Birdy

  Now, Birdy used to ride his bike to school even then. This is the bike the cops stole from us later in Wildwood. He’d lock it to the fence outside the back gate to the play yard. We can see it from up where we are. Birdy’d made the trip right after school, to get the ax and sledgehammer, and then parked the bike in his usual place. I didn’t know it, but he didn’t lock it when he came back.

  We’re just about finished with the job and the two of us are pushing a huge hunk of cast metal up onto the edge of the window, when we look down and see a kid getting on Birdy’s bike.

  Birdy doesn’t say anything, he takes off across the auditorium and down the stairs. I hold onto the hunk of metal and yell down to the kid, ‘Leave that bike alone, you bastard.’ I can see who it is. It’s one of the stupidest kids in the school, Jimmy O’Neill. There are six O’Neill kids going to the school, one stupider than the other. There can’t be one complete brain in all of them put together. This Jimmy O’Neill is in the seventh grade but he’s sixteen years old. He’s short, with bunched muscles. He thinks he’s pretty tough. I never remember him except with snot running down his lip and with frayed, torn snot-stiff sweater sleeves. He’s a great one for beating up on sixth-and seventh-graders at recess. I’ve knocked the shit out of him twice already but I don’t think he remembers from one time to the next. The last time, he picked up a horse turd and threw it at me. You wouldn’t believe a kid that stupid would be allowed to walk around, let alone go to school. He still can’t read.

  He knows I see him but he rolls off on the bicycle. He’s so stupid he can hardly ride the thing. He goes across the sidewalk, wobbling, and turns up Clarke Avenue, he’s getting it straightened and is starting to pump away. About half a minute later, Birdy comes running out. I yell, ‘He went up Clarke! It’s Jimmy O’Neill!’

  Birdy takes off. I want him to know what he’s going to run into when he catches the bike, if there’s any chance he can catch a bike by running after it.

  I lower the big piece of cast metal onto the floor and take off down the steps myself. I figure Birdy’s going to get his block knocked off if he catches O’Neill. I’m looking forward to knocking O’Neill’s teeth in. This time I’ll have an excuse and no shit-face sister or priest to butt in and save his white Irish ass.

  When I get to the corner of Clarke Avenue and Franklin Boulevard, I look up and down. Way at the end of Franklin, I see the bike on the ground; Birdy and O’Neill are having at it. I start running that way and I’m surprised when O’Neill breaks away and starts running in my direction. Birdy’s right after him. O’Neill looks up, sees me, and turns back.

  I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it. Birdy leaps into the air, at least five or six feet, and lands on O’Neill’s shoulders. O’Neill keeps running and Birdy is kicking at him with his feet and punching him in the face and on the side of the head. O’Neill goes down. He shakes Birdy off and stands up. His face is bloody. He takes a shortcut through a yard and back toward the church. The church is next to the school. Birdy’s right after him. I slow down. I’m bushed from running and now I want to see what Birdy’s going to do. He’s left the bike lying in the street up there on Franklin Boulevard.

  Now, this is something to be surprised at, considering the way Birdy is about that bike. Birdy bought it with his own money when he was only about ten years old. It’s an old-time bike with giant wheels and old-time thin tubeless tires. Everybody else is getting balloon tires with coaster brakes, but Birdy wouldn’t have balloon tires with mere twenty-eight-inch wheels. He keeps his tires pumped up till they’re about to explode and tools that bike around at tremendous speeds. He can balance himself on it standing still, only twisting this front wheel once in a while. I’ve seen him sit that way five or ten minutes, watching something or somebody, then wheel off without ever putting his feet to the ground. He has a way of turning around by lifting up the front wheel and twisting like a horse in a rodeo. He keeps it clean, so the spokes and rims shine like new. Birdy practically lives on that bike.

  After I get to know him, I really begin to use my bike more, too. Saturdays we’d go on all kinds of trips. There isn’t any place within fifty miles of where we live that Birdy hasn’t pedaled to at one time or another. He keeps a big map on the wall in his room with the trips he’s made marked on it. Birdy’d say, ‘Let’s take a ride to Abington’ and we’d be off.

