Birdy

by William Wharton

  We agree the only crazy thing is wars. That’s where I should’ve gotten him off onto the crazy business but I missed it. Renaldi turns on the hot plate and pours some water in it from a jerry can. We talk some more.

  Renaldi’s twenty-five and was taking his master’s in philosophy at Columbia when they tried to draft him. He has the idea you can only stop things like wars one person at a time. He says, nobody’s going to outlaw them. He asks me if most of the guys in my outfit wanted to fight. I couldn’t think of one who was charging in there for the old war after the first artillery came in. He wants to know how it was back in the States before we went over. To be perfectly honest, the only person I could think of who wanted to get into combat was me.

  Then, we get on the atom bomb they’ve just dropped. This is something Renaldi’s all hung up on. To me, it’s what ended the Japanese war; probably one of the best things that ever happened. I couldn’t care less how many Japs got killed, or whether it was one at a time or a couple thousand. The best and easiest way as far as I’m concerned.

  ‘Yes, but think of it, Al. They bombed women and children who weren’t involved in the war at all!’

  ‘So what’s the difference, they’re all Japs. If we’re fighting Japs, we kill Japs.’

  ‘OK, Al, but soldiers choose to fight; these were innocent victims.’

  I tell him I can’t buy that. Sure, kill off nuts like me, hostile assholes looking for trouble, but most guys don’t want to fight any war; they’re victims like everybody else. They’re out there carrying guns because of how old they are and the kind of plumbing they have. Women, old men and even kids make wars happen as much as anybody. Everybody isn’t like Renaldi and Birdy; and they even got Birdy. You can’t build a world around them either, they’re too rare.

  Renaldi’s still giving me a fishy stare, so I decide to tell about Birdy and my old man. That’s a story I hope will give some idea what I’m talking about. Probably I could just recite the multiplication tables and Renaldi’d eat it up.

  He cuts us each a piece of fruitcake and pours out some more tea. Can you beat it? Tea! Six months ago, nobody could’ve convinced me this guy wasn’t queer.

  There was a used car lot on the way up Long Lane to Sixty-ninth Street. Every Friday evening, when we took our books back to the library, Birdy and I used to stop by there to look at the cars. We were both motor freaks. The cars themselves didn’t interest us much – in fact, Birdy swore he’d never drive a car – but the way motors worked did. We’d already played around with small airplane motors, and the motor from a bombed-out motor scooter, and we fixed Mr Harding’s lawn mower.

  My old man bought a new car every year and kept it parked in front of our house to show what a big shot he was. I had to wash and simonize the beast once a week; Birdy used to help. We’d read all the manuals that came with these cars. My father bought De Sotos because the mob had an agency in Philly, so with the trade-in, he got them for practically nothing. My mother’s brother is one of the big capos in Philly and he’s the one who arranged it. We were the only ones on the block who had anything like a new car. Birdy’s mother and father didn’t even know how to drive. Birdy’s father rode to school on the school bus.

  Anyway, we used to clean the sparks, check the timing, clean the points, adjust the carburetor more than those cars ever needed. We kept that motor looking as if it’d never left the showroom floor.

  Birdy and I were always shopping cars. We knew all the horsepowers and gear ratios, length of piston stroke and cylinder dimensions. Either of us could tell almost any car just by listening to the motor, not seeing the car at all.

  One Friday evening we were nosing around in the car lot, looking at the new trade-ins, and there was a fantastic car. It was a 1915 Stutz Bearcat. We couldn’t figure how it got there. It didn’t run at all and the tires were flat. Schwartz, that’s the name of the guy who ran the lot, said he had to tow it in. He gave twenty-five bucks on it to somebody who bought a 1938 Dodge. Birdy and I couldn’t keep our hands or minds off that automobile. It had an eight-cylinder engine and the frame was in perfect condition. We negotiated around for two weeks and got it for thirty dollars; it cost another three dollars having it towed to our garage. The old man said we could use the garage till winter came and it got too cold to leave his car outside.

