The Bird Market of Paris (6 page)

The bird in the mug was plain and helpless, and I had the vague notion Peter had scored it for free. I stroked the creature with my index finger.

“I love it,” I said, hoping he didn't hear the tentativeness in my voice.

Peter showed me how to heat the baby's premade hand-feeding formula in a small cup in the microwave, and how to fill a needleless syringe with the formula and place it on the baby's beak, which opened when touched. The bird's little head pumped up and down as I compressed the plunger of the syringe and its crop filled, the mustard-colored food visible in a pouch through the translucent skin under its neck. It looked like a bullfrog in mating season. I placed the baby back into the coffee mug, and it promptly fell asleep.

Peter drove away, leaving me alone with the little parrot and its Ziploc bag of supplies. What kind of person gives someone a Valentine's gift she has to feed every four hours? I stared at the delicate baby in my lap and thought about a name. Opal might be nice, but a resentful name choice, too, since opal was my birthstone and it was Valentine's Day, after all. I decided on Bonk, after a golden retriever in a movie I had recently seen. I sat on the sofa with Bonk's mug warming between my thighs and watched him sleep. He had tiny black spots all over his back where feathers threatened to burst through. His head was shaped like the round part of a question mark, and his body like a less-than symbol, angular and tapered to a point where his tail would be if feathers had been growing there. He squirmed, then delivered a forced-sounding noise like “eeeaahhhkkkk,” followed by a loud, squirty poop.

I decided I could like the little guy.

*   *   *

Bonk grew at a supersonic pace, like a strange Amazonian plant that sprouts a foot a day. He moved from the mug to a ten-gallon fish tank in a week. From one day to the next, the pepper-like black dots scattered on his skin burst through the thin tissue, forming pinfeathers that made him look like a pincushion with eyes. A few days later, an unnatural tropical green hue broke through the top of the pinfeathers. A shade of turquoise the ocean would envy covered his rump, and on his face, the slightest shade of pinkish peach emerged. His tail feathers unfurled from their sheathes in a combination of red, blue, black, and green. He loved when I scratched his head and face, helping him to preen away the waxy sheaths of the pinfeathers so the feathers could emerge.

His lust for food was ardent, and he'd eat from the syringe until he fell asleep on his feet. He'd nap in the front of my shirt after eating, wrapped in a paper towel to catch the inevitable poop.

“Look at that!” Poppy exclaimed when he met Bonk. “I am a great-grandfather! You are aging me,
Chérie
.”

Poppy held Bonk in one hand and petted him gently with the other, and I felt proud to have graduated to my own parrot.

“You are taking good care of him,” Poppy said. “I would like to have a bird like this.”

“Isn't he sweet?” I took Bonk from Poppy and cupped the baby in my hands.

“He is as sweet as his mother.”

When Bonk saw me, he bounced around as if I was the sun and moon of his little birdy life. As soon as he gained some mobility, he paced frenetically back and forth in his fish tank when I walked into a room, cheeping like an alarm clock, and ceased only when he gained my attention. The more he needed me, the more I fell in love with him.

He'd cry and wail until I held his humid body in my hands; he'd ride on my shoulder while I did homework or chores. I'd watch television with him asleep under my chin, and I wouldn't move if it meant I might wake him. I saw countless episodes of
Alf
and
The Golden Girls
I had not intended to watch.

How could this animal be capable of such trust? I'd known birds as cautious creatures. Bonk preened me and cuddled me and argued with me when I did something he didn't like, such as blow my nose. Tissues were offensive and had to be shredded, which he did while screaming with the verve of pumped-up troops running into battle.

The African peach-faced lovebird, Bonk's species, is a member of the
Agapornis
genus, whose name stems from the Greek word
agape
, meaning “love.”
Ornis
means “bird.” The field scientist who named these little parrots couldn't have been more accurate. Bonk exuded love from every cell of his birdy body.

At three months old, he was feathered and mobile, running after me wherever I went. He was supposed to be off the hand-feeding formula by then, but I'd never hand-fed a baby bird before, and I indulged his relentless begging. He squalled and bobbed up and down like an oil derrick on speed, and I couldn't do anything until I fed him. He ate formula for six months, way longer than he should have, and became big and bright and attached to me like a rivet, an obsessive kind of friendship that wasn't one-sided.

