It’s the night of the Blue Moon in July. Heat wave. Hundred degrees (37.7 c) for seven days in a row. I’m melting, we are all melting. Today I forced myself to take a walk. Wearing shorts. In Costa Rica men don’t wear shorts unless they are going to the beach. I never did either, no matter how hot it got. But today, I am subjecting the good people of China to the sight of me wearing shorts. No one really cared. People here wear pajamas in public. Men walk with t-shirts pulled up to expose their bellies. The elderly carry little fold up stools with them everywhere. Wherever they find a good spot, they unfold it and sit down. The wide steps in front of a bank, a shady corner, it doesn’t matter. They make their world comfortable. And if they don’t have a stool, they squat. Squatting is very big in China. So, as I was walking today, I had a revelation. The temperature outside was almost exactly what my own inner body temperature was. Instead of listening to the part of my mind that panics about everything and was now urging me to eat ice cream to cool down, I should be flowing with it. My outer and inner temperature was in sync. I should be expanding, outward. And so I did. A funny thing happened. Thus in sync I began to feel heightened, reptilian skin awareness. The slightest breeze was cooling. As I moved down the long stairway to access the pedestrian walkway beneath a highway tunnel—a sort of urban cave, the change was so stark I was almost shivering. And I wasn’t the only urban reptile, a man had spread a blanket down there and was conducting some sort of business on his cell phone, salamander cool and caring not what anyone thought of him. This is another China trait: You can’t please everybody so make sure you please yourself. Always look after your own comfort. Climbing the stairway back up, I realized I had sensitized myself to seek the warmth and I felt more comfortable as I rose back up into the heat. This was really crazy but I was having fun with it. I no longer felt hot, I felt normal. The avenues east to west brought lukewarm breezes. The hairs on my usually covered up legs captured some elusive coolness. The smell-sensing area at the top of my nose, leftover from when we were all reptiles crawling on the ground, lit up with the smells of a hot city. People endured and moved about as if in a fever dream. Feeling bulletproof, I made a mistake and went inside. It was a coffee shop that offered western treats and an upstairs bookrack. I had checked it out before, but not really closely. I ordered my food and went upstairs. Big mistake. It was a crowded, stuffed-crust, people pizza, all bored, staring, and the books—which was the only reason I was there, turned out to be fake. My god, why would you ever put up a bookcase of fake books! Another Chinese trait: Appearances are everything; actuality is decidedly secondary. I endured, long enough to get my food and then bolted back into the blissful heat. The fake books melted like Dali watches. A woman looked at my white legs and smiled at me. Whether in pity or not, I didn't care, I smiled back. Leg hairs picked up more elusive coolness. I fantasized about murdering the maker of the fake books. And anyone who made a market for such things possible. No wonder in the language we connect temper with heat. I just realized that the heat has made my sentences shorter. Even sitting here in my underwear. It’s time for a cold story. I lived in Alaska for many years and have lots of cold stories. The cold was like kelp. The sound of the word. The way it felt on your skin. Sometimes. Other times it was bracing and invigorating, but you always knew it could kill you if you weren’t careful. The cold killed people in thousands of unseen ways. Not to mention, cold and water. This is the story of a Conure parrot, living in Alaska. I don’t know how he got there, but the woman I lived with named Laura gave him to me as a birthday gift. Both the parrot and Laura are no longer present in my life, but there was a time I was fiercely attached to both of them. Now when I got him as a gift, I knew nothing about parrots, my only prior experience with birds was having two parakeets named Fagin and Greenfield. (I’m not sure about this name, so we’ll just call him Green for short.) Fagin was another bird I got as a gift, but Green I found abandoned on the streets of Los Angeles. He was frazzled and scared and I looked at him with real concern and said, “There’s no way I can catch you, but if you want to come with me, I’ll take care of you.” I then held out my finger, and, without reluctance, he flew down from the tree and perched on my finger. Fluffed himself up and shook it off the way they do. And then realized I could now lay claim to having the ability to charm the birds down from their trees. A true Irish trait, that. Flash forward, Alaska . . . . winter . . . . Mega-feet of snow on the ground. I had named the parrot Thunder Chicken, or T.C. for short, and he was a noisy, rowdy bird who loved to squawk and ride on my shoulder, and nestle with me on the couch, loving to pull at my buttons with his beak, and if he thought I wasn’t paying him enough attention, he