The Complete Collection. William Wharton

would rather not have the police investigating this. It could be embarrassing for everybody.’

      The old man is actually breaking out in a sweat. There are beads of water across his forehead and over his lips.

      ‘Why you want to be such a hard nose, kid? Look, I’ll do you a favor.’ He tilts, reaches into his pocket and pulls out the roll. He peels off another fifty bucks and holds it out to Birdy. Birdy doesn’t move. The old man waves the money.

      ‘That’s all I got for it, kid. Take it and get outta here. Leave me alone, huh?’

      My mother’s moved into the room. She takes the money from my father and grabs hold of Birdy’s arm. He comes with her and she leads him back to the kitchen. Birdy’s face is chalk white, his lips are blue, and his whole body is shaking. My mother talks English to Birdy.

      ‘Boy, you take the money. I get more from Al’s uncle, my brother. Don’t make trouble. How much money you want?’

      Birdy looks at her. Tears are coming into his eyes. He takes the money from her and hands it to me. He shakes his head and goes down the cellar steps, then on out the back. I try to follow him but my mother stops me.

      When I finish telling this story to Renaldi he sits there, looking straight into me, listening. All along he’s nodded his head or let me know other ways that he’s listening and interested. I find it hard to go on with the story sometimes because I fill up. My nerves still aren’t quite right.

      So, my mother gives me another hundred dollars about a week later. She really forces me to take it and swears she got it from her brother. Her brother’d give her ten thousand dollars if she asked for it and he wouldn’t even ask what for.

      I give it all to Birdy and tell him Nicky’d kicked in with two hundred. You see, Birdy’s still sore. He figures the car is worth at least three hundred and he’s been checking things out to find who bought the car and he’s going to call the cops. He’s even written to the department of motor vehicles to find out what name the car is registered in. I tell him they’ll kill him but he couldn’t care less. When Birdy’s got his mind on something, especially when he’s pissed like that, it’s hard to turn him off.

      It must be almost three weeks later when I go over to his place and he’s working out with his wings, flapping in his back yard. I see giant black and blue marks on his chest. It takes me a few seconds to realize that’s where the old man gave him those finger pokes. The old man wasn’t holding back; Birdy was just pushing forward on each poke. He was probably practically breaking the old man’s finger.

      I stop. I’m tired of telling about it. I don’t think Renaldi’s getting what I’m talking about anyway. I’m not even so sure myself.

      ‘Gee, Al. You really ought to tell Weiss this stuff. Maybe he could understand some and be able to help Birdy. I don’t think Weiss even knows he’s called Birdy. That should mean something to him. You owe it to Birdy.’

      ‘Not me. Don’t you tell him either! I’d rather Birdy stay crazy than have a shit like Weiss bring him back. If I came back from being crazy and saw somebody like Weiss standing there in front of me, I’d probably cry the rest of my life.’

      That’s where I should’ve asked about ‘being crazy’ but I didn’t. I figure Renaldi doesn’t know any more than I do. We all have our own private kinds of craziness. If it gets in the way of enough people, they call you crazy. Sometimes you just can’t take it anymore yourself, so you tell somebody else you’re crazy and they agree to take care of you.

      Since the mating, Alfonso is less hostile toward me. I wouldn’t say he’s friendly, but there’s a form of truce. Actually, to be honest, he more or less ignores me. I don’t know what Birdie told him, or how much canaries can get across that kind of thought, but he accepts the idea I’m not going to hurt him.

      The nest building proceeds quickly now. They’re up and down, in and out, all day. Alfonso is allowed to help with the carrying but he isn’t to put anything in the nest. Birdie has definite ideas about how things should be done. He’ll come up with some burlap and she’ll take it out of his beak. Apparently, Alfonso only has the concept, he doesn’t have the skills to build.

      When I come in to peer at the nest, Birdie makes no fuss and seems proud of herself. She isn’t exactly weaving the little strings, but she’s overlapping them carefully in such a way that it makes a compact, formed mass. Alfonso isn’t so happy about me sticking my nose into things. He stands on top of the cage while I peer in, and gives me his most threatening look. Birdie’s shaping the nest as a deep hole somewhat smaller than her breast dimension and turning it in slightly to close at the top. The inside is shaped like the hole for a small vase. Tuesday night I can see it’s finished.

      On Wednesday, when I come home from school, I’m shocked to see the entire nest torn apart and strewn over the floor of the aviary. Holy God, what next! it’s enough to drive a person batty. The new nest is under construction. She’s more frantic this time. I think if Alfonso didn’t feed her once in a while she’d starve. It’s up and down, back and forth; carefully picking the right pieces out of the piles; flying up; placing them even more carefully in the nest. Each time she takes a moment’s snuggling to check dimensions and then goes out again. I can’t even guess what could’ve been wrong with the first nest. She makes poor Alfonso work like a slave. He’s getting no creative satisfaction out of the thing but she forces him. He’s playing hod carrier to her bricklayer. Twice, I see him fly up to his favorite top perch to do a little singing and take a rest. Birdie chases after him and forces him back to the grind.

      This time, as she comes to finishing the nest, she starts fraying the individual threads into light brown fuzz. With this she lines the bottom of the nest and the upper ramparts. It’s beautiful. Then, apparently, even this isn’t soft enough, so she starts chasing Alfonso around the cage, snitching feathers from his breast. The first few times he lets her get away with it, but then he’s had enough. When she makes another pass at him, he gives her a couple good pecks on the head and chases her around the aviary till she flies back into the small cage and settles onto the nest. He flies in after her, goes over and feeds her on the nest. She stays there while he sings the soft, tender song he sang the first night I heard him. I know from the song that the nest is finished.

      Canaries living in a cage are like human beings in that they’re not living a completely natural life. They have a life which is safer than natural life would be. For this reason, they don’t get enough physical challenge and experience in survival. Also, birds, which in nature would die, are kept alive by the bird breeder because he has other interests than survival, such as color or song or special shape or something else. Gradually, the cage bird loses much of its vitality, its capacity to survive.

      For example: in nature, a bird lays her first egg and is so busy providing herself with food and protecting her territory, she usually doesn’t start sitting the egg right away. She waits until she has a full clutch before she begins bearing down and really brooding. A cage bird, however, has a different situation. She’s so anxious and so confined to the area of the nest, she starts sitting tight as soon as an egg is laid. This means, if there are four eggs laid, the first bird is hatched four days before the last. Four days is a big difference in baby birds and the big one gets all the food and stomps over the little ones, so they don’t have much chance. For this reason, the bird breeder removes the eggs as they are laid. He puts them back when the whole clutch is finished. He puts a fake egg, or a marble, in as a replacement for each egg taken, so the bird doesn’t get discouraged and abandon the nest.

      I have my fake eggs ready on Thursday morning. Birdie’d slept in the nest the past two nights and this is supposed to be a sure sign. I have oil and cotton ready in case she gets egg bound. The books say sometimes a young female can’t pass her egg easily and tenses so the egg can’t get out. This can kill the bird. When this happens, you drop warm olive oil on the vent and massage it gently with a cotton swab until the muscles relax and the egg is delivered.

      That morning I put fresh food and egg mash on the floor of the aviary. I’d been feeding them egg mash since the mating. It’s made of hard-boiled egg mashed in