  Once Birdy said that when a person is on a bicycle, he’s almost totally separated from the earth, practically free from gravity and friction. Birdy is always worried about being held down.

  So, I’m really surprised when he leaves the bike and takes off after O’Neill. Maybe he saw me coming and knew I’d move the bike out of the street, but I think he was so mad he didn’t see anything and didn’t care. I go over and put the bike on the curb leaning against a tree.

  I go after Birdy and O’Neill. I’m about to believe they’ve run off to hell or disappeared in the ground somehow, when I hear this godawful yell from inside the church. I dash in the back door and Birdy has O’Neill on the floor at the top of the aisle, between his legs, and he’s pounding him in the face as O’Neill twists right and left trying to get away. Birdy is all over him, not saying anything, just pumping them in, left, right, left. I run up the aisle. O’Neill’s squealing like a stuck pig. Somebody’s going to hear him for sure and come in. The rectory and the convent are right next to the school and church.

  I have to actually pull Birdy off. He looks at me the same way he just looked at me here over that bowl of mush; like he doesn’t know me and might just take a poke at me. His eyes are black and the irises are completely open. He looks crazy-mad.

  ‘Leave him alone, Birdy! For Christ’s sake, let’s get the hell out of here before somebody comes!’

  Birdy looks at O’Neill as if he doesn’t know him either or how he got there. He doesn’t say anything, then turns and starts walking down the aisle of the church. I lean over O’Neill. His eyes are puffed up and he’s missing teeth. No great loss, his teeth were all bucked and crooked anyway.

  ‘Look, shithead! You tell anybody who beat you up and I’ll kill you myself. Nobody’d believe it anyway.’

  He looks up at me from the floor. He reaches and feels the spaces and loose teeth in his mouth. His mouth is a bloody hole. Then he rolls over onto his knees with his head toward the altar. He kneels there on his hands and knees and cries and bleeds. I figure it’s better than being eaten by lions; maybe a little praying will do some good.

  I go back to Franklin Boulevard and Birdy is up checking his bicycle over. There are a few bent spokes and some scratches across the top of the handlebars. The front wheel is out of line, too, but we straighten that out OK. I look at Birdy and there’s not a mark on him, not even a red mark or a scratch. O’Neill must’ve been getting nothing but air with those big fists of his. He probably figured he was fighting a ghost or one of the little people, maybe.

  Birdy gives the bike a test ride and says it’s OK but it’ll never really be the same. He’s like an old-fashioned Sicilian whose wife has been raped. Even if he knows it isn’t her fault, even if she’s beaten up from fighting back, he can never be the same toward her. Birdy’s like that about the bike. It’s one of the reasons he’s willing to sell it in Wildwood and why he never got a decent bike again after that. He loved that bike and after it was violated he didn’t want another one. Somebody with a mind like that is hard to deal with.

  I look at Birdy there, squatting, watching me, open, soft, empty-eyed. I begin to realize he’s been violated himself somehow. And now he doesn’t want him anymore.

  Alfonso’s been too busy to do much singing, but now with Birdie on the new eggs and the babies feeding themselves, he begins again.

  The first time, he sings lightly, up on the top perch. I’m doing my homework and it’s dark in the room. It’s great to hear him. He’s singing without passion, with a feeling of description, as if he’s trying to tell his children about the world outside the cage.

&nbs
p; The next morning he sings just as I’m waking up. I lie in bed above him and try to hear what he’s saying. I know if I can only open myself to him, I’ll understand what canaries can tell me. I lie there with my eyes shut and try to be Alfonso, to feel as if it’s me singing. It is coming. I have some knowing, but I can’t put it into thoughts or words.

  The little dark one, and the yellow one, the one I’d thought was a female, start making chirping bubbling noises along with Alfonso. This is a good sign that they’re males. After a few more days listening to Alfonso’s songs, all of them sing at one time or another. I can’t believe it’s possible but it looks as if the whole first nest is male.

