s even happier. He knows there is an inverse relationship between the comfort of a situation and the success of the story when it’s told later. Sometimes people say, “live for today,” or “live like you were dying.” Both of those are dumb. They result in not paying bills and ingesting massive amounts of circus peanuts, which you previously avoided because they are obviously neon cancer.
Instead, live like Sammy: like you’ll get to tell Cyrus and Boyce about it all later.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The Thunderbirds
This past Sunday I read in the local paper an advertisement for the bird-watching enthusiast group that I am currently banished from, The Thunderbirds. Although I was one of the founding members of The Thunderbirds, I actually had nothing to do with the name. I expressed the desire that we name the bird-watching group after a local bird. I believe my nominations were The Thrashers, The Sapsuckers, and, obviously, in order to attract potentially trust-funded frat boys who might die by falling off a paddleboat while drunk thereby donating their fortune to the group, The Titmice (see picture below ). None of the other founding members approved of my choices. I told them that The Thunderbirds made us sound like a middle-aged softball team very busy ignoring our effeminate sons, but the majority had their way.
The Thunderbirds advertisement read they would have a spring lunch on Saturday for those interested in learning about bird watching or joining the group. Even though the Thunderbirds have banished me, I still long for that ornithological brotherhood. Sammy and Boyce have both recommended I start a rival bird-watching enthusiast group, but I can’t do that. Although I am banished from The Thunderbirds, and although their name makes me want to drink Budweiser while listening to Blue Oyster Cult more than watch birds, I cannot work against them. This is why I wasn’t upset when Boyce told me that Charlotte was thinking of taking Boyce Jr. to the lunch on Saturday. Boyce said he could tell Charlotte and his son to sabotage the lunch for my benefit, but that's not necessary. Boyce Jr. should be allowed to be an innocent kid, uncorrupted by the pernicious betrayals of amateur ornithology groups. Fly, Boyce Jr. Fly.
It’s been almost six years since I was kicked out of The Thunderbirds. It all came about because I found out some of the new members owned caged birds. My dirty looks and vulgar mumbling wasn’t enough to convince these members of their moral deficit. I demanded that Mukesh Patel, our president at the time, accept the following conduct policy for the group:
Two years later Mukesh moved away and a new president was named. I showed up the following Saturday only to find out that Julia Albert was the new president. I didn’t even open my mouth before she said, “I’ve still got my birds, Cyrus. All of them.” I turned around and walked home.
On some days I think of caving and returning to The Thunderbirds. Rachel, however, loved that I was banished from the group. She told me when the birds are singing they’re singing to me, saying, “Thanks, Cyrus.” I tried to tell her that birds sing for several reasons, but none of them is encouragement to humans. She'd always interrupt and say, "What's that, little sparrow? You just ate Julia Albert's finger?" And I'd laugh because Julia Albert is fat and that sparrow would explode if he tried to eat her finger.
The Thunderbirds advertisement read they would have a spring lunch on Saturday for those interested in learning about bird watching or joining the group. Even though the Thunderbirds have banished me, I still long for that ornithological brotherhood. Sammy and Boyce have both recommended I start a rival bird-watching enthusiast group, but I can’t do that. Although I am banished from The Thunderbirds, and although their name makes me want to drink Budweiser while listening to Blue Oyster Cult more than watch birds, I cannot work against them. This is why I wasn’t upset when Boyce told me that Charlotte was thinking of taking Boyce Jr. to the lunch on Saturday. Boyce said he could tell Charlotte and his son to sabotage the lunch for my benefit, but that's not necessary. Boyce Jr. should be allowed to be an innocent kid, uncorrupted by the pernicious betrayals of amateur ornithology groups. Fly, Boyce Jr. Fly.
