by Ron Elliott
The two birds looked at each other without moving.
Adam said, ‘This is Chris. Chris, um, what shall we call her? She?’
‘The cat’s mother?’ offered Chris.
Adam watched the two birds looking at each other. ‘Love takes time, I guess.’ He went to his computer and turned it on.
***
Chris walked along his wooden perch towards the other cage.
‘Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning, fella,’ said Antigone. ‘You bring your little vent anywhere near my wing and I’ll peck it off. You got that?’
‘Excuse me. Did I miss something? You assume way too much about your personal charms there, honey.’
‘Don’t call me honey.’
‘I’m not calling you at all.’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine.’ Chris started to move back toward the centre of the cage, but then stopped. ‘And I’ll move anywhere in my cage I feel like, thank you very much.’
***
Adam’s computer monitor glowed. He clicked on e-mails, and typed in the e-mail address Evelyn had given him. Then his face dropped. ‘Dreams,’ he said finally, but the keyboard remained untapped.
There was a knock on the door. Adam went reluctantly, hoping it wasn’t Paul and Jane. He looked through the little eyehole and saw that it was Harry, wet and in a dirty towel. He opened the door.
‘Adam. Need your help again.’ Harry looked past Adam and then walked in, forcing Adam to retreat as he came. ‘You got a cleaner or something?’
‘No?’ Adam looked around his flat. It was perhaps time to get some pictures or knickknacks. Now he thought about it, it was time to buy some food.
Harry said, ‘Two canaries, huh?’
‘Yes. Company.’
Harry turned to look at Adam, shaking his head, sadly.
‘For the other canary,’ said Adam quickly.
‘And how you doing on that front?’
‘Well, if you have to know ... well to be fair, that talk we had the other night helped. I’ve taken the plunge.’
‘Good for you.’
‘I’ve actualised my dreams. Nearly.’
Harry leaned into Adam, shoulder to shoulder, and nudged him like a friendly ram. ‘I knew you had it in you. Or in her.’
‘Harry, it’s not like that.’
‘Call me Jake.’
‘She’s not some piece of meat. She’s not a computer game. I’m interested in her as a person. It’s got nothing to do with sex.’
‘Everything’s to do with sex. Everything. No. You’re right. Gently, gently, catchee monkey. Then when she’s lulled, you jump her and go for it.’
‘I’m not an animal!’ Adam walked away from Harry for some steps. He looked down at his hands, and noticed he was clenching and unclenching his fists.
He felt Harry pat him on the shoulder. ‘You need to get laid, Adam. You’re gunna implode. Come on and help me with my yacht. I want to get my mast up.’
Adam turned to see Harry heading for the door. There was a puddle where he’d been standing.
‘No. I’m not going to unless you apologise.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t mean it.’
‘Oh, I gotta mean it now. You want me to bring flowers? You know what? You’re starting to sound like a bloody woman.’
‘I’m not helping you.’
Harry looked hurt, but then stood tall. ‘And fuck you too, you little pussy.’ He left, slamming the door behind him.
Adam looked at the door then looked at his computer. Then he sighed and went to bed.
***
A mail sorter on the night shift wheeled a canvas trolley to the conveyor belt. He tossed some letters and then leant down to grab another package.
‘Jesus H. Christ!’ he wheezed as he struggled to get the very heavy box onto the conveyor belt. It ground its wheels and cogs struggling before whirring back into life. ‘Oughta be a law against it,’ said the sorter.
***
In a clearing in the bush, a large bower has been built from postal items. Envelopes. Ribbons. Stamps. Postal packs. Official stickers. Lacky bands.
Adam stumbles into the clearing, and stands looking at this intricate construction.
Evelyn steps out from behind the bower. She is dressed in the bright colours of a Spanish dancer, black and flowing red. She strides, her arms bent out behind her like wings. A guitar plays. Her arms swirl. Her back arches. Her legs open and flex. It is flamenco, and she dances her arms around him.
Adam stands before her, his shirt now gone, his nipples hardening in a new breeze. Drums join the guitar. Jungle drums.
