The Complete Collection

We use our rope ladder with the hook to throw up and pull down the bottom section of the ladder on the back side of the tank. I go first; we both have gunny sacks to put birds in. We have flashlights, too, so we can see the birds and choose the ones we want.

We get to the top OK. There’s a fantastic view up there; we pick out the Tower Theater and lights going all the way into Philadelphia. We sit up there and promise ourselves we’ll come up again sometime just to watch the stars. That’s something we never get to do.

Scary as shit catching birds. We have to reach over the edge into the slits on the tank where the pigeons roost. I try it first with Birdy holding my legs, but I can’t make it. The top of the tank slants to the edge and you have to lean out so your shoulders’re clear over. I can’t get myself to do it. No matter how strong you think you are, there’re some things you can’t make yourself do.

Birdy doesn’t mind at all. He reaches under and hands them to me. If they’re junk, I hand them back; good ones I shove in the bag. We go all around the tank, stopping and checking whenever we hear pigeons. First time around, we get about ten reasonable birds that way.

Birdy says there’re more good ones in the next slit down. He shimmies out till he’s practically hanging from his waist over the edge. I put the bag of birds down and sit on his feet to keep him from flipping over. I’m ready to quit. It scares me just sitting on his feet that close to the edge. He’s leaning out so far now he can’t hand the birds back, so he takes another bag to put them in directly. I figure we’re liable to get all kinds of crap with Birdy choosing, but we can always let them go later.

That’s when there’s a clatter, and some pigeons flap in the dark behind me. I look around and see two birds getting out of the bag. Without thinking, I lean back to shut the bag. Birdy’s legs swing up in front of me and over the edge!

There’s a rush and pigeons fly out and up into the dark. I’m scared shitless; I wait, afraid to move. I have a feeling the whole tank is rocking. Nothing happens. I slide on my stomach toward the edge. Birdy’s clinging to the slits. He still has the gunny sack over his arm. He looks up and gives me one of his loose smiles. He holds out a hand.

‘Gimme a hand up, Al.’

I reach out but can’t make myself lean far enough out to grab him. I close my eyes but then I get dizzy and I’m about to fall off. He takes his hand back and shifts his grip. He tries to leg up over the edge of the tank but can’t make it. I’m beginning to shake.

‘I’ll go get somebody, Birdy!’

‘I can’t hold on that long. It’s all right, I can do it.’

He pulls his feet up to the next rung and tries to reach with one hand to the top edge of the tank. I try to reach for him but I’m absolutely paralyzed. I can’t make myself go near that edge. Birdy hangs there with his ass leaning out into the dark. I get down on my stomach and try to reach as far as I can. I get my hand to where he can reach it if he lets go with one of his hands. Birdy says, ‘When I say three, I’ll let go and grab your hand.’

Birdy counts, lets go and I catch him. Now we’re really shit up a crick. I can’t pull without slipping down off the tank. We’re just balanced there; every time he moves, I slip a little further toward the edge. That’s when I pee my pants. Jesus, I’m scared. Birdy looks back down.

‘I’ll try making it to the coal pile.’

I don’t know what he means; maybe I don’t want to know.

With his free hand, Birdy arranges the burlap bag in front of him, then lets go of me. He hovers for a second, turning himself around against the side of the tank, then leans forward into the air and shoves off. I can see him all the way down. He stays flat out and kicks his feet like somebody swimming. He keeps that burlap sack stretched across in front of him with his arms spread out.

The first time I flew, it was being alive. Nothing was pressing under me. I was living in the fullness of air; air all around me, no holding place to break the air spaces. It’s worth everything to be alone in the air, alive.

Birdy does get over to the coal pile and, just before he lands, closes up into a ball, twists and lands on his back. He doesn’t get up. I can barely see him, a white spot in the black coal. It’s a long way down.

I don’t expect him to be dead. This is stupid because it has to be over a hundred feet from the top of that tank. I even remember to bring the pigeons with me. I climb down the tank ladder, not thinking too much, just scared. I run around to the coal pile. The night watchman must’ve been asleep.

Birdy’s sitting up. He looks dead white against the coal; blood’s dripping out his nose and into the corners of his mouth. I sit down on the pile beside him. We sit there; I don’t know what to do; I can’t really believe it’s happened. The tank looks even higher from down here than it did from on top.

Birdy tries to talk a couple times but his wind’s knocked out of him. When he does talk his voice is rattly.

‘I did it. I flew. It was beautiful.’

It’s for sure he didn’t fall off that tank. If he’d fallen, he’d’ve been smashed.

‘Yeah, you flew all right; want me to go get somebody?’

‘No, I’m fine.’

