Birdy

watching. Then, there’s that pigeon suit he used to wear. He started making it while we still had the loft in his back yard. It began with an old pair of long johns he dyed dark blue. He gathered pigeon feathers from everywhere and kept them in a cigar box. He’d squat, like I said, in the back of our loft, sewing feathers onto those long johns. He began at the top and worked down, round and round, one feather overlapping the other, the way a bird is.
    When he got it finished and put it on, he looked like some kind of scraggly giant blue check. He’d wear this crazy suit every time he went into the loft. It’s one thing that definitely bugged his mother.
    When we built the tree loft, it got worse. He started wearing gloves covered with feathers and slipped reddish-yellow long socks over his shoes and up to his knees. This was all finished off by a hood with more feathers and a yellow cardboard beak. In the back of the loft, in dark shadows, squatting, sometimes he’d look like a real pigeon, only about the size of a big dog. Somebody accidentally looking up into that tree and seeing him walking around would probably go completely nuts.
    – That’s what you need here, Birdy, need the old pigeon costume. Really freak out your fatass doctor.
    Birdy didn’t have any feeling for quality birds. I never could figure just what it was he looked for in a pigeon. Take this next pigeon we get for the tree loft; it’s one of the ugliest things you can imagine. She’s so corny, I wouldn’t think even a corny’d have anything to do with her. Birdy thinks she’s beautiful.
    It’s about a month after we got the blue bars, Birdy comes tothe loft with this pigeon one rainy day and says he found her down in the dump fighting a rat. Now, who’d believe a thing like that? Birdy’s lies are so way out nobody’d believe them. Another thing about Birdy is he’ll believe other people’s lies. Birdy’ll believe almost anything.
    The earth turns and we are caught. The weight invades and we struggle in a cage of shifting tons.
    This corny’s absolutely black, not shiny black but a dull smoky black. Except for her beak and the way she walks like a pigeon, you’d swear she’s a pint-size crow. She’s so small I think she’s a squab, this is after I’m convinced she’s a pigeon. I don’t want her in the loft. An extra hen in a loft is bad news, but Birdy insists. He keeps raving about how beautiful she is and how she can fly.
    First thing she does is steal that blue bar cock away from the hen. He doesn’t know what hit him. He’s wearing himself out strutting around, chasing, fucking her; not even eating. Poor blue bar hen is moping on the nest.
    I’m pissed; I want to throw the goddamned corny out. Pigeon witch’s what she is. Birdy says OK but he’s not happy. We throw her up and out the next day. I figure she’s a wanderer and we’ll never see her again.
    When I get to the loft that afternoon, Birdy’s already there; so’s the witch. She’s with a great red check cock. They’re strutting all around the loft and the red check’s giving it to her while the blue bar’s trying to get his in but making zero. We watch all afternoon. Finally the blue bar goes back to his hen. I say, OK, the witch can stay now she has her own cock. She must’ve gotten homed to the loft in only two days.
    No one knows more than they have to know. All of us locked in gravity graves.
    Well, that witch is unbelievable. Next time she goes out, she comes back with a beautiful pair of purebred, banded ash. Birdslike that cost a fortune, eight, nine dollars a pair. These are really show birds. We can’t imagine where they come from. The ash cock goes for the witch and the hen follows them into the loft. They’re so beautiful they light up the whole place. So now the ash is fucking the witch and the red check’s out. It’s not natural.
    Things go on like that. The witch goes out and comes back with a cock or sometimes a pair. Most times it’s quality birds. This witch has sex appeal for good pigeons. She always lets the cock she brings home have it till the next one comes along, then never lets him near her again. During the three months she’s in our loft she shows no sign of nesting. Birdy says maybe she’s a whore pigeon, but I’m sure she’s a witch.
    I break inside my aloneness to knowledge, the end of knowing; a billowing of an air current; a movement toward necessity.
    Shit, before we know it, we have more pigeons than