Evelyn begins to swirl her whole body, her arms spinning and swaying and turning, but her head always returning to gaze fiercely at Adam. She lifts the red of her skirt, swooshing it back and forward showing her knees. And higher. And still the stare fixing Adam where he stands, frozen.
She comes forward, her face flushed and beaded, inches from his face. She is panting. The guitar stops. The drums grow louder, faster. She bends, her tongue out, bending still, slowly, towards his nipple. The drums stop. Evelyn stops there centimetres from his nipple. She looks up at him, wounded. She says, ‘I don’t want to.’
Adam sits up in bed. He’s panting, sweating, shirtless. He looks towards the ceiling. Drums, but not above.
The crash of a rubbish bin turns him towards the window where an orange light sweeps across the sill and curtains. There is a whoosh of truck air brakes.
Adam looks out to see the garbage truck coming up the hill. The garbos troop from behind. The butch girl is there, dressed in her usual blue singlet and shorts. The other garbos are women too, in overalls, or black leather jackets. They march forward, swinging clenched fists. Piano joins the drums, lyrical. The women garbos sing ‘There is Nothin’ Like a Dame’ from South Pacific. The butch garbo girl sings about letters and packages as she dances with each of the other women, mirroring movement, caressing a cheek. Letters begin to shoot up from the back of the garbage truck like paper tracer bullets.
The top of the truck lifts now and velvet carpeted stairs descend. Skinny men in white suits and white top hats wave canes as they dance down the sides of the stairs in full Busby Berkeley, as the butch girl dances up, between the lines. Violins begin. The male voices are replaced by female vocals, singing the next verse of ‘There’s Nothin’ Like a Dame’.
Something is rising out of the top of the garbage truck. A circular dais on a pole.
The men line the edges of the stairs, pointing up with their canes. The women in overalls and leather jackets down on their knees, hands raised toward the dais like a Mississippi church chorus.
Evelyn is tethered to the pole on the dais, a chain going to a studded choker. Her flimsy dress is torn. The butch girl reaches her. The violins cease. Drums speed to frenzy.
Adam stands transfixed in his flat, lit orange in the glow from outside.
The butch girl raises a sacrificial knife.
Adam sat up in bed once again, panting, terrified. He ran to the window. They were not there. There was only the Rover parked in the street with a cat sleeping on the bonnet.
Adam went to the lounge and turned on his computer again determined to do something about his dreams, especially the unsettling ones. He sat and looked at the bluish blank screen.
Both birds blinked in the strange light. Chris looked through the bars of the two cages and found Antigone. ‘Do you dream?’
She turned and looked at him for a little while. ‘Yes.’
‘Are your dreams scary?’
‘I often dream about my father’s death, which is very strange because I was incubated.’
‘There is a cat. I don’t mean cats. I mean a specific cat. Out there. It’s got my number. I can’t explain. I just know, like a dream. Like there’s no difference between the present and the future. Our paths are ... indivisible. It is.’
‘Could be Jungian. Maybe Freudian. Are you afraid of
women?’
Chris looked towards the window. ‘I’m afraid of cats.’
***
In flat number one, it was dark. The bed was squeaking quietly but rhythmically. Suddenly the bedside light was turned on and Jane sat up looking at Paul who lay frozen in a somewhat awkward position.
After a moment, he said, ‘Huh?’
‘What were you doing?’
Paul’s eyes stayed closed. ‘Huh?’
‘You were masturbating, weren’t you?’
Paul stayed silent, still.
‘If you must do that, can you do it in the bathroom? I’m trying to sleep.’ Jane turned over and switched off her bedside lamp.
‘Sorry. Bit inconsiderate,’ mumbled Paul in the darkness.
A bad silence like green leaves burning.
Jane said, ‘Well, are you going into the bathroom or not?’
‘Oh. No. I don’t really feel like it now. You know.’
