The birds and heterochromia

It was really crappy for me to walk away from her while she buried herself in the filth and corpse that was that mess but I…

You have no reason not to be there. I told myself, You’re not supporting her by being out here.

My conscience and thoughts fought savagely in my head while I walked the narrow streets calling for Bowie just loud enough to ease my guilt but not loud enough that anyone would stare at me from their windows with a perplexed gaze. It didn’t matter that these were people I’d likely never see again, something small inside me only asked that I not embarrass myself to myself.

After five minutes and walking around the small block of condos I arrived back near almost-auntie’s corner. I stayed far from the door and windows to not catch the blood boiling leer that would be leveled at me. Best saved for the car ride home in my opinion, when my death will have consequences.

I briskly walked past the door and window then slowed as I approached the neighbor’s door. This one was kept in shape, it retained its murky black paint on the gate and the wood on the door looked to have been recently washed with a hose. Not a huge step up but a moderate one. A wind chime depicting birds hung from the ceiling of the porch and the door had a knocker with what I can only assume must be a robin carved out of wood.

The knocker looked to be fragile or at least that’s the reason I thought when I knocked instead. A woman of some advanced age and curled figure opened and peered up at me through curled purplish gray hair. The lines were etched softly on her face, the age suited her and she looked to have gracefully stepped into it.

“CAT!” she cried. An incriminating and gnarled finger rose to aim its leather self at my chest. Gracefully aged may have been generous. “Get that fucking cat out of my house.”

“Bowie?” My words came quietly and meek having suffered the ear pain and mental distress of having an old woman bark fuck at me.

“No, the cat.” The bony finger swung round and pointed into her home. “Get him now.”

Obeying the decrepit digit more than the threat of further verbal abuse I slipped past her and into the house. The door slammed shut behind me and gave me pause as I turned to see her eyes narrow and the finger still hovering angry and trembling at me.

I followed the trajectory made by her wrath and saw Bowie happily perched upon a shelf laden with wooden depictions of birds. His tail swished back and forth as he watched me with a grin on his face and mirth in his brown and blue eyes. “Just like Bowie.” I muttered as I shuffled slowly across the tile.

“Just like the devil himself!” The woman shrieked from behind me.

Bowie looked up at her with his eyes; clearly he was bothered by her boisterous rage. The cat visibly sighed and leaped off the shelf onto her television set leaving teetering figurines in his wake. A howl erupted as she sped past me with speed no one that old should have. Her leather hands enveloped the miniature birds and her eyes softened with concern. Immediately though she turned and bared her teeth at the cat. I resolved to end this quickly.

Bowie sat upright on the television and whipped his tail along its screen like an inverse windshield wiper. Stretching his leg, he looked at me with a resigned sigh and dropped to the floor. Curling around my leg he walked past with a slight limp to his back right leg and stood at the door. He looked back over his shoulder and seemed at a loss for how inept I was to leave the door shut. He sat and waited, the tail flicking this way and that on the tile.

Slowly I walked over to him, waiting for him to come to his senses and make a dash for a kitchen cabinet or laundry hamper. Instead Bowie sat there and watched me, his mismatched eyes rolling at my sluggish approach. A wide yawn escaped him and he licked his lips and allowed his eyes to go to half mast. The cat was becoming impatient with me.

I opened the door slowly; as the sunlight streamed in he pushed himself between the small opening and rushed from the house before I could completely open the door.

The old woman was at the shelf tidying up the spots where Bowie had stood. She whispered things to herself, probably things that cats would find offensive and considered slander. Looking over at me while I stared at the slit of light in the doorway she asked, “Do you know what that beast did?”

Shaken from my stupor I looked back at her. Suddenly the room came into focus and I felt a tinge of awkwardness from bearing witness to someone’s clear perversion and psychosis. The room was cluttered with avian things and devices. If something was not clearly bird related it bore images of birds through stickers, magnets or colorful and tasteless sheaths. I mention the last one because I was transfixed by the bluebird sheath she had around her remote control and the parrot cosie gently embracing her drink. I looked for a place to sit but was unable to because of the expression of a clearly perturbed toucan staring back at me on the face of a throw cushion. I imagine he was molested by many an ass seeking cushion on him. So instead I stood and answered her question which seemed odd considering what she did to her home. “Something about a canary.”

“Something about a canary.” She echoed back to me. I wondered if she was mocking me or losing her already slipping grasp on reality. “Just a canary?” Her head turned slowly with the question making me anxious. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and found it less comfortable than the first but remained there. I feared she would sense my apprehension.

