Andy and the Bird

Raucus, that's a good word. We need to use raucus more often.

It's raucus out my door esta manana. My neighbor's parrot has joined his rooster in a an unnerving aria of what sounds like complaint. Separately, neither bird's cry is particularly intrusive during daylight hours, but together they sound like a prison break. I don't speak much bird, but it sounds like they're screeching, "Attica Attica."

I had a bird once that an ex-girlfriend had given me either to remember her by or just to get even, I'm not sure which. It was a cockatiel I named Cyrano. Cyrano had moments of raucus, but mostly he sat on his perch looking out at the world with an expression I judged to mean, "do something." I decided what Cyrano needed was out-of- cage time and to that end I bought a book. I don't remember the actual name of the book, but it was something like, Sigfried and Roy's Tips for Flipping the Bird Or Taming It. Following the instructions in this book I began slowly putting my fist in Cyrano's cage, extending my bird finger horizontally and pressing it gently on Cyrano's lower abdomen just above his feet. The net effect of this was much as you would expect. Cyrano threw himself all over the cage screaming bloody murder in Bird with a few choice English words my sons had taught him thrown in. He wouldn't shut up until I removed my hand from the cage. I am, however, persistent and after several days of trying, I was able to get my feathered friend to step up on to my finger. Several more days of moving him about the cage on my digit, up and down around and around we go Chubby Checker, and I determined it was safe to take my finger with Cyrano aboard and move it to the greater world of my living room. All this without a whip and a chair. I was proud of myself and proud of my bird. We were trainer and trained doing our jobs well. Besides, what could go wrong? Cyrano's wings were clipped so he couldn't fly and if he squawked too much, I'd put him back, get him a cracker, calm him down. The flaw in my well meant plan to give Cyrano more freedom, was the other pet in my household, a half beagle, half dacshaund, silly looking mutt named Andy.

Prior to this moment, Andy's seemingly favorite thing in life, was to perch himself on the upright portion of our sofa. A sofa that's back was pushed up just below the sill of a large picture window. From there Andy could see the world and the world could see Andy. The only problem with this picture is that Andy found the world a very erotic place. Anything that moved beyond the glass - bird, cat, squirrel or mailman - inspired in Andy an almost immediate erection. I don't know to this day whether Andy so loved the world that he would... or if he was just flashing. I do know, he was quite famous in the neighborhood.

Cyrano was thrilled to be outside his cage. So thrilled, in fact, that he did something he had never done before. He hopped from my finger. He hopped boldly off where no bird had hopped before, onto my floor. Of course, being a bird he didn't actually expect to land on the floor, he thought all his mad flapping of wings would give him flight. Silly bird. Cyrano meet Andy.

To be continued.