Why Do Birds

by Rob Hoerburger

  Suddenly she heard the talk-show audience laughing. And she realized she had heard correctly. The host had said that they were going to be on his show. But he was just making a joke, playing up his nerdiness by ridiculing theirs. And that’s when she felt the familiar flutter, a low hum, like feedback spilling out of another musician’s monitor across the stage. It would soon be a rustle, which would soon be a gurgle, which would soon be a rumble. She knew the routine. As she had done many times in a recording studio, at a restaurant, in her own dining room, she got up and calmly walked into the bathroom. She looked up at the wall of mirrors, pulled back her hair in one hand — it was starting to grow long again — and gripped the counter, made of Chilean granite, with the other. As she leaned over the chrome basin, all she had to do now was wait.

  Her breathing got heavier, made little clouds on the mirror. Seven or eight hyperventilations, the full-body tremor, then finally the expulsion: “What an asshole!” A few saliva projectiles dotted the breath clouds on the mirror.

  As with her other egestions, when the offensive material was eliminated, she covered her face with a cold cloth, then calmly wiped her mouth and took a swig of Scope.

  She looked over at her preparations for her morning ablutions, which she had laid out in clusters in the vaguely trapezoidal configuration of a drum kit. One circle of lotions and gels and unguents up to the left, another to the right, slanting down the way the toms would. A center cluster for her atomizers and sprays and roll-ons. And over to the left, assuming the high-hat position, was what she thought of as “the happy pad.” It was a fresh tampon. She hadn’t menstruated in a few years, but she could always hope that tomorrow would be the day she’d start again. It was part of the four-item checklist she needed to fill before she could pronounce herself well, which she’d written out on the plane to New York:

  1. Gain 30 pounds (so far she could only manage seven or eight and then would drop them again; her current weight: 83). 2. Kick the laxatives, thyroid medicine, diuretics and emetics; she was almost there. 3. Get her period back. 4. Eat in front of her family, and hold the meal.

  Thanksgiving dinner was the target for all of this. She still had a few months. And then she went back to bed. There were so many postcards to write in the morning. As she drifted off, she found herself thinking about that girl from the record store.

  11. Queens, N.Y., Spring 1965

  “Come behind the counter and say hello to your Aunt Rose.” Sib was both scared and thrilled as she beheld the largest person she’d ever seen. She hadn’t even turned 5 yet, but she had already been asking her father to take her to Rose’s Record Room (“Where the Music Will Bloom”), on Liberty Avenue, the place where Kieran and her mother bought all their records. It was wedged between a cloudy-windowed luncheonette and a hardware store on a stretch of the bustling street that Kieran had only just recently been allowed to travel to alone on his bicycle, and Sib’s fear of the cars flying by, of the Don’t Walk signs that seemed to always be flashing, of the hurried pedestrians, of the rumbling el above were more than shouted down by her anticipation of visiting the mysterious place.

  Sib already loved candy stores, playgrounds, her basement (where the family record player lived) and an amusement park on Long Island called Adventure’s Inn, where they would go about once a month in the summer. But as she gripped her father’s pinkie she beheld a different kind of wonderland: records everywhere, aisles of them, thickets of records hanging from the walls, what seemed itself like a giant playground of music and youth and color. The glass counter behind which the big woman sat was off to their left, and it was filled with record cleaners, spindles, guitar picks, harmonicas. On the wall behind the woman, there were black, wooden slots, with cloth tape that announced the occupants on each one in slurvy Magic Marker, every 45 ever made. Or at least that’s the way it seemed to Sib. This was better than the rows of Charms and Tootsie Pops at their corner stationery.

  But now, as Sib walked around the counter, all she could see was Rose, the many folds of her, sitting on a throne-like swivel chair, a whole menu of Chinese food cartons arrayed before her on a desk that was otherwise cluttered with order forms, magazines, more records — a messy, spattered business, but a thriving business nevertheless. Rose was big, almost circus-lady big, and Sib felt that same kind of thrill-fright that she did the one time her parents had taken her to see the Ringling Bros. at Madison Square Garden.