Jane switched the lamp back on and turned to him. ‘Don’t you start laying all that guilt on me. It’s not fair. Have you thought how you’re making me feel right now? As if I’ve ruined it for you. Like I’m taking away your pleasure. When you are the one who woke me up.’
‘I never thought about it that way.’
‘That’s why it’s important we keep communicating. Now go in the bathroom and have your wank. Not for me, but because you want to.’
Paul sighed. He got out of bed and was halfway to the bathroom before Jane asked, ‘Who were you fantasising about?’
‘You. It was you.’
Paul went into the bathroom while Jane lay on the bed, her light still on. She said, ‘That post office guy isn’t going to let us into the post office.’
‘No,’ called Paul. ‘As soon as I saw he kept caged birds, I knew.’
‘We’re going to have to kidnap him.’
‘But we won’t hurt him, will we?’
‘Haven’t you learned anything about Urban Revolution? You think that anti-vivisection group would have freed those poor animals if they weren’t willing to torture that security guard? It’s war, Paul. There are casualties.’ Jane turned off her lamp. Then she called, ‘Hurry up and finish, so I can get back to sleep.’
Paul leaned back against the cold tiles of the bathroom wall, his penis lying in his hand like a sausage that had fallen off the barbecue and been retrieved from the sand.
***
Adam woke to sunshine dappled and dancing on his bedroom wall. The traffic had begun its buzz somewhere down the hill and for the first time he found it comforting. He lay looking at the open suitcase sitting on top of the chest of drawers and thought he might unpack it.
He got up and headed for the bathroom, whistling.
‘Oh, good morning Chris, ol’ buddy. How was your night? Not a word!’
Antigone gently fluffed the feathers at the top of her back then let them settle. ‘He’s in love. Listen to his song.’
‘No. He’s been traumatised. The dance has been beaten out of him by events beyond his control. He’s a string bag of neuroses and they’re about to tumble through his gaps.’
‘Are you sure this isn’t a little bit of reverse anthropomorphism? Are you projecting?’
‘Don’t start on me, lady. I’ve seen things ... the flames of Orion, not to mention a once in a millennium flood in Mukinbudin – you can’t even begin to comprehend.’
‘It is about you. You don’t know the dance!’
‘I know the dance. Don’t you worry about me. Collective unconscious is like riding a bike – you never forget, even if you never have.’
‘Deny, don’t deny. You can or you can’t.’
‘You’re right. I’m over-intellectualising my dislike of you. No more denial. It is what it is – hatred.’ Chris ruffled his feathers and shook his neck, sending out a scatter of tiny feather bits.
There was a knock on the door which became louder. The shower went off. Mary from flat three came in dressed in a cheesecloth caftan dress and carried a plastic bag to the kitchen counter.
Adam came out of the bathroom, starting to wrap the towel around his hips. ‘Ahh,’ he screamed, dropping the towel and then frantically grabbing at it again.
‘The door wasn’t locked,’ said Mary as she started to bring fruit out of the plastic bag. ‘You have a very nice body, Adam. Don’t be ashamed of it.’
Mary brought out a banana, strawberries, a pomegranate and two peaches.
Adam stood, transfixed and dripping.
She produced a large tub of yogurt. ‘This should get you going,’ she said. She took the banana delicately between her thumb and forefinger and lifted it.
‘I don’t want this,’ Adam pleaded.
‘Ah, but there’s a difference between what you want and what you need.’
She started to slowly peel the banana. ‘By the way, I think Harry is wrong about this, but...’
‘Harry?’
‘Yes, he’s worried about you. I said I’d help.’
Adam grabbed the top of his towel tightly in one fist and marched out of his flat.
Mary looked over to the canaries and said, ‘I knew this wouldn’t work but you can’t tell Harry anything.’ She looked at the cages sitting near each other in front of the window and went to them. She opened Chris’s cage door, then opened Antigone’s and pushed the open doors up against each other. ‘Enjoy.’
Chris blinked at the opening. Antigone was blinking too.
***
Jane peeked through the eyehole of the door of flat one and watched Adam stomp upstairs and hammer on the door to flat four. ‘I think he’s going to complain about the sawing noises. Won’t get much change from Jake.’
