Bad Birb: The First Part

bobby was — am? — cry.

You’re not sure?

nono... Bobby am definitely cry. :) it bad

:(*

What’s bad? What are you talking about?

..🦜...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A parrot? Do you need me to come there Bobby? Or what?

“Bobby really need…” Bobby pondered aloud.

Bobby looked up from his phone to the resplendent quetzal perched on his knee. The bird was small, but somehow larger than that. It was certainly there. He couldn’t help but stare, watching how its green-blue tail spilled languid and long from its shoulders down the full length of his leg, a river of pigment running rapid from a full-spectrum source. It weighed what, a half-pound? Tiny bones. But more to it than that. He watched its fuzzy little head, too, around which was, refracted from its prism-like feathers, a seraphic halo of every color. It made Bobby’s eyes a little blurry.

The bird looked sidelong at Bobby. With malevolence? No, understanding. No, fondness. Fondness? It made Bobby shiver. He tasted salt. Something about that eye. Ordinary bird eye, he thought. No, more like black opal. No, something like an occult blackness. What’s all in there? thought Bobby.

Pretty neat, huh? the eye seemed to say. Come on in, take a look, plenty of room in here. Yeah? thought Bobby. He peered in. Actually, it was pretty compelling stuff, he had to admit. So vast and everything. You’ll never guess what’s there, the bird seemed to say from inside Bobby’s head. There? Nothing in there, silly bird. He leaned in. Oh yeah, you’re right, I think I can see something. Something pulled at his body. It’s kinda bright but also just so black? thought Bobby.

Are you sure? the bird seemed to say. Look closer. Bobby could feel something like hands at his shoulders, friendly hands, a friend’s hands, pulling him in. He liked this bird. Gave him so much to think about. Woah now, he felt his stomach suddenly drop a little. The harder he looked, the farther the thing kept getting. Hey, slow down. Why was his stomach dropping? Bobby realized he was actually moving. No, falling. Hey now! Plummeting. His feet wouldn’t catch, he didn’t have feet. The earth was falling away from Bobby, he was spinning. He felt something approaching at velocity, a point, an interminable vastness, massive gravity. Actual pain now, and his ears were howling. Bobby shuttered his eyes and whipped his face away from the bird.

 “We don’t look at the bird,” Bobby said. It chirped brightly. This was the third time he had had to remind himself. Bobby sighed, and paused to listen to the cool rush of water behind him. The heaviest half pound he had ever felt.

His phone vibrated and he opened his eyes to look at that, instead. It was Tina again. He let the screen blacken, gazing at the reflection of the South Platte’s flickering white water behind him, teeth bared for high season. He lay on his back on the riverbank, felt the wet clay dampening his shirt, small stones pushing at his hip bones, the thin pinch of not unsharp claws on his raised knee, heard the hush of pines. He breathed slow and heavy. The day was too bright. He had forgotten his sunglasses. But Bobby didn’t dare move. He could barely even look. His phone lit up again.

Bobby?

K Bobby I’m just gonna head your way, alright? Where are you?

Bobby got his fingers to respond.

got a birb here :) … over at the river spot

What?

But it a bad birb :( can just tell

Okay…I’m close by, be there soon.

just warning you

Bobby clicked his phone off.

“Beautiful day, huh!” someone called from behind him. A foursome of rafters was floating by. Bobby felt welling panic. What if someone saw the bird? he thought. What if it flew away? That would be bad. He reached over his shoulder and motioned a tepid 🤙, the universal sign for just chillin. All chill over here, guys, pay no mind, nothin’ doin. Bobby turned and managed a sidelong smile.

“Weird dog, dude! Ha,” one of them shouted. Too much activity. They sounded drunk. Four to five heavy IPAs drunk, Bobby reasoned correctly, from the looks of their general habitus: Ray Bans on croakies, faded tech-y tank Ts, bright new beer koozies, a general air of marijuana enthusiasm. Chads or Kevins, Bobby thought. Probably Chads. It seemed they were enjoying this Saturday to the degree that Bobby was not.

“You deaf, dude?” another one called. Bobby felt himself growing hot, felt sickly. The bird lifted one claw from his knee, and a tension rippled through its body. Oh, no, thought Bobby, say something.

“Leash laws are whack,” he suddenly shouted, having not even formed the thought. A pause on the river.

“Leash laws are whack!” one shrieked back. The raft was absolutely hit with laugher. Clinks from bottles cheersing plinked across the water.

