Birdy

  In my dream, I sing to her the songs I know and some I didn’t know I knew. When I wake in my bed, I can’t remember the songs I’ve sung. It’s too far inside. As a boy, I decide to put some water in the flight cage so Perta can bathe. I want it to be something special. When my mother isn’t in the kitchen, I take the cut glass butter dish she got when her mother died. We never use it except for company so I’m sure she won’t notice if it’s missing one night. I put the dish in the bottom of the cage that afternoon after I’ve fed all the birds.

  I move two nests of young birds into the other flight cage; they’re eating egg food and starting to crack seed. I’m saving the male flight cage for Perta and myself. I call her Perta because that’s the closest word I can think of for the sound I know her by.

  So, now I’m getting into the dream, and in the dream I’m forcing myself to sleep again so I can dream.

  Perta comes in the dream-dream. The water is on the floor, in the late afternoon sunlight, just as it was when I left it that afternoon. The light is going through the cut glass and making rainbows on the floor and on the back wall. I wait patiently, on my perch in the upper, darker part of the aviary. I know I’m making it happen, I’m controlling the dream in the dream but I also know I have feelings and knowings beyond myself, that I can’t know what will happen. I’m into the furthest back parts of my mind.

  Perta hops onto the side of the dish and puts her beak into the clear, cold water. She lets it roll back down her throat, tipping her head back and thrusting her breast forward, stretching upward on her thin legs. She does this again. I watch. Then, she pushes her face into the water and splashes back under her wings. She flaps her wings to capture the cold water under the warmest parts of her wings, inside where the down of softest feathers is. She does this two or three times before she lightly springs into the water, arches her back, tilts her head and starts throwing the clean water onto the feathers between her wings on her back.

  I can see all this with unnatural clarity. It’s as if I’m beside her. I see each drop remain intact and roll off the soft feathers. I can slow down the rapid movements of her bath and see them happen slowly, unfolding with infinite grace.

  Then, I start to sing. I’m singing, and I’ve made no conscious decision to do this. Perta has flown onto a perch and is preening herself. She doesn’t seem to hear me. I’m excited. I feel hot blood rushing through me. All my muscles are contracted and my wings are lifted in tension. I’ve pulled myself tall on my legs and I’m rocking back and forth with my song; dancing to my own rhythm, aiming all of me toward Perta. I feel a sense of haste, of need, of desire for completion. Perta continues her preening.

  I fly down next to her. I land beside her on the perch and increase the strength and desire of my song. Perta pays no attention. She doesn’t turn her head or move. I edge toward her. She doesn’t move away. I’m prepared to have her fly from me; I want to chase her, to sing to her in flight. I come closer. She reaches back with her beak and pulls out, straightens the feathers on her back. There’s only one thing to do; I feel it inside myself. I fly over Perta and lower myself onto her. I’m turgid with passion.

  There’s nothing! I come down on the place where Perta was and there’s nothing at all. I’m alone! I find myself falling, not from the perch but from the dreams. I fall out of my dream-dream into my dream; know myself for a second, alone, asleep on the top perch, then I fall again out of the dream and into my bed in my room.

  I wake up. It’s the first time I’ve had a wet dream. I’ve kept hearing about wet dreams but never had one. I go into the bathroom and wash myself off. I bring back the washcloth and wipe up the sheets.

  I lie back and feel as if I’ve fallen from a far place. I’m terribly alone again.

  That weekend I go looking for her. I know she has to be somewhere. I must’ve seen her and not known it. I couldn’t make her up completely. Instinctively, I go to Mr Lincoln’s first. His cages are in full breeding. He shows me his new young birds. He has two very dark ones. He tells me he thinks he’ll have his pure black canary in only about ten more years if he keeps going at the rate he’s going. He’s worked out a chart on a curving graph. He says the getting darker tapers off as you get closer. The difference looks less and you’re always having regressions. He calculates he’s ninety percent of the way; it’s going to take ten more years to get to 99.96 percent black. He points to himself and says, ‘I ain’t even ninety percent black myself, not by a long shot.’