It’s been almost six years since I was kicked out of The Thunderbirds. It all came about because I found out some of the new members owned caged birds. My dirty looks and vulgar mumbling wasn’t enough to convince these members of their moral deficit. I demanded that Mukesh Patel, our president at the time, accept the following conduct policy for the group:
I, ___________, being born of human parents rather than wicked frost giants from a land where the sun never rises, believe that the caging of birds is not only stupid but wrong. As birds were clearly meant to fly (no disrespect to the Southern Cassoway, Ostrich, Emu, etc.), putting them in a cage is the moral equivalent of putting the bird in a blender.Mukesh said he wasn’t going to make anyone read the statement, let alone sign it. I said fine, and simply asked that we institute a policy of no bird ownership other than free range domesticated birds meant for fried, delicious consumption. Mukesh didn’t agree, and when I brought it up to the entire group at the next Saturday morning meeting, I was voted down. I then pointed out a squirrel and rabbit in the grass, and asked if maybe some of the group would like to put them inside a helium balloon hanging from a lamppost, just like nature intended. I was then asked to leave by Mukesh.
I also believe that if I cannot follow this most basic moral tenet, then I will throw myself into traffic at the first available opportunity.
Two years later Mukesh moved away and a new president was named. I showed up the following Saturday only to find out that Julia Albert was the new president. I didn’t even open my mouth before she said, “I’ve still got my birds, Cyrus. All of them.” I turned around and walked home.
On some days I think of caving and returning to The Thunderbirds. Rachel, however, loved that I was banished from the group. She told me when the birds are singing they’re singing to me, saying, “Thanks, Cyrus.” I tried to tell her that birds sing for several reasons, but none of them is encouragement to humans. She'd always interrupt and say, "What's that, little sparrow? You just ate Julia Albert's finger?" And I'd laugh because Julia Albert is fat and that sparrow would explode if he tried to eat her finger.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Tax Day
Today is tax day, and that means it’s Sammy’s day to shine. Years ago Sammy fought to institute a NO TAXES day at Arby’s, which meant that all food would be tax free. At first Sammy was going to get in trouble for doing a corporate-non-approved promotion, but he convinced the regional manager that telling people they weren’t paying taxes on their roast beef was really just a matter of dropping the price that day a few cents. Sammy figured that political weirdos would find an ally in Arby’s and more than make up for the lost revenue. And that’s exactly what happened. Every year the special has gotten a lot of customers coming in on April 15.
I decided to have lunch at Arby’s, and I’d never seen so many people in the restaurant. Most of them were wearing sandwich boards that reminded me of St Rick the Baptist, but instead of warning sinners about an afterlife their signs warned voters about children getting free lupus treatment. The entire Arby’s turned into a political rally, and as I sat in a booth by the door I saw a couple young people with goatees and hemp bracelets turn around before they even got inside.
I don’t much care about politics unless people are getting electrocuted. There’s an old poem about doing nothing in politics. I’m not exactly sure how it goes, but it’s something like:
As more people came into the Arby’s I noticed a disturbing number of shirts and signs of bald eagles crying, much like the picture below. It finally became too much for me so I told the least threatening person wearing the shirt that, “You know bald eagles can’t cry.” She tried to tell me it was symbolic over what we were doing to the country, but I asked her why couldn’t she do something more biologically accurate like having
the bald eagle try to fly while dragging a hammer-and-sickle-like anchor. She told me that was a fine idea, but she liked the bald eagle crying. I tried to explain to her that at best I should assume that the health care bill is some kind of intestinal parasite, and the tear is actually a watery pus due to infection. In that case, of course, the bald eagle could use that free health care. People don’t want dialogue in politics, though, and she just kept saying it was crying.
I decided to have lunch at Arby’s, and I’d never seen so many people in the restaurant. Most of them were wearing sandwich boards that reminded me of St Rick the Baptist, but instead of warning sinners about an afterlife their signs warned voters about children getting free lupus treatment. The entire Arby’s turned into a political rally, and as I sat in a booth by the door I saw a couple young people with goatees and hemp bracelets turn around before they even got inside.
