Blackbird

You can call me Ed.

I am a professional killer. I want to tell you a story. Have another drink.

Don't worry. You have nothing to worry about. You'd never be able to identify me. It's dark in here and you're half drunk. Plus, I've been blessed with the worlds most nondescript face – my most important professional asset. I look like everybody and nobody. I look like the regional manager for a plumbing fixture distributor. I look like fourteen guys you went to high school with. I look like the third guy on the couch in a lite beer commercial. Medium height, medium weight, medium brown hair, medium long. Not old, not young. I walk to the can and you'll have forgotten my face by the time I'm unzipped.

So I'm not worried about telling you my story. You couldn't do anything about it. Plus you already think I'm full of shit and I haven't even started yet.

Anyway, I'm a contract killer. At last count I had successfully executed 61 such contracts – heh,executed. A minimum of $100,000 per job, plus expenses. I have never been arrested. My fingerprints aren't on file anywhere. I've never been as much as suspected. I do things right. I fuck up once and I'm dead – literally. So I don't fuck up. Ever.

So my last job. You don't need to know where it was. Not here. Let's say ... Cincinnati. It wasn't there either, but let's say Cincinnati. The job was to kill a guy named Leonard. I don't know why. I don't know who for. Not my job. My job is how.

What? Oh. I have a guy who deals with the customers. Call him an agent. Whatever. That's not important.

Yeah. So anyway. I do my research and I find out this Leonard guy has a mistress he visits once every week. Could be Tuesday, could be Wednesday, could be Thursday. But at least once a week, he goes to his girlfriend's apartment, spends a few hours leaves and walks down the street to his car. So I do a little checking and I can get an office almost directly across the street from his girlfriend's building. Third floor. So I rent it for six months and I get another office three floors up on the other side of the building.

First and last months up front in cash. Expenses. What? Yeah, they'll pay what I tell 'em. I have credibility.

So the plan is I wait in the first office till I see the guy go in, then set up for the shot. When he comes back, I take the shot, walk out of the first office, go upstairs to the second office and lay low until everything quiets down. Maybe a day. It works. Nobody expects you to stay put.

Ends up I'm there for four days before Leonard shows up. I'm doing it right, coming and going, nothing I'm doing stands out. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I'm sitting in front of that window looking at the street watching for Leonard. Eight, nine hours at time, I sit there waiting for him. No big deal – patience is part of the job.

So finally, about eleven on Thursday night, Leonard shows up. I get everything set up, and right on schedule two hours later, Leonard comes out. It's lined up clean and I take the shot. Another job done.

I drop everything, make one last scan to make sure nothing identifiable is left. Nothing there, so I walk out, lock up and walk up the fire stairs to my other office. I've got some groceries, an air mattress and such up there so I'm looking forward to getting up there and relaxing. I get there, nobody sees me (not that it would matter much if they did...) get in and get settled. I've got a little LED light to read with, and I'm easing back onto my air mattress when I get this weird feeling that somebody else is in the room.

The LED doesn't give me much light, but it's enough. I swing it around the room and sure enough, there it is. Sitting on the built-in bookshelves is this big-ass black bird. It was bigger than a crow and solid solid black. It looked at me and I looked at it. I could hear sirens coming. The bird cocked its head and held my eye with his. We stood there like that for a long time. The sirens got here. Nothing moved.

Then all of sudden the bird lets out a noise like nothing I ever heard out of any living creature. First of all, it was LOUD. I know it seemed louder because of the situation and because it was so quiet otherwise, but I swear it made my ears hurt. And it sounded like something from a science fiction movie – there was reverb and weird effects. It was like an alien spaceship. That noise should not have come out of a bird.

It was not a good thing. My plan depended on quiet and here's this space-bird calling for ET. I took a swipe at it, but just side-steps and swoops just out my reach, then settles back down on its shelf. It lets out another weird croak and give me the eye. I know better, I really do know better, but I could swear the bird is giving me the hairy eyeball. The look it gives me can only be described as reproachful. I'm just frozen at this point.