‘Who’s Jake?’ said Paul.
‘We’ll surprise him when he gets back.’ Jane opened the door and moved swiftly across to the open door of flat two. She was carrying a balaclava and a vicious-looking steak knife.
Paul followed less swiftly, also carrying his balaclava.
‘Oh, hello,’ said Mary, looking up from the kitchen bench.
‘Oh,’ said Jane. ‘Um, is Adam home?’
‘He can’t be far. He’s only wearing a towel. Hi, Paul.’
‘Oh, hi there. Neighbour.’
Jane dragged Paul back across the hall. The door to flat one slammed as Toby, the local postman, backed in dragging a very heavy cardboard box. Mary came to the door of flat two and said, ‘Shall I tell him you called?’
‘Mary!’ said the postman. ‘This is so heavy.’
‘I’m not expecting anything.’
‘No, it’s for flat two.’
‘Oh, you poor thing. Bring it in.’
Toby dragged the package into Adam’s flat. He said, ‘I don’t suppose, um, you’d have time to take a look at my back?’
***
‘Harry, please get her out of there.’
‘Hand me those six-foot planks, man. And you said you’d call me Jake.’
‘No, you told me to. I never said I would. There’s a difference.’
‘That’s the spirit.’
Harry was working on the deck. Sections of ceiling were stacked against one wall. Electrical wiring hung. On the record Elvis sang ‘Don’t’.
Adam held his ground and his towel. ‘Harry, I have to go to work. Can you get her out of my flat?’
‘You still look very tense, Adam.’
‘I’m tense because all these things keep ... keep rushing at me. No, wait. That’s not true. I didn’t wake up tense. I woke up happy. I woke up happy because I had a dream.’
Harry crouched and nodded to him, interested.
‘And I woke up this morning with a decision. I’m going to ask Evelyn out. On a date. I’m ready and I think I can do it. I’ve sent her an e-mail.’
Harry stood up and started beating his chest like King Kong. It made a fat-slappy sound.
Adam said, ‘So, you know, I don’t want to have fruit tipped all over me, and have it licked off by the local prostitute.’
‘I won’t have you running down my wife, especially when she was probably making you breakfast.’
Adam stood very still. He finally whispered, ‘Your wife?’
Harry nodded, serenely proud. ‘Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em. You know that saying. That’s a ten-dollar piece of philosophy if ever there was.’
Adam looked around the gutted flat and then up to Harry standing on his boat. He looked to the door and out across the top landing in time to see a postman going into flat three with Mary. ‘She pays for all this, doesn’t she? The boat materials. Your time.’
‘And the rent on two flats. Food, rum. You wouldn’t believe the power bills.’
‘You are the most selfish man I have ever met.’
‘I try to be, Adam. I try.’ Harry rubbed his hairy stomach with affection. ‘On the other hand she does have sexual needs that one man cannot possibly satisfy.’
Adam was distracted as he dressed for work, failing to get his happy whistling feeling back. He found a plate of fruit salad and yogurt in his fridge and decided to eat it. He turned on his computer to check if he’d received a reply to the anonymous e-mail he’d sent the night before. There was nothing. He didn’t notice that the two birdcages had been pushed together. Nor could he notice their silence. He didn’t notice that there was a large cardboard box under the bird table.
He looked out the eyehole of his door. The door of flat one was closed. The sound of hammering immediately above him was underscored by an occasional whipping noise drifting down from flat three. He went out, softly shutting his door before hastening out of the vestibule door.
***
Paul raised the curtain a little. ‘He’s going to work.’
‘Good,’ said Jane at the computer. ‘Gives us time to build this.’ She had found an interesting site: Hand Guns Using the Spare Parts of a Rover. There were helpful diagrams. ‘I need you to break off the radio aerial. Oh, and get the wheel brace.’ She looked around the room. ‘I guess we’ll also need to saw off a bit of the leg of the kitchen table. Coffee table might be easier.’