Birdy (9 page)

Anyway, I decide that’s the one I want. Birdie’ll have to learn to
love him. He’s dark and has a flat head like a hawk, a long body with only a slight difference between the grass green of his breast and the moss green of his back feathers. There’s not a white feather or even a yellow one to be seen anywhere on him. His legs are long and black and his feathered thighs show under his tight, slim belly. He’s really a fearful-looking bird. His eyes seem to pin you down; bright black and close together for a bird. It’s hard to believe he’s only a seed-eating canary.

When I tell Mr Lincoln that’s the one I want he tries to talk me out of it. He says it’s hard to breed this bunch because they beat the females up something awful and sometimes even turn on the babies when they come out of the nest. He says they’re nothing but trouble. The females are good mothers, but the males can break your heart.

It doesn’t do any good talking to me. I’m crazy in love with the way he flies. He flies as if the air isn’t even there. When he flies up from the bottom of the cage, he’s two feet in the air before he opens his wings. When he drops from the top perch, he closes his wings and only opens them once just before he hits the bottom of the cage. I have the feeling you could pull all the feathers out of his wings and he could still fly. He flies because he isn’t afraid and not just because it’s what birds are supposed to do. He flies as an act of personal creation, defiance.

Mr Lincoln sells him to me for five dollars. He’s worth fifteen at least. Mr Lincoln says he wants me to try him and come back to tell what happens. If it doesn’t work, I can bring him back and he’ll give me another bird. Mr Lincoln’s a terrific person. I wish there were more people like him.

When I get home, I put Alfonso in the cage where I used to keep Birdie before I built the aviary. Then I hang that cage in the aviary where Birdie lives. I’m afraid to put them together right away. Mr Lincoln said he might kill her and I have to be careful.

Just catching him was really something. He’d flown like a mad thing and when Mr Lincoln finally cornered him, he shrieked out and twisted his head trying to bite the hand that was holding him. He was completely helpless, held down, but when I put my finger
out to pet him, he twisted his head and gave me a hard peck. Birdie was sitting on my shoulder watching all this. I wondered what she was thinking. She did give me some serious questioning
queeEEP’
s when I put her in her traveling box. I put Alfonso in a cardboard box to carry him home; I was half afraid he’d chew his way out.

Well, it’s fun to watch. Of course, Birdie is all excited. She flies to his cage and tries hanging onto the side looking in. He gives her a couple sharp pecks at her feet and breast as she hangs there. One time he snatches a few feathers out of her breast.

He seems happy enough in his new cage; eats, drinks and generally makes himself at home the first day he arrives. It’s as if all he wants is to be left alone. I’m waiting to hear him sing. I’d never heard him sing at Mr Lincoln’s. Mr Lincoln’d blown away his vent feathers to show me his little dong, as if there were any question about his being a male, but I don’t know if he can sing. Mr Lincoln said he didn’t remember ever hearing him but he didn’t listen for it. He couldn’t care less if a canary sang. I don’t think I care that much either, but I’m anxious to get him in the big cage so I can watch him fly.

That afternoon, I go visit with Birdy again. I’m beginning to think there’s not much use. The trouble is I’m not sure I really want Birdy to come back. It’s such a rat-shit world and the more I see, the worse it looks. Birdy probably knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t have to worry about anything, somebody’s always going to take care of him, feed him. He can live his whole life out pretending he’s a lousy canary. What’s so terrible about that?

Christ, I’m wishing I could get onto something loony myself. Maybe I’ll play gorilla like that guy across the hall; just shit in my hands every once in a while and throw it at somebody. They’d lock me up and I’d be taken care of the way I was in the hospital at Metz. I could do it. Maybe that means I’m crazy. I just know it’s not so bad letting somebody else make the decisions.

God, it’d be great to be a running guard again; feel the mud sticking in my cleats, smell the mold in the shoulder pads around my ears, hear my own breathing inside a helmet. Everything simple, just knock down anybody with the wrong color shirt.

Who the hell knows who’s really crazy? I think this Weiss is crazy along with his spitting T-4. They know Birdy’s crazy and probably think I am too. I should talk to that CO. He’s been around looneys long enough, probably knows more than most doctors. One thing I’ve learned; you want to know where an OP is, never ask an officer. He’s liable to send you to a Post Office.

I’m even beginning to wonder if the way Birdy and I were so close all those years wasn’t a bit suspicious. Nobody else I’ve ever
known had such a close friend; it was as if we were married or something. We had a private club for two. From the time I was thirteen until I was seventeen I spent more time with Birdy than with everybody else put together. Sure, I chased girls and Birdy played with birds but he was actually the only person I was ever close to. People used to say we sounded alike, our voices I mean; we were always coming out with the same sentences at the same time too. I’m missing Birdy; I needed him back to talk to.

I sit there for over an hour between the doors not saying anything. I’m not particularly watching Birdy either. It’s like a long guard duty, I’m turned inside myself, only half there. I don’t know how I get to thinking about the dogcatching; maybe I’m remembering how it was all such a shock to us, especially hanging around the squad room talking to the cops. That was a quick injection of life-shit all right.

