Birdy

by William Wharton

  He takes me upstairs to show me his drawings and calculations on this. He’s talking vectors and points of impact and trying to make it clear to me. I can’t believe this is the same Birdy in Algebra with me who’s having a hard time pulling B’s.

  We sit around in his room for a while and he makes me watch his birds through the binoculars. He’s really built a great little aviary under his bed. I don’t know how the hell he talked his old lady into it. My mother’d skin my ass. Birdy wants me to watch how the birds take off and land. He’s convinced the birds are in the air before they even use their wings. I can’t see it. Birdy has quick eyes and he’s been watching the birds a lot. I can’t even pick up what he’s talking about.

  He’s named this one skinny bird Alfonso, after me. It looks like a mad, hungry sparrow. I tell Birdy it’s OK so long as he spells it with a ‘ph’. I’m the one and only Alfonso with an ‘f’ around here. Birdy says it doesn’t matter because that isn’t his real name anyway, it’s only what he calls him. I ask, ‘What is the secret name?’ Birdy says he doesn’t know. He tells me he doesn’t know enough canary talk to ask him yet. Yet! he says and he doesn’t blink, just wiggles his crazy eyes. He isn’t smiling and I know he’s not kidding.

  It’s hard to figure if somebody like Birdy is crazy or not.

  Next morning I decide to take the risk. I open the door to Birdie’s cage. Then I go out of the aviary and sit behind my binoculars. I can always go in and rescue her if it gets too bad.

  Birdie hops out right away. Alfonso is up on the top perch. Birdie sees I’ve put in new bath water, so, after a few inquisitive queeps, she hops down to take her bath. She’s completely ignoring him. He stands up there on his perch menacing. I’m expecting any minute he’ll swoop down.

  Birdie goes through her whole bath routine but he doesn’t move; he doesn’t take his eyes off her, either. It’s the last thing I expected. Birdie flies up to the top of her little cage and starts preening her feathers.

  After some minutes of watching her, the dive-bomber zooms down, has himself a few seeds and a little drink. He hop-flies around the wet places from Birdie’s bath. He hops up onto the edge of the bath, wiggles his face around in it as if he’s going to take a bath himself, then decides against it. He goes over and has a few more seeds. I’d put in some treat food too, and he gobbles some of that.

  Then he does his straight-up jump and with a few wing flips re-establishes himself at the top of the aviary. He perches there and stretches his wings a couple times, trying to look bored. He wipes his beak about ten times on the perch to show what a big shot he is, then does that kind of bird gargle where they open their beaks wide and wiggle their tongues around. He flips his tail up and takes a couple quick pecks at his asshole. I’m getting bored myself, especially when I’d been expecting an attempted murder, at least.

  Then, seemingly for no reason, he starts to sing. He starts quietly enough, going through a few bars just slightly more powerful than before, but gradually increasing the volume and the emotional content. A certain harshness begins to dominate. Meanwhile, he’s started rocking back and forth on his thin legs and agitatedly moving the length of the perch. He sings leaning forward with his throat fully extended. His wings are slightly lifted from his body and his stomach is pulled taut. Altogether he’s damned impressive. He impresses me, that is, but apparently not Birdie. She’s just finishing off the last little soft feathers on her back.

  Now, Alfonso starts holding notes. He holds the same note till I think he’s going to fall off the perch. It seems as if he doesn’t breathe. He’s in a regular frenzy. Suddenly, he pounces down to where Birdie is basking. He lands about a foot from her, continuing his song during the drop and while he’s standing there. Birdie looks over at him. He begins his pursuit immediately. Birdie jumps up and flies to the perch he’s just abandoned. He’s right after her, in full song. His whole body is quivering.

  It gets to be a regular WWI dogfight with Birdie finding no place she can land without his swarming all over her. He even manages somehow to harry her in midflight. It’s obvious he wants to mate but equally obvious that Birdie is totally unprepared for his cave-bird tactics. At last, she makes the mistake of flying into her cage. He goes right in after her and there’s such a scramble, I hurry into the aviary and put my hand in the cage to rescue Birdie. He’s got her trapped so she can’t escape. She doesn’t resist but I get a few good pecks on the back of my hand from the tiger himself. I intend to close the door and keep him in there, but before I can do it, he’s flown out and is up on the highest perch menacing me, with his wings lifted and his beak open.