I don’t much care about politics unless people are getting electrocuted. There’s an old poem about doing nothing in politics. I’m not exactly sure how it goes, but it’s something like:
They came for the Jews,I know that’s not how it goes, but this is the version that Sammy and Boyce created after trying to remember the poetic abortion they heard me recite during speech class in high school.
and I didn’t say anything because I’m not particularly religious.
They came for the obese,
But I’m naturally thin and I enjoy now having more space.
They came for Canadians,
but I wasn’t a Canadian, so it didn’t bother me.
But then they came back and must've thought I was Canadian,
So they shot me.
As more people came into the Arby’s I noticed a disturbing number of shirts and signs of bald eagles crying, much like the picture below. It finally became too much for me so I told the least threatening person wearing the shirt that, “You know bald eagles can’t cry.” She tried to tell me it was symbolic over what we were doing to the country, but I asked her why couldn’t she do something more biologically accurate like having
the bald eagle try to fly while dragging a hammer-and-sickle-like anchor. She told me that was a fine idea, but she liked the bald eagle crying. I tried to explain to her that at best I should assume that the health care bill is some kind of intestinal parasite, and the tear is actually a watery pus due to infection. In that case, of course, the bald eagle could use that free health care. People don’t want dialogue in politics, though, and she just kept saying it was crying.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
After a Few Weeks Alone
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written. The last time I wrote we were on our way to bogus theater auditions where Sammy had promised a fabulous performance. Even Boyce said he was going to audition. On the way to the university, however, right on the interstate, we got a flat tire on Boyce’s van. It was raining pretty hard, and there was a good bit of traffic, so it took a while for us to get it changed. Once we knew we weren’t going to make it to the theater we started performing our auditions for each other in the rain on the interstate shoulder. With a jack handle in his hand Sammy recited an interview by Randy “The Macho Man” Savage. Whenever a car drove by Sammy would shake the jack handle and scream something about defending the intercontinental title. I went next, but even in the rain on the side of a busy interstate with Boyce screaming at lugnuts, I still got performance anxiety. So all I did was recite bird names again. Boyce went next. Apparently his audition was to tell a story that happened to him when he was a kid. Boyce’s uncle used to have a farm, and while he was visiting one of the cows began to have a baby. So there in the middle of the rain, Boyce told us the story of tying a chain around two of the calf’s legs that hung out of the mother, and how he and his uncle pulled the rest of the calf out. Around that time a car pulled off on the shoulder and rolled down the window to see if we needed help. Sammy made motions for Boyce to keep telling the story, so the good man’s question of, “Are you guys doing okay?” was met with these words: “Turns out there was a lot of blood that came with the delivery because she hemorrhaged, but it wasn’t too bad that we couldn’t eat her.” The guy in the car stuck his head out the window and said, “What?”, like maybe Boyce had said, “We could sure use some help, friend.” But then Boyce shouted, “She hemorrhaged a lot of blood but we still ate her!” Then the guy rolled up his window and drove away.
We never got to the audition because we were pretty satisfied with freaking that guy out who didn’t want anything but to help us. We went to a diner instead and let Boyce complain about his van and his job for a while. After a period of quiet while we were all eating hash browns and toast, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up it was someone I hadn’t seen in a real long time. It was Rachel’s old priest. He said my name real slowly, “Cyrus,” and then asked how I was doing. I told him I didn’t get to theater auditions because of a flat tire on the interstate, and Rachel’s priest looked at Boyce and Sammy kind of the same way that guy did who wanted to help us. Rachel’s priest said he hadn’t seen me in a long time, and that he would like to see me in church again. Then he nodded at us and started to walk away to the people he was leaving with. Then he stopped and said, “You know, Cyrus, I’m not mad at you. You’re welcome any time.” He paused, and like he was reminding me that I was soon to die, said, “Rachel would like it if you came.” So I told him—and Sammy said I was practically pointing a ketchupy fork at him—“You think you know what she would want?” He didn’t pause, and just said, “Yes.”