*   *   *

My parents and I moved to a sunny house on the water in a section of Miami called King's Bay, south of Kendall and north of Homestead, an outcropping of postwar houses on streets lined with old shade trees. My dad wanted a home with a dock and easy access to good fishing spots in the bay. The back of our house opened onto a wide canal leading to the sea on one end and, on the other, to a boat basin where homes had large yachts tied to their docks. It was the perfect house for Bonk. I could sit outside with him in the sun and ocean breeze, or under the sea grape tree for shade, and he had his own little room off the kitchen, the “bird room,” where he could hop around without concern of becoming lost or injured.

I referred to Bonk as “my little son.” He spent most of his days on my shoulder, perched under my hair, sleeping or quibbling with the tag on the back of my shirt. He attended college classes with me at Miami Dade, enjoyed keg parties with Peter and his frat guy friends, shopped at the mall, went to the monthly meeting of the Florida chapter of the Cockatiel and African Lovebird Society, and tagged along on my dates with Peter, unnoticed underneath my long hair until he decided to chirrup. He learned to click and whistle, and greeted me every day with a resounding catcall.

I took Bonk with me whenever I spent the night with Nona and Poppy. The sun clocked out as Nona cooked fish stew and okra in tomato sauce, and served us hummus and olives, and pita bread straight from her oven. Poppy and I rested in squeaky patio chairs, feet up on a plastic patio table, watching his Lady Gouldian and zebra finches—and Bonk, the little bird excited by dusk after a day of napping in the heat. Poppy loved when Bonk drank water: the way the bird dipped his beak into the bowl, then tilted his head back so the water rolled down his throat. Poppy pointed to Bonk as he drank so I wouldn't miss it, and peeled cucumbers and boiled eggs for Bonk so he had something soft and nutritious to eat.

Bonk ate at the dinner table with me every night and shared my food in the cafeteria on campus, jumping into the meal, his reptilian feet leaving gravy tracks on the table. He had issues with silverware, and ran between place settings to toss the spoons, forks, and knives onto the floor. It was difficult to keep him out of drinking glasses. He'd bathe standing on the edge of the glass, spraying water like a dog shaking off a swim. I had to give him a shallow water glass of his own or he'd bathe in my orange soda.

“Please do not kiss the bird on the mouth,
Chérie
,” Poppy said, catching me allowing Bonk to clean my teeth one day, his feet perched on my bottom lip and the front half of his body all the way inside my mouth, picking at my molars. Bonk was a good and gentle dentist.

“Go brush your teeth,” Poppy ordered, pointing to the bathroom. I had a penchant for kissing Bonk on the beak; he could bite through my lip if he wanted to, but he was delicate as a flower floating on the surface of a pond.

“When I was in Egypt, I had three beautiful cousins die of parrot fever.”

Poppy had told me the story a hundred times. I was sympathetic, but I didn't want any obstructions in my relationship with Bonk. Psittacosis—parrot fever—killed many people in Egypt in the 1930s, according to Poppy, but I knew Bonk didn't have it. I plunked my little son onto my shoulder, locked myself in the bathroom, and ran the water to humor Poppy, but didn't brush my teeth.

Peter's Valentine's Day gift started to become more important to me than Peter, which was significant, since I had suffered a crush on Peter since eleventh grade. Most days after school that year, I drove to Super Pet Mart, where he was the assistant manager, and I'd linger in the aisles to watch the red factor canaries sing, the ferrets and hedgehogs sleep, and the kittens play, not because I wanted these animals, but because I desired Peter's attention. I'd stand near the rodent section and ask him about the Russian hamsters, the long-haired mice, and the baby guinea pigs.

I lurked among the dark rows of fish tanks stacked four high, the chaotic underwater world darting around in bright flashes. I'd ask him about puffer fish, anemones, and water turtles—so many questions that he'd become irritated and pawn me off onto another employee. Peter was several years older than I was, cute and husky, and he limped a little from a high school baseball knee injury, but he knew a lot about animals, and I found that sexy. It seemed to me we were kindred spirits, even if he didn't know it.

