[Author’s Note: A primary characteristic of post-modern literature is that it is chockablock with “references,” not only to itself, in that it breaks down the so-called “fourth wall” between the work and the audience, but to other “pre-existing” works through parody and/or allusion. In this way, the post-modern story, novel, or play pays homage to the classics of the past. The following story owes much to two masterpieces of the mid-twentieth century: the extraordinarily moving yet hysterical short story, “The Jewbird” by Bernard Malamud and “One Froggy Evening,” the award-winning animated short film by the immortal Chuck Jones. Another acknowledgment is to a radio program which flourished long before most of us were born, though audio excerpts are available via the Web--the brilliantly written comedy series, The Bickersons, portrayed with impeccable timing by Frances Langford and Don Ameche.]
Teach Your Parrot to Talk
Outside the large window above the kitchen sink, empty branches swayed in the merciless wind as almost imperceptible flecks of white floated through the air. Inside, it was no tropical paradise, although the heat had been cranked all the way up to 78.
“Turn that thing down!” John’s demand had come from way out in the attached garage, where he was still unpacking his golf clubs and garden tools. He wasn't referring to the thermostat this time but to the volume of the video from a combination TV/DVD player going full blast on the counter.
“Hel-lo, folks! Hel-lo, folks!” the audio chanted behind a picture of an exotic pet, a bird that had gone Hollywood in that it had been all groomed and glammed up to meet the unforgiving challenge of high def. The bird on the screen rocked its head back and forth and then, as if on cue, gave a piercing whistle and said, “Hello, folks!”
Blanche craned her neck and peered into the face of the real bird who was more-or-less perched in front of the portable tv. “Come on, baby. You can do it. Say ‘hell-o folks.’ “ The parrot moved its chicken feet across the counter, raised his hooked beak and gave the screen a quick, half-hearted peck. When the on-screen bird responded –“Hel-lo, folks!” the live-action bird sprang backwards in alarm, and flapped his wings, before returning to a neutral corner of the counter.
Although his first language lesson wasn't yet successful, Blanche could not believe her good luck in having acquired him, especially since John had never allowed her to have a pet. It had been sheer serendipity, in that the parrot literally came with the house; he'd been left here by the previous occupants. Oddly enough, Blanche felt more pleased by the parrot than the property itself, which they'd purchased dirt cheap, shortly after the real estate bubble had burst. The deal had gone down through a most unfortunate foreclosure upon the former owners, who'd been caught by the “adjustable percentage rate” bombshell. Blanche’s husband had been savvy enough to insist upon a fixed mortgage rate. John did not like surprises.
“Want a cracker? Want a cracker?” came Lesson 2 from the DVD, another item left behind by the family forced to make the quick exit.
The kitchen door swung open hard, and Blanche felt a chill from the blast of air from the unheated garage. She hoped that the parrot hadn't caught the draft. “Where’s my tool chest?” John wanted to know.
“I don't know, John. Didn't it get loaded on to the van?”
“It’s not here. Where is it?”
“Why don't you look upstairs, John? Maybe it got mixed up with the bedroom stuff. By the way, did the cable company call when I was at the store?”
“How the hell should I know?” he said.
“They said they'd hook us up today sometime between 9 and 5. Oh, I wish they'd get here! The Petrified Forest is on tonight. ”
“Yeah, well. Right now I'm looking for my tools.”
Cable service was one of the sore spots between them. It wasn't all that expensive, and John could well afford it, but he kept telling Blanche that he didn't watch television enough to justify the expense. Blanche, however, lived for cable television, even if it meant she had no one to stay up and watch it with her. Her favorite channels showed old movies that had been made decades before either one of them had been born. She would stay up at night and watch them by herself. Blanche enjoyed everything: love stories, gangster movies, even westerns. She wasn't crazy about John Wayne, but she loved Gary Cooper and Alan Ladd, even though he was a little on the short side. This was a weakness of which Blanche would still blush to admit– there was something irresistible about the strong, silent type.
“And where are my keys?” John searched through his pockets while simultaneously putting on his parka.
“Going somewhere?”
“What're ya, writing a book? I'm heading over to the old place to see if somebody forgot to pack them on the van.” The sentence sounded like an accusation. “Maybe that crate of dishes could be put away while I'm gone.”
Quoth the DVD: “Pret-TEE bird! Pret-TEE bird!” Blanche thought she heard something else as well: “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
With furrowed brow, she opened the kitchen door. The car wasn't in the garage; John had already left. Then she heard it again. She put her ear right next to the tv, but in addition to the DVD, someone else was talking. Blanche quickly hit the mute button on the remote.
“Jeez, Blanche, I don't know why you put up with that guy.” Like a sudden pain striking deep in her gut, absolute terror took hold. Someone was in the house! Blanche ran from room to room, opening and closing closet doors, looking behind the futon, and up the fireplace. Finding nothing, no invasive stranger, she was shaking and sweating when she returned to the kitchen. “I hope you don't mind my telling you this, but you're too good for him. Seriously.”
With her eyes growing nearly as wide as the dinnerware she still hadn't put in the cabinets, she turned around and looked at the parrot. She slowly raised her index finger and pointed at the bird. “You?”
The parrot bobbed his head. “Who else? Who else would be talking to you?” Then in a DeNiro impression that rivaled that of any Vegas opening act, added “There’s nobody else here.”
Blanche’s gaze froze upon the bird. She stepped back woozily, as if she were about to faint, and just by chance landed on one of the two, high-legged stools lined up by the kitchen counter. The creature could talk, no doubt about it. But unlike the popular conception of cartoon parrots, it didn't sound like a pirate. Nor did it whistle between phrases. The voice was both classy and raspy, a mix between Ronald Colman and George Burns. Of course, the remarkable, miraculous thing was that the bird was so articulate. A talking bird is a rara avis indeed, for, aside from chirping, most birds sound like Marcel Marceau.
