“That’s one lucky bird,” said Ed, admiring his half-full beer bottle in the dim blue light near midnight last Saturday.
“And getting kicked in the head sure hurts like hell,” I said, adjusting my sombrero. At social gatherings small talk often seemed like a foreign language. I did the best I could to almost fall into a conversation, nodding a lot. Nodding was a very reciprocal kind of thing to do, unless it was mistaken for palsy. Fighting my usual compulsion to leave as soon as I arrive, I relaxed in my brother’s backyard, sitting under Tom’s canopy on Tom’s driveway drinking Tom’s beer, celebrating the high school graduation of Tom’s son, Evan. Ed lived next door with his authentic Italian mother, a holdover from the early 20th century.
Sometimes, I said to Ed, it’s the sucker punch that knocks you for a loop. You’re hanging in there, taking your licks and absorbing the daily beating, doing what you can with that tired rope-a-dope, when out of the blue a haymaker slams into your kisser, sending you halfway into tomorrow. The lights go out and you crumple like a dirty five dollar bill. Hanging from your pocket is a one-way ticket to Palookaville, and the train is waiting at the station. “He was never the same after that,” people will say. “Never the same.” Maybe it’s those bubbles always blowing out of your nose now. Something had changed, and not for the better.
Life was full of hard knocks, that was the long and short of it. Misery loved company, and there was plenty of misery to go around. Dreams die, hope fades, and the story meanders to a sad conclusion. The dark underbelly of human existence posed a serious health problem for everyone. You held off the beast as long as you could. I leaned back in the lawn chair and contemplated the impersonal universe from Tom’s backyard, where it didn’t look all that bad. Plus, there was a nice breeze.
Windy and warm with an overcast sky, the day had lacked the overwhelming humidity of the last few days. The glaciers were melting and it had been a hot and miserable summer, the kind that left you semiconscious and thirsty. But today you could drink and not sweat it all out immediately. Just behind the house the traffic roared on I-94, the noise partially blocked by a 12-foot-high wall that relocated the roar to the middle of the neighborhood, where it could be better heard. In the constant embrace of carbon exhaust emitted from the unending stream of automobiles racing by just yards away at the bottom of a small hill, Tom and Julie’s garden thrived with giant plants and flowers, like the vegetables in Sleeper.
The party had been going strong since three in the afternoon. My ancient, crumbling parents, hard of hearing and near blind, short of movement and supported by his and her walkers, had arrived with my sister. They enjoyed their rare moment outside and the novelty of sitting together in the big breeze, frail monarchs in decline. My mother still liked her beer, which mixed in an interesting way with the Parkinson’s medicine and the anti-psychotics. We had attempted a group maneuver to airlift my dad into the bathroom, but failed, to his great relief. Throughout the afternoon my father kept reminding me that he didn’t have to go to the bathroom. I assured him that we would not stage another airlift. They both ate like lumberjacks, especially enjoying the carrot cake.
Near midnight, the backyard was still full of my brother’s friends, most of them parents of Evan’s hockey teammates, along with Julie’s family. Hockey parents spend a lot of time together at practices and games and tournaments and often form a tight bond lubricated with generous amounts of alcohol. Like other juvenile pursuits, youth hockey sucks up money like a black hole and requires unceasing parental devotion. Sometimes the devoted needed a drink to calm down or cut loose. Loyal and dedicated, the hockey families were out in force toasting Evan’s graduation, with a bottle of tequila now being passed around.
I knew better than to drink the tequila. People hoping to become quickly insane or to add gusto to an already full-flowered craziness drink tequila. It’s the beverage of choice for lunatics and sociopaths. Remember Cleveland, I said, steadying myself. I find it hard to forget Cleveland. Cleveland and tequila equal Norwalk syndrome. Maybe it was the Canadian whiskey with the tequila. I would not advise mixing anything with tequila. And particularly not with Canadians. The Canadians, they drink like you and I breathe. Avoid mixing tequila with Canadian whiskey, beer, wine, and White Castle burgers in a hotel lobby following a Springsteen concert in Cleveland. With Canadians. You will be sorry when you regain consciousness. And you’ll be in precarious shape a long, long way from home. You could spend a night in Cleveland and lose a week.
“It’s a miracle what happened to that bird,” said Ed. “And you were the hero.”
“I’m no hero, that’s for sure. I was just happy to help. Miracles are hard to come by. But that was one lucky bird.”