Another two minutes go by and he lets out another squawk. I'm seriously considering whether it would be worse to let him go on making noise or risk taking a shot at him. I decide against it – my backup gun is clean and a shot would be a lot more suspicious than a bird squawking, no matter how weird the damn squawk is. So I take another swing at him, and he dodges it like nothing. I feel like throwing something, but I don't need to be crashing around.

So I have a problem.

I pull my chair over in front of the bird and sit down. It squawks again and I look it in the eye. I don't think it ever took its eye off me. So I glare back at him. He stays quiet so long as our eyes are locked. I glance away, even a little, and he lets out his freaky noise.

So I did what I had to, I spent the rest of the night staring into this freaky bird's eyes. Only four more screeches over the next six hours.

But there was something about that freaky bird. Spending six straight hours playing staredown with a space bird is not a normal activity, I guess. I'm used to sitting still for long periods of time – part of the job. My mind raced and wandered and went places I didn't want to let it go. I don't remember all of it, but I know I was thinking the whole time, you know. It was a trip.

Outside the sun was rising and it sounded like the cops were wrapping it up and heading out. I decided to risk a look out the window. He squawked as soon as I turned away, but I had to look. It was the other side of the building, so I couldn't see much, but at least there weren't cops swarming everywhere.

When I turned around, the bird was gone.

I stayed in the office until early that afternoon. I fell asleep for a little while and paced the rest of the time. Then, about 2:30, I straightened myself up, took a deep breath and walked out the door. Nobody in the hallway, nobody in the lobby. Nobody noticed me leaving the building. Ten minutes later I was miles away, not a thing left in the offices that could possibly be traced to me. Number 61 complete, nothing left to do but collect the check.

That was, well, let's say that was three months ago. Longer than I usually go between jobs. Every time I go to call my agent, I just find a reason not to. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it has something to do with the bird or what. I will say that's the weirdest thing that ever happened to me on a job. I don't have to work. I've made plenty of money and when I'm not working I'm fooling with my investments. I do like the challenge and the adrenalin. But I've been thinking about finding some other source of excitement these past few weeks.

So what do you think? You think that bird did something to me or what?

Unfinished

This piece is unfinished. You may not want to read it if you have issues with reading half of a story.


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My dad was at my last birthday party. I remember it really well because it was my 14th birthday and he gave me a nice buck knife which I slept with every night. I don’t know where it is, now, though because everything changed so much since that day. My dad went to work one day and never came home. My mom seems like she is someone else now. Home doesn’t feel like home anymore. I don’t know how else to explain it, but I think about that birthday because that’s how I remember my Dad.

My dog looks up at me with his sad eyes. “You should think about something else,” he said. “Whenever you think about your Dad you get sad.”

He hasn’t always talked. In fact, he used to never talk.

I don’t like it very much when he talks.

I try to ignore him but he always goes on. “It’s important for you to grow up and be tough and stop being sad”.

I don’t really believe that’s true so I go on ignoring him and pretty soon my Mom comes in to talk to me and she always has M&Ms and she always gives me some. He never talks to me when Mom is in the room and he almost never talks to me for the rest of the night after she leaves. “Are you OK? I thought I heard you talking” she says, and I always tell her, “I’m fine, Mom, I wasn’t talking.” I have to say that because I know she thinks that Dad dying had some kind of effect on me.

“It’s 10:30. That’s lights out, time to sleep”. She left. I turn off the TV and the light and turn over. The dog stays on the bed, too but now he just looks at me. Sometimes I think he’s mad because I don’t like to talk to him. I don’t care. I just turn over and go to sleep.

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My Mom always gives me vitamins in the morning. I take them because I know she gives them to me because she cares. I don’t think I really need to take them, though. Today I played checkers with this neighbor kid Bill for hours I think, and he’s terrible. After lunch I was sitting there playing with him and the dog talked to me. “This guy sucks” he said. Bill didn’t hear him, and I was glad because Bill is kind of big. “You’re thinking about your Dad again, and how you used to play games”. I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to talk to him in front of Bill and besides, I didn’t want to call attention to the fact that he was talking. Every once in awhile, I’ll be talking to a friend or sitting in a class or whatever and that dog starts in to talking. As long as I ignore him, no one seems to care very much either way. They are real good at ignoring him too, I guess. I hate that he follows me everywhere, but he’s family, just like my Mom and Dad. He’s in the picture, too.