  I go out of the aviary and close the door to keep him in there, at least. I let Birdie loose. She flares her feathers, gives me a queep, a QReep and a couple peeps, then flies over to the wire of the aviary. Now, she’s flirting. She knows she’s safe so she’s going to tease him.

  She flies to one spot and Alfonso, singing madly, swoops over to her, then she flies a foot or so away from the wire and lands in another place. He flies to meet her there. This goes on for about five minutes. Then he flies up to his perch again. I guess he’s pooped or maybe he’s tired of having her make fun of him. Birdie hangs on the wire and queeps at him, very plaintive, very demanding.

  After a few minutes, he starts singing in a normal tone. We listen. He really can sing. Then, gradually, he gets all worked up again; it’s as if his own singing turns him on. This time he flies down to the floor. He stands there on the floor and sings up to where Birdie’s hanging. He looks like an opera singer; standing in the light on the white sand, turning left and right and taking short steps backwards and forwards as he sings. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a canary do something like walking.

  Birdie flies down to the floor on the outside of the aviary and looks through the wire at him. He keeps singing and slowly struts over to her, giving her the full tenor treatment. She doesn’t move. He gets to the edge of the wire and they aren’t an inch apart. He’s singing wildly. Birdie looks and listens then starts giving her little whimpering ‘feed-me’ signal. She squats and flips her wings quickly, opening her mouth and pressing it through the wires.

  Alfonso stops singing and looks at her. He can’t seem to figure what this is all about. He cocks his head and looks down into her mouth, listens to her and starts singing again. Poor Birdie. He begins rocking back and forth, leaning down till his throat is touching the floor. He lifts his head up and down with the power of his passion. When, at last, he can’t bear it anymore, he throws himself against the bars of the aviary.

  This frightens Birdie and she flies away. He climbs up the bars of the aviary trying to watch her. She flies over to the mirror on the dresser and looks at herself. He hangs there for a while, then flies down onto the floor again and takes a drink. All that passion must’ve made him thirsty.

  This whole ritual happens over and over, all day long. At the critical moment, Birdie wants to be fed and Alfonso can’t bring himself to do it or doesn’t know how. Frustrated, I put Birdie back in her cage and leave the room.

  That evening, I let Birdie out while I’m drawing a new design for my wing. I’m at my desk, my desk lamp is the only light and it’s practically dark in the aviary. Still, there’s enough light so I can see Alfonso hanging on the side of the cage. He starts singing, low, smoothly. When he stops, Birdie begins whimpering again, fanning her wings. At last he does it. He feeds her through the bars. It sounds so satisfying. He throws back his head to bring up food from his crop, then gently puts it into her open beak. With each beakful, there’s a rise in tiny peeps from Birdie, and then, a moment’s pause while she swallows. He keeps it up till he’s given all he has. Birdie continues her insistent peeping and shimmying around so he flies down for more food. He comes back and does it all again.

  After this, he flies onto the top of her cage and sings. He sings as if he’s trying to say something. There’s all of asking in his voice and not the ‘Come here, Baby’ sound he’d been giv
ing us up till now. Birdie sits perfectly still and listens. I do too. There’s tremendous variety in the paths of his singing. There are certain kinds of things he does well; these he repeats but at different volumes or different tones and in all kinds of variations.

  There’s open air in his song, the power of wings and the softness of feathers. He’s telling how it will be if she’ll only let him put his little dong into her little hole. It’s clear as any love song. He sings of things he could never have seen or known in the aviary at Mr Lincoln’s. These things must be memories in his blood carried through in his song. There’s the song of rivers and the sound of water and the song of fields and seeds in their natural places. It’s a song I’ll never forget. It’s with this song I began to understand something of canary. Canary isn’t a language like ours with individual words, or words put into sentences. In the singing, you let your mind go, not think, and it comes to you, clearer than words. It comes as if you’d thought it yourself. Canary is much more feeling, more abstract than any language. Listening to Alfonso that night I found out things I knew must be but I’d never known. It was the song of someone who knows how to fly.