“When my mother told me that the bird had escaped,” continued Ed, “I was sure that it was gone for good. How’s a little bird like that supposed to survive in the world? My mother said she would say a prayer to Saint Anthony. But I thought it was hopeless.”
I first heard from Tom about Birdy as I prepared for the last episode of “Lost.” My pizza had arrived, teasing with its tantalizing aromas, a medium Gambino’s Favorite, a saucy Sicilian affair with cheese, baby arugula, and prosciutto. It was the sort of pizza that sometimes made a person reckless. I placed the box squarely on the stove and searched for the proper utensils, particularly my favorite spatula, a dark green Foley model at least 35 years old that had assisted with thousands of meals. I needed the extra boost that a full pizza would provide; the “Lost” marathon would go through the night and into the morning. A sucker for difficult love stories with complicated physics, I was sure to shed a few tears and calories along the way.
For years I had followed the show’s epic mass of plot twists and turns and character developments, curious to see where the story would go while appreciating the effort of the writers. They must have gone through many packs of sticky notes. I knew the drill, arranging and rearranging sticky notes on every available surface, assembling the puzzle, looking for clues to emerge. Sticky notes could be your friend. But like horoscopes, you could trust them too much. I realized that an over-abundance of sticky notes indicated a degree of obsessiveness that could be off-putting to the occasional visitor. “I’ve never seen such a room full of sticky notes,” said my neighbor, as she nibbled her Saltine and drank the green Japanese tea and surveyed the walls and furniture. To be effective with sticky notes, you had to practice a certain restraint.
I gave “Lost” credit for exploring the ambiguity and interlocking nature of good and evil and distinguishing between free will and fate. You would think aiming a broadcast show at philosophy majors would be a risky business. I was attracted by the notion of seriously flawed people responding to a higher calling, even if it was all in their heads. It was a show about the quest for redemption, fueled by occasional conviction and an uncertain faith and complicated endlessly by the shortcomings of human behavior. Anchoring it all was the mystery of the island. At times “Lost” transcended its network moorings to reach a spiritual dimension. “John from Cincinnati” had also attempted to get at the big idea, with often deeply moving results and dozens of confused viewers. Most of the time, looking for spiritual direction from a television program was a mistake, like voting Republican.
While my pizza beckoned, Tom explained he was driving up north to the cottage. And that his pet cockatiel had flown the coop.
“Birdy’s gone,” he said. “She flew out the front door this morning.”
I was surprised by the news and the awful flat sound of dejection in my brother’s voice. Listening to my brother, I wondered what he was doing driving up north while his bird was loose somewhere on the east side. The thing is, when you lose an animal, your head gets screwy imagining all the horrible situations that could befall your faithful companion. Living with a bird for 11 years, you tend to share a perspective. Then your cockatiel flies away, and the abrupt goodbye shears one more of your psychic seams, leaving you threadbare and brokenhearted. Tom, Julie, and Evan had spent the morning and afternoon searching the area surrounding the civic center, looking up at tree branches and calling for Birdy. They had been planning to go up north with Maggie and Birdy later that day and up north they eventually did go, sans Birdy. Evan stayed at home in the unlikely event that Birdy returned. He placed the bird’s open cage on the front lawn, hoping to coax her back by invitation.
Birdy, it can be conservatively noted, was not your ordinary cockatiel. I say this with some caution, since Birdy is the only cockatiel that I’ve known. With a noble crest and a long tail, she was a vision in yellow, with orange sunburst cheeks that made the other girls jealous. She identified with people, whatever their shortcomings, and was a full member of Tom’s family, a feathered hybrid with the occasional capacity to lay an egg. Birdy enthusiastically joined the family at mealtime, pecking away at the corn and pasta and pork chops. How she loved to dip her beak into a plate of mashed potatoes. Birdy took baths with Tom and naps with Tom. She was always hopping on heads and landing in the middle of family festivities, peeping and chirping, doing her best to add to the conversation. Birdy liked to ride side saddle on her best friend Maggie, a beautiful golden retriever/shepherd mix. They made for a cute pair, the big reddish-blond dog with the small yellow bird onboard. I assumed that Birdy’s very lack of birdness might doom her. She had no idea what she was doing out there. On the other hand, she did have excellent people skills and got along well with her fellow animals.
