Wild Things: Four Tales Read Free Page B

almost as if he were looking at me. His mouth opened wide as he squawked like a baby. In that moment, I didn’t see the bird -- I saw my boys.
    I had a premonition of a moment of terror in life when I would let go of my sons’ hands and they would go off and the world would do its own version of attack on them. My imagination went haywire as I imagined Rufus in his early twenties in a foreign land, felled by bullets in a war; and William, injecting heroin into his arms, surrounded by lowlife friends in some crack house.
    As I watched Fledge, he fluffed up his feathers and spread his wings wide and flew over the rooftop. I raced to the bathroom window, and saw Fledge flying over other houses, off through the neighborhood.
    Fledge had made it past the attacking bird. Past the trees. We had done it, I thought. We helped Fledge get strong and healthy and become an adult, and he was going to live his life the way he was meant to live it. My brief insanity, those split-second visions of my boys, the dreadful futures I imagined for them – all of it dissipated and I laughed at myself and the way my mind worked.
    Later, I told the boys that Fledge had flown off, and that he was fine. They moped a bit, but the more we talked about Fledge and Fledge’s life, the better my children seemed to understand why Fledge had to go.
    That first night, I went and sat in front of Fledge's empty cage. Beyond the cage, a window looked out on trees. I opened the window and lifted the screen. Part of me felt that Fledge might come back, or if he was hurt, he might show up for food again.
    I kept the window open for three days, and then shut it.
    2
    I missed the bird. We had kept the little guy for five days, but it was enough for me to begin to think about life and nature and to wake up each day hoping Fledge had not died in the night. Out the window, other starlings and robins and mockingbirds flew around, but I kept watch for Fledge. I brought out the old binoculars from the cabinet in the garage, and, early in the morning
    -- before even my wife awoke -- I went to the window and looked out. I whistled sometimes when I was in the yard, thinking Fledge might hear my voice.
    Then, at twilight, I spoke to my wife, Jeanette, about the bird.
    “It’s a starling,” she said. “They’re nuisances. I bet the state would’ve paid you to kill it.”
    “Stop that,” I said. “It needed help.”
    “I know. I’m kidding. Really. I’m kidding. But the bird’s fine. Believe me. You protected it. You got the boys to think about nature a little. And now that bird’s off doing what birds do.”
    “I never really noticed starlings before,” I said. “I mean, I knew they were out there.”
    “God, in the fall they just swarm. Freaks me out sometimes. Like the Hitchcock movie.”
    “I was out in the yard this morning,” I said. “I couldn’t stop looking in the trees. And on the roof. I just figured he’d stick around.”
    She gave me a funny look, as if she were trying to figure out if I were joking or not. “Honey? It’s a bird. You really want a bird, we’ll get a cockatiel. But I don’t really want a bird,” she said.
    “I don’t want a bird, either,” I said. Then, I laughed at myself, and she giggled, too. We had some coffee and went out on the patio. We sat in the old deck chairs that were gray from years of neglect. “But it’s funny.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Loss. All of life is about loss.”
    “No, it’s not!” She laughed and told me I had better not get depressed on her. “Life has loss in it,” she said, when she saw that I was a little hurt by her laughter. “But look, we both have great jobs, the kids are great. We’re building to something. We have love. There’s a lot in life besides loss.”
    “Someday, we’ll lose everything. I mean it. I’m not sad about it. I guess I’m wistful.”
    “Wistful is sad.”
    “No it’s not. Someday, the boys will go out into the world. Not everyone survives it.