He tenses up; he’s listening to me. What the hell. I don’t feel like talking to him about it. What good would it do. It’s not what I want to talk about anyway. Birdy hops up and turns around to look at me. He cocks his head both ways looking out of one eye, then the other, like a pigeon.

It was the summer before our junior year when Birdy and I got the job as dogcatchers. Actually, we invented the job. There’d never been any dogcatchers in Upper Merion and so there were whole packs of dogs running around wild. This was especially true in the poor part of town, our neighborhood.

These packs would have ten or twenty dogs in them and they didn’t belong to anybody. People’d buy their kids a puppy for Christmas or a birthday and then when they found out how much they ate, they’d throw them out and the dogs would find each other. It was like a jungle. Mostly they were mangy-looking
mongrels, with short legs and long tails or pointed faces and thick fur; all kinds of strange-looking animals.

They’d roam around in the early morning knocking over garbage cans and spreading crap around. Daytimes, they’d usually avoid people and mosey around independently or sleep. Sometimes they’d even go back to the people who owned them; but at night they were regular wolf packs.

Once in a while they’d gang up on a kid or some cat or the garbage men and there’d be a big fuss in the newspapers. This happened just as we were about ready to get out of school that summer. I got the idea of trying to pick them off with my twenty-two. By then, I’m already a real gun nut. I don’t know if I would’ve ever done it but I told Birdy. He said we should go to the police and tell them we’ll work over the summer as dogcatchers. He already has all those canaries and big feed bills.

Surprisingly, the police buy the idea; the commissioner signs procurement slips and in only two weeks it’s all set up. They rip the back off one of the old patrol wagons, build a big cage on it, rig a wooden platform on the back bumper where we can stand with handles to hold on to.

They assign a sergeant named Joe Sagessa to drive the wagon and we’re in business. Joe Sagessa had been on the desk and isn’t too happy with the job but he’s stuck. He has a pack of hunting dogs out in Secane so he’s the likely one for the detail.

The deal is we’d be paid a dollar an hour plus a dollar a dog. That was a lot of money in those days. My old man was only pulling about thirty-five bucks a week as a plumber.

While the truck is being fixed up they send us down to Philadelphia for training. We’re just on the straight dollar an hour but we don’t have to do a damned thing but watch.

The township bought us gigantic nets especially made for catching dogs. They have short handles, only a foot or so long but the net part is almost four feet in diameter. They weigh over thirty pounds. There are racks built on the side of the wagon to hang the nets when we ride on the back.

Down in Philadelphia the dogcatchers are all black. They’re
genuine professionals and one of them has been catching dogs for seven years. These guys catch dogs the way the Globetrotters play basketball. They made a real joy out of it.

They have a regular dog wagon, designed for the job; they can clamber around the fender and get inside behind the driver whenever they want. Only one of them at a time would ride on the outside. He sings out whenever he sights a stray dog.

They give us lessons with the nets first. They’d worked out left-hand hook shots, right hooks and straight-on jump shots. This last, they say, is for when the dog jumps at your throat. They’re having fun kidding around with us.

It’s all worked out like big game hunting. They talk about different dogs they’d gotten and about the big ‘mothers’ they’d had to wrestle into the truck, and they show us all the places where they’ve been bitten. They get a straight dollar and a half an hour no matter how many dogs they catch.

For a week we ride along on the back of the trucks with them. Now, down in Philadelphia, most of the houses are row houses, so they have a system for trapping dogs between the rows. When they spot a dog, one netman jumps off right there and the wagon goes down the street toward the dog. They drop another netman off beside the dog, and the truck goes on down to the other end of the street and swings around. The third guy, the one driving the wagon, gets out there. They all have their nets with them.

The one in the middle, beside the dog, sneaks up and tries a drop shot; just drops the net over the dog. This is rarely successful. Somehow, the dogs catch on and take off. Then it’s up to the netman at either end. The one in the middle hotfoots it after the dog to keep him moving. As the dog charges past the guy on the end, he’ll try to net him with a right or left hook shot. If the dog doubles back, he has to run past two nets. It’s a lot like a good baseball play where they catch a player off third base and run him down. Finally, the dog takes the plunge one way or the other and most times winds up under the net.

Then there’d be a lot of laughing and pushing the dog into the wagon. People’d start crowding around and cursing and if it
were somebody’s dog, there’d be big arguments. They have a way of lifting the dog up in the net and dumping him into the cage. They told us one time a character came out and cut the net to get his dog. They laughed till they couldn’t breathe telling us about it. As soon as they’ve locked a dog in the wagon, they’d hightail on out of the neighborhood.

There’d been dogcatchers a long time in Philadelphia so there aren’t really any packs. What they need down there is a catcatcher. There’re beat up cats wandering all over the streets. You just never see a bird in that part of town.