  I ask him if he has any females he’s not using. I want to see if she’s there. She isn’t in any of the breeding cages. I knew she wouldn’t be. He points to the cover over his flight cage on the left. He says he keeps it covered because these free females will flirt with the males in the breeding cages and those males’ll sing back, and sometimes a female on a nest will get so mad, she’ll abandon the nest. I’d never thought about that. He tells me he’s going to sell off these females; most of them are sterile, or lay an egg or two per nest, and none of them are important on his breeding charts.

  I look into the cage and there are about ten females. I see her right away. It’s Perta exactly. Some part of me, the bird part, remembered her. I’m in love with her as a boy. I fell in love with her in my dream as a bird but it’s come through to my life as a boy. I have to have her; I turn to Mr Lincoln and point her out. It seems so strange to see her as a bird when I’m a boy; I feel as if I’m spying on her. It’s as if I’m looking through a keyhole and seeing something I’m not supposed to see.

  ‘You mean that one there?’

  He’s pointing. I nod.

  ‘She’s not going to do you much good. I’ve had her for two years now and she hasn’t had a fertile egg yet. I’ve tried three different males on her. The last one was the most ruttinest buck of a bird you can imagine. She just has a regular four clear eggs every time. I’m sure she’s been bred, but there’s something wrong with her.’

  Mr Lincoln watches her with me. She’s moving sideways, back and forth on the perch. She’s seeing me. I know it.

  ‘I don’t know anybody I hate enough to sell her off to. I should wring her neck but she’s such a pretty little thing I can’t get myself to do it. Still, there’s no good in a female who won’t give off a fertile egg. I’m sure she’d make a great little mother, too. You should see the fine nest she builds; and she sits it tight and brave as you could like, all for nothing.’

  ‘I want to buy her.’

  I get it out. I’m watching her and I know she’s watching me. She never looked at me in the dream-dream. Would she look at me now?

  ‘I won’t sell her. I’ll give her to you. Save me having to wring her neck. All she does is eat seed.’

  I really don’t want to buy her. I’m glad Mr Lincoln is giving her to me. It’s as if he’s her father and he’s giving me permission to marry his daughter. I can’t say anything so I put out my hand to shake with Mr Lincoln. He doesn’t know what to do for a minute but then he sees I’m serious. He reaches out and takes my hand in both his. He looks into my eyes. My eyes are filling with water, not that I’m about to cry, I’m excited and happy.

  ‘Are you all right, boy? Have you been sick or something?’

  I shake my head. I don’t want to talk. When you’ve been a bird, talking seems crude as grunting. Mr Lincoln knows somehow, turns away and goes into the flight cage. He has no trouble catching her; he just goes over and picks her off the perch. She wants to be caught. I know that. He takes her out in his hand, turns her upside down and blows away the feathers around her vent.

  ‘See? She’s right ready. You’d think she’d be a perfect breeder.’

  I close my eyes and don’t look. Mr Lincoln doesn’t notice. He turns Perta around and rubs his fingers over the top of her head.

  ‘See? She has little eyebrow markings over each eye, almost like human eyebrows. I never seen that on a bird before.’

  I nod my head. He hands her to me. I feel her heart beating against my hand. Mr Lincoln goe
s to get a small carrying box for me but I say I’ll carry her in my hand. I have a terrible advantage.

  I’d come over through the park instead of on my bike. I try to thank Mr Lincoln but I really only want to get away, take Perta back with me.

  I put her in the flight cage and watch her all the rest of the day through my binoculars. It’s exactly like the dream-dream. This is the first time something that started in the dream is happening afterward in my boy life.

  When I look into the breeding cages and clean the floors I feel part of the other birds. I’m not alone even when I’m only a boy; I have my female, too. She’s with me in my boy life and in the dream-dream, too. I’m hoping she’ll be in the real dream tonight. I’m even more excited about it than flying.

