Читать книгу Birdy - William Wharton, Уильям Уортон - Страница 10

That afternoon, I go visit with Birdy again. I’m beginning to think there’s not much use. The trouble is I’m not sure I really want Birdy to come back. It’s such a rat-shit world and the more I see, the worse it looks. Birdy probably knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t have to worry about anything, somebody’s always going to take care of him, feed him. He can live his whole life out pretending he’s a lousy canary. What’s so terrible about that?

Christ, I’m wishing I could get onto something loony myself. Maybe I’ll play gorilla like that guy across the hall; just shit in my hands every once in a while and throw it at somebody. They’d lock me up and I’d be taken care of the way I was in the hospital at Metz. I could do it. Maybe that means I’m crazy. I just know it’s not so bad letting somebody else make the decisions.

God, it’d be great to be a running guard again; feel the mud sticking in my cleats, smell the mold in the shoulder pads around my ears, hear my own breathing inside a helmet. Everything simple, just knock down anybody with the wrong color shirt.

Who the hell knows who’s really crazy? I think this Weiss is crazy along with his spitting T-4. They know Birdy’s crazy and probably think I am too. I should talk to that CO. He’s been around looneys long enough, probably knows more than most doctors. One thing I’ve learned; you want to know where an OP is, never ask an officer. He’s liable to send you to a Post Office.

I’m even beginning to wonder if the way Birdy and I were so close all those years wasn’t a bit suspicious. Nobody else I’ve ever known had such a close friend; it was as if we were married or something. We had a private club for two. From the time I was thirteen until I was seventeen I spent more time with Birdy than with everybody else put together. Sure, I chased girls and Birdy played with birds but he was actually the only person I was ever close to. People used to say we sounded alike, our voices I mean; we were always coming out with the same sentences at the same time too. I’m missing Birdy; I needed him back to talk to.

I sit there for over an hour between the doors not saying anything. I’m not particularly watching Birdy either. It’s like a long guard duty, I’m turned inside myself, only half there. I don’t know how I get to thinking about the dogcatching; maybe I’m remembering how it was all such a shock to us, especially hanging around the squad room talking to the cops. That was a quick injection of life-shit all right.

– Hey, Birdy!

He tenses up; he’s listening to me. What the hell. I don’t feel like talking to him about it. What good would it do. It’s not what I want to talk about anyway. Birdy hops up and turns around to look at me. He cocks his head both ways looking out of one eye, then the other, like a pigeon.

– Aw, come off it, Birdy; quit this bird shit!

It was the summer before our junior year when Birdy and I got the job as dogcatchers. Actually, we invented the job. There’d never been any dogcatchers in Upper Merion and so there were whole packs of dogs running around wild. This was especially true in the poor part of town, our neighborhood.

These packs would have ten or twenty dogs in them and they didn’t belong to anybody. People’d buy their kids a puppy for Christmas or a birthday and then when they found out how much they ate, they’d throw them out and the dogs would find each other. It was like a jungle. Mostly they were mangy-looking mongrels, with short legs and long tails or pointed faces and thick fur; all kinds of strange-looking animals.

They’d roam around in the early morning knocking over garbage cans and spreading crap around. Daytimes, they’d usually avoid people and mosey around independently or sleep. Sometimes they’d even go back to the people who owned them; but at night they were regular wolf packs.

Once in a while they’d gang up on a kid or some cat or the garbage men and there’d be a big fuss in the newspapers. This happened just as we were about ready to get out of school that summer. I got the idea of trying to pick them off with my twenty-two. By then, I’m already a real gun nut. I don’t know if I would’ve ever done it but I told Birdy. He said we should go to the police and tell them we’ll work over the summer as dogcatchers. He already has all those canaries and big feed bills.

Surprisingly, the police buy the idea; the commissioner signs procurement slips and in only two weeks it’s all set up. They rip the back off one of the old patrol wagons, build a big cage on it, rig a wooden platform on the back bumper where we can stand with handles to hold on to.

They assign a sergeant named Joe Sagessa to drive the wagon and we’re in business. Joe Sagessa had been on the desk and isn’t too happy with the job but he’s stuck. He has a pack of hunting dogs out in Secane so he’s the likely one for the detail.

The deal is we’d be paid a dollar an hour plus a dollar a dog. That was a lot of money in those days. My old man was only pulling about thirty-five bucks a week as a plumber.

While the truck is being fixed up they send us down to Philadelphia for training. We’re just on the straight dollar an hour but we don’t have to do a damned thing but watch.

The township bought us gigantic nets especially made for catching dogs. They have short handles, only a foot or so long but the net part is almost four feet in diameter. They weigh over thirty pounds. There are racks built on the side of the wagon to hang the nets when we ride on the back.

Down in Philadelphia the dogcatchers are all black. They’re genuine professionals and one of them has been catching dogs for seven years. These guys catch dogs the way the Globetrotters play basketball. They made a real joy out of it.

They have a regular dog wagon, designed for the job; they can clamber around the fender and get inside behind the driver whenever they want. Only one of them at a time would ride on the outside. He sings out whenever he sights a stray dog.

They give us lessons with the nets first. They’d worked out left-hand hook shots, right hooks and straight-on jump shots. This last, they say, is for when the dog jumps at your throat. They’re having fun kidding around with us.

It’s all worked out like big game hunting. They talk about different dogs they’d gotten and about the big ‘mothers’ they’d had to wrestle into the truck, and they show us all the places where they’ve been bitten. They get a straight dollar and a half an hour no matter how many dogs they catch.