I said, “How cosmic of you,” and then asked Boyce, “So you're saying the wingspan of the Great Egret is over four feet,” because I wanted to fake that I wasn’t going to pay him any attention.
I should explain that it wasn’t long after I met Rachel that I could tell she was religious, or as my mother would say, “mummy-man for Jesus.” This is how my mother referred to religious people. All religious people. So when she was buying cigarettes from the Indian who had a little god on the counter, my mother whispered to me, “See all those arms on that thing? That’s a lot of mummy-man for Jesus.” When she watched a movie that involved a Jewish character, she said, “You can mummy-man for Jesus all you like, Shalom the Great.” The first time Sammy ever heard my mom say that, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. My mother hated Sammy a scary amount, but Sammy still loved her because she said things like “mummy-man for Jesus” about religious people and called books “heap-a-shits.”
When I realized Rachel was religious, I told her I’d like to be a gladiator for Jesus. She didn’t know what I was talking about, so after around five or six times of trying to remember what uncool teenagers called their religion at the Sleep Center, I finally just asked her to go to church. She picked me up in her car that Sunday morning which was pretty awesome, but there were other people in the car so that wasn’t great. But the other people in the car were married, so it was easy to imagine Rachel and I married then. The first incident came when the priest was talking to the people and he said that some Jews tore up a guy’s roof to lower their friend to see Jesus. And I don’t know why but I thought that was a little funny. I think most religious stuff is pretty funny or stupid, especially Janice at the Sleep Center who tried to tell me about hell and how much pain is there. Janice said she’s worried I’m going to hell and then she said she loves me. I laughed hard in her face for a second, then told her anything Loki’s daughter can throw at me would be easier to take than not having Rachel around.
Anyway, when the priest said that thing about the roof I thought he was making a joke. I didn’t think it was very funny, but I wanted to be polite, so I laughed really hard. No one else did. So I got confused and announced, “I’m not laughing because they’re Jewish.” Then some people laughed. Things only got worse when Rachel went up to get some bread and wine from the priest’s goblet that looked like it came from an estate sale at Gandalf’s summer home. She didn’t notice I guess, but I got in line a few people after her. When I got up to the goblet the priest looked at me funny, and I didn’t understand. So I pulled out my wallet and showed him my driver’s license. That made him look at me funny even more, and then he told me to go sit down. He said it politely, so I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me. Was it a suggestion to sit down, or was it a request for me to reach out and take that big goblet from him? I don’t know why, but I picked the latter and grabbed the goblet. But then another guy took it from me and someone from behind the line walked me over to Rachel and asked her if I was retarded. He asked Rachel real sweetly—which made it worse, since the guy wasn’t making fun of me but seriously thought I might be retarded.
Rachel was mortified by the whole thing. She spent a good bit of time before we went home speaking with some of her girlfriends. They must have told her what to do because when she dropped me off at the house she said, “Cyrus, you know I’m not looking for anything romantic.” I told her I was gay and then tried to explain what it is I find attractive about a man, but she told me to stop. She told me that if I ever wanted to see her again I’d have to get it through my head that nothing was ever going to happen. I said okay. I tried to say it real charming so she’d kiss me afterward, but she didn’t. She apologized for what happened at church, said it was all her fault, and that I could come back if I wanted.
When Rachel’s priest walked out of the diner that night Boyce and Sammy asked how long I was going to need. I said a few weeks.
P.S. It’s not all her fault. It’s his. And no one gets to come back.
