The presence of pigeons in your neighborhood is a sure sign it's gone to pot. Same thing with seagulls and crows-when you see them you know things will never be the same. They don't come overnight, they creep up on you one at a time and before you can do anything about it they're everywhere. The singing birds, the nesting birds, the ones that made the morning a joy to wake up to have all gone and in their place the scavengers pick at your garbage, they shit on your laundry and threaten you if you shoo them away.
I've dwelt in many cities...beautiful cities...the kind you pay dearly to visit, and it's always the same. They put up a great front with their museums and restaurants, their grand and stately temples of worship but they can't hide the pigeons. While sparrows are the mice of the bird world, pigeons are the rats. Their beady eyes are fixed on the city they've come to claim. They dress in gay attire. Some are spotted, some are striped...some iridescent, mauve purple and green-they do their best to make you think they're beautiful. They even step out of your way when you approach. They coo politely-sidle to the side and bide their time.
Before we claimed this world were there any pigeons? If we hadn't civilized and macadamized our countrysides would there be any? Are we responsible for these rats of the bird world who pick through the garbage we no longer have use for?
The first light of morning coated his pigeon stained bedroom window and Ernie Hightower, with the experience of eighty years, carefully tested each muscle and joint before pushing off from the bed. The left knee complained as he limped across the small room and looked out at his back yard. "Another day", he thought. It promised to be a lot like yesterday-maybe a little hotter, more humid. He remembered how eager he and Edie used to be, couldn't wait to get started-hearing the kids stirring upstairs, the dog stretching and yawning by the foot of their bed wondering which of them could be talked into taking him for his morning walk.
"Pretty nice little town then wasn't it Ernie?" Did someone say that, or did he think it? Well, it had been. He and Edie moved out here right after the war. About four hundred families-well, they weren't really families yet, they were just getting started and nobody had more than one kid. The place had been a potato farm before the war. Little by little the properties were assembled and rezoned for single family dwellings and the little houses went up like dandelions. They were pioneers, all of them within a year or two of the same age and a dollar or two in income one way or the other.
There must have been twenty pigeons out there this morning. That was one of the big differences...pigeons. Where were the bluebirds, robins and red wing blackbirds that used to grace his back yard. They're gone now, he thought. Edie's gone too, so have the kids...raising families of their own. All the people who used to be neighbors have moved away or passed away. A new crowd now, all of them young enough to be his children. He knew few of them by name and hardly recognized them in the street.
He remembered how they used to have to walk to the post office to get their mail, there was a hardware store a deli and a market that gave credit. When winter came the snow lay unplowed in the street. They all commuted to the city on the Long Island Railroad for twelve dollars a month, it took a big bite out of the budget. There wasn't much room for fooling around.
He had only read in the local paper yesterday that four thousand people lived in this town surrounded by shopping centers, outlet stores and supermarkets. Much of what had been farmland was paved over, bridged over and left him in the eye of a hurricane of commerce. He pulled up the window a bit and the pigeons took flight. He sniffed the air outside and closed it again. The good smell was gone too, he thought. It used to smell of grass and honeysuckle, now all you can smell is the diesel fumes of eighteen wheelers making early morning deliveries. A flight of seagulls went overhead on their way to the compactors and back doors of the fast food joints.
Ernie made his way to the bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror. There he was, an old man looking back at himself. He shut his eyes and washed up not wanting to look again. Funny, how he could think young, sometimes even feel young and yet look so old. Wouldn't it be great to have those young and yeasty days back again. He laughed to himself as he pattered out to the kitchen-"You started off this way yesterday", he reminded himself, "you wanted the old days back again, you're in no shape for yesterday. No strength left to mow the back lawn or shovel out the driveway. You'd have to be young again, and when you're my age you ain't got the strength to be young again."
Ernie's kitchen window faced the street, and he checked it out. He was used to seeing the usual cars parked in the usual places and he could tick them off-the green Buick, the blue Plymouth and that cute little girl's red Toyota were always where they were supposed to be. His old Chevy Impala sat in the garage, hardly ever used, normally left an empty space at the curb in front of his house. But this morning there was a difference-
At first he saw nothing when he looked across the street. There were no cars and the street seemed wider than it should be. There was a white line up the middle and parking meters at the curb. The little row of one-story houses across the way had disappeared. Even in the dim light of dawn Ernie realized something had changed. Elderly people don't like change, they rebel against change...even slow normal change.
Looking closer he saw a chain link fence across the street-that wasn't there last night. It was topped with a line of gray pigeons. The houses were gone, the cars that should have been there were gone too...it was like he was looking out the window of a strange house, not the one he'd lived in for 45 years. A quarter to seven-normally he'd have the coffee on by now, but torn between his usual routine and the changed state of things outside, he decided to get dressed and check it out.