I told Tom that I was very sorry to hear about Birdy, but that there was still a chance she could be found. I invoked the Frankie episode. But Frankie is a cat and doesn’t fly, which limits his ability to travel. He’s also extremely savvy, accustomed to running the mean streets of Saint Clair Shores. Birdy was under the impression that she was an anointed little winged carrier of light who everyone loved. The advent of a dark night filled with much larger and ferocious creatures was apt to be a terrible, fearful discovery for her, one that tore away at Tom as he escaped up north.
Tom didn’t seem to hold much hope for finding Birdy, since she flew away in a panic with no knowledge of where she was going or how to get back to where she lived. It was a familiar story. Still, being 150 miles away would limit his ability to look for her, a point he seemed to grasp later that evening. I knew that once you recovered from the initial shock, the best thing you can do is mount a search. Take action. You have to play the cards you’re dealt, and if irrational hope was your best bet, lay it on the table like it was four aces.
I watched “Lost” conclude with its triumph over evil and reunion in the afterlife, a romantic ending speaking to that basic human need to believe in enduring love and a spiritual essence that lived beyond the grave. I was fairly certain that the spatula would survive me. I ate pizza for several hours and developed a bad case of the garlic vapors. I hoped Birdy survived the evening and that Tom would find some relief from his woes.
“When Tom told me he had last seen Birdy flying over the civic center, I thought for sure it was hopeless. How are you supposed to track down a bird that’s flown away?” asked Ed, philosophically. “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Three years ago Frankie didn’t come home one day in the middle of a brutal winter cold snap that had dumped heavy snow in the area. I thought at first he was just out doing his usual kibitzing. Wednesday trash night was a weekly big event on his social calendar. Frankie often plans ahead, taking a nap in the afternoon and eating a big dinner. After a self-administered pedicure he departs for the evening, eager with anticipation. A successful trash night might become a binge of two or three days, after which he’d straggle back to base camp, filled with self-loathing and field mice. When Thursday morning arrived with no sign of Frankie, I figured he’d show up by the afternoon. The weather became more frenzied and by the evening a full-fledged winter storm howled, piling snow drifts high around the house. Tromping through the snow in the backyard, I yelled and whistled for Frank late at night, disturbing the deep snowbound stillness.
As Friday wore on and the snow intensified, I became fairly certain that Frankie was dead or injured, run over by a car or frozen in a neighbor’s backyard, or limping through the deep snow with a mangled paw, frost-bitten and too cold to cry for help. The things cats do to themselves. By midday, I had resolved to go find him. Time was not on my side, as the life-threatening cold turned everything to popsicles. I called the various animal shelters and the police department. No sign of Frankie. I created a flyer that described Frankie and wandered down to Copies and So Much More on the corner. With Evan’s help on a clear and cold Saturday afternoon, I delivered the flyers to mailboxes and doorways in a five-block radius and posted copies at the 7/11, the local vet, and the pet food store.
LOST CAT
“Frankie”
Last seen as he left for afternoon rounds on Wednesday, February 7 near 10 Mile and Harper/Jefferson.
Handsome three-year old, bushy Maine Coon, tan with a lot of black, brown, and gray markings. Friendly, extremely vocal, and excellent fence climber.
The “neighborhood cat” type, he was wearing a blue collar with his name and phone number, though he’s been known to ditch the collar.
Maybe, I figured, Frankie got locked in a garage. Responding to the flyer, several people called in Saturday and Sunday with sightings. I patrolled the neighborhood on foot and by car, searching for that damn cat. On Monday afternoon in the midst of another heavy snowfall, Frank appeared at the patio door, snow-encrusted, cold, and hungry, but otherwise in good shape, seemingly grateful to be home. He ate a big bowl of canned food, threw it up on the carpet, and then wanted to go back outside.
“Where’d she land?” asked Ed, as Tony the Plumber and his wife Marie joined us. “Somewhere around Gratiot?”
On the Sunday morning that Birdy took flight, Tom had arrived home exhausted after a long night at the bar that he manages. At closing time a drunken customer demanding another drink had cold cocked Tom, delivering a right hook to the left side of his face. He slept for several hours and woke up at nine that morning, bruised and sore. He opened the bird cage, and Birdy jumped on his shoulder. Maggie followed as they wandered into the kitchen to make coffee. Still in his underwear, Tom opened the front door to retrieve the Sunday paper, forgetting for a moment that Birdy was a passenger. Realizing his mistake, he tried to straighten up and close the door, alarming Birdy and inadvertently launching her into the front yard. Due for a clipping and unusually full of wing, she careened down the street below the treetops, fighting to get her flaps aligned, and then doubled back past the house before turning left toward the schoolyard. Picking up speed and altitude, she was chased back by some angry blue jays taking exception to the yellow domestic not following standard air safety etiquette. Tom got his pants on and running down the street last saw Birdy as she soared high into the air in full panic toward the civic center, near the expressway.
