Birdy

singing, it makes quite a racket. Perta is flying back and forth alone in the flight cage.
    Al starts pumping me about how it was with Doris. I tell him I didn’t fuck her, but he won’t believe me. He says Doris is one of the hottest firecrackers in the whole school; she’d fuck a horse if she could get it to stand still. I tell him I believe it but she didn’t fuck me.
    My father testifies to my mother that I danced every dance. My mother wants to know where we went after the dance. I tell her we went to Don’s in Yeadon; that’s a milk-shake bar, the kind of place my mother would like me to go after a dance. I tell her I had a good time. My mother goes over the tux and brushes it off. I pulled all the leaves and stickers out of it before I went to bed. She’d really flip if she found jit smeared along the inside of the pants.
    Al looks the birds over but he doesn’t have much interest in canaries. What he does understand is that I’ve got a regular bird factory going. He asks me about feed costs and how many birds per nest and works out how much money I can make.
    ‘Jesus, Birdy, you’re going to be a fucking millionaire! King of the Canaries. You’ll be voted most likely to suck seed.’
    Al thinks that’s funny. He manages to get it in the year-book under my picture. There’s nothing else there; no clubs, no honor rolls, no sports, no offices. It just says ‘Nickname Birdy’. ‘Voted most likely to suck seed.’
    Al notices Perta flying all alone in the flight cage and asks about her. He wonders why I don’t put some of the young birds in there. I tell him she’s a special pet of mine. She’s a spare female.
    ‘Don’t tell me she’s like the pigeon witch we used to have.’
    I tell him, ‘Yeah, she’s something like that, only she doesn’t bring back any fancy birds.’
    ‘Does she eat out of your mouth the way the freaky witch did?’
    For a minute I have the feeling Al can see into the dream. If anybody could, it would be Al. Then I remember. I laugh and tell him that canaries are harder to train than pigeons.
    We go out and throw the discus for a while, then Al goes home. I go to the aviary and watch Perta with my binoculars. I’m trying to decide how to tell her what I am. I’m trying to decide what I am, too.
     
    That night, in the dream, I know I must tell Perta about myself. As boy, I’ve decided this and it’s come through to me as Birdy in the dream.
    First, Perta and I fly together in a new dance. In the dance, we fly over each other, then drop on the other side, so the first flies over the one who has dropped. It’s beautiful, but hard to do in the small space of the cage. It would be so terrific if we could fly free.
    When we’re finished, she squats and peep-peep-peep s to me and I feed her easily. It is time to mate with her and she’s waiting. I know the beginning egg is inside her waiting for my seed. I want to put my seed into her, to know it is buried warmly in her egg.
    ‘Birdy, what are you afraid of? Do you want to have a nest with me? I feel we could have such wonderful babies, that we would be together in them, that for the first time, my eggs would be filled with life; with our life. Why are you afraid?’
    I look at her. I love her so. What she is saying is what I’ve been thinking, dreaming, singing. It is more than flying.
    ‘Perta, there are things I must tell you first.’
    ‘Do you have another female, another nest, somewhere?’
    ‘No. Nothing so simple as that, Perta.’
    ‘That is not so simple.’
    ‘Listen carefully, Perta. Listen to the way I tell this as much as to what I tell. I want you to know I speak the truth. I want you to know what I am, so we can truly be together.’
    ‘Say it, Birdy. Tell me.’
    ‘Perta, all this we have together is not real.’
    Perta shifts from her left to her right eye but remains quiet.
    ‘In reality, I am the boy out there.’
    I point to myself as boy in the aviary. I’m out there filling feed dishes, changing water.
    ‘This, here, that we have together, is just a dream. I dreamed you in my dream. I wanted you to be, so I dreamed you.’
    I wait. Perta says nothing. She shifts eyes twice more; flips her wings once. Can she possibly understand?
    ‘Perta, I went out, as boy, in the real world and you were given to me. I carried you here to the cage.’
    I wait for some sign that she is with me, that she understands. If I only understood it better myself, I could explain it better. Perta looks at