  At school, I carry in my mind the songs and notes Alfonso sings. There’s no way I can imitate them with my big throat and soft mouth, but I have them memorized. It’s like knowing music you’ve heard played with instruments. You carry more than the melody, but also the sounds of the instruments and their blends too. It’s the way Alfonso’s music is in my head.

  I start training the baby birds not to be afraid of me. I go into the aviary with treat food or dandelion greens or apple, things they like. I put these on my knee or on the toe of my shoe and sit down to wait. Birdie comes down, usually, to say hello and eat. The little ones are shy at first but gradually come over and start to eat cautiously. I get the dark one and the spotted one to sit on my finger after a week. Even Alfonso eats off my shoe and once off my knee. He sure is a suspicious bird.

  Birdie doesn’t like me to pick her up anymore. She gets nervous and jumps away when I put my hand over her. It probably has to do with nesting. Her responsibility as a mother bird is too much for her to take those kinds of chances.

  The Alfonso meanness seems directly tied to the dark color. The dark baby is already pushing his nest mates around. The only one who gives him any fight is the spotted one. The little yellow babies just good-naturedly move away or wait their turn.

  One time, the dark one forgets himself and tries to push Alfonso off the perch. Alfonso flies away the first time. The little dark one follows him. When Alfonso realizes what’s going on, he rears up and gives that baby one sharp rap on the skull. The poor thing plummets to the floor of the aviary and walks around in circles, stunned. Alfonso goes about his business, without following up, and that’s the end of it.

  The new babies are born all in one morning. There’re four of them. They all look dark, no pure yellow ones. Birdie and Alfonso start their routine. They seem to have made a rule that the babies of the first nest aren’t allowed in the breeding cage. Alfonso enforces this. It doesn’t take many bops on the head or Alfonso growls for the young ones to get the idea.

  I’ve taken out the old nest holder and removed the nest. I’ve also cleaned up that corner of the cage where it was caked with crap. The new babies grow fast. In almost no time they’re teetering on the edge of the nest. I’ve given up trying to guess sex. There are two completely dark like Alfonso and two with light breasts and dark wings. One of these has a dark head, too. The other has a spot over the left eye. They’re almost three weeks old when it happens.

  One of the spotted ones, the one with the dark head, has already fallen out of the nest several times. I’ve put it back every night before I turn off the light. One morning, I go in and find this one has fallen out during the night. I pick it up and it’s stiff, legs straight out, and ice cold. I hold it in my hands hoping the warmth might revive it, but it doesn’t move. I put it in warm water. I hold it in the water with the head out, but there’s nothing to do. The poor thing froze in the night; it’s dead. I’m sorry for Birdie and Alfonso. I watch but they keep on feeding the other birds and don’t seem to notice one is missing. I don’t know what I expect them to do. Birds can’t cry. I guess the only animals that can cry, laugh, and lie are people. We’re probably the only ones who have some idea about being dead, too. Most animals try to keep from being dead but I don’t think they make much of it.

  There’s something I want to know about birds that I haven’t been able to find anywhere; the density, how much it weighs in relation to its volume. I can figure it out with this dead young one. I didn’t want to try it with a live bird.

  First I fill a glass of water to the very top, put the glass in a saucer and put the dead bird into the glass. I push the bird until all of it is under. The excess water flows up over the side and is caught by the saucer. I pour that water into a jar to take to school to measure it accurately. I wrap the bird in a piece of cloth and put both the jar and the bird in my lunch bag.

  My homeroom is in the science lab and there’s all the equipment I need to measure and weigh. I weigh the bird and divide the weight by the volume of the displaced water. I’m amazed at how light a bird is.

  The next day I do somewhat the same thing on myself. I half fill the bathtub, mark how high the water is, then climb in, get completely underwater, and mark how high the water rises. I measure this rise and all the dimensions of the tub. With this I figure my volume. I weigh myself accurately and do the dividing. I’m one hell of a lot denser than a bird. That’s something I have to get around somehow.