Tom returned home Monday afternoon from the cottage in a slightly more positive frame of mind. I suggested that he needed to get organized and gave him the phone numbers of local animal shelters. I crafted a flyer describing Birdy and returned to Copies and So Much More to purchase 200 copies. The store’s atmosphere seemed to be at least 90 percent ink fumes. I’m not sure how anyone works there without an oxygen mask. I imagine that children of employees must have mutations like Edward Scissorhands. Tom and Evan distributed the flyer around the neighborhood.
I posted a version of the flyer on various lost bird and animal websites. Turns out many people are missing cockatiels. The birds are always escaping through open doors and windows into the wild blue yonder, full of misplaced confidence and lacking general navigation skills. Fugitive parrots are also commonplace, often relocating to cafes and coffeehouses, where you can sometimes catch them wearing their little berets and reciting free verse while smoking those thin black Russian cigarettes. Thousands of pets in general seemed to be missing. Dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters, snakes, turtles, salamanders, parakeets, canaries, and even a few chickens had disappeared, leaving distraught humans behind.
A woman at one of the shelters suggested to Tom that he post on Craigslist. I hadn’t thought of that, probably because I’d never been to Craigslist. I registered at the site and posted the notice about Birdy on Tuesday afternoon. It was a bright sunny day with the temperature again soaring into the nineties. The web site had multiple listings for missing birds. Some of the birds had been gone for months. Craigslist had its own depository of short desperate poems written by grief-stricken bird owners. My bird is missing. Please find my bird. She sang. Ate popcorn. Loved to watch television. Was my friend. Missing since April. Last seen tearing my heart out.
It was easy to post on Craigslist. I kept it short and sweet. No need for a photo. A bright yellow cockatiel would stand out amid the other bird traffic.
MISSING BIRD
Yellow cockatiel with orange cheeks. About the size of a cardinal, answers to the name “Birdy.” Very friendly to humans, may respond if you call name. Escaped the morning of Sunday, May 23, near I-94 in St. Clair Shores.
Reading it again, I am struck by the “very friendly to humans” line. Maybe I wanted to be specific for the nonhuman readers. I did some research and discovered that free-range cockatiels don’t usually go that far away initially, staying within a mile of home. I figured that if Birdy hadn’t become a quick appetizer for one of the raptors in the park, we might have a chance of finding her. She was a very social gal. She might look for human assistance, landing on a window ledge and inquiring about spaghetti.
“Tom told me you were helping him search for his bird. But I didn’t think there was any way of finding her,” said Ed, as we sipped our beers and listened to the backyard laughter of the drunken hockey parents. “That was a lot of territory to cover. When that bird escaped, Tom saw another summer disappearing, like water down the drain.”
Wednesday morning I did not check my email immediately, even though officially I was holding a web vigil for Birdy. I’m not a morning person, at least upon waking, lost bird or not. I drank the usual quart of coffee and meandered through the New York Times, lingering over the obituaries. Then it occurred to me that I better check my email, pronto. The first response to one of the Birdy postings was a scam. But the second one from mid-morning said this:
I think I found your bird..... Its safe... can u get me your phone number? Jaime
It was followed by another note sent through Craigslist, plus an email from another address with a photo of a cockatiel that looked like Birdy on a boy’s shoulder. The boy was wearing a baseball cap.
Please contact Jaime… I have your bird..
I have sent other emails because i wasn’t sure u were receiving them.
Thanks
Jaime
I called the phone number and immediately reached Jaime, working the reception desk of a small business in the metro area. I told her who I was and inquired about the bird. She brought the bird to work, Jaime explained, because she didn’t know what else to do with it. The bird, answering the description of Birdy, was in a hamster cage and in good shape. The odds were against two identical cockatiels going on the lam in the same place at the same time. I told Jaime I would call my brother and that he would get right back with her.
I telephoned Tom at the pub and asked him how he was doing. “Alright,” he said, sounding glum. A glum Tom meant everyone else working at the pub was in for a glum day.
“Birdy’s been found.”
“What?” I could hear the lunchtime crowd murmuring in the background. Against the odds, Birdy was coming home.