We never got to the audition because we were pretty satisfied with freaking that guy out who didn’t want anything but to help us. We went to a diner instead and let Boyce complain about his van and his job for a while. After a period of quiet while we were all eating hash browns and toast, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up it was someone I hadn’t seen in a real long time. It was Rachel’s old priest. He said my name real slowly, “Cyrus,” and then asked how I was doing. I told him I didn’t get to theater auditions because of a flat tire on the interstate, and Rachel’s priest looked at Boyce and Sammy kind of the same way that guy did who wanted to help us. Rachel’s priest said he hadn’t seen me in a long time, and that he would like to see me in church again. Then he nodded at us and started to walk away to the people he was leaving with. Then he stopped and said, “You know, Cyrus, I’m not mad at you. You’re welcome any time.” He paused, and like he was reminding me that I was soon to die, said, “Rachel would like it if you came.” So I told him—and Sammy said I was practically pointing a ketchupy fork at him—“You think you know what she would want?” He didn’t pause, and just said, “Yes.”
I said, “How cosmic of you,” and then asked Boyce, “So you're saying the wingspan of the Great Egret is over four feet,” because I wanted to fake that I wasn’t going to pay him any attention.
I should explain that it wasn’t long after I met Rachel that I could tell she was religious, or as my mother would say, “mummy-man for Jesus.” This is how my mother referred to religious people. All religious people. So when she was buying cigarettes from the Indian who had a little god on the counter, my mother whispered to me, “See all those arms on that thing? That’s a lot of mummy-man for Jesus.” When she watched a movie that involved a Jewish character, she said, “You can mummy-man for Jesus all you like, Shalom the Great.” The first time Sammy ever heard my mom say that, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. My mother hated Sammy a scary amount, but Sammy still loved her because she said things like “mummy-man for Jesus” about religious people and called books “heap-a-shits.”
When I realized Rachel was religious, I told her I’d like to be a gladiator for Jesus. She didn’t know what I was talking about, so after around five or six times of trying to remember what uncool teenagers called their religion at the Sleep Center, I finally just asked her to go to church. She picked me up in her car that Sunday morning which was pretty awesome, but there were other people in the car so that wasn’t great. But the other people in the car were married, so it was easy to imagine Rachel and I married then. The first incident came when the priest was talking to the people and he said that some Jews tore up a guy’s roof to lower their friend to see Jesus. And I don’t know why but I thought that was a little funny. I think most religious stuff is pretty funny or stupid, especially Janice at the Sleep Center who tried to tell me about hell and how much pain is there. Janice said she’s worried I’m going to hell and then she said she loves me. I laughed hard in her face for a second, then told her anything Loki’s daughter can throw at me would be easier to take than not having Rachel around.
Anyway, when the priest said that thing about the roof I thought he was making a joke. I didn’t think it was very funny, but I wanted to be polite, so I laughed really hard. No one else did. So I got confused and announced, “I’m not laughing because they’re Jewish.” Then some people laughed. Things only got worse when Rachel went up to get some bread and wine from the priest’s goblet that looked like it came from an estate sale at Gandalf’s summer home. She didn’t notice I guess, but I got in line a few people after her. When I got up to the goblet the priest looked at me funny, and I didn’t understand. So I pulled out my wallet and showed him my driver’s license. That made him look at me funny even more, and then he told me to go sit down. He said it politely, so I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me. Was it a suggestion to sit down, or was it a request for me to reach out and take that big goblet from him? I don’t know why, but I picked the latter and grabbed the goblet. But then another guy took it from me and someone from behind the line walked me over to Rachel and asked her if I was retarded. He asked Rachel real sweetly—which made it worse, since the guy wasn’t making fun of me but seriously thought I might be retarded.
Rachel was mortified by the whole thing. She spent a good bit of time before we went home speaking with some of her girlfriends. They must have told her what to do because when she dropped me off at the house she said, “Cyrus, you know I’m not looking for anything romantic.” I told her I was gay and then tried to explain what it is I find attractive about a man, but she told me to stop. She told me that if I ever wanted to see her again I’d have to get it through my head that nothing was ever going to happen. I said okay. I tried to say it real charming so she’d kiss me afterward, but she didn’t. She apologized for what happened at church, said it was all her fault, and that I could come back if I wanted.