After graduating from Miami Palmetto Senior High, I enrolled at Miami Dade Community College, where Peter was a part-time student. During my first semester, I followed him to a frat party and talked with him into the night, winning his heart with my knowledge of birds and Bob Marley.

The summer before I turned nineteen, he hired me at the pet store as the “fish girl.” I took care of dozens of fish tanks, a job I adored, since I could bring Bonk to work. I learned how to clean gravel and slope it toward the back of the tanks so they looked bigger. I changed water and measured salinity. I learned the names and particulars of hundreds of fish species, and discovered which fish lived together peaceably and which would eat one another. Sometimes Bonk ran down my arm to quibble with the fish, and I had to pluck him up before he jumped in with the neon tetras.

Bonk shunned almost everyone, and when he felt threatened by someone standing nearby, he'd run down my arm, beak open, tongue waggling, and lunge at the marauder. At five inches tall, he was an alligator wrestler in a little bird's body. I felt safe with Bonk, my mini green guard dog.

“Get that brat away from me,” Peter warned as Bonk planted a well-placed bite on his arm, hand, or neck, picking the bird up in his fist and handing him to me the way someone would hang up a phone. I'd apologize and try to maintain a neutral expression, but I wasn't sorry. No one came between Bonk and me, not even the person who brought us together.

When I had to lock Bonk in his cage, he complained and performed a frantic door dance, running back and forth in front of the cage door, rattling it like a thirsty prisoner, yawping as if tortured. He learned how to open the doors to his cage, and I had to clip them shut. He was a bird genius, coming when I called him, like a maniacal green Chihuahua running across the carpet, up the fabric of my clothing and onto my shoulder. I kept his wings clipped so he wouldn't fly away when I took him outside. It upset me to clip him, but I didn't want to lose him to an appealing updraft or olive tree.

Bonk's intense likes and dislikes surprised me. He despised not only tissues, but full cups of food—he'd burrow into a cup of seed, scattering it three feet around his cage, then stand by the empty dish, sticking his head in and out as if he wondered where the seed went. He was strange around money: he'd argue with a penny, screaming at it and flipping it over until it fell off the surface of the table or he'd shoved it under something.

“You are starting to look alike,” Poppy teased, when I showed up with Bonk on my shoulder. Bonk had his own cage at Nona and Poppy's place.

“That's OK,” I said. “Bonk is much prettier than me.”

“Heavens forbid,” Poppy said, holding his palms up to the ceiling.

“You think I'm prettier than a bird?”

“You are prettier than all the birds in the world.”

“I don't think so.” I handed Bonk to Poppy, and the bird bit him hard on the webbing between thumb and forefinger. Poppy shook his hand and Bonk fell to the floor. Bonk stretched himself up on tippy toes, flapped his wings, and chirruped loudly.

“This bird loves you,” Poppy said, inspecting his hand. “And only you.”

Bonk loved small, dark places, too, such as the insides of shoes and the space under my bed covers. He was a little messy, but since he was such a small bird, his messes were small, too. Once, someone at a gas station asked me if I had a bird and I said yes, proudly, thinking he had seen me somewhere with Bonk until he pointed out a squiggle of dried bird poop on my T-shirt.

Our four cats—Emmeline, Paisley, Gladys, and Sylvester—didn't take an interest in Bonk. Paisley, the gray tabby feral I'd fished from a dumpster when she was a tiny kitten with her eyes still closed, caught wild birds a few times and brought them into the house—doves mostly, to my horror. I put bells on the cats to prevent a backyard bird slaughter, and kept a close watch on the cats when Bonk was out of his cage—there were plenty of birds outside for them to stalk, and indoors it was easier to sprawl in a beam of sunshine on the slate floor and groom one another's ears.

Bonk had a fondness for chewing the plastic off the ends of shoelaces, so it was difficult to relace my shoes should the lace slip out. He stole and chewed my pen caps into anthills of plastic. All my pens dried out and I had to throw them away. Each morning, while I put on makeup, Bonk fought ferociously with his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

When we settled down to watch television or read a book, he'd sit on my forehead, grip my bangs, and preen my eyebrows, one hair at a time. He'd peer inside my ears and trim my nail cuticles. He spent hours “picking off” the freckles on my arms and neck, and I let him do it because it was a good service, if a futile one, though he could pinch like a wire cutter with his sharp beak.