  We worked like fiends on that machine. We tore the motor all the way down. The pistons were frozen in the cylinders. We unfroze them and milled out the cylinders. We put in new rings and rockers. Birdy tooled replacement pieces for ones we couldn’t buy. He did it in the machine shop at school where he made his wings. We took off all the paint, pounded out the dents and cleaned up the chrome. It had solid chrome, not plate. We got new inner tubes and inflated the tires; there were genuine wooden spoked wheels.

  After a thousand tries we got the motor to turn over. The clutch, transmission, everything else, were in great condition. We tuned that motor to perfection. We patched up, cleaned, and Neetsfoot-oiled all the upholstery and refurbished the wooden dash with sandpaper and varnish. God, it was beautiful. We sanded it down to the metal, then painted it silver-gray. We worked on it for three months.

  When we cranked her up, she made tremendous resonant, deep motor sounds; the whole garage vibrated. We rolled her out and drove her up and down the alley. Neither one of us had a driver’s license. The car wasn’t registered and didn’t have an inspection sticker. It was strictly illegal. We knew we had something valuable but we didn’t want to sell it. We loved that car.

  I used to dream about it; I still do sometimes. I dream we’re touring it through a beautiful warm landscape, maybe in some foreign country like France. There’s no billboards and the road is lined with trees and the fields are full of flowers.

  We decide to get it past the Pennsylvania state inspection and get it registered so we can have a license. My old man says he’ll take it down and go through the inspection for us. We’re too young to own a car. The car gets passed and put in my old man’s name. I remember the license number: QRT 645.

  While Birdy is over at his place that spring, taking care of the birds, I’m either in the garage with the car or down in the cellar working out with weights. I can already press over a hundred fifty pounds. I’m working on muscle control, too. I can make a rope with my stomach and twist it from one side to the other. I keep asking Birdy to punch me hard in the stomach so he can test me, but he won’t do it.

  About two months after we have it registered and licensed, I go down to the garage after school to put on a new steering wheel cover. The car is gone! I’m sure somebody stole it! I run upstairs and the old man is sitting in the living room reading the paper. He sits there with his legs crossed. They’re so short and thick at the thigh that the leg on top sticks straight out. He’s wearing black low shoes and white silk socks. He has something against colored or woolen socks.

  ‘Somebody stole the car!’

  ‘Nobody stole it. I sold it.’

  He doesn’t even look up from the newspaper.

  ‘Aw, come on! Quit kidding! You didn’t sell it! Who’d you sell it to?’

  ‘Your Uncle Nicky came over with one of his “friends” and the friend wanted the car; he thought it’d be a real gag and offered me a C note. What’d ya think I’m gonna do anyhow; get myself in trouble over some junk heap of a car?’

  He looks up at me for the last part, then he turns his paper again, bangs on it to straighten it, and looks away. Uncle Nicky is my mother’s capo brother. I turn to her.

  ‘Is that really true? Did he actually sell our car to one of Uncle Nicky’s gangster friends?’

  My mother’s ironing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. I don’t know why she always irons there. She couldn’t be more in the way. Come to think of it; I do know why. She wants to keep an eye on the cooking and at the same time be able to talk with the old man.

  She starts talking in Italian, actually in Credenzia, the Sicilian dialect. She always does this when s
he has something to say. It’s stupid because I understand everything she says. I can’t talk the stuff, but I understand. They know that. She tells my father to give me the money.

  ‘He don’t know what to do with no hundred dollars. He’ll just get in trouble again. I’ll put it in the bank. When he wants money he can ask me for it. I don’t want no more of this running away stuff.’

  He crosses his legs the other way at the same time he opens and closes the newspaper again. He reads a newspaper folded in quarters like he’s riding in a subway or something and doesn’t want to take up too much space.

  ‘Half of it isn’t even my money. Half of that car belongs to Birdy.’

  He doesn’t look up at me. My mother comes in from the ironing board.

  ‘Give him the money, Vittorio. It’s stealing to take somebody else’s money.’