  The next day’s Sunday and after mass I let Birdie into the aviary. She glides down and hops over to the food. Alfonso sees her and swoops down immediately. I think it’s going to start all over again, but he stands on the other side of the food dish and eats a few seeds. Birdie hops to the bath and starts her morning ablutions. Alfonso stands near by to watch and when she sprinkles water she showers him. He flies up to the first perch, then flies down again. He hops to the bath dish and jumps in. He really splashes, scattering water all over the aviary, tossing it up over his back with his beak in a way Birdie’d never done. Then, they get in the water together, in and out, until there’s no water left in the dish. They both fly around the aviary wildly, drying off. Birdie’s entered into the spirit of this frantic bathing style. The feathers around Alfonso’s beak are ruffled and you can barely see his eyes. He’s gotten himself so wet, his feathers are heavy, hanging from his body. He looks really bedraggled. He keeps flying back and forth long after Birdie’s quit and is cleaning up. He rubs his wet face against the perch and against the bars of the cage. He flies down and rubs his face on the wall, of all things. It’s obvious he doesn’t bathe of ten and doesn’t like it when he does.

  At last he’s clean and dry. They both eat again and she starts whimpering and giving her ‘feed-me’ signal. He starts to feed her but this gets him so excited he begins singing and then goes into a little dance. He dances around in circles beside her while he holds a single note. He dips his head up and down, stomping his feet to some hidden rhythm. I figure, here we go again.

  While he’s doing this, Birdie begins her own little dance. She’s squatting, whimpering, twisting around to keep lined up with him while he dances. All in one movement, Alfonso flies up over her and hovers while he lowers his dong under her upraised tail and into her hole. It lasts only a few seconds and he’s hovering in the air all the time. The only real point of contact is where he fits in.

  When he’s finished, he lands beside her, squats and starts giving the ‘feed-me’ signal himself. They twirl beside each other for half a minute alternately feeding and being fed. Then he does it again. This time he doesn’t sing and there’s only the pleased whimpering of Birdie and the sounds of his wings as he pumps the air to hold himself over her. Her wings beat in a counterpoint to his and there’s a great trembling of air. It’s something to think how much a bird can flap its wings without moving an inch and how, when he wants to fly, the quickest, simplest flick of wings transports him straight up, twenty, thirty times his length. Flying is much more than flapping wings.

  Now Birdie goes berserk. She flies around the cage, peeping little peeps and flapping her wings as if she can’t stand still. She seems too excited even to eat properly. She goes down, eats one seed, then looking as if she’s forgotten something, flies madly all over again. She ducks into the old cage about every five minutes, inspecting and making sure. Then she starts tearing paper up from the bottom of the cage and carrying pieces of it around. She begins storing these pieces of paper in the corners of the aviary and in her cage. Every half hour or so, Alfonso recovers enough to chase after Birdie, feed her and they do it again. It’s a hectic Sunday afternoon.

  The next day, Monday, I buy a wire strainer without a handle, about four inches in diameter at the top. I wire this into the small cage. All the books say this makes the best kind of nest because it doesn’t harbor lice. Then I scissor off the top of a burlap bag, cut it into squares about two inches each way and shred it into two-inch length strings. I put bunches of this stuff in different corners of the aviary. Birdie attacks this new challenge with vigor. She starts by scattering it all over the aviary, then she picks up a piece and flies back and forth till she forgets she has it in her beak and drops it. She seems to think it’s some kind of new game. She’s interested but has no idea what practical use she can make of it.

  Two days pass and I begin to get worried. Usually, the egg will be laid within four days of fertilization. I’d read about birds who lay their eggs on the floor; all kinds of crazy things. Birds, like people, have been living in cages so long they’ve forgotten many things they should do naturally.