  “So this is the famous little sister I’ve been hearing so much about,” Rose said as she stabbed her fork in another carton and into her mouth. “Tell me your name, sweetheart,” the words coming out in some kind of garbled pidgin of English and Mandarin chicken.

  “Siobhan,” Sib said, and because she was already in the habit of having to say her name more than once because of the look of incomprehension or unfamiliarity she would get, the nose crinkle, the narrowed eyes that conveyed — what kind of name is that? — she said it again, drawing out the words defiantly: “Shi-vawn,” then grabbing onto the counter to steady herself from the wafts of food and Rose’s baby-powder-and-body-odor smell. Rose was wearing a tentlike smock with so many flaps that Sib wasn’t sure where the clothes stopped and Rose started. But the closer she got to Rose, the less scared she was. Her face, underneath a slick, towering fingerpaint-black beehive, was cheeky and sparkly, the face of a birthday cake with lit candles, of Christmas lights, of still-wrapped presents.

  “Siobhan, Siobhan, a beautiful name,” Rose said as she reached out her arms, slender up to the elbow but then exploding into is- lands of jiggly flesh hanging down off her triceps. Sib looked around to her father, who was now watching from the side of the counter, and he nodded, and so Sib let Rose pick her up and hoist her onto the counter. She was dizzy, but not because Rose had picked her up too fast or too high but because now she could see all the 45s.

  “Siobhan. A Hebrew name originally, the grace of God, but I think I’ll call you . . . let’s see . . . Sipper . . . Little Chip . . . Chipper. Yes, that’s it, Chipper. If that’s O.K.”

  Sib hated the name but she nodded shyly, still focusing on the wall of wonder in front of her.

  Rose looked down the length of the counter to where Roy was standing, watchful, strong, quiet Roy. “So what brings you here today, Mr. Postman, you and your pretty young daughter? Picking up something for Kieran or the Mrs.? He was looking for that ‘Concrete and Clay’ the last time he was in, but I didn’t have it. Got it now.”

  “No, actually, Siobhan wants to buy something,” Roy said.

  “Chipper wants some music? Well, what can Aunt Rose get for you? We have a whole kids’ section. Do you like the Mary Poppins soundtrack?”

  Sib didn’t want any of that kiddie stuff. She had heard on the radio that morning a new song by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Kieran had their last big hit, “This Diamond Ring.” Sib really liked the new song, “Count Me In,” and she knew Kieran didn’t have it yet, so he’d be impressed if she got it first.

  “I want a record that I bet you don’t have,” Sib said. “It’s called

  ‘Count Me In.’ ” “Oh, a sharpie like her brother. O.K., Chipper, let me see what I can do.”

  Rose swiveled around. Sib felt the counter shake as Rose got up from her chair, wiped some orange sauce off her hands onto her smock and lumbered over to a pile of 45s on her desk, a new shipment that hadn’t yet gone up on the wall. Sib watched as Rose’s meaty fingers flipped slowly through five, 10, 20, maybe 30 singles, and still hadn’t come up with “Count Me In.” Rose was almost near the end of the pile now, and Sib’s hopes were starting to sink, the beginnings of a pout were starting to form on her face, when suddenly Rose latched onto a 45 at the bottom of the pile, stretched out her boat of an arm and placed it in Sib’s hands.

  “Is that what you were looking for?” Rose asked, plopping back down in her chair and scooping up her fork.

  Sib was thrilled. Not just because she had the record, but because it was her record. Because she’d been on Kie
ran’s turf and made an impression all by herself. Roy started to take a dollar out of his wallet, but before he could give it to Rose, Sib hopped off the counter, marched over to him, took it from his hand and walked back to Rose to pay for the record herself.