  That night in the dream I don’t sleep. I’m up on the highest perch and I see her on the bottom of the cage eating seed just as she was the first time in the dream-dream. I know enough to know I’m dreaming and to know why she’s there, but those ideas are only like dreams themselves. She’s most real here in my dream.

  I watch her for a while. The butter dish is filled with water, and she takes a bath just as she did in the dream-dream. I’d forgotten to put the dish in the cage before I went to sleep; this is how the dream can have its own life. The dream me knows what I want more than I do myself.

  I watch her bathe as I did before. Till now, she still hasn’t seen me in the top of the cage. I sing to her. I sing:

  How is it I know you, strange one?

  In what untrammeled sky did we fly?

  Perhaps I was the air and you

  the bird. Did you fly through me?

  Why are we not mated? Give me

  a sign; will you be mine?

  Do you see me, feel my desire?

  Or are you already tired of my song?

  When I’m finished, I fly down to her. She sees me. She hears me. The wall between us is gone.

  ‘Hello. I didn’t know there was another bird in this cage. I thought I was alone. Have you been here long?’

  I don’t want to lie to her but I also want her to think of me only as a bird. I answer.

  ‘Yes, I’ve been here all the time.’

  ‘I like your song. You sing very well. Do you have a female?’

  ‘No. I am alone.’

  ‘Were you serious in your song? Did you sing what you mean? Or were you only singing?’

  ‘I was serious. I sang what I mean.’

  ‘I have no male now. I have had no babies. I have had many eggs but no babies. I would like to be your female, but you should know this.’

  ‘Yes. I would like that.’

  ‘Do you understand?’

  I cannot answer her. I’ve never talked to anyone who spoke and thought so directly. Her ideas, her ways, are clear and straight as clean water. There is a natural flow between us that I’ve never known. I feel myself going out into her and she coming into me. I start to sing:

  I bring unweathered seeds of joy,

  an endless coming together. Let

  us fly. Our time grows from

  yesterday’s tomorrows; we glide

  gently to our private past.

  Let us fly.

  ‘That was lovely, even stronger than the first song. You have thoughts in your songs I’ve not heard before. It is as if you are more than a bird, have seen beyond the cage.’

  ‘Thank you. But if you are a bird, there is nothing more or beyond. Let us fly together.’

  We fly over all the cage that night. I show her things Alfonso taught me and she shows me how to do her quick turns and slow graceful hovering landings. She has a fine way of using the air as a hold and not sliding on it. It’s like treading water. She teaches me how to do it without thrashing or fighting the air.

  The next night when I dream, it is early afternoon. It is earlier in the day than it’s ever been before in the dream. The bath water is there and it’s fresh. I did remember to put it in this time.

  Perta is there. She is waiting and welcomes me by flying up before I fly down to her. She looks me in the eyes, straight on, very unbirdlike. As I remember this, she shifts her head and looks at me, bird-style. We shift our heads back and forth, looking into each other; my left to her left, right to right, my left to her right, her left to my right. I don’t remember birds doing this. Then, she flies to the perch below.

  ‘Come, Birdy, let us bathe together.’

  I didn’t tell her my name.

  I follow her down, wondering how she knows my name; it makes a big hole in the dream. I don’t understand. Is the Perta here totally separated from the Perta in the flight cage? Do I completely make her up? Does she know my name because I know it? I fly down with her to the water. She is standing on the lip of the dish waiting. I stand beside her. She dips her bill into the water and throws some onto me. I’ve never taken a bath as a bird. I don’t quite know how to go about it. I dip my bill into the water and throw some onto Perta. I’m awkward. Perta looks at me intently. She throws water on me again. I throw some water on her. I’m better the second time. I have a terrible fear Perta will discover I’m not a bird, that I’m the boy and she’ll become frightened of me. This guilt, this fear, is coming between us. Perta feels it. She looks at me, then lowers herself into the water. The sunshine is again broken into pieces of colored light. I’m bathing in the light as she throws beads of water around me. Then, I’m in the bath myself, fluttering, losing myself in the light, in the water, in Perta. It is like floating in music. I want to sing but I wait. I follow everything Perta does. We dance to our own music. I do not need to sing. I realize then that, as all male canaries sing, Perta dances, probably all female canaries dance. It is something you cannot know unless you are a bird; female canaries dance.