would give me a little pinch on my skin, nodding his head as if to say—see, that’s what you get when you neglect your pets. His cage door was always open and he had free range in the house, flying wherever his mood took him. A lot of people recommend clipping a parrot’s wings, but I would never do such a thing. Imagine having wings, free to fly about, and some a**hole coming along and clipping them. Yeah, I know, you’d hate them just like me. T.C. had no way to thank me, but I knew he loved his wings. And then, one winter afternoon, Laura was baking and opened the kitchen window to let out some heat. Before you could say, “The parrot flew out the window,” he did. Out into the frozen expanse of our backyard and up into the tallest tree at the edge of the property. After shouting out the usual swearwords one inevitably does in situations like this, I threw on the nearest coat, sneakers, and trudged through the deep snow and into the backyard. I could see him, a little green dot at the top of the tall, gray tree, and to this day I remember the writer in me wondering if the tropical bird’s first impression of freedom as this frozen, chilling white hell lived up to his thirst for it. I am not really proud of this recollection. T.C. was making some sounds that he had never made before that I interpreted to be: OMG what did I just do! It was freezing. I suddenly realized sneakers were a bad choice of footwear as the snow gathered around my ankles. I had no gloves, and though my beloved parrot had feathers, they were insufficient against the killing chill. He would be dead soon if I didn’t do something. But what? I waded through the thick snow to the base of the tree, cooing out reassuring words to the frozen parrot. His usually feisty squawk was just an awk, and fading fast. The tree had no branches close to the ground and there was no way I could climb it. There was no other way. He had to come down. I raised my arms as if I would catch him and cooed, “You have to come down right now, before the cold kills you.” I could see that he was afraid; he had never been that high up before. Death was inching closer, so I pleaded. “Come down. One branch at a time. Come on. You can do it, please. Please. PLEASE.” The wind was a murderer ready to kill. My breath came out in frosty heaves. “Come down, you gotta come down, you can do it, that’s right, one branch at a time, come on, COME ON T.C!” He flapped his wings and hopped down one branch. I cheered like a maniac. He spread his wings and tried to fly down, but I think his wings were frozen. His claws grabbed a branch and he just hung there, upside down and I thought it was the end of him. Then he righted himself—Yay!—Yay!—Yay!—and I surged with enthusiasm, shouting, “C’mon, one branch, just one branch, I’m here for you, one branch, c’mon” . . . . and then he did it. One branch, then two, then three . . . the wind howled, my feet froze . . . . then, he stopped. My heart dropped into the snow. I summoned up everything I was, had been, will be, and bellowed louder than the wind, louder than his fears, louder than my own fears, “Just let go, come to me, I will catch you, don’t die because you are afraid.” And there was a pause as the wind screamed and found its way to my bones, and I sobbed out, “There’s no more time,” and he cried out in frozen parrot speak, lurched, and began hopping, down, down, down, until he was within reach of me, then balked. I don’t know what I said to him at that point, I just remember the urgency, the roar of my fear and impatience, but suddenly, miraculously, I had him in my hands, and then inside my jacket, moving slow motion through the deep snow, towards home and warmth. When I got there, Laura was on the phone and had actually talked the Anchorage Fire Department into sending a ladder truck, which she now happily cancelled, and we quickly set about drying T.C. with a cheap, crappy plastic, 3-speed blow dryer. He fluffed up and shook himself off, happy with the attention but seemingly no worse for the wear, while it took me hours on the waterbed with a warm body to bring me back to life . Which just corroborates a recurring opinion of mine that animals, by and large, are a lot more durable than us. I hope your first taste of freedom was not as bleak.
1 Comment
Mary
8/4/2015 07:25:03 am
First the fake books reminds me of the book "How to Become a Millionaire" the inside was empty blank pages. (That was how he became a millionaire). I do not like "fake". Now to the nice stuff...I remember Fagin and Greenfield. They were great birds a lot of fun. They made it to North Carolina. I didn't know Green was a rescue bird. You are a kind soul. WOW your T.C. story made my heart sink. I thought you lost him. You have such a way with words that I was right there in your story. So happy you endured the freezing cold to help save his life. I believe animals understand everything we say. T.C. proves that by hopping one branch at a time what a fantastic connection. The leap of faith how empowering!!!! I really enjoyed your T.C. adventure. Thanks for remembering and sharing with us all.
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