  “Oh, I see we have a do-it-yourselfer, here, Mr. Postman,” Rose said to Roy as she took the dollar from Sib. “O.K., Chipper, that will be 79 cents.” As Rose went over to the crank register and rang up the sale, Sib was taking in her dazzling prize: The label was called Liberty, the same name as the very street they were on, black with orange and blue, the lettering of the title and artist in silver. It was so beautiful. She’d almost forgotten what the song sounded like. Then she caught a glimpse of something coiled near the end where the counter stopped and the rest of the store opened up onto the floor with albums and older 45s. Sib did a quick step back in her Keds, thinking it was alive.

  Then she remembered Kieran telling her about “the whip.” Rose used it to scare off shoplifters who might think that, just because she was a big woman, she’d be too slow for them, that her inventory was easy pickings. The Rose Whip was legendary on Liberty Avenue. Kieran said that the word was that Rose had snapped it only once, at the feet of some junior-high kid who was trying to lift a copy of Meet the Beatles. But it was in plain sight every day, lying in wait like a crocodile ready to snap on fingers that carelessly lingered where they shouldn’t.

  Rose caught Sib’s little stutter step. “Don’t you worry ’bout that, honey, that’s not for good girls and boys like you and your brother. That’s for anyone who thinks he can just waltz in to Rose’s house and help himself to what isn’t his.”

  Sib had already fallen in love with the place and with Rose for having it. Loved her for being so kind. By the time they left the store she didn’t even mind the name “Chipper” so much. And the feeling was mutual. From that day on, Sib was in the store every week, either with Kieran or just with her dad, and Rose gave her free run, because Sib could read the labels and pick out her own 45.

  When Sib and her father got home from Rose’s that day, Kieran and her mother were playing basketball in the driveway. Her father had just installed the hoop and backboard, and it seemed Kieran and her mom were out there every night after dinner and weekend afternoon like this one, now that the weather was getting warmer. The basketball was too big for Sib to handle, it practically swallowed up her hands, and she was too small to shoot it, so some of those nights she would sit on the steps or stand inside the screen door and watch. Kieran would flash her a smile or say her name as he made a shot — he was only 8 in those first days, but already his shots had height and accuracy. And their mother, in a crouch or her own graceful arc to the hoop, was always putting on a show, seemingly without any effort. “Isn’t Kieran great, Siobhan?” she would say after Kieran made a few shots in a row. “I could stay out here forever.” She never seemed to notice when Sib had already gone inside.

  That day, though, when Sib came home with “Count Me In,” she didn’t stop to watch Kieran and her mother, who had her back to Sib and was trying to teach Kieran how to transfer the ball from hand to hand and then dribble between his legs. Sib waved the bag toward Kieran, who recognized the logo from Rose’s, a long-stem poking through the hole of a 45, and his eyes widened so much that he missed a pass from his mother. “Keep your eye on the ball, son,” she said. Sib went downstairs and put the record on the small hi-fi; she may not have been able to handle a basketball yet, but the buttons of a record player were already second nature to her. She knew the speeds, the knobs, knew to put the record on the platter first before she turned it on.

  The first time through, Sib loved watching it as much as hearing it. Her 4-½-year-old eyes were mesmerized by the blurring words and colors of the label, even as her skin was tingling from the sound. When the record finished, she lifted the needle and played the song again, this time remembering the chorus and singing along, though still transfixed in front of the record player. The third time around, she started to dance too, causing a slight skip in the record and a momentary shudder as she thought she’d broken it. When it resumed playing, though, the tears that were about to flood her eyes ebbed, and she started dancing again, this time a little farther away from the record player. She’d nudged the volume up a little more each time, hoping Kieran would hear it outside.

  Sib was about to play the song a fourth time when she heard the side door slam. Kieran was coming in! She couldn’t wait to play her new record, her first record, for him. But when she turned and looked up the stairs, she saw it was not Kieran but her mother, holding the basketball under her arm, looking down at her. And then heading toward her. Whenever she was with her mother, Sib was filled with a sense of familiarity once removed, as if her mother were someone she’d seen on TV.