  On the third day Alfonso takes over. For the first time he picks up a piece of burlap. He flies straight to the nest and drops it in. Birdie watches with obvious incomprehension. Then Alfonso jumps into the strainer-nest and wiggles himself around as if he’s taking a bath. He jumps out. Birdie’s followed him into the cage. She has a piece of burlap in her beak. Alfonso jumps into the nest and demonstrates again. Birdie jumps into the nest holding the string in her beak. She jumps out again. Alfonso pulls the string out of her beak and drops it into the nest. Birdie looks at him as if he’s some kind of nut and flies out of the small cage to play with the strings again. Alfonso gets into the nest and waits for her. Birdie comes back with two pieces in her beak. Alfonso gets out of the nest and Birdie jumps in. Alfonso jumps on top of Birdie and starts singing, pumping and pecking her on the neck. Birdie varies between whimpering and trying to escape. Alfonso gets off, squats and feeds Birdie in the nest. Then he sings to her. Birdie tries to get up on the edge of the nest but Alfonso forces her back and does the whole singing, pumping, pecking routine again. He flies down to get more burlap.

  Birdie finally gets the idea. She jumps up on the edge of the nest, then back in again. She snuggles down in it. She jumps out again, then back in. By this time, Alfonso’s arrived. She takes the burlap from his beak and drops the pieces into the nest. She jumps in on top of them and wiggles around. I hope that at last we’re on our way.

  That night, after chow, I meet the CO who’s the orderly on Birdy’s floor. We get to talking. He tells me his name is Phil Renaldi; he’s Italian but not Sicilian. His grandparents came from around Napoli. He invites me over to eat some fruitcake he just got from home. I’m still not sure if he’s queer or not but I go. What should I care if he’s queer; I’m not all that sure about myself. Maybe I’ll get a chance to ask him about what it is to be crazy.

  He’s got a great place. It’s a little squad room, walled off and independent. It’s like the platoon sergeant’s room at Jackson. He has it all to himself. Renaldi’s got this room fixed up almost like home. He has a record player on a table at the end of his bed and another table in the center of the room. He’s rigged a light with a lampshade hanging from the ceiling over the table. He even has a little hot plate and a tea kettle.

  One of the things I’ve never gotten used to in the army is bare light bulbs. At home, my mother has all the lamps covered with colored lampshades. It gives our house a good Italian look; a place to eat fettucini or zeppoli. The army has bare light bulbs high up in the ceilings. They flatten everything out and make it even more depressing than it is.

  Renaldi’s made his lampshade out of some orange paper. It gives the place a warm, civilian look. He brings down
the fruitcake and it turns out his girlfriend, not his mother, sent it. He comes from a place called Steubenville, Ohio. His girl is there and writes him every day. He shows me bundles of letters, enough to fill a mail bag. He has them stored in boxes under his bed. He shows me some pictures of her; Italian girl, going to get fat with the first baby.

  I don’t know how to bring up the idea of what it is that makes somebody crazy. I’m fishing around and somehow we get sidetracked on the whole CO business. I’m ready to listen. I tell him I joined the State Guard and then enlisted. I can hardly believe it myself, now. He’s curious about why. He’s not being hot-shit or anything, he’s just honest-to-God interested. Like I said, I’m ready to listen but this guy’s a champion listener. He’s really interested.

  Not many people are interested in what somebody else is thinking, or what they have to say. The best you can hope for is they’ll listen to you just so you’ll have to listen to them. Everybody’s loading shit on everybody else. Sometimes, somebody’ll act like they’re listening, but they’re only waiting back in their minds for you to say something, something they can jump on or kick off on themselves. For me, conversation’s usually a bore.

  Renaldi is truly listening. He wants to hear. You get the feeling you’re doing him a favor by telling him things. He listens as if what you’re saying is interesting to him and he asks the questions you want asked exactly when the right time comes. This Renaldi is some kind of mental enema. I come close to spilling it all. I manage to hold back at the last minute. Maybe he seems this way because I need somebody to talk to.

  Renaldi starts by telling me how hard it is for his parents. He’s their only son and the only one in his neighborhood who went CO. His mother doesn’t get to hang a blue star in her window. Some ladies in the neighborhood sent her a blue banner with a yellow star on it. This was yellow, not gold. If you’re lucky enough to have a son or husband or brother killed in the war, you get to hang a gold star in your window and you’re a ‘gold-star mother/sister/father/wife’. These ladies call Renaldi’s mother the ‘yellow-star mother’. She writes Renaldi about things like this or how she found shit on the porch or spread on the doorknob. Renaldi tells how, a couple times he’s almost given in. His girlfriend keeps it secret that she writes to him and he writes her care of General Delivery.