The Complete Collection. William Wharton

      That night I take the chance when Birdie goes down to eat. I go right into the aviary and beat Alfonso to the nest. There’s still one unhatched egg. That means there’re four birds. It’s just a mass of slightly fuzzy flesh in the bottom of the nest. Then, Alfonso brazens it out and flies to the edge of the nest. As soon as his feet hit, four tiny heads poke waveringly up out of the naked flesh. Soft-looking beaks open searchingly between closed eyes. He feeds them, as if unaware of my close watching. There’s one that’s completely dark-skinned; probably will be as dark as Alfonso. There’re two light ones and one that seems spotted. I decide I’ll wait another day before I take out the egg. The birds all look the same size so I can’t tell which one was born a day after the others or if that’s the egg that hasn’t hatched.

      Birdie flies up to the nest and joins Alfonso in the feeding. The little heads reach up greedily and the adults almost take the small heads into their mouths to force the food into the throats. Alfonso flies down for more food but before he gets back, Birdie decides they’ve had enough and settles onto the nest.

      The next morning I reach in among the warm squirming bodies and lift out the egg. I hold it up against the light and see that it’s clear. I hold it up closely in front of a light bulb and there’s nothing there. Somehow it didn’t get fertilized, it’s sterile. It seems amazing with all that fucking going on. I can’t throw it out, so I keep it in a little box with cotton in a drawer with my socks. It’s probably just as well it didn’t hatch; four is enough of a crowd in a nest.

      The next day I have my morning session with Weiss. I’m wondering if Renaldi has told him anything. I don’t think he would, but you never know. He could be some kind of trained fink Weiss uses.

      He’s definitely the psychiatrist this morning. His coat is clean white and starched, his glasses have been shined so you can only just see his eyes. He has his hands folded, fingers tucked in on the desk in front of him. He has on his best smile, calm, loving, brotherhood-of-man-and-ain’t-life-awful-but-we-can-make-it-together kind of smile. His thick thumbs give him away; they’re taking turns slipping over each other. There’s so much pressure you can almost hear the fingerprints rubbing together.

      I stand, holding the salute, and he smiles at me. Then he gives up and makes a sloppy salute ending with one of his fat hands pointing; all fingers out, thumb lightly folded in, at the chair in front of the desk.

      ‘Have a seat, Alfonso.’

      Alfonso! Shit! Nobody, not even my mother, calls me Alfonso. I wish the fuck I knew his first name. All it has is Maj. S. O. Weiss on the black tag in the corner of his desk. I’m tempted to ask what the ‘S.’ stands for, besides Shitface, but there’s no use looking for trouble. He’s only doing his job. I just wish he did it better.

      Hell, no good psychiatrist would be working for the stinking army. If he were even average, he’d be in the air corps. I’ll bet any half-baked air corps psychiatrist would be better for Birdy. It’d be a real twist. All day long they’re dealing with guys who don’t want to fly and here’s one guy who wants to; without an airplane, yet.

      He’s still smiling at me. I wonder if he practices in a mirror. OK, if that’s the way we’re going to play. He hasn’t had much experience with Sicilians. Sicilians can sit at a table all day long smiling at each other, talking about the weather, telling each other how wonderful they are. At the same time, they know there’s poison in the glass of wine in front of the other guy; they have a knife open and ready under the table; and three friends have shot guns pointed at the other guy’s head. They can do this when they know the other guy has all these things on them, too. There’s something crazy in most Sicilians, probably has to do with all those generations of sun and then mixing the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans. It’s a bad combination. We wound up with the sneaky qualities of the Phoenicians, the cleverness of the Greeks, and the meanness of the Romans. I go into the routine. I’m smiling my ears off but with the bandages he can’t get the full effect. I figure I’ll go for openers.

      ‘What made you decide to be a psychiatrist, sir?’

      Not a move. He could be a Jewish Sicilian.

      ‘I mean, sir, did you know when you were in high school or did it slip up on you the way things do, sir?’

      Weiss grunts in his throat. These are fair questions. He leans forward on the desk, still holding himself down with his hands.

      ‘Well, Alfonso; it was in medical school, actually. You know the old joke about “What makes a psychiatrist?”’

      I know it but I’m going to make him say it. I smile back. ‘No, sir.’

      ‘Well, they say a psychiatrist is a Jewish doctor who can’t stand the sight of blood.’

      Oh, great. I don’t know what he expects me to do but I laugh. I laugh just a bit too long. Most Sicilians have a built-in fake laugh they can bring out for any occasion. They can laugh at their own funeral if it’s to their advantage. It’s a laugh that can fool anybody except another Sicilian.

      ‘That’s a good one, sir.’ I’m not going to cut and fill for him either. ‘But, seriously, sir. How did you get interested in dealing with crazies and loons as a profession?’

      ‘Well, Alfonso, all my work isn’t with abnormals you know. Many people will have some little thing that’s bothering them and I can help them work it out and make their lives better.’

      ‘The army pays for this, sir?’

      He’s moving in fast for the kill. He’s a smooth son-of-a-bitch all right. He’s just itching to get inside my head somehow.

      ‘The army isn’t all bad, Sergeant. Fighting wars is never pleasant under any conditions, but the army takes care of its own.’

      ‘It’s certainly taken care of me, sir.’ I give this to him straight on. He’s good. He just smiles back at me.

      ‘Alfonso, tell me something. What was your father like?’

      ‘My father’s still alive, sir.’

      He looks down at the pile of papers under his hands. There can’t be anything there, not about my old man anyway. He’s acting psychiatrist again. ‘Oh, yes. I mean, what is he like; how do you get along with him?’

      ‘Oh, he’s a great guy, sir. We were always like buddies. He used to take me out on camping trips and we made model airplanes together; things like that. He’s really a great guy; wonderful to my mother, too. She’s the best mother in the world.’

      Maybe a few verses of ‘Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy’ would fit in here.

      ‘Ah, yes. And what does your father do for a living, Alfonso?’

      ‘He cleans out sewers for the city, sir. He calls himself a plumber but what he actually does is shovel shit all day. He comes in the back way nights, takes a shower in the cellar and scrubs himself with a big laundry scrub brush. He keeps his fingernails cut so short, you’d think he bit them. That’s to keep the shit out from under them, sir. When he comes up to eat dinner, you’d never know he’d been standing in shit all day. He’s just a great guy, sir. I’ve never heard him complain even once and he gives everything he earns to my mother. We’re poor but we’re clean and honest, sir. We’re glad to have a chance in this great country of ours.’

      Right here a quick ‘And Who Do You See, It’s Little Orphan Annie’ would be good. Should I tell him I have a strange dog with holes instead of eyes?

      I’m keeping my face straight through all this. That Sicilian blood is coming through. Uncle Nicky would be proud of me. Uncle Nicky’s making a fortune from the war. He sells certification of allergy from legitimate doctors at fifteen hundred bucks. He’s clearing a grand each. One of those certificates is a sure 4-F. He’s got another racket going, too. He’s opened ‘clinics’ where you can go and have your arm broken. Guys at the end of their furloughs go in and he breaks their arms for a price. Then they don’t get shipped overseas with their outfits. You go to him, he gives you anaesthetic