On Tuesday afternoon, Birdy descended from a tree overlooking a ball field and delicately settled on the cap of a little league coach practicing with his baseball team, the Cardinals, which included Jaime’s son. The kids were greatly amused by the sight of an exotic yellow bird perched on their coach’s head. Birdy was about a mile from home and had been missing for more than two days. The coach was the tallest person on the field and probably the least hyperactive, so perhaps Birdy had decided that he was both the guy in charge and a stable landing strip. She grew anxious on top of his cap and flew back up into the tree. Then she came down and rested on the shoulder of Jaime’s son. The team quickly realized that Birdie was not an ordinary bird, but perhaps a messenger, sent by a higher power to guide the Cardinals to victory. It had been a tough season and they could use a little help. Jaime somehow procured a hamster cage for Birdy, who was in the mood to cooperate. At some point she took Birdy over to a nearby pet store. Jaime didn’t know much about caring for cockatiels and decided to leave Birdy with the owner. Then she thought better of that idea and retrieved Birdy, returning to the practice.
Tom called Jaime and after the initial rounds of disbelief and gratitude, they set up a rendezvous at baseball practice that evening, several blocks over from Tom’s house. Tom, with Evan, Maggie, and me on hand to witness the miracle of the return of the wandering cockatiel, drove over to the ball field, Birdy’s empty cage in the back of the car no longer provoking sadness. We parked behind Jaime, thirty something and friendly looking, who was opening the rear of her SUV. There was Birdy in the large hamster cage, orange sunbursts radiating. Tom carefully loaded Birdy into her own cage on the hood of his car, mindful of adding more irony to the story. Birdy, for her part, did not look desperate. In fact, Birdy seemed nonplussed about surviving her big adventure. Tom attempted to give Jaime a reward, aware that by some miracle of technology and a stranger’s kindness, his bird was safe and he had been spared a long sad summer. Jaime refused his offer, content to have reunited Birdy with her family. She finally accepted $100 to help finance the team party. The Cardinals formed an honor guard around Tom’s car as Birdy was placed in the back seat, cheering on the little bird that had dropped in on their practice.
Tom put Birdy and her cage back in the usual spot in corner of the living room, by the window. We went out on the front porch and raised a beer in honor of Birdy and her good fortune, while she chattered away through the screen, telling us about the most exciting three and a half days of her life. Tom didn’t call his wife, who was at work, with the Birdy news, deciding to surprise her. When Tom picked up Julie that evening, he stayed mum until she approached the front door and heard the familiar chirping.
Two more emails were waiting when I got home.
Dear Bird Lover,
We found a bird that sort of matches your description of a lost bird in Walled Lake, Michigan. It is not a Cockatiel, but the colors are right….just wondering if you’ve found your bird or if this one could be yours. Do you have a photo of your bird? This bird was very hungry and dehydrated, but very friendly and happy. Hopefully you’ve already found your pet….but if you haven’t, maybe you could call or send a photo? Linda
Dear Bird Lover,
Luckily we found the bird’s owner, only a few houses away from our church. The bird had accidentally gotten out a window and was frightened by a neighbor’s car on Wednesday night. I hope you find your bird soon. Linda
It seemed like I had plugged into a bandwidth with nothing but breaking news on wayward birds, the avian CNN. I wrote Linda back, explaining that we had found Birdy. An hour later I received another note from her.
Oh, two happy endings! Thanks for letting me know!
Linda
“If that bird had not been found,” said Ed, “we’d probably not be sitting here. It would have been the end of another summer for Tom, after all the agony last summer with your mother. Instead, you had the satisfaction of helping your brother, the bird is back in her cage, Tom and Julie are in the backyard celebrating with family and friends, Evan’s enjoying his big night, and we sit here watching people have a damn good time while drinking Tom’s beer on a perfect summer evening. Thank you, little bird.”
“You make a persuasive case, Ed,” I said, struggling with the sombrero. Big hats came with their own problems. After getting whacked in the head and losing his bird the same morning, Tom experienced the agony and ecstasy of dealing with the vicissitudes of fate, this time aligned with the Sisters of Mercy. I finished my beer and walked slowly to the car, glad that I lived less than a mile away. Maggie slept by the garage and the happy graduate was on the front lawn, chatting with his friends. Birdy looked on from her cage in the living room, one lucky bird.
Martyland Digest, Vol. I, Letters A-Z 