When Rachel’s priest walked out of the diner that night Boyce and Sammy asked how long I was going to need. I said a few weeks.
P.S. It’s not all her fault. It’s his. And no one gets to come back.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
St. Patrick's Day
Even though yesterday was St. Patrick’s day we didn’t do much celebrating. Of Sammy, Boyce, and I, none of us are really sure of our heritage. When I used to ask my mother she would say, “You belong to your father,” so I don’t know what that meant in terms of ancestry. I don’t remember asking my father about it, though I do recall him saying a lot about us being from the ground and that’s where we’re all headed. So in the seventh grade, a couple years after my father had died, my teacher asked me what my background was. I repeated my father’s words: “I’m from the ground, and that’s where we’re all headed.” She thought I was trying to be silly and got mad at me, but the kid who didn’t have to sit through sex ed spoke up for me and said we're big balls of dust or something, and the teacher said, “Oh, Elijah,” and just moved on with her lesson about igloos or whales or whatever we were doing.
Since Boyce and Sammy come from farming families, they don’t know their ancestry either. In my experience the only white people who care about their ancestry are people who grew up without backyards. Also, it seems like people with Irish heritage get excited because they are the closest western Europeans come to being slaves, and it’s always great, if you’ve made something of yourself, to have an ancestor who got beat up on. People act excited when they learn they are related to a king, but in their brains they are really hoping they came from some sickly, impoverished, bullied group of people so they can think, “Wow, ancestor, I am so much better than you. And now I’m going to drink green beer till I erin go bragh the face of a guy who’s related to your dead master.” Rachel told me that one day I was going to get beat up for that opinion, and I should be careful. I told her I’ve been beaten up for much, much less.
Instead of going out to celebrate the holiday we were over at Boyce and Charlotte’s for dinner. Boyce tells us that Lancaster is an Irish name, but for all he knows he had a relative who was a fugitive Hungarian who pushed some crippled Irishman off the boat and just took his name. So Charlotte made a Digiorno pizza, which I’m just going to assume comes from Hungary. Go Magyars!
Since Boyce and Sammy come from farming families, they don’t know their ancestry either. In my experience the only white people who care about their ancestry are people who grew up without backyards. Also, it seems like people with Irish heritage get excited because they are the closest western Europeans come to being slaves, and it’s always great, if you’ve made something of yourself, to have an ancestor who got beat up on. People act excited when they learn they are related to a king, but in their brains they are really hoping they came from some sickly, impoverished, bullied group of people so they can think, “Wow, ancestor, I am so much better than you. And now I’m going to drink green beer till I erin go bragh the face of a guy who’s related to your dead master.” Rachel told me that one day I was going to get beat up for that opinion, and I should be careful. I told her I’ve been beaten up for much, much less.
Instead of going out to celebrate the holiday we were over at Boyce and Charlotte’s for dinner. Boyce tells us that Lancaster is an Irish name, but for all he knows he had a relative who was a fugitive Hungarian who pushed some crippled Irishman off the boat and just took his name. So Charlotte made a Digiorno pizza, which I’m just going to assume comes from Hungary. Go Magyars!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Auditions
This afternoon Sammy let me know that the local university put up its “Theater auditions this way” sign. He called and found out that they’re going on all week, so he wants to go on Thursday night. I told him sure. He texted Boyce, and although Boyce generally never participates in these things, he knew he had to go because of tradition.
Sammy and Boyce first met Rachel when she invited me to a lecture that was going on at the university. When she asked me to go to a lecture, I said, “Why would you do that? Are you a college student?” She said no. “Is it about birds?” Again, no. “Dreams?” “No. And it’s not about gambling either. I just want to go. Do you want to?” Of course I said yes, though when I found out the topic was going to be bioethics and robotics I invited Sammy and Boyce along, too. I knew that if it was just me and Rachel, then I would say something about how robots freak me out, and how if we get to the point of having robots in our culture, I could see myself being one of those vigilantes who goes around destroying them and spraypainting on their chests, “NOT HUMAN.”