It sure wasn't the old Arch Avenue he knew. The light was better now, the sun was a hazy orange ball in the east. "God it's gonna be a scorcher today," he thought. He could see that the chain link fence ran the entire length of the block and behind it was a brick wall about three stories in height. It looked like a factory or a warehouse of some kind. His side of the street was lined with small office buildings with darkened windows, a pigeon or two sitting on each sill. "Where the hell am I", he muttered nervously to himself. He turned to look at his old house and to his amazement it was no longer there!-it was a parking lot between "Northeast Waste Disposal Corp." and something called "CyberSystems Int'l." Nowhere to go, he stood in the empty street fully convinced he'd lost his mind.
He sat on the curb, and to his utter disgust and shame began to cry. He was a crusty old fighter-he waded into every encounter he'd ever faced, but this was way beyond him-something far more powerful, and the malevolent appearance of this strange street filled him with fear.
A vehicle appeared down the street. Ernie struggled to his feet and wiped his face as it approached. He had never seen such a car before, it was narrow in the front-glass topped, and wider in the rear. It made no noise as it cruised up to him and stopped. There was a man in uniform wearing those bug-like sunglasses that troopers wear.
"S'matter old-timer, lost your way?" the question was directed to Ernie while at the same time the man was talking to someone else on what looked like a throat microphone. He was the first person Ernie had seen since waking up this morning, a welcome relief from the endless pigeons, and maybe someone who could explain what the hell had happened to him. But his situation was so unexplainable that Ernie really couldn't answer the man. The driver heaved a sigh of resignation and opened his door. It was a queer sort of door-it slide up and over the side of the car...he still wore his microphone as he walked over to Ernie and "Holy Mother of Jesus" thought Ernie, "he's black and he's wearing riding britches. The law don't wear riding britches."
He flashed what looked like a kind of I.D. card and said, "Don't give me no shit old timer, I ain't here to put the clamps on ya or nothing like that, but you're trespassin see. I'm here to patrol Arch Avenue all the way down to the Post Road-if y'got some reason to be here all well and good...let me see watcha got for I.D."
A trespasser! On his own street! In front of his own house! "I'm Ernie Hightower, Goddam it-I live here, I've lived here all my life-my kids grew up here, my wife died here." His eyes moistened again at the thought of Edie. "What do I need with I.D.?...if anybody needs I.D. it's you in your fancy ridin britches."
The driver stood in front of Ernie and displayed a mouthful of chiclet teeth. "Jesus, you're really an oldster aintcha? I don't believe I ever seen one before. How'd ya get through?"
"I live here I tell you-what's this parking lot doing here? There was houses here last night...look, I'm a little mixed up. Let's start over...this is Arch Avenue right?"
The radio in the vehicle sprang to life loud enough for them both to hear it say, "Bring him in Cal, we'll deal with it." Then to Ernie, "Mr. Hightower, come with the officer please, we'll straighten out the problem down here."
"Waddya say, Mr. Hightower?-let's do what the man says. No sense gettin yer shorts in a knot."
Ernie thought a bit, there really wasn't much else he could do. Maybe somebody down there at this 'down here' place could straighten it out. He was too old, too confused and too scared to do anything else.
The two men walked to the car and Cal slid a panel up exposing the back seat. It was wide, wide enough to hold three or four people and when he eased himself in two vinyl belts snapped around him. One went around his waist, the other, higher up pinned his arms to his side. He felt like a prisoner. "Don't fret none, Ernie," Cal explained, "It's automatic, it's just to keep you from doin' something you'd be sorry for later."
'Down there' was a low gray concrete building Ernie had never seen before...he seemed to recall it was where the post office used to be, and on the short trip to 'down there' he recognized nothing. He was in a strange city, everyone was young...that was the strangest part of all-just young people and more Goddam pigeons than he'd ever seen before. Cal brought the car to a stop, got out and opened Ernie's door. He pushed a button on his belt and the straps that had kept Ernie immobile retracted into the seat behind him..."O.K. oldster, let's get this over with...they'll straighten the whole thing out inside."
The car must have been air-conditioned Ernie thought because a wave of oppressive heat smothered him as he climbed out. The two of them made their way through a sea of pigeons between the car and the front door.
"Goddam birds," Cal muttered as he kicked them aside, "there's more of them every day-too bad they're too small to eat."
"It's because there's no trees," Ernie told him, "you cut down all the trees, they got no place to go 'cept on the street...serves you right if you ask me." The front door opened by itself and they walked up to a desk...a fat man with three stripes on his sleeve. From what Ernie remembered the place was laid out like the old police precinct in Pottstown, except it was new-very new and had a hospital smell.
"Mornin' Cal...good morning Mr. Hightower. Take him to room 5 Cal, the mentor will be right in."
