Edie thought she had.
“Feed him out on the balcony,” Cohen said. He spoke to the bird. “After that, take off.”
Schwartz closed both bird eyes. “I’m tired and it’s a long way.”
“Which direction are you headed, north or south?”
Schwartz, barely lifting his wings, shrugged.
“You don’t know where you’re going?”
“Where there’s charity I’ll go.”
“Let him stay, papa,” said Maurie. “He’s only a bird.”
“So stay the night,” Cohen said, “but no longer.”
In the morning Cohen ordered the bird out of the house but Maurie cried, so Schwartz stayed for a while. Maurie was still on vacation from school and his friends were away. He was lonely and Edie enjoyed the fun he had, playing with the bird.
“He’s no trouble at all,” she told Cohen, “and besides his appetite is very small.”
“What’ll you do when he makes dirty?”
“He flies across the street in a tree when he makes dirty, and if nobody passes below, who notices?”
“So all right,” said Cohen, “but I’m dead set against it. I warn you he ain’t gonna stay here long.”
“What have you got against the poor bird?”
“Poor bird, my ass. He’s a foxy bastard. He thinks he’s a Jew.”
“What difference does it make what he thinks?”
“A Jewbird, what a chuzpah. One false move and he’s out on his drumsticks.”
At Cohen’s insistence Schwartz lived out on the balcony in a new wooden birdhouse Edie had bought him.
“With many thanks,” said Schwartz, “though I would rather have a human roof over my head. You know how it is at my age. I like the warm, the windows, the smell of cooking. I would also be glad to see once in a while the Jewish Morning Journal and have now and then a schnapps because it helps my breathing, thanks God. But whatever you give me, you won’t hear complaints.”
However, when Cohen brought him a bird feeder full of dried corn, Schwartz said, “Impossible.”
Cohen was annoyed. “What’s the matter, crosseyes, is your life getting too good for you? Are you forgetting what it means to be migratory? I’ll bet a helluva lot of crows you happen to be acquainted with, Jews or otherwise, would give their eyeteeth to eat this corn.”
Schwartz did not answer. What can you say to a grubber yung?
“Not for my digestion,” he later explained to Edie. “Cramps. Herring is better even if it makes you thirsty. At least rainwater don’t cost anything.” He laughed sadly in breathy caws.
And herring, thanks to Edie, who knew where to shop, was what Schwartz got, with an occasional piece of potato pancake, and even a bit of soupmeat when Cohen wasn’t looking.
When school began in September, before Cohen would once again suggest giving the bird the boot, Edie prevailed on him to wait a little while until Maurie adjusted.
“To deprive him right now might hurt his school work, and you know what trouble we had last year.”
“So okay, but sooner or later the bird goes. That I promise you.”
Schwartz, though nobody had asked him, took on full responsibility for Maurie’s performance in school. In return for favors granted, when he was let in for an hour or two at night, he spent most of his time overseeing the boy’s lessons. He sat on top of the dresser near Maurie’s desk as he laboriously wrote out his homework. Maurie was a restless type and Schwartz gently kept him to his studies. He also listened to him practice his screechy violin, taking a few minutes off now and then to rest his ears in the bathroom. And they afterwards played dominoes. The boy was an indifferent checker player and it was impossible to teach him chess. When he was sick, Schwartz read him comic books though he personally disliked them. But Maurie’s work improved in school and even his violin teacher admitted his playing was better. Edie gave Schwartz credit for these improvements though the bird pooh-poohed them.
Yet he was proud there was nothing lower than C minuses on Maurie’s report card, and on Edie’s insistence celebrated with a little schnapps.
“If he keeps up like this,” Cohen said, “I’ll get him in an Ivy League college for sure.”
“Oh I hope so,” sighed Edie.
But Schwartz shook his head. “He’s a good boy—you don’t have to worry. He won’t be a shicker or a wifebeater, God forbid, but a scholar he’ll never be, if you know what I mean, although maybe a good mechanic. It’s no disgrace in these times.”
“If I were you,” Cohen said, angered, “I’d keep my big snoot out of other people’s private business.”
“Harry, please,” said Edie.
“My goddamn patience is wearing out. That crosseyes butts into everything.”
Though he wasn’t exactly a welcome guest in the house, Schwartz gained a few ounces although he did not improve in appearance. He looked bedraggled as ever, his feathers unkempt, as though he had just flown out of a snowstorm. He spent, he admitted, little time taking care of himself. Too much to think about. “Also outside plumbing,” he told Edie. Still there was more glow to his eyes so that though Cohen went on calling him crosseyes he said it less emphatically.
Liking his situation, Schwartz tried tactfully to stay out of Cohen’s way, but one night when Edie was at the movies and Maurie was taking a hot shower, the frozen foods salesman began a quarrel with the bird.
“For Christ sake, why don’t you wash yourself sometimes? Why must you always stink like a dead fish?”
“Mr. Cohen, if you’ll pardon me, if somebody eats garlic he will smell from garlic. I eat herring three times a day. Feed me flowers and I will smell like flowers.”
“Who’s obligated to feed you anything at all? You’re lucky to get herring.”
“Excuse me, I’m not complaining,” said the bird. “You’re complaining.”
“What’s more,” said Cohen, “even from out on the balcony I can hear you snoring away like a pig. It keeps me awake at night.”
“Snoring,” said Schwartz, “isn’t a crime, thanks God.”
“All in all you are a goddamn pest and free loader. Next thing you’ll want to sleep in bed next to my wife.”
“Mr. Cohen,” said Schwartz, “on this rest assured. A bird is a bird.”
“So you say, but how do I know you’re a bird and not some kind of a goddamn devil?”
“If I was a devil you would know already. And I don’t mean because of your son’s good marks.”
“Shut up, you bastard bird,” shouted Cohen.
“Grubber yung,” cawed Schwartz, rising to the tips of his talons, his long wings outstretched.
Cohen was about to lunge for the bird’s scrawny neck but Maurie came out of the bathroom, and for the rest of the evening until Schwartz’s bedtime on the balcony, there was pretended peace.
But the quarrel had deeply disturbed Schwartz and he slept badly. His snoring woke him, and awake, he was fearful of what would become of him. Wanting to stay out of Cohen’s way, he kept to the birdhouse as much as possible. Cramped by it, he paced back and forth on the balcony ledge, or sat on the birdhouse roof, staring into space. In the evenings, while overseeing Maurie’s lessons, he often fell asleep. Awakening, he nervously hopped around exploring the four corners of the room. He spent much time in Maurie’s closet, and carefully examined his bureau drawers when they were left open. And once when he found a large paper bag on the floor, Schwartz poked his way into it to investigate what possibilities were. The boy was amused to see the bird in the paper bag.
“He wants to build a nest,” he said to his mother.
Edie, sensing Schwartz’s unhappiness, spoke to him quietly.
“Maybe if you did some of the things my husband wants you, you would get along better with him.”
“Give me a for instance,” Schwartz said.