  This is in Credenzia again. The old man looks up at my mother. He’s enjoying being the big shit.

  ‘I don’t have to give him or anybody nothin’. That car is mine; it’s in my name. I can sell it to anybody I want.’

  He pauses to let that sink in. Then he shifts his weight and pulls out his roll. He keeps his money like that, in a hard roll in his side pocket, big bills on top. He peels off five tens. He has that hundred dollar bill on the outside, but he pulls the tens off from underneath. He has a piece of elastic, not a rubber band, he keeps it wrapped in. It’s the kind of elastic my mother makes her garters with. He holds out the fifty bucks to me.

  ‘Here, give this to that wiggle-eyed friend of yours. I’m warnin’ ya, he’s gonna get you in trouble yet. That kid ain’t right in the head.’

  I hold back. What a shitty thing to do. He re-rolls his roll, slips the elastic over it, tilts and slides it back in his pocket. He’s holding out those curled bills in his hand. I don’t want to take them. I stand there. My mother turns away; she’s done all she can and she knows it. My old man’ll bop anybody if he takes a mind to it. He looks at me hard. He’s not really mad yet but he’s annoyed.

  ‘Ya don’t want it? Well, don’t tell your friend I didn’t try to give him something for his share of that junk heap.’

  He’s shifting to reach into his pocket. I know if he puts it back on the roll and in his pocket I’ll never see it again. I reach out and take the fifty bucks. He doesn’t even pay attention, just grunts like I’m robbing him and goes back to reading.

  I take off for Birdy’s. When I tell him, he asks me to tell the whole thing again. He keeps making me repeat parts. His eyes are wiggling like crazy. I try to give him the money but he’ll only take half. He actually takes twenty, tells me to get the ten changed and he’ll get the other five then. He’s thinking about something else.

  Then he asks me if I can find out who it is who bought our car. I tell him there’s no chance; if this guy’s in the mob, we’ll never find him. Birdy says he’s going to come and talk to my father. This is suicide; I try to stop him. There’s nothing he can do. My father’ll kill him; he doesn’t like Birdy anyway. But, there’s no way to stop Birdy. I tell him he’s going alone, I’m not going to get all splattered with his blood. Birdy’s not listening, he’s on his way.

  Well, my mother comes to the door. She never shows much on her face but she doesn’t smile. I’m hanging back on the porch step. Birdy asks if he can talk to my father. My mother lets him in. I run around the block to the back and let myself in by the cellar. I come up through the kitchen. My mother’s still ironing in the doorway. I can hear them in the living room.

  ‘Whaddaya mean you want your car back?’

  ‘You had no right to sell that car, Mr Columbato. That car belongs to Al and me. We did not want to sell it. It is worth much more than a hundred dollars.’

  ‘Get outta here, kid; that car was in my name and I could sell it to anybody I want. Go ’way. I’m tryin’ ta read my paper.’

  Birdy doesn’t move. I can tell my old man is getting mad. He’s jiggling the top leg he has crossed. That’s a bad sign, like a cat twitching its tail. My mother stands the iron up on end and watches.

  ‘Mr Columbato, would you tell me the name of the man who thinks he bought our car?’

  My old man just ignores him. His leg keeps jiggling. Birdy stands there. I’m expecting all hell to break loose. My mother turns and tells me to get Birdy out before my father does something. I can’t move. Birdy keeps standing there. My old man, without looking up, says, ‘Look, kid. You’d better get outta here or I’m gonna call the cops!’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Columbato. I was going to do that myself. I want to report a stolen car.’

  That does it! The old man throws the paper down and jumps up! Birdy doesn’t back off an inch. The old man isn’t very tall, not much taller than Birdy, but he’s at least twice as thick. He shakes his fist in front of Birdy’s face. He shakes so hard, his hair, which is slicked back with Wildroot, jumps up and down in back.

  ‘You callin’ me a crook? You sayin’ I stole that junk heap?’

  Birdy looks him in the eyes, right through that fist. I wonder if my father can hit him. Birdy isn’t even moving. He stands there like a stuck feather.