  “Mommy, I got a record!” Sib said. “I heard,” Genie said. “And heard. And heard.” Sib almost started to cry again, because she thought her mother was going to yell at her for playing the song over and over. When Genie moved toward the record player, still with the basketball in one hand, Sib almost ran in front of it to protect it from her. Genie reached down to pull the needle off. But then Genie turned and said, “Can we hear it again?”

  “Yes, Mommy, put it on again!”

  Sib was almost as happy now as she was behind the counter at Rose’s. Her mother liked her record! Genie put the needle down and, 16 bars into the song was humming along. And then her mother’s voice started to take over from the friendly but nasal lead singer on the record. By the end her mother was singing real words, and soon all Sib could do was gaze at her mother, sweaty and bobbing, spin out music. “It’s a nice song, Siobhan,” Genie said. “Did you pick it out yourself?”

  “Yes, Mommy, Daddy took me to Rose’s shop. She let me behind the counter and everything!”

  “Oh, Rose,” Genie said, turning her head slightly away. “The big Jewish woman. She’s very nice.”

  “What’s Jewish, Mommy?”

  “That means she goes to a different church from the one we do,” Genie said.

  Just then Kieran bounded down the stairs, his face a red ripe tomato, the spaces between the freckles filled in with the blood rush of the basketball playing and the promise of record playing. “There he is,” Genie said. “There’s my boy. Where is that record you got the other day?”

  Kieran reached up to the shelf next to the record player and pulled out Petula Clark’s “I Know a Place.” He took “Count Me In” off the hi-fi and put it carefully back in the sleeve. Sib snatched it from him when he handed it to her and held it close.

  “That’s the one,” Genie said. Soon Genie was smoothly skating above the voice on this one too; next to Genie, even a singer as good as Petula Clark had as much fidelity as the telephone game Sib and Kieran played with two cans and a piece of string. She put the basketball down and soon was twisting across the room with one child on each arm. Sib wished they’d still been listening to her record, but she was thrilled now that, even with wobbly legs, she could do this with her mother and Kieran. And when her mother sang, suddenly she wasn’t so strange to Sib anymore. Her voice seemed bigger than them and yet available exclusively to them. It was warm, roomy, authoritative, like the blankets their grandmother crocheted for them when they were babies, and suggested a secret life beyond their little plot of space in this crook of Queens, N.Y., in the shadow of an international airport; the voice said that their mother was this thrilling creature who did more than open boxes of frozen peas and jars of peanut butter or put up jump shots in the driveway. When she sang for them, it meant that they were part of her overworld, too. She had more than enough voice for both of them.

  Near the end of “I Know a Place,” Genie was twirling both of them around, and Sib got so lost in the spin that she broke loose from Genie’s grip. She sat down on the floor and put her head down. When she looked up, she found herself alone. The music had ended, the gentle thrum of the song’s bass line replaced by the resumed thump of a baske
tball on the driveway above. The joy of the morning, of the record store and of her mother’s voice, of her mother’s attention, was starting to drain out, and though she was in her own basement, with the beloved record player only steps away, she suddenly felt alone and 4, as if she’d been plopped in the middle of a strange park or a supermarket. She sat down on the floor and started to cry.

  After a few minutes, there was a noise on the stairs and then a figure shadowing over her. She suddenly felt herself being lifted up by a strong pair of arms, heard the hi-fi being turned off as the two of them moved toward the stairs. “C’mon, honey,” her dad said, as Sib sobbed and sniffled into his shoulder. “Let’s go have some lunch.”

  12. Queens, N.Y., Summer 1982

  Andy hadn’t been able to get the woman he followed to the subway out of his mind. Her potential identity. The more time that passed, though, the less he believed it was she, that musical hero from his teenage years, from that one perfect summer day in 1970. There was some odd contradiction about the woman he’d observed: the desire to disappear, which Andy knew all too well — the sunglasses, the quick step, the slipping away from him in the subway station — and yet still the need to be noticed — the big wad of bills, the virgin white sneakers, the weird California get-up. The look-at-me-don’t-look-at-me vibe. One thing he knew about celebrities: They always wanted attention, long after it stopped being offered. Maybe especially after it stopped being offered.