I went back to my room after playing with Bill. Naturally the dog was his old chatty self. I tried to read some but I couldn’t concentrate because of the dog. I finally looked right at him. “What do you want?” I asked him. He looked at me for a moment before saying “What happened to that knife your Dad gave you?”

I hadn’t thought about that for a while. Both Mom and Dad would yell at me if they came in to wake me up and found me holding it in my sleep. Sometimes they said it would be open. “Did they take it from me?” I asked the dog.

“Wouldn’t you?” he replied.
I started to feel bad about that conversation. I missed my Dad more than I thought. I never really think about the knife except that the dog keeps bringing it up. He brings up my Dad a lot too. I looked at the picture for a long while, Mom, Dad, the dog, and me.

My Mom came in the room just then and reminded me that I had to go to this group.

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My mom signed me up for this group on account of she felt like I was acting different than other kids, which I can’t really deny given that the dog keeps talking to me and forcing me to ignore him in company. And, naturally, he goes with me to group, and that consists of a circle of chairs and 5 other people, most of which have real problems. And, of course, Dr. Dan who is this guy that pretty much just makes sure everyone has a turn.

I really hate going to group because I never really feel like I have anything much to say and besides, the dog is talking all the time. This time he started harassing me about how I should talk about missing my Dad, and why I don’t have that knife anymore and I just stared down because I know the others are just being polite and ignoring him just like I do. Dr. Dan is fairly insistent that I say something today. He keeps saying “Keith, how are you doing today” and most days I mutter something about being sad and kind of lonely, because it’s hard for me to make friends because this dog won’t shut up.

I looked up at Dr. Dan and said “I miss my Dad today”. And do you know Dr. Dan looked genuinely shocked which surprised me.

“What do you miss about him?” he asked.

“We used to play games, and he gave me this great knife for my birthday” I said.

“He gave you a knife?” he asked and it seemed like he emphasized that word.

“Yes”, I said, “a beautiful knife with antler inlay but I don’t know what happened to it”.

“What do you think happened to it?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. The dog looked at me and quizzically cocked his head. “I think they took it from you” he said. I couldn’t answer him on account of the group and Dr. Dan being right there, dutifully ignoring him along with me, and I couldn’t tell Dr. Dan they took it from me because I didn’t know for sure, and because Hell is for liars. I kept quiet for the rest of group because the dog kept looking at me, and it was hard to keep ignoring him.

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Everything keeps changing. I don’t know why I sit and think so much. I didn’t used to. But the dog didn’t always talk to me either. I remember when he first started talking to me – it was right before my Dad got killed. I don’t remember much about what he said; I remember that he just bugged me all the time. He talked so much more back then. It was real hard to have a conversation or study or do anything. It was so bad but then my Dad was killed and everything changed. That’s when we moved and Mom made me go to group and everything and she changed a lot too. I just go along with stuff now because I don’t know what else to do anymore. I don’t go to school now. I look at the picture of me and my Mom and Dad and the dog and I’m just struggling because I feel like something huge is missing.

“What is missing?” said a voice. It’s the dog again. I’m starting to wonder if this is a normal thing, to have this dog talking to me. I noticed that people didn’t act right if I spoke to him and they generally ignore him so I do to, in company.

“Why am I the only person that pays attention to you?” I asked him, and he does that thing again, just looks at me.

“Do you think something is wrong with you?” he says, and funny, I was just starting to wonder that because I don’t remember always going to these group meetings, and staying inside all the time.

Untitled

I stumbled towards the glass doors that led to the yard. The stumbling was partly the usual this morning, the result of two pugs scrambing around my feet, acting like they couldn't hold it in one second longer. They fooled me every morning and then I'd watch, half asleep, as they sniffed the ground for ten minutes before finding the perfect place to go.

I slid the door open. It had somehow gained weight in the night. The pugs tumbled into the weedy yard and commenced their detailed inspection. I had no idea what about its smell could possibly have changed so much from yesterday, but my opinion carried no weight in the matter – they were the experts.