  That night I put the baby bird in a bottle of alcohol I snitched from school, and hide it with the sterile egg under my socks. Later I want to cut the bird open and look at the bones. I read that the bones are hollow and I want to see what they’re like. There are also supposed to be air sacs in a bird, like in a fish. I want to see if I can find them, too. I can’t do it yet, I couldn’t get myself to face Birdie if I did.

  The other birds get out of the nest without any trouble and go through the same business of learning to fly. I watch them by the hour. I sit outside the aviary mostly and watch through the binoculars. I have the binoculars tied to the back of a chair and I kneel down to keep my back from breaking. I must look like a very religious character praying all day long.

  With the binoculars I can concentrate on one bird and watch it. I’m trying to find out what it’s thinking. I can get the feeling I’m a bird after a while. After two or three hours like that, when I look around my room and at myself and it all looks strange. Everything’s huge, exaggerated, and falling over. It takes me several minutes to come back inside myself.

  The babies are easy to watch because they don’t fly around so fast. I’m still trying to see the difference between the way they flap their wings when they fly and when they’re being fed. For one thing, when they’re being fed, they squat, pushing against the floor and curving their backs in. The wings flap without any pull from the breast muscles. When they try to fly, it’s the opposite. They hunch forward with their shoulders thrust ahead and give a quick powerful push down and back. It’s as if they’re pulling themselves up a wall. I practice running around the yard doing this.

  It helps considerably in jumping up to the perch. Now, I can do it without falling. I can jump up, turn around in midair, and come down facing the other way. I can also get into a squatting position on the perch with my arms held down at my sides like wings. Squatting, I get the feeling of being a bird.

  I practice out in the yard doing these things for about an hour every night and I flap a half hour in the morning and another half hour before I go to bed at night. I close my eyes when I flap and try to imagine I’m flying. I’m trying to get the rhythm of it across my shoulders. If I can just loosen the scapula and open up the accrumen process at the shoulder some and then develop the trapezius, deltoid, and triceps muscles, I could build up a lot of flapping power. I practice jumping with each flap so I’ll get a smooth movement.

  In my room, I take off my shoes and double up the carpet so my mother won’t hear me. She’s already asking questions about my perch exercises but I tell her it’s something we do in gym class at school. I have the feeling she’s looking for something. I’ll have to figure some way to get her to go along with the idea of the birds.

  As soon as the second bunch is out of the nest, Birdie is off and building her third. I put back the strainer from the first nest and more
burlap. Alfonso has to dash around protecting all the birds from her feather-snitching. The first bunch is fast enough now so they can get away, but the little ones are easy victims. I wonder how many feathers she’d really pull out if Alfonso didn’t fly to the rescue. I hate to think she’d strip them bare. It seems so crazy.

  As soon as this nest is finished, she starts laying eggs. She lays five, again. The entire cycle is started. It’s May now and she’ll just finish her third nest before the hot summer comes on.

  The second nest has worked their way out into the big aviary. They still like to be fed and they chase their older brothers and sisters around. These fly away, except for one I’m calling Alfonso II, that’s the dark bird. He usually gives them a quick clout on the head or neck.

  Alfonso I is being run to death by the babies. He flies up to hide on the top perch whenever he can. Gradually they all learn to eat egg food, and some of them even start experimenting with seeds. The first nest is onto the system of cracking seed and spend all their time chasing each other or practicing singing. They make quite a racket when they get started.

  One of the dark birds in the second nest has already made half an attempt at singing and could be male, too. Now there are nine birds in the aviary. When I come in the room, there’s a rush of wings as they all take off up to a high perch. I spend much time with them and they’re all tame. I clean out the aviary every day. The birds don’t mind me at all and will land on my head or shoulders. It’s only if I make a fast move that they get scared and fly away The feed bills are mounting up. I search around downtown by the central market till I find a big seed store where I can buy birdseed roller mix by the hundred-pound sack. It costs eighteen dollars, but that’s less than a third what I’ve been paying. They say they’ll deliver right to my house.