Bobby relaxed and glanced at the bird. Its tail was shooting out straight from its body, which was now all puffed up, looking all like a sideways electric dandelion, particles charged in a field. Bobby tensed, suddenly his hair lifted and tickled. This fucking bird, he thought. The bird was tuned to the river like a magnet, aligned to true north, to the principal source of energy and heat on the river, to the bobbing raft of floating Chads. Up and down and over he bird’s chin went. Bobby closed his eyes, wincing. He heard nothing, now. But a surprising, true nothing. He opened his eyes to utter blackness. What. He couldn’t see. Not again. He touched his eyes, but couldn’t feel them. His heart began to pound. Lightning pulsed in arcs across his mind’s eye. Everything tasted like ozone, he was sick with disorientation. Bobby blinked and sensation returned all at once, the skittering sounds of insects in grass, the cool rush of water over clacking stones, the slick of wet clay on his bare feet, a tight pinch of two claws, and the brightest light. He hadn’t looked at the bird. What were the rules, again?

“Oh my god, Bobby!” Tina cried, climbing over a nearby dune. “You weren’t kidding. Got yourself a little bird friend!” She was making her way down to the water. “Some kinda bird is that, Bobby? Is that a, uh...a who what... you know, it’s a quetzal.”

Bobby looked around in a daze. Apart from Tina, he and the bird appeared to be alone on the river. Did the rafters just drift around the bend? His head ached thinking about it. 

“I, uh — Tina,” Bobby said.

“I think it’s a quetzal.”

“Who what now?” His head pounded.

“That, Bobby, is a quetzal. I’ve seen them in nature docs. This is straight Attenborough shit, swear to you. How in the world do...?”

Tina’s presence felt at once uncommonly abrasive and heaven-sent.

“I don’t know,” he rubbed his eyes wearily. “I was asleep and then it was there and… I dunno. I honestly don’t know. I think it’s bad.”

“This is incredible.”

Tina sat down cross-legged on the riverbank next to Bobby. He saw she was wearing her Tevas, cutoffs, some hole-specked Iron Maiden tee, over which hung a purple quartz necklace. Always with the crystals, he thought. He closed his eyes and rubbed them. He meant to tell her to not look at the bird but he was so tired and anway how was she not going to admire that technicolor dreamboat of death.

“Oh my goodness. You’re so darling,” Tina said.

“Tina just make sure to not—” he was opening his eyes. She was scratching its bright crimson chest with her pointer finger. “Tina!” he shrieked.

“What!” she shouted back. “Oh, yes, you’re a sweetie, aren’t you?” she cooed. “Scritch scratch scritch scratch,” she said, bouncing her head to every word. The bird seemed unperturbed. “It loves me, Bobby.” Bobby let his head fall back and just stared at the sky.

“So you obviously stole this?” she said, turning to him.

“No, I—”

“Don’t tell me how you did it. I am no bird accomplice. But, like, how? This is a rare bird, Bobby Jones. I read about these birds.”

“Don’t let it do the eye thing with you. Don’t look it in the eye.”

“What? You know, birds are our ancestors, Bobby? We have a moral duty here.”

“Tina—” he couldn’t. He put his arm over his face.

“Someone’s bound to be looking for this guy. Definitely illegal. We should get off the river. Can’t put Mama’s little fluffy boy in jail, can we?” she said, scritch scratching it. The bird let out a little cry that sounded just like a dog whining.

“Chad already floated by,” he said from underneath his arm. “I think the bird killed them maybe.”

“Them? They saw?”

“Chad, Jared, maybe Kevin. Hard to know.”

“Yeah…let’s get moving,” Tina said. “Think he’ll fly away if you get up?”

“Let’s see,” said Bobby. He reached down and held his forearm lengthwise next to the bird. It hopped on. “Nope.”

Bobby slowly sat up and managed himself to his feet, careful to keep his arm steady. When he stood, the bird outstretched and wafted its wings heavy, lifting itself in three flaps to alight on Bobby’s head. Ouch, those claws. “Goddamnit,” Bobby said. “Tina I’m fucking cursed.” The long tail tickled Bobby’s neck as it streamed down to rest, curling gently around his hip. Tina moved to take a picture with her phone.

“Oh my lord, Bobby, this is… oor maybe not. Phone’s dead. How?” she said. She poked at it.

They made their way through the adjacent grove of Ponderosa and shy ferns, crackling twigs as they stepped. Bobby noticed how the spindly limbs of new growth Aspens, fists full of greenery, almost seemed to part for him, before closing in his wake. At six foot one, seven foot four with Aztec plumage, he didn’t need to duck. They soon hit the clearing for the road, whereupon was Tina’s old green Jeep, glinting in sunlight.

“You drive here?” Tina asked. “Didn’t see your car.”

Bobby thought about it. It occurred to him that the 24 hours preceding his awakening on the beach was almost entirely missing from his brain.

“Bird drove, I guess. Just take yours.”