  When we are completely wet, when the bath is finished, we fly together over all the cage. Our feathers are wet and we are heavy. We fly in the air with the same feeling a boy knows when he swims in the water. We go slowly. We must struggle for space, for distance. We shake the water from our feathers, sprinkle each other. I’m still following Perta, watching her move. It continues as dance, a dance in slow movements, but a dance. Perta watches me watch her. From her eyes, I can see the questioning. Perhaps birds never watch each other the way I’m watching her. I’m watching her because of the pleasure it gives me, also to learn how to take a bath as a bird.

  When, at last, we are dry, we sit on a perch beside each other and preen our feathers. It is a wonderful feeling to pull the slightly wet feather through my beak, feeling the individual branchings and lining them up. It is like carefully combing wet hair, but a thousand times more satisfying. There is a right way, no other, for feathers to be. When they are that way it gives a feeling of being finished, of having things done correctly. I want very much to do a most unbirdlike thing; to preen Perta’s feathers. I’ve never seen birds do this. Except for feeding, singing, peep-peep-peeping, and fucking, birds show no other signs of affection I’ve ever seen. I want to caress Perta the way a boy would caress a girl, but I have only my beak and my feet. It would seem so natural to take one of her feathers into my mouth and straighten it with the tender edges of my beak. This is a place where the bird and the boy are different. I decide to ask her about my name.

  ‘Perta, how did you know my name?’

  She looks at me, surprised. She stops preening.

  ‘I do not know your name. You have not told me.’

  ‘But when you invited me to bathe, you called me Birdy.’

  ‘Yes. But Birdy isn’t a name.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘It’s Birdy; what you call a bird when you don’t know his name. Birdy is anybird. Every bird knows that.’

  How can I explain I didn’t know it? How does all this fit in the dream? This is one of the nights I know all the time that I’m dreaming. It’s one of the last nights like that. Perta looks at me.

  ‘How did you know my name? I did not tell you.’

  Perta in the dream-drea
m had a name and it was Perta. She did not tell me; I made it up. How could I know her name? I have to lie again.

  ‘You told me the first night when we were flying.’

  Perta ruffles her feathers and takes half a minute before answering.

  ‘No. I did not tell you. Why do you lie to me? There is no reason for us to lie to each other. Each time we cannot be true, it is something between us. There must be truth or there is nothing.’

  ‘I do not know what is true, Perta. I know your name by ways I cannot tell you about. That is not a lie.’

  ‘It is not the truth either. When one knows and one does not tell, that is not truth.’

  Perta flies down and eats some seed. I fly down beside her. We eat together for a while. I am very much in love with her. It is so strange to find such a hard stone of purity in so much softness. It is like the pit in the center of a peach.

  During the days, I can think of nothing but Perta. It is spring and I’m in my junior year in high school. Everybody’s all excited about the Junior Prom. My mother asks me who I’m taking. I’m not taking anybody. The girls at the school all look like overgrown, awkward cows to me. They move as if their feet grow right into the ground. My eyes are tuned to the fine, delicate movements of birds.

  Al is taking one of the cheerleaders. He has his letters in football and wrestling. He’ll probably take another letter in track for throwing the discus. These are all varsity letters. He’s going to be the only junior three-letter man in the school.

  Al practices with the discus out in center field just over our fence. I go out sometimes and throw the discus back to him. It’s one thing I can do as a boy which isn’t completely boring and doesn’t have to do with my birds. Making a discus go a long way is as much a matter of getting it off at the right angle to catch the air under it, with the least air resistance, as it is strength. Throwing it back to Al, I keep experimenting and once in a while I throw it farther than Al does himself. Of course, I have a strange strength advantage. I’m unnaturally strong in the deltoids, triceps, and latissimus dorsii muscles from all the wing-flapping.