“Yeah.”
The guy pauses again. He is flabbergasted to be in this situation. And I’m flabbergasted that I have used the word flabbergasted. This homeless Indian has an old-fashioned vocabulary wired into his brain.
“All right,” he says. “What kind of story do you want to hear?”
“Something personal,” I say. “Something you haven’t told anybody. Something secret.”
“I can’t tell you secrets,” he says. “I don’t even know you.”
And then the guy realizes that he can tell me anything precisely because he doesn’t know me. He realizes that any stranger can be your priest.
“All right,” he says. “I got a bird story.”
“Bird stories are my favorite stories.”
“You liar,” he says, and lets me go.
He takes a step back. I turn and face him. He waits to see if I’m going to attack him.
“I’m listening,” I say.
“All right,” he says. “I have a daughter, Jill. She’s seven. And she’s been crying about getting a pet. A dog, a cat, a turtle, anything with four legs, right?”
“Kids like pets,” I say.
“Just let me tell the story, Captain Obvious,” he says.
“Then tell it.”
“So, okay, we don’t want to get a cat or dog or turtle or whatever because we don’t want to clean up shit. Or we don’t want to clean up a lot of shit. So my wife and I, we go to the pet store, and we ask the clerk what kind of animal shits the least.”
“Fish,” I say.
“See there, that’s what I thought, too. Little fish, little poop. But then the clerk says that fish might shit small but they shit in their own water—”
“—so the aquarium itself becomes one big shit,” I say.
“Gallons of shit and piss,” he says. “So the clerk says that snakes only eat once a month, so they only shit once a month.”
“And then you asked him what kind of asshole father would give a snake to his seven-year-old daughter.”
“Well, I didn’t say it in so many words, but that’s essentially what I said.”
“Then what did the clerk say?”
“Bird.”
“What?”
“He said parakeet.”
“Small bird, small shit.”
“Exactly.”
“And you believed him?”
“Yeah, stupid of me, right? I mean, we took that little bird home and he was a shit-master. Poop, poop, poop everywhere.”
“And you hated it, right?”
“Well, I didn’t like the shit, but I loved that bird.”
The man is embarrassed to admit that. I like him for it.
“You see, he was a smart little fucker,” the man says. “Could talk, liked to dance to AC/DC, and sat on my shoulder.”
“You let him out of his cage?” I ask.
“Well, his wings were clipped.”
“A clipped-wing bird ain’t a bird,” I say.
“All right, all right, Dr. Earth First, I’m not the one who clipped them. He was clipped when we bought him. And it wasn’t like we bought him to be a tiny little Thanksgiving dinner. We loved that bird. I loved him. My daughter named him Harry Potter.”
“That’s cute.”
“Damn right, it’s cute. You want to hear the cutest part?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m the cook of the family, the domestic, and Harry Potter loved to sit on my shoulder while I was cooking and insult my food.”
“No.”
“Yes, my wife and daughter told him to say Too much salt and I’m being poisoned and I want pizza instead.”
“That’s hilarious.”
“Yes, it is. And there’s more. You see, my daughter’s favorite dish is pasta-anything. So I’m always boiling water. And Harry Potter is always sitting on my shoulder.”
“Oh, shit,” I say, already guessing at the end of the story.
“You got that right. A few days ago, Harry Potter jumped off my shoulder. And maybe he forgot he couldn’t fly or maybe he thought the pot of boiling water was a birdbath. All I know is that he fucking splashed into the water.”
“You cooked him?”
“He was only in there a second. I scooped him out with a spoon.”
“Where was your daughter?”
“She was right there, and she was screaming like she was burning to death.”
“Well, you killed her bird.”
“I didn’t kill the bird. The bird committed suicide. Attempted suicide. He wasn’t dead. He was moving around in my hand. And he was struggling to breathe. And my daughter was screaming at me to save her bird. And I was trying to figure out how to do CPR on a fucking parakeet.”
“So you panicked, then.”
“I froze. But my wife was on the phone, calling up the all-night emergency vet place. I mean, man, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an all-night animal ER.”
“Did they send an ambulance?”
“Oh, fuck you, you know they didn’t send an ambulance. They told us to get that bird into the ER as soon as we could. And so we all piled into my car and busted ass over there.”
“Where was the bird?” I ask.
“My wife had it wrapped in a towel on her lap.”
“And it survived the ride to the hospital?”
“Tough bird, man. He made it to the hospital. And the doctors took him into the back room and we waited in the waiting room. And my daughter was crying and my wife was crying.”
“Were you crying?”
“Yeah, I was bawling like a baby. And there were, like, twenty other people in the waiting room crying for their pets. It was the Waiting Room of the Damned.”
“What happened to the bird?”
“He was still alive. The ER doc came out, like it was a fucking movie, and told us the bird was in critical condition and might not make it through the night. So my daughter asks if we could see Harry Potter, and the doc says yes, so he leads us back into the ICU, and we see the bird, and he’s hooked up to this tiny little oxygen machine and this tiny little oxygen tube is running down his throat.”
“No,” I say. I try not to laugh, which makes me laugh. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. It’s not funny.”
“Oh, no, that’s the whole thing. It is funny. It’s horrible, too. But it’s hilarious at the same time. And when I saw that bird hooked up to those tiny little machines, I laughed.”
“No.”
“Yes, I laughed so hard that I forgot my wife and daughter were standing there. And when I remembered, I turned and looked at them, and they were staring at me with those eyes. Do you know what kind of eyes I’m talking about?”
“Disappointed eyes.”
“Yeah, disappointed eyes. But I’m used to those eyes. I mean, I’m married, right? My wife gives me those eyes sixteen times a day. But my daughter was giving me those eyes. And you know what’s worse?”
“What?”
“She was ashamed of me. My little girl was ashamed of me. I turned her love and pain into a big fucking laugh.”
The man was crying slow tears.
“And then my wife and daughter left me. They got into the car and left me. They went to my mother-in-law’s house and they won’t talk to me.”
“Jesus,” I say.
“Christ,” he says.
“What happened to the bird?” I asked.
“He died, you stupid shit. You think there’s a long list of birds who survive a pot of boiling water? You think God pardons a few parakeets every fucking Memorial Day?”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“You keep your sorrow to yourself,” he says.
“Okay.”
“Do you feel respected now?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Can I go now?”
“Yes — no, wait,” I say. “Do you have a picture?”
“Of the bird?”
“No, of your daughter.”