  ‘I think you made a mistake, Mr Columbato. You sold a car that wasn’t yours. You didn’t understand. If you will tell me the name of the man you sold it to, I can tell him what happened and give him his money back.’

  For a minute, my old man can’t say anything. His eyes are bulging. I know he wants to pick Birdy up and throw him out the door but he’s beginning to get suspicious.

  ‘I’m tellin’ ya, kid. The guy that bought that car ain’t never goin’ to give it back. You give him any trouble and you’ll wind up in a concrete shirt at the bottom of a river somewhere.’

  Birdy acts as if he doesn’t even hear him.

  ‘If you would just give me his name, Mr Columbato, I can contact him directly and I won’t have to go to the police.’

  My father starts his jabbing routine. He can hit so hard with the point of his middle finger just on the soft part under the collar bone, it’s like a bullet going through you. Birdy stands there taking it. He doesn’t move. I can’t believe the old man’s using his full force. He stops and stares at Birdy; I can see he has his hand down at his side now itching to give one to Birdy. I’m beginning to think it’ll be the old immovable object and the irresistible force.

  ‘You see, Mr Columbato, Al and I have a signed receipt of purchase for that car from Mr Schwartz. It is officially our property.’

  This is pure bullshit. We don’t have anything from Schwartz.

  ‘You agreed to have the automobile officially inspected and registered, so it’s in your name, but you are not the official owner; you have no evidence of purchase from us. It is still our property. Now, if you will just tell me the name of the man who bought the car, I can explain this to him.’

  The old man sits down. I can’t believe it. Birdy’s still standing there.

  ‘I’m sure the man who bought the car would rather not have the police investigating this. It could be embarrassing for everybody.’

  The old man is actually breaking out in a sweat. There are beads of water across his forehead and over his lips.

  ‘Why you want to be such a hard nose, kid? Look, I’ll do you a favor.’ He tilts, reaches into his pocket and pulls out the roll. He peels off another fifty bucks and holds it out to Birdy. Birdy doesn’t move. The old man waves the money.

  ‘That’s all I got for it, kid. Take it and get outta here. Leave me alone, huh?’

  My mother’s moved into the room. She takes the money from my father and grabs hold of Birdy’s arm. He comes with her and she leads him back to the kitchen. Birdy’s face is chalk white, his lips are blue, and his whole body is shaking. My mother talks English to Birdy.

  ‘Boy, you take the money. I get more from Al’s uncle, my brother. Don’t make trouble. How much money you want?’

  Birdy looks at her. Tears are coming into his eyes. He takes the money from her and hands it to me. He shake
s his head and goes down the cellar steps, then on out the back. I try to follow him but my mother stops me.

  When I finish telling this story to Renaldi he sits there, looking straight into me, listening. All along he’s nodded his head or let me know other ways that he’s listening and interested. I find it hard to go on with the story sometimes because I fill up. My nerves still aren’t quite right.

  So, my mother gives me another hundred dollars about a week later. She really forces me to take it and swears she got it from her brother. Her brother’d give her ten thousand dollars if she asked for it and he wouldn’t even ask what for.

  I give it all to Birdy and tell him Nicky’d kicked in with two hundred. You see, Birdy’s still sore. He figures the car is worth at least three hundred and he’s been checking things out to find who bought the car and he’s going to call the cops. He’s even written to the department of motor vehicles to find out what name the car is registered in. I tell him they’ll kill him but he couldn’t care less. When Birdy’s got his mind on something, especially when he’s pissed like that, it’s hard to turn him off.

  It must be almost three weeks later when I go over to his place and he’s working out with his wings, flapping in his back yard. I see giant black and blue marks on his chest. It takes me a few seconds to realize that’s where the old man gave him those finger pokes. The old man wasn’t holding back; Birdy was just pushing forward on each poke. He was probably practically breaking the old man’s finger.

  I stop. I’m tired of telling about it. I don’t think Renaldi’s getting what I’m talking about anyway. I’m not even so sure myself.