“Yes ma’am.” I felt like I was back in kindergarten starring up glassy eyed at some domineering woman who demanded we call her ma’am. Somehow this old woman’s tone and ire were causing me to regress back.

“Let me tell you a story.”

I gingerly moved the toucan to the side of the chair and sat. Folding my hands and placing them between my knees. Eyeing the toucan I reconsidered and turned him so that he could lay his hate into the armrest, then refolded my hands. Yes definitely regressing.

               “That cat use to sit on the shared fence between my and Samantha’s backyard.” I wondered if the small patch of patio they had was considered a backyard. “He use to sit there and stare at my birds.”

“You had canaries?” My voice sounded childish in my ears. I wondered if my testicles had rescinded into my body. In the same thought I wondered if my voice would begin cracking again.

“I had many birds. Some you would not know about.” She said this with an incredulous voice that made me feel ashamed for not having been better prepared for this trip. “Among them all I had an African Grey named Sweetie.”

“So it wasn’t a canary.”

“No!”

My hands curled to my chest in reflex, balling up into fists. I took a deep breath and tried to remember that I could possibly out run her. Then I remembered her rushing to the shelf and quivered.

“That cat would stare at all my lovely birds and wave his bladed tail. Each day that I caught him I chased him from my fence with an old racket of mine.”

The thought occurred to me of a racket circumscribed with feathers to appear as a turkey if oriented correctly.

“One day though he struck the cages and tried to eat my loves. He tore at the cages with his claws and tried to take them from me. I heard the whole thing from inside.” She began visibly shaking and not the old person shake this was either angry shake or sad shake. “I rushed out and tried to get him away from them.”

               I imagined her with a kitchen knife rushing to her sliding door and out into the yard brandishing it against the cats.

               Her story was filled with very vivid emotions. I found myself frightened and worried that I may not be permitted to leave. The cat had teased her. Dancing around her yard as she tried to harry him away but he nimbly dodged her movements and continued his siege upon the cages, many of them clattering to the floor from their hanging or standing positions. The birds went wild with frenzy of fear and panic. The woman stepping around them, trying not to fall and to evict Bowie from her yard as they chirped and screeched their terror.

Bowie was enlivened by the sounds and became all the more ferocious. The woman must have envisioned him with several heads and cleft hooves, hissing fire between purrs of damnation. In any case he landed on the cage containing Sweetie and licked his nine fangs while his serpentine eyes drank the soulful final wails of the bird. With a flick of his paw he managed the cage door open. The bird cried loudly and Bowie sank his head through the cage frame.

At this moment the woman’s foot caught bowie by his backside and launched him into the fence. Injured from this blow, he collected his wits and scaled the fence, disappearing back into his yard. Sadly the madness and tension in the air took Sweetie’s life. The woman found him dead on his back in the toppled cage lying on the floor, abject fear in his wide grey eyes.

She told me that she held a tasteful ceremony for him with his brethren in attendance. The words she spoke were apparently beautiful and an albatross soared overhead while the birds sang a dirge at their companions passing.

From that day forward when Bowie did escape from his owners home and made his way onto the fence the woman hurled things at him. Screws, cups or whatever was at hand was lobbed at the feline with malicious intent. Suddenly the story of neighborhood cats beating on him took on a whole new meaning.

“Well thank you for ridding me of the cat. I called you over an hour ago but you did well removing him from the house.” She swept her hand around which I took as the cue to stand and prepare to depart. “I called you well over thirty minutes ago but I won’t complain.” Her face grew dark, “Though I will express my displeasure that you did not…” She let the words hang.

She showed me to the door and closed it behind me, her mad eyes and smile covered by the wood and robin knocker. I shook myself and walked back to almost-aunt’s house.

The door stood open and presented me with an aroma of bleach and lemon freshness. My woman was on the porch absently stroking Bowie’s back. “Found the cat.”

She did not mean me.

“Good.” Was all I could say as I sat beside her. My head dropped and I closed my eyes. The heavy cloud of Clorox hanging over the two of us, making me dizzy.

               Bowie purred softly, looking up at me with his mismatched eyes, half lidded, and showing me his indifference to my suffering.

               She did not say a word to me while we sat there waiting for the air to clear. The words were locked away inside her head, the anger suffused over her weariness. I would bear it soon enough. We sat there smelling like a public pool as the sun began to set.

I moved my hand to stroke Bowie’s back. He leered at me but allowed it, the warning having been issued. I caught hers midway and held it. After a few moments she squeezed mine. That her teeth were clenched as she did it didn’t bother me in the slightest. It was just nice to be normal for a moment.