I yawned. It was hard to wake up in this apartment at the best of times. What they called a "garden apartment" around here, meaning it opened right onto this tiny backyard, to distract you from the fact that it was a basement with no windows. There was no morning light to ease you into conciousness before fat pugs started walking on your full bladder.

But this morning there was another reason I was only half awake. I'd been up all night tossing and turning. Today I had to decide.

"Come on," I moaned at the pugs. I needed some coffee, so bad it was like a physical pain. I really didn't want to wait ten minutes this morning.

They didn't even look up. I didn't have the strength to argue. I sunk down to the ground and sat leaning against the glass doors. I glanced back into the apartment, at the phone, lying there like some malignant sleeping creature.

Whichever way I decided, one part was going to be easy. I wouldn't need to use the phone - I could just get on the computer, and either register for classes or drop out.
There would be no one to ask me if I was sure, no one to remind me that I was throwing away a chance at a respectable career in a clean office, one where the worst injury I was likely to get was a paper cut. That I was crazy to give all this up so I could clean up animal poop for almost no money.

Which was what everyone had been saying in one way or another, of course. And which was what made the whole thing so hard. I was sure I wanted to drop out. I was sure I wanted to stay in my job at the zoo. I was insanely lucky that they offered me the chance to stay on past the summer. It was the coolest thing I had ever done, maybe that anyone had ever done, even if everyone else I knew couldn't see it.

And it wasn't just the animals, the chance to hand-feed a sloth an orange slice, watch its alien pinprick eyes as it took the fruit awkwardly with its long, curved, immobile claws, better suited to hanging from branches. It was also how it had made me realize how painful it was for me to sit still all the time, cooped up at a lecture or stuck at a desk. All my restless energy – it was an asset instead of a liability when I had to run up and down the stairs, climbs around on rock walls, scrub and hose things and chop vegetables all day.

The whole thing suited my nature. It was the niche I belonged in. But the thing is, I also knew another thing about my nature, that it was stubborn and contrary. The more people pushed, the more I pushed back. Was I sure I wasn't doing this just to show them?

Gus finally lifted his leg and peed. Rose waddled over and sniffed, then added a second opinion.

"Breakfast!" I called.

That was of course one of the words the pugs knew. In a more challenging situation I'd have to call "cookie" or "cheese" or "peanut butter," but first thing in the morning "breakfast" was enough.

They both turned and started to hurtle towards me, as aerodynamic as a couple of flying meatloaves. I got up and trudged back into the apartment toward the tiny kitchen, leaving the doors open behind us. If we couldn't have light at least we could have fresh air. It might help wake me up enough to remember how to make the coffee.

As I passed the desk I reached over and turned the computer on. It had to be on, either way. Whichever way I decided. But that would only be half of it. For the other half, I had to pick up the phone, to either quit or say I was staying in the job I'd had all summer. And I had to say it to Chris.

Did I forget to mention that I had a little bit of a crush on my boss? I had been trying to put that aside in the decision making process. He was always careful to remind me that he wasn't really my boss, that he didn't supervise people and that he had no personnel authority. But he was in charge of all the animal stuff, which was more important. He knew everything about animals, which was part of what made him so crushable. Really, that was most of it, I swear, but he also had the most amazing blue eyes –

Oh god. I really had to not think about that part of it. I was maybe about to throw away a whole year in graduate school to do something that everyone else I knew said was crazy. My boss's blue eyes could not enter into this.

I filled the bowls with kibble, my thoughts momentarily drowned out by excited barking. It was nice that they were so enthusiastic, I reminded myself as the noise reverberated in my skull, I hated the kind of animal you had to coax to eat.

I watched them contendedly hoovering up the kibble without any evidence of chewing. Where was I? Oh, right. Blue eyes. Not a factor. Really, not a part of the decision-making process. But also, it was just as stupid for what other people thought to be part of it. They didn't have to live my life. They didn't have to sit in classrooms and lecture halls feeling like they were about to explode with impatience. They didn't have to spend the rest of their life thinking they had thrown away the best thing they ever did just because other people said it was crazy. No, I was ready. I knew what was right for me.

"OK, it's time," I said to the pugs.