Birdy tries to stand up. His face goes whiter; then he starts to vomit and there’s a lot of blood. He sits back on the coal pile and passes out.

I’m rat scared now! I run around to the night watchman’s shack! He won’t believe me! I have to drag him out to Birdy. He calls an ambulance. They come and take Birdy off to the hospital.

I stand there with the birds in the bag. Nobody pays much attention to me. Even the ambulance men don’t believe he fell off the tank; think I’m lying. I stop on my way home and put our birds in the loft. I hang around there for a while; I hate to go home. Something like that happens and all the things you think are important don’t seem like much.

Birdy shuffles over to the john in the corner to take a crap. No seat on the toilet or anything. No privacy. God, what a hell of a place for someone like Birdy.

I turn around. I’m looking up and down the corridor when the orderly or guard or whatever he is sees me. It must be some crummy job walking up and down a corridor checking on crazies.

‘How’s he doing?’

‘He’s taking a crap.’

This character looks in. Maybe he likes to see guys take a crap. Maybe he’s a part-time nut. I ask if he’s a civilian. You can’t tell anything when they all wear those white coats. He could even be a piss-ass officer or something. Never know in a hospital. He tells me he’s a CO. I think at first he’s trying to put on he’s the commanding officer. Turns out CO means conscientious objector. He’s been working in this hospital most of the war.

‘You want to knock off for lunch now? I have to feed him anyway.’

‘Whaddaya mean, “feed him”; can’t he feed himself?’

‘Nope. He won’t eat anything; wants to be fed. I have to spoon-feed him. No trouble or anything, not like some of them. I just shovel it in. He squats on the floor and I put it in.’

‘Holy Christ! He really is a loon! Won’t even eat?’

‘He’s nothing. Guy across the hall there won’t wear any clothes. Squats in the middle of his cell like your friend here; but if anybody tries to go in, he shits in his hand and throws it. Boy, he’s fun to feed. More like a zoo than a hospital on this ward.’

He looks in the cell. I look too. Birdy’s finished. He’s squatting on the floor, in about the same spot, like the pigeons after the el goes by. The orderly comes with a tray of food. He takes the key, opens the door and goes in. He tells me to stay out. He squats down beside Birdy and starts feeding him. I can’t believe it! Birdy actually flaps his arms like a baby bird being fed! The orderly looks around at me and shrugs his shoulders.

‘I forgot to tell you, Doctor Weiss wants to see you after lunch.’

‘Thanks.’

Weiss is the doctor-major. I look in once more at Birdy and go down the corridor. I know where the cafeteria is because I had breakfast there. It’s really a cafeteria, too, not a mess hall; doctors and nurses eat there; good food. I eat and think about Birdy being fed like a baby pigeon. What the hell could’ve happened?

When I go to see Weiss, I ask what’s the matter with Birdy, but he’s sly and manages not to answer. Suddenly, he gets to be the major talking to the sergeant.

He’s watching me with a shit-eating grin on his face as if I’m some kind of nut myself. He starts out asking about what they’re doing to me at Dix. I tell him about how the jaw is smashed and how they put in the metal part.

When they first told me, I thought I’d have a steel jaw like Tony Zale. Doctor there tells me, actually I’ll have to be very careful, a punch could undo the pins and shock me into the brain. So now I’ve got a glass jaw. That’s about right.

I’m telling Weiss all this stuff and then I see him. He’s smiling, hmming and ahhing just to keep me going. He doesn’t give a damn. I decide I don’t want to tell too much about Birdy.

He asks how long Birdy and I were close friends. I tell him we’ve been friends since we were thirteen. He asks this in a way so you know he really wants to know if we were queer together; if we jacked each other off, or gave each other blow jobs. I’ll say this, there’s a lot of that crap in the infantry. A four-hour stint in a foxhole with the wrong guy can get awfully funky.

Actually, I can’t remember Birdy being interested in sex at all. Take that whole scene with Doris Robinson. If he couldn’t make it with her he’s hopeless. Maybe all he had it for was birds. This quack’d sure flip if I told him that.

The doctor-major keeps trying to pump me about Birdy. I’m completely turned off. If he could just look sincere. He knows I’m holding back. He’s no dummy. I have to be careful. Under that white coat he’s solid brass. He’s liable to lower the boom on this buck-ass sergeant any minute. So far, he’s been talking like a doctor but I’m waiting for the old military manner to strike again. All doctors in the army ought to be privates.

Just as I’m thinking this, he comes out with it: ‘OK, Sergeant, you go back there this afternoon and see if you can make some contact. It’s probably the best chance we’ve got. I’ll make an appointment to see you again here, tomorrow morning at nine.’ He stands up to dismiss me. I fuck him with the salute and hold it till he returns it. Son-of-a-bitch.