Birdy

shut the bag. Birdy’s legs swing up in front of me and over the edge!
    There’s a rush and pigeons fly out and up into the dark. I’m scared shitless; I wait, afraid to move. I have a feeling the whole tank is rocking. Nothing happens. I slide on my stomach toward the edge. Birdy’s clinging to the slits. He still has the gunny sack over his arm. He looks up and gives me one of his loose smiles. He holds out a hand.
    ‘Gimme a hand up, Al.’
    I reach out but can’t make myself lean far enough out to grab him. I close my eyes but then I get dizzy and I’m about to fall off. He takes his hand back and shifts his grip. He tries to leg up over the edge of the tank but can’t make it. I’m beginning to shake.
    ‘I’ll go get somebody, Birdy!’
    ‘I can’t hold on that long. It’s all right, I can do it.’
    He pulls his feet up to the next rung and tries to reach with one hand to the top edge of the tank. I try to reach for him but I’m absolutely paralyzed. I can’t make myself go near that edge. Birdy hangs there with his ass leaning out into the dark. I get down on my stomach and try to reach as far as I can. I get my hand to where he can reach it if he lets go with one of his hands. Birdy says, ‘When I say three, I’ll let go and grab your hand.’
    Birdy counts, lets go and I catch him. Now we’re really shitup a crick. I can’t pull without slipping down off the tank. We’re just balanced there; every time he moves, I slip a little further toward the edge. That’s when I pee my pants. Jesus, I’m scared. Birdy looks back down.
    ‘I’ll try making it to the coal pile.’
    I don’t know what he means; maybe I don’t want to know.
    With his free hand, Birdy arranges the burlap bag in front of him, then lets go of me. He hovers for a second, turning himself around against the side of the tank, then leans forward into the air and shoves off. I can see him all the way down. He stays flat out and kicks his feet like somebody swimming. He keeps that burlap sack stretched across in front of him with his arms spread out.
    The first time I flew, it was being alive. Nothing was pressing under me. I was living in the fullness of air; air all around me, no holding place to break the air spaces. It’s worth everything to be alone in the air, alive.
    Birdy does get over to the coal pile and, just before he lands, closes up into a ball, twists and lands on his back. He doesn’t get up. I can barely see him, a white spot in the black coal. It’s a long way down.
    I don’t expect him to be dead. This is stupid because it has to be over a hundred feet from the top of that tank. I even remember to bring the pigeons with me. I climb down the tank ladder, not thinking too much, just scared. I run around to the coal pile. The night watchman must’ve been asleep.
    Birdy’s sitting up. He looks dead white against the coal; blood’s dripping out his nose and into the corners of his mouth. I sit down on the pile beside him. We sit there; I don’t know what to do; I can’t really believe it’s happened. The tank looks even higher from down here than it did from on top.
    Birdy tries to talk a couple times but his wind’s knocked out of him. When he does talk his voice is rattly.
    ‘I did it. I flew. It was beautiful.’
    It’s for sure he didn’t fall off that tank. If he’d fallen, he’d’ve been smashed.
    ‘Yeah, you flew all right; want me to go get somebody?’
    ‘No, I’m fine.’
    Birdy tries to stand up. His face goes whiter; then he starts to vomit and there’s a lot of blood. He sits back on the coal pile and passes out.
    I’m rat scared now! I run around to the night watchman’s shack! He won’t believe me! I have to drag him out to Birdy. He calls an ambulance. They come and take Birdy off to the hospital.
    I stand there with the birds in the bag. Nobody pays much attention to me. Even the ambulance men don’t believe he fell off the tank; think I’m lying. I stop on my way home and put our birds in the loft. I hang around there for a while; I hate to go home. Something like that happens and all the things you think are important don’t seem like much.
    Birdy shuffles over to the john in the corner to take a crap. No seat on the toilet or anything. No privacy. God, what a hell of a place for someone like Birdy.
    I turn around. I’m looking up and down the corridor when the orderly or guard or whatever he is sees me. It must be some crummy job walking up and down a corridor