Come on over. I’ll rub your feet and spread mentholated ointment on your calves.
I’ve got to go home, Art. Take care of my cats. Get my mail. That sort of thing. Pay the bills. How about you spend a few days alone and think about this?
What’s there to think about?
I’ll give you a few days to come up with an answer to that.
Until then…
Until then you’re on your own.
?
I walk out the door and buy a loaf of Wonder Bread at the corner store. I head for the park where I feed the pigeons. I find a bench near the fountain and already the birds are coming from everywhere to gather round me. They know me by sight, these birds. They’re pretty smart. Either that or I have them well-trained. Dog walkers pass on either side, kids on skateboards, office workers loaded down with satchels carrying their laptops stride past me like I’m crazy.
It’s the least I can do, feed these birds.
Everything else I’ve managed to botch up, but taking care of these birds. It’s the least I can do.
I’m one of those who never had anything against pigeons. Everybody hates them. Then they hate crows. Then they hate the common grackle. In that order. The problem with pigeons, they’ll tell you, is that pigeons are dirty filthy birds. Flying rats. The problem with crows, they’ll tell you, is that crows are raucous birds that make too much noise and are generally just pests, and the problem with grackles is that they raid the nests and eat the young of other species.
A bird is a bird to me. I don’t hate them. What’s there to hate? They’re animals that manage to get along in the city and survive. It seems admirable to me. The idea of judging a bird for how it chooses to get along is a bit ludicrous. Judging people on the other hand, seems OK. People are open game. I like birds because they’re not people. I don’t find birds particularly dirty. I often find people to be dirty, or if not dirty, unpleasant in ways that suggest they are dirty. Pigeons and sparrows possess their own wonder and beauty and it’s not so hard to see if you only look. I don’t mind feeding pigeons and sparrows even if they are common. Who am I to turn my nose up at a bird because it happens to be common? I’m common. What’s wrong with common? I see a friend in these birds. They gather around me when I feed them. They swoop down from the tree tops and they accept my offerings with gratitude. I try to cluck like them. I give them names and try to recognize them from feeding to feeding. Bernie or Tweet or Apple or Broken Toe or Split Wing. It gives me pleasure to name the birds and peace of mind to feed them.
I didn’t think I’d be one of those people—bird people—and in particular a person who feeds pigeons and sparrows. For the longest time I was always zipping around. My life was too busy to consider the birds. When I was too busy, I thought them dirty and pesky like everyone else. But now I have more time and I see the beauty of these ordinary city birds. I toss the pieces of Wonder Bread into the sky. The pigeons can swoop down from the trees and gather the bread in their beaks before the bread hits the ground. The grace and skill and beauty of this is sometimes too much for me. It’s the sort of thing that makes me grateful to still be alive. I don’t always feel that gratitude, but sitting in the park, tossing torn bread slices to the pigeons and sparrows fills my soul with gratitude.
There are dog walkers in the park, and a few lovers sitting on the bench across from me. I had that sort of love with Adeleine but never had it with Rita. I probably won’t have that type of love again. Love is for the young. Love is for the unwounded. Love is for someone else. I don’t know how to love any more. I’m a private eye whose business is slowly disappearing into oblivion and I could care less. I can’t even build up the energy to swoop down from the treetops, like the pigeons, and gather the few breadcrumbs that are tossed to me
After feeding the birds I go back to the office to see if there’s anything going on. Wanda is long gone. I can't believe how meticulously clean my office is. Ever since Adeleine was gunned down, Wanda has been obsessed with keeping it hospital clean. The phone rings. I pick up. A voice on the other end suggesting business.
Triple A Detective AAAgency…
Triple A what?
Detective AAAgency. Can I help you.
Is this the plumber?
The plumber?
Is this Triple AAA Plumbing?
No, I say, it’s the detective agency. Do you. Would you like to contract a detective?
It’s plumbing. I need a plumber.
Before I can get another word out to try and lure this voice into my business, the phone goes dead.
¤
As I said before, prior to becoming a detective, I had worked for nearly two decades as an anonymous cog in a large telecom business.
All I was there was a clerk in a large office building. I was a waterboy always running to get water for some higher-up who was thirsty. I would read inventory reports on antiquated computers. Huge reports that took all day to read. It was terribly dull work on a green screen with a cursor prompt. Then there were better computers with better programs, and a chunk of my work went away. Then my company went under, and let me tell you it happened faster than I thought these things could happen. One day we were a healthy company, the next week we were filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and I was out on my ear looking for another job. You know how they say: the rug was pulled out from under me? Well it was literally like that. The rug had been pulled out. I had been called into the HR office, and an HR personnel explained the situation to me.
The HR personnel pointed out that the new computer programs could handle the majority of my job, and so it made sense from the company’s point of view to eliminate my job. The HR personnel was very sorry to inform me of the restructuring but there was nothing to be done to keep me on. I was given a check to fill out my pay period and told to go home.
HR smiled, then frowned. I frowned, then smiled. I gathered my check. I was polite. How could I not be polite? I knew it hurt the HR personnel more than it hurt me, at least until it didn’t hurt the HR personnel. That was at the moment the door closed behind me.