Diabolism 7
Lisa: “I don’t know what got into me that night, Jésus. I’m
not that kind of girl. I’m really not.” We were in the same bar. With the same
bartender. This time, Pity and Hiero, again in trench coats, stuck around. They
talked quietly on the other side of Lisa.
Jésus: “I don’t know what got into me, at all. I’ve never
been so, uhm, uhm…”
Lisa: “You were a tiger. A real tiger, Jésus.”
Jésus: “Thanks, I guess. But that’s what’s weird. I’m not a
tiger. All my girlfriends have complained about how rotten I am in bed.”
Lisa: “You were a little scary. But you weren’t rotten.” She
sipped her wine. “But talking about scary! That roommate of yours, the Wolf.”
Jésus: “I don’t have a roommate named ‘the Wolf’. What are
you talking about?” I live with a couple women in their 30’s and this little
Chinese guy from Toronto.”
Lisa: “Then who bit me?”
Jésus: “Nobody bit you. You’re not accusing me of biting
you, are you?”
Lisa: “No. Your roommate. The Wolf. He bit me.”
Jésus: “I don’t have a roommate named ‘The Wolf’.”
Lisa: “Then who bit me?” Her mouth hung open, and her brown
eyes went round and haunted. “My God, that’s right. There was no wound in the
morning. When I woke up there were no teeth marks. And he drew blood.”
Goldfinch 1
American Goldfinches stand about five inches tall and feed
at vertical tubes holding thistle seeds. They perch on small dowels situated
right under small holes they can peck their small, conical beaks into. In the
summer, the vibrant yellow male cannot be missed. The female is less
noticeable. Sociable birds, they tend to hit the feeder in groups.
Goldfinches do not sit still for long. Nervous and chirpy,
they flit and bounce from dowel to dowel for no apparent reason.
The Narrator 7
You can call me
“Goldie,” or “Cindy.” You may still call me “Jackson,” if you like. However,
the name “Jay” may have become old hat by now, if you prefer.
Diabolism 8
“Jésus, I’m feeling antsy,” said Pity, his round albaster
face hanging like the underside of hell. “Let’s move around.”
“You mean you want to barhop.”
“No, let’s move seats. Let’s get a different view.” He grew
agitated, and gesticulated grandly, in a manner unusual for him. “Let’s go sit
on the other side of the bar.” The bar was a large oval with the bartenders
moving about in the middle.
“Hey, that sounds good,” said Lisa. She popped up and
skittered down behind the bar stools, finally selecting one about halfway down
one side of the oval. I took a spot opposite hers.
Chris, the tall young bartender, in a white shirt and black
tie, scowled at us. “Are you guys trying to mess with me?”
“No, haven’t you ever needed to get a different view? Just
try something else out? Just do something new?”
“Jésus, are you all right?”
“What do you mean? I feel great. I got all this energy.
Don’t know where it came from.”
“Stop picking on him, Chris,” said Lisa. “Can’t a guy just
be keyed up?” He mumbled something about how we couldn’t expect him to be
saving our seats if we acted like that, then shook his head and went to wait on
someone else.
Pity sat down next to me. He spoke quickly, his fleshy face
bouncing. “What do you say, man, what do you say? Hey, I watched this TV show
last night about dolphins. Turns out that if kids with autism swim with them
when they’re young, they get cured. I wish my nephew could have done that. He’s
16 now. He wouldn’t have autism. I’m a member of Cure Autism Now.” Pity took a
quick, jabbing peck at his beer. “Some people don’t believe in that. They don’t
think autism is something that should be cured. They believe we need to accept
people just as they are. Now I believe that, too, but you got to be realistic
about things, know what I mean? You can’t just be idealistic. Now, take this
job I had once. Teaching calculus at a Prep School. You know that some of the
rich parents call the shots. But I decided I had to be absolutely fair and true
and did all I could not to know the status of the kids’ parents, and if I did
find out I tried to forget all about it right away. Well, ignoring that sort of
social reality in that kind of setting is like trying to ignore gravity, my
man, my man Jésus. It’s just the fact, the foundation, the basic IS. I got
nailed, man. I held everyone to the same standard, and some rich parents did
not approve when I disciplined their kids. No way. They had this administrator
interview my students to try to drum up stuff on me to get me fired. Guess
what? Her conclusion. ‘To a person, your students said they learned more about
math from you than from any other teacher’. So the next year they hired an
outside consultant to come in and write me up like I was the worst thing going.
I got the job I have now as an accountant before they fired me.” He took
another peck at the beer. I could see he was about to keep going, but I jumped
in.
“The insipid dialysis of unneeded organs costs the taxpayers
untold numbers of seeds and thistles every year,” I said. “We need to fornicate
in new patterns.”