“This is so wild! You sound so, so human! I can't believe it! You must've been a person in a previous life.”
“Reincarnation, you mean?” Except for the fact that he had no cigar nor twitching eyebrows, the parrot nonetheless transformed himself into full Groucho mode: “That’s ridiculous! Now they're recycling everything! ” Then back in his “normal” voice: “Nah. I've always been a proud member of the order of Psittaciformes. Besides, what parrot in his right mind would ever want to be a human being? Seriously.”
“But, but you're so smart and–“
“Uh, uh, uh! Careful, darling. You don't want to be guilty of species-ism.”
With her face-filling smile, Blanche looked as if she hadn't been guilty of anything in her entire life. “Forgive me, but I've just got to ask. How on earth did you ever learn how to talk?”
“Same way everybody learns. From my parents. They didn't tell me about the birds and bees, though. I learned all about that on the street corner.”
Suddenly Blanche slapped her forehead. “Gosh! Where are my manners? I never asked your name.”
“It’s Newton.”
“Newton? Like the cookie, as in fig –?“
“No, as in Robert, the man who played Long John Silver in Treasure Island. Hey, I'm surprised you didn't catch that, Blanche. I thought you were a movie fan! Actually my former keepers named me after the first modern physicist because they thought my. . .uh, digestive habits defied gravity.” Newton rolled his beady eyes and looked vaguely in the direction of the ceiling. “Nah. I'm just tugging your feathers.”
“Your owners, were they nice? How did they treat you?”
“Like a cockamamie artifact from the Pottery Barn. Pah! Those folks were no different from the exhibitionist walking down the street with an 8-foot python coiled around his neck. When the novelty wears off, they just throw it down the sewers with the rest of the discarded reptiles.”
“Oh, that’s not true, Newton. Those snakes are really big around, aren't they? They'd probably just clog up the toilet.”
“Well, who said I was an expert on plumbing?” Newton’s eyes briefly went ceiling-ward again. “Enough of this– time for a song! How about a little ditty from Good News? Back on your heels/up your toes. . .”
Blanche nearly fell on the floor! “Oh my God, you sing too?”
“On second thought –Newton’s “normal” speaking voice switched to a deep baritone.“We are poor little lambs/who have lost our way/Bah! Bah! Bah!”
“I know, I know! Don't tell me–The Nincompoop Song, right?”
“Actually, dear, it’s ‘The Whiffenpoof Song.’ A whiffenpoof is somebody who has to stay in New Haven rather than going the remaining hundred miles up to Harvard.”
“See? Not only can you talk, you're nice, even when you're correcting me. Imagine if John heard me make a goof like that. When he finally finished laughing his head off, he'd go on for half an hour telling me how stupid I am. But you-- you're not like that, Newton.”
“You're right. I don't judge. I may poop all over your ceiling, but I don't judge. But Blanche, honey, why don't you leave him? I mean, it’s not like you'll miss his scintillating personality.”
“Where would I go? How could I take care of myself? I don't have any skills. No self-esteem. None! I haven't had a job in twenty years!”
“No? What kind of work was it that you used to do?”
“Oh, I was a motivational speaker.” A mischievous grin spread across Blanche’s face. “Nah! I'm just yanking your –‘tugging your feathers’!”
With that, Newton broke into another number. This time he strutted back and forth on the counter, with a little fancy footwork, a little buck-and-wing.“Mention my name in Sheboygan/ But don't tell ‘em where I–“ As the door swung open, Newton suddenly clammed up tighter than a hostile witness in front of the RICO committee in Congress.
John, red-faced and fuming, marched around the kitchen. “They're gone! Somebody stole ‘em. When I find out who took my tools, I'll –and those crooks running the moving vans, I'll sue those bastards!” He stopped, turned around, and glared at Newton. “Why is this. . this animal still here? I don't have my tool box, but we have that!” John tried grabbing Newton by the neck. With a choking squawk the parrot shook its head from side to side and managed to break free. He flew into the living room and up the chimney, over the roof, and through the still-open garage door back into the kitchen. Blanche could hear John stomping around every room of the house in furious pursuit of a creature who'd never done him harm.
Blanche only had a split-second to make her urgent plea. “Newton, save yourself! Say something to him!”
“What am I supposed to say? ‘My oatmeal’s cold?’ ”
“Anything! I don't know, Newton. Please!”
Newton looked Blanche straight in the eye. There was something chilling about his gaze, showing an emotion that would be frightening even if it had emanated from a human. Right before John returned to the kitchen, Newton finally said something: “I don't want your god-damned cracker.”
In one hand John held the cage which the former owners had left behind; with the other hand he grabbed Newton, successfully this time. Carelessly he put him in the cage and carefully he locked it. Without even covering it with a warm blanket –even a dishtowel would have been better than nothing – he toted out the cage as if it were a bag of trash.
“Where are you taking him? A shelter? Why are you doing this, John?” She started to cry, and the tears surprised her at first, but soon she just let them flow. “Please, John, let me keep him. You don't understand, he —“ She followed Newton and John out the garage door, down the driveway, to the sidewalk, where she remained standing as the car zoomed away. “He talks, you lousy species-ist!” The snow had started falling for real by then, but Blanche stood there in the strong wind and in the silence.
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Oh Auntie. How funny. Newton finally said something: “I don't want your god-damned cracker.” 
Originally Posted by Hayseed Huck
