Birdy

floor and me shoveling this crap down your throat, you’d probably laugh yourself to death.’
    I push the food toward his mouth. He keeps his mouth closed and turns his head.
    ‘Come on, Birdy; open up! Let mommy put some mush down your throat. It’s good for you.’
    He turns his head the other way. Renaldi is beginning to come around the cart. I give him a hard look to keep him away.
    ‘Look, Birdy. This guy’s giving me a special chance to feed you. Open up! I know the whole thing is damned undignified but what’s the difference? Either he feeds you or I feed you. If you’re going to pretend you’re a stupid bird, at least be consistent. You know you don’t crap like a bird. You can jump around all you want, but you’ll never fly out of here. They’re going to keep you in this cage the rest of your life!’
    Birdy stares at me. He’s pissed. It’s hard to get Birdy mad. He doesn’t usually care enough about most things. What I’ve heard him say more than anything else is, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ According to him, nothing matters. I’d be burned up about something, at school, or his mother, or my father, and he’d say, ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    Then, I notice his wings, I mean arms, coming away from his sides. For a minute, I think he’s going to spring at me like some crazed bat but he brings them around slowly in front of his faceand looks down at them. He turns them around, uncurls his fists, and feebly wiggles the fingers. He looks at me and reaches for the bowl and spoon. I put them in his hands. He doesn’t look down, his eyes are still burning into mine. Mad! I’m not sure he isn’t going to pitch the mess at my head, but I keep my eyes on his. There’s something going on and I’m not sure what it is.
    After about two minutes of boring into me, he looks down at the bowl and then at the spoon. He shifts the spoon a few times in his hand as if trying to remember how to hold it. I want to reach out and help but I don’t. I’m knowing, for the first time, just how far away Birdy’s been. It’s a long way back, a long way for him to come. He gets the spoon almost right and starts moving it and the bowl together. He misses twice, then gets the spoon into the mush and stirs it. He stirs for a least three minutes. I’m beginning to ache in the back of my legs from squatting. I’m wishing I didn’t have the bandages on my face so it would be easier for Birdy to see me and recognize me.
    Finally, he lifts the spoon out of the dish with some mush in it and puts it into his mouth. He has a hard time getting the spoon out of his mouth because he bites down on it. It’s like watching a baby learning to eat; he has his elbow sticking way up in the air. He probably thinks he’s a bird imitating a human being now. Maybe he is.
    It takes more than an hour, but Birdy gets a fair amount of food down. He gets to where he’s spearing some of the meat with a fork. He lets me take the bowls and fork or plates from him but there’s no reaction. His face could be a beak for all the movement it makes. He looks as if he has a mask on, with his eyes glittering out from behind it.
    We get outside and Renaldi’s all excited. He says this is a big breakthrough; we’ve got to tell Weiss. I ask him what the hell Weiss will do except write it in his papers or have the T-4 type it out so he can spit on it; can’t we keep it to ourselves? Renaldi listens to me. He doesn’t want to, but in the end he’s willing to go along. I ask him what good is it if Weiss is going to come watch Birdy feed himself. What good is that going to do?
    Renaldi leaves and I take my place in the chair between the doors. Renaldi says there’s no way he can leave me in the cage with Birdy.
    I sit there for a long while watching. I think Birdy’s beginning to feel silly squatting all the time. Twice he stretches out one leg or the other. He hasn’t done that before. He goes over to the toilet to take a leak. Instead of squatting on the crapper, the way he usually does, he half straightens himself up so he’s leaning across the john, opens up his pajamas with one hand and uses the other hand to support himself against the wall. Probably he hasn’t straightened out his back that much in months. I don’t think he can stand up anymore. Renaldi tells me Birdy sleeps in a squat; won’t use the bed. He says sometimes Birdy leans against a wall and sleeps standing on one foot. You’d know Birdy would carry it too far.
    When he