I always talked to them, I couldn't help it, as a primate, I naturally never shut the hell up for one second. The monkeys I took care of were just the same, always chattering and screaming whether there was a reason to or not. It didn't seem to inconvenience them, but in my case, it meant that the pugs had learned all kinds of words it was a problem for them to know, because I was unable to stop myself from announcing things like "I need to cut your nails" which, of course, sent them flying in the opposite direction.

They looked up, cocking their heads. Oh, right. "Time" usually was followed by "time to go outside and pee" at the end of the day. But they'd just been out, and it wasn't the end of the day. Now they were terribly confused. Yeah, welcome to the club.

"Sorry," I said. "I meant, now I'm doing it. I'm going over to that computer and withdrawing."

"No way."

I nearly jumped out of my pajama bottoms. "What the – "

There was a great commotion from the open door to the backyard. It took my sleep-deprived, stressed-out brain a moment to process the totally unexpected sight. A large bird had just flown in and settled on the back of a chair.

The pugs exploded in a frenzy of high-pitched barking. Justified, at least, for a change. They'd bark like mad at recycling bins or overly large strollers – perhaps they were offended at the ostentation of pushing a child around in something large enough to have its own cup holders – but I was never sure if I'd be able to trust them to announce the presence of an actual intruder. Nice to know.

I peered at the visitor. I didn't know a damn thing about birds, I was a mammal person. But even I knew that this was an African grey parrot.

It cocked its head at me.

"No way," it repeated.

"Who asked for your opinion." I knew, it had no idea what it was saying. But I was so used to talking to animals. I talked to the zoo animals whether they responded or not. In fact, just the other day, I'd found a tree shrew dead at the end of my shift, and had to stay late to bring it up to pathology. I was glad no one was around to hear when I exclaimed to it, "If you weren't dead I could go home now!"

But the worse influence was the years of talking to the pugs, who actually responded most of the time – not always cooperatively, of course, like when they ran away when nail-trims were announced – but intelligently.

And I knew these were really intelligent birds.Everyone knew about the late Alex, the famous grey who a psychology researcher had taught to answer questions about numbers and colors. She'd proven through careful experimentation that he really understood the words he was using.

But even in my sleepless, pre-caffeinated state, I knew that this bird's intelligence didn't extend to having an opinion on my career situation. The real problem was whose bird he was. It was the same deal as whenever I saw a loose dog. I had to do something because it was karma. What if my pugs got loose someday? The thought was too horrible to contemplate. If they managed not to get hit by cars, they were of course completely unsuited to life in the wild. Their highly evolved skill at being cute enough to make people want to feed them was all they had to rely on. And what if those people thought they were so cute that they wanted to keep them?

So I always had to fall all over myself to catch a loose dog and find its owner, because I hoped that someone would do the same for me. But I had no idea what to do about a bird.

"Look," I said, gesturing at the door. "I know you're smart enough to find your way home. Why don't you just go back the way you came?"

"No way."

We looked at each other. It was clearly a standoff. The bird didn't want to leave. I didn't want it in my house. It would poop everywhere, for one thing. And though the pugs had calmed down for now, I suspected that they'd go wild again the minute it moved.

OK, I had no bird experience. But, I had seen how people had them walk onto their arms. If I could get it to do that, then I could put it outside.

"Here you go,' I said, holding out my arm, nudging its toes a little the way I'd seen make birds lift their feet and step onto someone's arm. Not this time, unfortunately. The parrot scooted sideways on the back of the chair to avoid me instead.

"No way." I swore it laughed this time.

"Look. I have important business here, today. I can't be distracted by a bird. Can we be reasonable here? I need you to go home."

"No way."

Oh, for Pete's sake. I could have seen that coming. I was just getting myself in ridiculously deeper. But I couldn't help it.

"Fine," I said. "Make yourself at home. I'm just going over to that computer to get on with my life."

I waited a moment for the predictable comment, but this time, the bird just cocked his head.

Whatever, I thought, managing to keep it to myself this time. I walked over to the desk and sat down at the computer. I got so involved in beating my head against the university's recalcitrant computer system that I'd forgotten about the bird's presence by the time I got to the last thing I had to click to complete the withdrawal process.