So Boyce and Sammy came along, and actually so did a couple of Rachel’s friends. The whole talk was too boring for me to even pay attention to, so nothing embarrassing happened. On the way off the campus though one of Rachel’s friends pointed at the “Theater auditions this way” sign. They talked for a second and decided it would be funny to go audition for a show. I couldn’t understand why this would be funny, but Sammy as you can imagine was pretty gung-ho about it. So we went into the empty theater where the director, an academic douche-master, was sitting in the third row with a couple sycophants to each side of him writing down the notes he mumbled into his fist. He wore a turtleneck, which for me ranks right up there with robots who look like humans.
Rachel and her friends went straight up to one of the toadies, did a bunch of whispering and pointing back to Sammy, Boyce, and I, then came back smiling. They said it’s the end of the night, but the director was willing to hear our auditions. The sycophant Rachel spoke with called out Sammy’s name. He turned to Rachel and asked real loud, “Why am I going first?” Turns out they were getting a lot of women auditioning so the director wanted to see some males. Sammy got up on the stage and said, “I’m a bit nervous here, so sorry.” The director waved his hand and said not to worry like he was some kind of merciful god. Sammy held his hands out and then from out of nowhere performed the entire scene from Family Ties where Tom Hanks plays Uncle Ned the drunk and gets angry at Alex P. Keaton. I don’t know why the director didn’t say anything, but the rest of us were entirely in shock. When Sammy got off the stage Rachel gave him a huge hug and told him that was unbelievable. I said, “I’m the one with the alcoholic uncle,” and then called to the director that I would go next.
Of course, once on the stage I realized I didn’t know a single word of the Family Ties scene, nor could I match Sammy’s dead-on impression of a young, scared Tom Hanks. So I did the next best thing, which was to list all the birds I knew. The director stopped me and leaned forward on the chair in front of him. He asked me if I knew this was supposed to be a dramatic audition. I didn't even want to be there in the first place, so I asked him if he knew that the hanging nest of the Golden Crowned Kinglet was a whole lot more impressive than Shakespeare. He got confused and looked at his toadies like he was suddenly floating. Then he told all of us to get out of his theater. He didn’t point--he wiggled his entire hand. “Get out. You’re wasting my time. All of you.”
Rachel didn’t give me a hug when I came off the stage, but she did pat my back and tell me I did awesome. We all walked outside and it was raining. Rachel and her friends offered to take us all out to eat, I think since Sammy was so impressive and I got yelled at.
The next year Rachel said she and her friends were going to go audition again. We all went again, but this time only the ladies auditioned. Sammy and I had enough of that, and Boyce just didn’t want to. One of Rachel’s friends recited some speech by Shakespeare, but then in the last couple lines started talking about Oscar Meyer hot dogs. She got cut off and asked to leave. When Rachel went up there she just listed a whole bunch of birds. The director looked at her with a vaguely familiar look, but then he waved her off the stage and asked his toadies why people wanted to waste his time.
Obviously Rachel can’t do that kind of thing anymore, and we don’t see her friends these days. But the last two years Sammy and I have continued to go sign up for auditions, and Boyce has continued to wait on the side of the stage. Every time we go the director has no memory of who we are, and every year we are asked to leave. Then we go have some drinks and toast Rachel. I say, "Remember when she just listed birds? Because that's what I had done the year before!" And we all clink glasses.
Boyce said he might even audition this year if he’s prepared, which means if he’s got his Uncle-Ned on.