"Look sergeant whatever the hell your name is, I'm a taxpayer and a law abiding one at that...I don't need no room 5, I don't need no mentor either. What I need is somebody to tell me what's happened to this town...something's happened overnight...where's my house...what the hell's goin on?" He wanted to say more but he didn't know where to begin. They were smiling at him, treating him like an unruly child...he had to control himself...show them he was stronger than they were.
He straightened himself, took a deep breath and followed Cal down a blindingly white hall to room 5. They entered a windowless room-a desk two chairs-fluorescent lights flickered on. Ernie sat in one of the chairs and Cal stood by the door. Cal said- "You got a lotta spunk old timer...I give you that, but lemme give you a word of advice, O.K.? When the mentor comes in, don't start up, all right?, the mentor's here to help you...see. Problem is, we don't know how to handle your kind no more...did'ya ever fish Ernie?.
"Had no time for fishin'. Worked like a friggin dog all my life...raisin' a family, keepin' a house together. You ever do any of those things Cal?"
Cal was about to explain how when you're fishing for one thing and suddenly find something else on the end of your line you've got yourself a problem and only experts can solve them for you. All of Cal's problems were taken care of by higher authority-Cal was the fisherman...one of the best they had...you might call him a hooker. What to do with the fish was someone else's job.
Just as Ernie was about to start drumming on the table with his fingers, the door opened and a nun dressed in gray and blue walked in with a ledger. She smiled sweetly, sat primly, and fixed her clear gray eyes on Ernie.
"Earnest Hightower, is that right?". Ernie, completely confused by now could only nod-"My name is Sister Mary Mentor," she opened the book-"my...Mr. Hightower you're not listed. There's no excuse for this," she added impatiently. "That's three in twenty years-far too many, the system was supposed to work better than this."
"We owe you an apology, Mr. Hightower," she went on, "Your reward is long overdue." She fingered the crucifix at her throat. "I'm sure the reward will be all the sweeter. The longer one waits, the greater the reward-for all of us I might add."
"I'm not lookin for any reward Sister," What was all this about a reward anyway, all Ernie wanted was to get his house back and to have things the way they were before.
"You must accept it Mr. Hightower, all of us are rewarded at the age of sixty five. The problems of the world are for the young to deal with, not the elderly. You will be with your friends again, your wife...all of you together. It's the least we can do for you."
She went on to explain the 'Kevorkian Principle', as she called it. How the movement began late in the 20th century by this much maligned and unappreciated man. How incurable disease and the natural degeneration of the human body inexorably turned life into a living hell for those over sixty five. How little they contributed to the human equation and how their continued existence drained the energy of the living and the Gross National Product as well. "Their reward was Eternity Now", as she put it. Toward the end of her explanation she grew more animated and her eyes, now beady and black-like pigeon's eyes seemed to look past Ernie and focused on the wall behind him.
Ernie was not quite ready for eternity, if he had been, he was quite capable of accomplishing it on his own without the Sister's help. But, there was something about this woman that held him in check. He sat there spellbound and speechless, as he had been in the back seat of that fancy prowl car. He was unable to resist, he felt left out...in a new world he didn't understand...a world of the young. The estrangement was quite real to him, and he was sure of one thing-he would be better off not being part of it. How could he live in such a world? An old man to be stared at and grudgingly offered the crumbs of working people and offering nothing in return but sullen gratitude.
Sister Mary Mentor stood and smiled at him gently. She unclasped the crucifix and placed in in Ernie's hands. "Kiss it," she said "Remember us in eternity-wait for us and greet us with joy."
Ernie held the cross, this ancient symbol of sacrifice and pain. He breathed deeply and the room grew dark. The last image he took with him was that of Sister Mary Mentor closing her ledger and tucking it under her arm. There was nothing after that, nothing at all.
"How can there be nothing when I know I know there's nothing," he wondered. He could see the darkness beyond his eyelids and he wondered how darkness could be seen-when will eternity begin? Would there be light? How can you live in eternity without light?-There must surely be light!
Then he sensed a lightening beyond his closed eyes, his heart beat quicker...wait a minute, his heart? How could that be? He was supposed to be in the infinite, his 'reward'! where the hell was his reward?
He opened his eyes slowly, and there it was--his bedroom window! The sun rising and the white pigeon shit still clearly etched on the glass. And yes! Every muscle and joint in his body complained as he hurriedly pushed himself out of bed. "Screw you!" he answered. There they were, twenty or more, pecking away in his back yard-gray ones, some streaked with mauve and lavender, some iridescent green.
He bypassed the bathroom-no sense looking in the mirror...he knew what he'd see there. He hurried to the kitchen window, every joint complaining. There they were...the Green Buick and the Blue Plymouth parked just where they were supposed to be-and Glory be, he hit it rich this time, the little blond was just getting into her red Toyota. He was treated to a memorable flash of white thigh as she swung herself in.
"I think I can live with eternity," he smiled and put the coffee on.
(c) Harry Buschman 1997