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Let me preface this by saying I have always wanted to kick a pigeon. As a child, I would chase them and shoot at them with rubber bands. I always knew they were evil and an abomination. Flying rats. Shit birds. They have many names. They are my enemy.

I feel no pity for their plight. When I see them pancaked by taxis, their putrid guts mashed onto the New York tar, their peers feeding on their very brains, I am filled with an odd serenity. It is bliss in its most diabolical form: the extermination of that which I hate.

But as I stumbled my way home at 2 AM, Gorillaz in my ears, Pimms in my bloodstream, the exquisite shadenfreude of pigeon death was not among my thoughts.

Hoyt Street, Brooklyn is generally silent and safe at this hour, though on a several occasions, after passing through the local projects, I have been trailed for a few blocks, young toughs sizing up me versus my drunkenness.

Can he fight?
(No.)
How fast is he?
(Not very, bum knee.)
Is his iPod worth it?
(Absolutely, all I care about is self-preservation, take it. Here, my wallet. Here, my pants.)

Little do they know my sole defense against the physical and emotional traumas of this world involves the ground and the fetal position.

I hope they don’t read blogs.

Every few paces I look around, I stare down passing cars, I am vigilant. I am alone. I am two blocks from home when a woman, white, in her 40’s, tears around the corner, mouth agape, spindly arms and legs awhirl, her black hair trailing behind her.

Terrific. A crack whore.

I prepare to play possum and pray for a quick robbery/mauling when she comes panting to a stop. I remove my earbuds.

“HELLO. I’M SORRY but you’ve GOT TO HELP me. There’s a PIGEON on my DOOR. He won’t LET ME IN. Can you MAKE HIM GO AWAY?”

My earbuds are out. Why is she yelling at me? I know I look mildly foreign when I am unshaven, but this is ridiculous.

“Sure thing.”

“I’M SORRY. I’M SCARED OF PIGEONS.”

She lives in a brownstone a block away. There is a gate in front of the front door. Perched at the bottom is the largest shit bird I have ever seen in my life. It looks like an owl with mange. I climb the stairs to the gate. The woman is in the street, on the other side of a parked H2.

I look down and hiss. (This works for my cats). The bird does not budge. I kick the gate and it adjusts its retched feet, but does not vacate. There is something wrong with this pigeon. Finally, I toe it off the gate and toward the stair ledge. I keep steady pressure on its back, forcing it to walk the plank. At last, it tumbles half way down the stairs. It must be injured. The woman squeals.

“BE CAREFUL!”

I look up. I can’t tell if she is worried for the beast or me. You can only have so much respect for these things, lady. Violence is the only thing they understand. Still, she cowers.

“ohmigod.”

She says this in a tiny, quavering voice that concerns me. I look down. The animal is now climbing back up the stairs toward me. This is not good.

I wouldn’t call the clenching sensation in my guts at that moment “fear,” but a giant winged rodent limping toward you… it’s disconcerting. It’s like a zombie baby; harmless, really, but if it gets close enough bad things are going to happen. Additionally, this thing is clearly sick, and I’m not just talking about Hep-C. It’s either deranged or a masochist or, good lord, maybe its vampiric like those finches.

Suddenly I am very sorry for casting myself as the star of this farce. When that batty woman came up to me, I was filled with a sense of chivalrous duty. Finally! A manly task deserving of my attention!

When I had a girlfriend, I led a life full of blue-collar utility; pickup heavy thing, open tightly closed thing, reach thing on high, kill insect thing, make love thing. Now I am completely cerebral and useless. This was the first request a woman has made of me besides “Buy me a drink” or “Stop following me” in almost two years. And now this bird thing is one foot and peck away from infecting me with a host of unclassified viruses. Fantastic.

It shuffles its mortal coil to within an inch of my New Balance and with that, some ancient mechanism, quite underneath my conscious mind, begins to turn its gears furiously, and the confusion of the moment congeals into a single, beautiful act. A synapse fires, a tendon tenses, my hot blood radiates into the cool night. With a crisp snap from a rotten knee, my leg springs into the early morning air and the monster goes flying, end over worthless end. My inner child roars with delight. It is the culmination of almost three decades of repressed desire. Finally. I have kicked a pigeon.

The wretch completes its ungainly trajectory with a feathery thud and roll; its tiny, diseased organs rattle around in its horrible flesh. It is wonderful. The woman thanks me, emerging from behind the H2, but providing the justification to fulfill a lifelong dream is thanks enough. Is this how cops feel all the time? I think I’m in the wrong line of work.

The woman sprints inside, thanking me again and again as she fumbles with her key. She is traumatized. She feels violated. She needs a bath. She slams the door.

I am alone, calm. Righteous adrenaline has sobered me. In the pocket of my hoodie, tiny beats thump away. Summer leaves wave hello; the five visible stars wink at me knowingly. The universe approves.

Lying in bed, I relive the moment, watching the animal flailing through the air against its will. I should feel bad. No matter how accustomed you are to anything, even flight, no one likes being forced to do something when he is against the idea. All he wanted to do was chill on the stoop. Who is this woman to make demands of him? Or me? And who I am to acquiesce? Isn’t this thing deserving of some respect? Or a name? Frank?

But I do not feel bad, not a whit, other than the fact I only got to kick him once, and not hard enough. I sleep and dream of beautiful things.

The next morning I see Frank the owl-sized shit bird atop another flight of stairs. Clearly, he has not learned his lesson. I feel the itch to give him a good punting. But it is daylight, citizens are about, and without a middle-aged addict in distress I cannot don the mask of valiant knight-errant/punter. But I am consoled by the knowledge that soon enough darkness will descend on Hoyt Street and once again I will be alone with my New Balance, my metastasizing vigilantism, and Frank.

After all, he can run. But he cannot fly.

Absurd & Wondrous Tales from Costa Rica Coming Soon!

Plaything

Dream, Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica

Serena