The Show

The Show-Prologue: Meet the players

This is the last of it. Packed and mailed to myself a week ago. Arriving today like a package from the Devil. I heard once that you shouldn’t make rash decisions about personal items for at least a year after someone dies. I’d madly purged my mother’s items and regretted it. His things, I’ll try and be more patient with them. Rent a storage unit. Be more caring, less harsh. New leaf and all that.

     Today there’s nothing left to do but light a smoke in his name and dangle off my terrace watching the ash blow to earth. Think I’ll go stitch up a little black handkerchief to keep in my breast pocket. In his memory. Maybe that’s what I need.

#

Edward

     I listened to cooing every night when I was seven. The sounds were sweet, filling the darkness. The closer I got to them, the more their noises sounded like a one-note song; a lullaby of sorts.

My broken-nosed neighbor built the coop himself. As a result, the roof of our apartment building was like a luxury hotel on the pigeon map. A safe haven, a place to spend the night before travelling onward.

I imagined they carried messages, love letters, secret maps and documents. He had Racing Homers and Tiplers. A few were almost entirely white, but most were a violet so deep they were practically black.

     Neighbor David, half-crazy on the inside, had survived the war--in body at least--so the other tenants let him do what he wanted. Every night I helped run the hose to fill the water pans while he fed them dinner. Our summertime ritual included eating lime sherbet out of yellow plastic bowls when we were done with our chores. In the winter we just hurried back inside and said goodnight.

     It seemed to me that David taught the birds to have adventures, see the world, then come back. They would return with messages in the silver canisters attached to their legs. I was fascinated. Once the container held a map, but we never did find the buried coins it promised. David would talk for hours, spinning tales about where the various birds went.

“This fella’s been to China,” he began, “Got him a lady friend there. Brought her a piece of genuine Manhattan bagel. Stayed fresh all the way.”

     One day I decided it was my turn to tell the evening’s story. I held a white and black female named Ella in my hands; my tale would be about her.