Pity jumped in. “Man, Jésus, my man, you can’t force the
issue on the thing. It’s the thing, not the issue and not the idea. Like the untold
brick that bumps the brat. Like the instant of the seismic shiver and the
dimpled downsize. Like the—“
“Hey,” I interrupted, “medical devices such as the Pacemaker
save lives but what about souls? Why save a life if the life ain’t worth
living?”
“When did you start saying, ‘ain’t’, my man?”
“Hey, it just popped out. When did you start saying, ‘my
man’ all the time? You’re so straight—” Before I finished Pity grabbed his pint
glass and hopped off the stool. He practically skipped to a booth where Hiero
and Lisa sat. I turned to my right and engaged this couple who seemed on a
date. Why would I bug them?
“The riff went instantaneous and we cried out the ensemble
of the nightmare,” I began.
“Right on, man,” said the guy. “Look, we’re in the middle of
something.” I ignored him and talked to his back about how the underside of
music, even the most upbeat and celebratory, even the most gushy of Mozart,
must always hint at the weird, the subversive, the taboo, the ghastly, the …
The Narrator 8
All the diabolical
birds were born in 777 AD. None of them die. They flit from body to body like
parasites, possessing them, turning them to “personalities” other and
ridiculous. The sober gone stoned. The drunk gone straight. The shooters gone
clean. The jailed gone confusedly free.
It’s all in good fun.
Sometimes games rule
the world.
Not everyone thinks
birds are evil. A friend of mine keeps them as pets.
But I know some birds
thoroughly.
The Narrator 9
Trait psychology holds
that each individual can be described by a list of adjectives and nouns, known
as ‘traits’. For instance, a person is introverted, optimistic, has a good
sense of humor, is well-adjusted, and so on.
This is bunk. Yes,
people have habits they fall back on frequently. A person has a way of greeting
strangers, a way of behaving around the parents, a way of cheering up when
feeling alone and isolated.
But these habits are
fragile and changeable. A flip of the coin. A slight alteration in the laws of
nature. A quantum bubble working through the neurons.
The birds.
There is no getting a
grip on a person. We are all capable of most anything given the right situation.
Goldfinch 2
Molting:
The Goldfinch loses all but its wing and tail feathers in the spring. In the
fall it loses all of them. After the autumn molt, the goldfinch turns a duller
color. During the nonbreeding season, finches love one another and are quite
gregarious. However, when breeding and building nests, the males in particular
become quite territorial.
Blue Jays
may kill the young and steal eggs.
Diabolism 9
I flitted over to the booth where the others sat. Lisa was
chattering quietly about how she wanted to steal the dollars and coins—the
tip—lying on the booth behind her. She said she had never done that before.
Hiero said,
“That’s not like you, Lisa. Let’s talk about The Simpsons. It’s the longest-running show in TV history. When it
started, there were no animated situation comedies…”
Pity spoke
over him. “I am your friend, Lisa, and I stand behind you no matter what you do
short of genocide.”
Lisa was
looking around the bar, waiting for her chance. “Hey, Lisa, sister,” I said,
“why do you want to do that? Where’s the kicks? Where’s the fun? Hey, the
waitress may be a single mother.” She leapt up and swung around, then swiped
the money in a gesture swifter than aerosol spray right as it bursts from the
button.
Dolly
walked over, roses tattooed to one forearm, a falcon on the other. A big head
of red hair frizzy and down to the shoulders. Sometimes she was mean, sometimes
sweeter than sugared tea on an afternoon of incineration.
“Lisa, why
did you steal my tip?”
“I didn’t
steal your tip. I don’t know what you are talking about. Talk to the manager if
you have a problem.” Dolly stood above us, her mouth a straight line.
“Know what
I keep for a pet?” asked Dolly. “A falcon. Do you know what a raptor is?” Lisa
shook her head ‘no’. “A bird of prey. They feed on other birds, on mice, other
weak things. I like falcons.” While she said this she reached into her pocket
in her apron. Something clicked. “When I have problems, I don’t go to no
manager.” She showed us the handle of the switchblade, the tip still in the apron
pocket. “You guys are regulars. You’ve always tipped well. I would hate to lose
you—in any way whatsoever. I would hate to lose you in this way, or that way,
tortured this way or that way.” She stared at Lisa. “Cough it up, bitch.” Lisa
reached into her pocket and gave her the money.
“I’ll put
it down to your not being yourself today. Could happen to any of us.” She
leaned over, her thick forearms on the table. “You mess with me again, well, you
know.”
“Hey,” I
said, “What do you feed the falcon.”
She stood
back, folded her arms, and stared at me. “You know that exotic pets store on
38th? I buy dead frozen mice by the bag, thaw them in the micro. I’m not
supposed to do that, but I don’t got all day to let them thaw on the counter.”
Goldfinch 3
Toward predators, the goldfinch’s only protection is alarm
calling.
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