Which meant that I almost had a heart attack when, just as I was about to click, a huge flurry of feathers landed on the back of my chair.

"No way! No way!" The shriek blended with my own as I jumped up and with the immediate addition of a duet of hysterical yapping.

"You little shit," I gasped as the parrot as the racket died down.

The bird looked quite pleased with himself. No doubt all the action was entertaining. And as my heart slowed, I had to admit it was kind of funny. Especially because if the bird really had been trying to stop me, he didn't know my nature. Now, bird or no bird, I was going to click on that last thing if it took me all morning.

However, I didn't really want to sit back down with him on the back of the chair. I wouldn't say I was frightened. It just seemed prudent. That was a sharp, pointy hooked beak he had. The claws were nothing to sniff at either. There was no need to have them so close to the back of my neck. Or any other part of me.

So I just reached out slowly toward the computer mouse.

"No way," said the bird, but this time in a much smaller voice.

I reached further, all the way, and clicked.

I felt an absurd surge of triumph. Take that, bird! Take that, office-working, classroom-sitting world!

The parrot turned and flapped back to the chair he had started on. It was an obvious admission of defeat. I decided that I could be big enough not to rub it in. So without further comment, I picked up the phone and dialed.

I kept my eye on the bird. One ring. He glanced over at me, saw I was watching, and looked away. Two rings.

"Small Mammals, this is Chris."

I was momentarily speechless. Not because it was a surprise, since he usually answered, and he was the one I needed to talk to. But because he always affected me this way.

"Um," I said.

"Hannah," he said, easily.

Oh, I thought, he recognized my voice just from 'um.' I was overcome with that feeling like my insides had turned to armadillo gruel, including my brain.

"Yeah. Uh," I said, brilliantly.

He waited patiently. This was another part of the thing about him. He was like the still center of chaos in the building. All the rest of us talky monkeys, never shutting up or sitting still and always panicking about the least little thing, running out of peanut butter or some animal looking at us cross-eyed in a way that surely meant that it was at death's door with some ailment we hadn't noticed till it was too late. But he always took a moment to think before he opened his mouth, or managed not to open it at all just for the sake of filling the silence. It was calming, usually, but not so much right now. It meant I had to step up.

"Uh, OK, so, I'm going to stay."

"No way," the shriek came from behind me, one last hopeless objection thrown to the wind.

"I'm glad – what was that?"

"Uh, yeah, I have kind of a problem here, do you know anything about parrots?"

"What do need to know? Gwen at the bird house is best for that. I'll give you her number."

I was pretty sure he knew anything I needed to know, but that was another of the reasons he was so crushable. He would always defer to someone else's expertise, even, sometimes, mine, when he knew damn well I didn't really have any. But it was the only way I'd learn the job, to have to make my own decisions.

I wrote down the number. "Thanks."

"I'm glad you're staying," he said.

"Uh me too." Oh, so articulate. It was a good thing they'd hired me to pick up poop. Yeah, that was only part of it, but you could always fall back on that part of it when someone's blue eyes meant you couldn't think straight enough to form a coherent English sentence.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," he said.

"Yeah." As I hung up, I swear my heart went pitter-pat. Oh god. I'd solved one problem, but now I was going to have to deal with this other one for the long term.

"Way!"

Oh right. There was this other other problem, even before that.

But wait a minute. "What did you say?"

"Way!" The bird flapped its wings with enthusiasm. Yeah, that is an anthropomorphic description. So sue me.

"Well, thanks for the vote of approval. So can you leave now so I can go back to bed?"

"No way," the bird cackled.

I sighed.

"Fine. I may not know how to catch a parrot, but I know people who do. I am picking up this phone. I am calling Gwen, and she is going to lend me a cage. She is going to come over and catch you, and then we'll take you to the animal shelter or the parrot rescue or whatever. You can just wait right there."

I reached for the phone.

"No way," the bird laughed again. Then it turned, spread its wings, and flew out of the apartment.

I ran to the glass doors – followed by the pugs, as usual - and pushed them shut. I sunk to the floor with all kinds of relief and watched as the bird disappeared, the pugs whining beside me.