These dogcatchers have girlfriends all over. After they’ve gotten seven or eight dogs they take off one at a time for an hour or two to go visit the girls. The rest of us would drive around. Sometimes if a dog looks as if he wants to be picked up, we drop off and try to slip a net over him. Most of the girlfriends are married and these guys would come back laughing and giggling and bragging but scared, too. There are all kinds of jokes about who’s the most tired. They’re actually catching dogs about three hours a day. The rest of the time they are, without doubt, the oldest established floating stud service in Philadelphia.

They’d ride around flirting. Women are hanging out the windows, leaning on pillows and waiting for them. They’d yell and try to get us to stop. The guys have on-going arguments about who has how many kids with which women. Most of the talking isn’t really words, more just smiles, looks, and deep throat noises. It sure looks like a hell of a lot better life than our fathers have.

At the end of the day, we’d go back to the dog pound. They have cages there and a setup for gassing unclaimed dogs. This means just about all the dogs they caught. Nobody is about to pay two dollars for a license and a five dollar fine to get out a dog.

They’d empty the wagon, then gather the overdue dogs into the gas chamber, close the door, a door like a safe with a twisting handle, turn on the gas, then go over and clean out the cages where the dogs had been.

Birdy and I are fascinated by the gassing. After half an hour,
they turn on the fans to suck out the gas, open the doors and pull the dead dogs out by the tails. Neither of us has had much to do with anything dead. It’s hard to watch them go in live, jumping, barking, trying to get attention, then come out dead with their eyes open. There’s a special incinerator designed to burn the dogs. It has a long, movable grate they can pull in and out for dumping the dogs into the flames. They clean out the gassing chamber and the day is finished. They laugh and joke while they do all this but we can tell they don’t like it either.

That first morning when we got out alone, with our own wagon, we chase about fifty dogs and don’t catch one. The houses where we’re hunting aren’t row houses and the dogs run off between houses and into the next street. Joe Sagessa almost laughs himself sick watching us. We could probably have walked up to most of those dogs and picked them up. We both feel this would be cheating. We have to catch our dogs with the net to be dogcatchers.

That afternoon we go back to our own neighborhood because the houses there are in rows. We manage to catch four dogs, including the dog of Mr Kohler, the paperhanger; he lives three houses away from us.

The township had made arrangements to keep the dogs for forty-eight hours in the kennels of a vet named Doc Owens. We take the dogs out there and then quit for the day.

When I get home, Mr Kohler is in our living room. He’s hollering at my mother. When I come in, he turns on me. He wants to know where his dog is. He says if it’s dead, he’s going to kill me. He calls me an Italian Fascist. I push him out the door, across the porch, and down the steps. I’m hoping he’ll take a swing at me. I haven’t knocked down a grown man yet. He stands on the lawn and tells me he’s going to call the police. I tell him I’m working for the police. I tell him it’ll cost five dollars to get his dog back because it didn’t have a license, the dog is a criminal and so is he. If he doesn’t get down there right away tomorrow I’ll slit the damned dog’s throat myself. He calls me a Fascist again. I call him a shithead kike. I’m about ready to start chasing him down the street; I’m wishing I had my net. My mother tells
me to come inside. I go in and she tells me to quit the dogcatcher job. I tell her I won’t; I’m just beginning to enjoy it.

The next day we get twelve dogs. We’ve worked out our own system. We catch the dogs cowboy style, by more or less rounding them up. When we come on a pack we don’t drive up to them, we follow and maneuver them from street to street, till we get them at a dead end or a place where we can surround them.

We’re watching to find out who the leader of the pack is. All those packs have one top dog. We watch for this when we’re rounding up the pack. He’s easy to spot because he runs at the head of the pack and the others look at him to see what to do. We concentrate on catching that pack leader, then the rest are easy. The way we do this is drop one of us, usually me, right in front of this dog. I stand there with the net down like a bullfighter’s cloak and growl at him. Usually he has to defend his honor and the pack so he’ll bristle up and growl back. Birdy, meanwhile, has dropped off behind him, perhaps twenty, thirty yards, and sneaks up through the back. By the time the dog’s discovered what’s happened it’s too late, and one or the other of us takes him. After that, the rest of the pack is easy. They stand still as we walk up to them or wag their tails trying to make friends. Most dogs are big cowards. We net them or pick them up. We figure we deserve the pack after catching the leader.

We catch this whole twelve dogs between eleven and eleven-thirty in the morning of that second day. Twelve dogs is all the wagon will carry. It’s half an hour drive out to Doc Owens’s, so Joe Sagessa suggests we get some hoagies and beer, then sack out up behind the golf course. We do that and lie around telling jokes till about three, then drive over to Doc Owens’s with the dogs. Mr Kohler has already come and paid to get his mutt.

That night, the cage is a filthy mess. Luckily there’s a hose for cleaning off the squad cars, so we use it to wash out all the dog shit, dog piss, vomit and dog hair. Joe gets us lockers in the squad room where we can keep our work clothes. We shower in the squad showers and keep an extra set of clothes there.

It’s almost like we’re in the police ourselves. It’s terrific being
able to handle those slick thirty-eights and forty-fives. Those cops keep them in perfect shape. Some of the belts and harnesses are beautiful to look at, with the ideal combination of sweat and oil, molded to fit the waist or the shoulder.