Flight Feathers

Manhattan: July, 1984. A filthy-hot Sunday afternoon in Soho, prime time for gallery-hopping. The kulturati were stalking their prey from boutique to gallery to showroom, ready to swoop in for the kill; the sidewalks were aswirl with trendy humanity. On West Broadway, there was a string trio playing in the open window of the restaurant/gallery Central Falls. Farther up the street, live mannequins robot-danced in the show window of a boutique, to the giggles of a crowd outside. The street kids splashed color all over the streets with their fluorescent hair, face paint, and funny sox, lounging on corners and stoops, watching and posing, smoking suspect cigarettes and letting on they were bored.

My Australian friends, attracted by a high-voltage window display, wandered into a big boutique on Spring Street. Since I’d more or less appointed myself tour guide, I followed, relieved to be getting out of the sun, but not overly thrilled at the decibel level in the place. A real, honest-to-God disquaire stood behind a bank of fancy electronics, pumping non-stop New Sound into the shop.

From there, though, things started looking a bit better. Not far from the front door, a pretty cat was curled into a furry cushion on the seat of a tall chair. A chattering sound penetrated the curtain of disco; I traced it to a pair of black-faced lovebirds in a cage hung amidst greenery. Not far from them was another cage with a pair of Amazon parrots. Still another snoozing kitty turned up farther on. How astonishing to find all these creatures amidst the blare and jostle!

I turned around to look for my friends, and found myself face-to-face with a really big cage – big enough that I couldn’t at first locate its resident, who blended beautifully into the green of the ficus tree beyond. His stillness didn’t betray him, but the patch of maroon feathers above his beak did – a very handsome military macaw, with all the dignity of considerable size.

I spoke to him in macaw, a language I’d been well schooled in by my own feathered child, Panama Red. The big fellow didn’t respond. I moved around the cage to get closer. He straightened up, flattened the feathers down tight on his head, and looked at me with what seemed to be alarm. Poor thing! I spoke again, as soothingly as I could, in English and in macaw, running on in a sort of chant of reassurance, getting as close as I could so I wouldn’t have to speak over the pounding sounds filling the air. Gradually, the head feathers started to lift. His pupils dilated, calming his gaze. He inspected me, leaning a bit in my direction. I circled back to the end of the perch that didn’t terminate by the ficus tree; I’m not crazy about lurking in the shrubbery, particularly not the indoor kind.

He took a couple of steps away from the ficus tree end and gave himself a good shake, fluffing his feathers still more. The forward head feathers were standing well up by now, a sure sign that a parrot is feeling friendly. I poked a couple of fingers through the bars in a scratching motion, still keeping up the idle chit-chat. He split the difference between us, sidling halfway over, and stretching his head toward my hand. Not quite close enough! Another couple of steps, and he was in range. This was the tricky part. I knew all too well from my own big macaw just what that beak could do. Brazil nuts were easy; fingerbones could be too. He nudged my finger with his beak; he stuck out his funny black tongue and licked it. I rubbed his beak lightly; he moved a little closer. I worked my way up the beak to the maroon feathers above, and brushed them gently against the direction they lay. He started a little, then decided I had the right moves and bent his head toward me. Within moments, he’d surrendered completely, closing his eyes blissfully as I scratched under his chin and in back of his eye patches where his ear-holes were.

“OMIGOD DON’T DO THAT HE BITES!”

I jumped, and so did my new friend. Between the thick disco and the thick carpeting, I hadn’t heard this guy, salesman or manager or whatever, coming.

“He does not,” I snapped, surprised by my own temper, holding up my hand to prove it was intact. “He’s sweet and he’s lonely. I’ll take responsibility for it if he does bite me.” I turned my back on the man and resumed my conversation with the bird.

That brief flash of anger had crystallized a cloud of thoughts – images, really – that had been floating around wordless in my head. It dawned on me that the bird’s initial composure hadn’t been due to dignity, but to depression. He longed, like any other intelligent, social creature, for physical contact and warmth. Even now he was pressed hard against the bars of the cage, crooning hoarse little RRRRRs of pleasure as I scratched. But what he got was an assaultive environment of unremitting noise and humans who wanted nothing to do with him.

What was it, I wondered, that would lead anyone to spend in the neighborhood of $2000 for a living creature that served no purpose except set decoration? A purebred dog or cat costing much less would be a family’s pampered darling, even though equipped with fang and claw worthy of as much respect as a macaw’s beak. A saddle horse could cost as much or more, and would be stroked and groomed and given treats despite the occasional nip or kick. Why, then, should a four-pound bird of beautiful hues and fanciful shape be an untouchable?

I think it’s the feathers. They strike some ancient chord in us, the tribe of furred and hairy creatures; dinosaurs and reptiles were the ancestors of birds, and scales the ancestors of feathers. All scaly pets – fish, lizards, snakes – are kept isolated and on display. Look but don’t touch. Slimy. Cold-blooded. Okay, most people know birds are warm-blooded, but they aren’t like us. They aren’t mammals. They lay eggs like lizards. They have beaks. THEY CAN FLY!

That’s the answer right there. We live among these flying wonders, and a mean small corner of our souls envies that joyous flight. It’s too absurd for us to comprehend. Never mind that it’s just daily business to a bird – it looks like too much fun.

I once confronted that awe of free flight in a half-finished shell of a house by the ocean. A young kestrel had gotten in through some opening or other and couldn’t find his way out. He was a dead bird if I didn’t do something, so I cornered him in a hall and threw my lightweight windbreaker over him. Carefully, I reached in and disentangled him from the fabric, wary of his hawk beak and talons. Oddly, he chose not to struggle or strike; he simply lay on his back in my hand, his black eyes remote, resigned, while I admired him. What a tiny, beautiful, noble creature he was! Mostly I remember the surprising frivolousness of his pretty speckled breast, and the firm, compact feel of his powerful little body in my hand.

I took him outside and set him on the ground. He didn’t move. I began to worry that I might have hurt him when I netted him. I picked him up again, one hand under him, the other lightly on his back, starting to check for injuries. Somehow, I don’t know exactly how, he pushed himself out of my hands and dropped toward the ground. At the very last instant, he fanned his wings and was off with a crack of pinions against air, a single cry ringing behind him.

It is that which we, earthbound in our own bodies, can never do nor ever understand – free flight from free fall. Betcha can’t say that three times fast!