Sammy and Boyce first met Rachel when she invited me to a lecture that was going on at the university. When she asked me to go to a lecture, I said, “Why would you do that? Are you a college student?” She said no. “Is it about birds?” Again, no. “Dreams?” “No. And it’s not about gambling either. I just want to go. Do you want to?” Of course I said yes, though when I found out the topic was going to be bioethics and robotics I invited Sammy and Boyce along, too. I knew that if it was just me and Rachel, then I would say something about how robots freak me out, and how if we get to the point of having robots in our culture, I could see myself being one of those vigilantes who goes around destroying them and spraypainting on their chests, “NOT HUMAN.”
So Boyce and Sammy came along, and actually so did a couple of Rachel’s friends. The whole talk was too boring for me to even pay attention to, so nothing embarrassing happened. On the way off the campus though one of Rachel’s friends pointed at the “Theater auditions this way” sign. They talked for a second and decided it would be funny to go audition for a show. I couldn’t understand why this would be funny, but Sammy as you can imagine was pretty gung-ho about it. So we went into the empty theater where the director, an academic douche-master, was sitting in the third row with a couple sycophants to each side of him writing down the notes he mumbled into his fist. He wore a turtleneck, which for me ranks right up there with robots who look like humans.
Rachel and her friends went straight up to one of the toadies, did a bunch of whispering and pointing back to Sammy, Boyce, and I, then came back smiling. They said it’s the end of the night, but the director was willing to hear our auditions. The sycophant Rachel spoke with called out Sammy’s name. He turned to Rachel and asked real loud, “Why am I going first?” Turns out they were getting a lot of women auditioning so the director wanted to see some males. Sammy got up on the stage and said, “I’m a bit nervous here, so sorry.” The director waved his hand and said not to worry like he was some kind of merciful god. Sammy held his hands out and then from out of nowhere performed the entire scene from Family Ties where Tom Hanks plays Uncle Ned the drunk and gets angry at Alex P. Keaton. I don’t know why the director didn’t say anything, but the rest of us were entirely in shock. When Sammy got off the stage Rachel gave him a huge hug and told him that was unbelievable. I said, “I’m the one with the alcoholic uncle,” and then called to the director that I would go next.
Of course, once on the stage I realized I didn’t know a single word of the Family Ties scene, nor could I match Sammy’s dead-on impression of a young, scared Tom Hanks. So I did the next best thing, which was to list all the birds I knew. The director stopped me and leaned forward on the chair in front of him. He asked me if I knew this was supposed to be a dramatic audition. I didn't even want to be there in the first place, so I asked him if he knew that the hanging nest of the Golden Crowned Kinglet was a whole lot more impressive than Shakespeare. He got confused and looked at his toadies like he was suddenly floating. Then he told all of us to get out of his theater. He didn’t point--he wiggled his entire hand. “Get out. You’re wasting my time. All of you.”
Rachel didn’t give me a hug when I came off the stage, but she did pat my back and tell me I did awesome. We all walked outside and it was raining. Rachel and her friends offered to take us all out to eat, I think since Sammy was so impressive and I got yelled at.
The next year Rachel said she and her friends were going to go audition again. We all went again, but this time only the ladies auditioned. Sammy and I had enough of that, and Boyce just didn’t want to. One of Rachel’s friends recited some speech by Shakespeare, but then in the last couple lines started talking about Oscar Meyer hot dogs. She got cut off and asked to leave. When Rachel went up there she just listed a whole bunch of birds. The director looked at her with a vaguely familiar look, but then he waved her off the stage and asked his toadies why people wanted to waste his time.
Obviously Rachel can’t do that kind of thing anymore, and we don’t see her friends these days. But the last two years Sammy and I have continued to go sign up for auditions, and Boyce has continued to wait on the side of the stage. Every time we go the director has no memory of who we are, and every year we are asked to leave. Then we go have some drinks and toast Rachel. I say, "Remember when she just listed birds? Because that's what I had done the year before!" And we all clink glasses.
Boyce said he might even audition this year if he’s prepared, which means if he’s got his Uncle-Ned on.
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