Storm watches as I unlock the apartment door and enter, using Fran’s spare key. He fixes the left eye on me, then his head swivels and he inspects me with the right. Both are an unsettling lightning-bolt yellow encased in a white mask. His neck elongates and his gaze follows as I side-step to drop the key on the kitchen counter.
“Oh hello!” Storm says.
“Hi, Storm,” I say as I approach his white mesh mansion. “How are you?”
“James!” He says.
“Yes, that’s right!”
I open the cage door, reach my finger in near Storm’s talons, and he hops on; my arm is always ready for him to be heavier than he is. I pull his body from the cage and then lift my arm about six inches and let it drop. At the drop, Storm opens his wings and floats over to the back of Fran’s couch. I pull out my phone, hit play on Imagine Dragons, “Natural,” and set it on top of a copy of Outside magazine on Fran’s coffee table. Storm bobs his head, opens and closes his wings.
“Oh hello, James!” He says.
“Want something fresh, Storm? Fran said there’s fruit.”
I cut kiwi and blueberries and place them on Storm’s plastic plate. I set the plate inside his cage next to the near-empty pellet bowl, then grab his water bowl from its clamp to refill it.
“More pellets when I come back tonight,” I tell him.
His head dips, “Tonight.”
Then Storm stops dancing. He hops across the couch back and onto the arm. He’s nearly next to me. I put out my finger, and he steps on.
“What’s up, buddy?” I hold him at eye level.
Sharp eyes look straight at me—maybe through me—first one, then the other, then back again. He opens his beak and his black tongue wheels forward and back, up and down. Finally, he makes a noise. It emanates from deep in his chest but is manufactured and altered somewhere in his throat and mouth. It’s an unsheathing saber.
Shink!
“Cool, Storm!”
Then he yells at me. But Storm doesn’t yell. Storm emulates and vocalizes. This one is a human voice. Storm’s head pulls back and low, so the voice is deeper—a man. It’s a prolonged scream, full at first, then it heaves and finally fades to a breathy whimper. My body stiffens, and I return Storm to his cage: it’s not the first time I’ve heard this.
***
Fran had moved into the apartment beside mine with Storm about a year ago. We’d met in the parking lot one afternoon as she was unloading two sacks of groceries. They looked too heavy for her five-foot frame, so I offered to carry them up. When she learned I lived next door, she invited me to dinner.
Fran’s apartment was meticulously maintained, and she hosted me like housewife was part of her identity. Over shrimp scampi, Caesar salad, and pinot grigio, our conversation flowed. She was a transplant from Cali. She was newly single (I didn’t pry). She loved hiking and fresh air, camping in her Subaru and National Parks. She enjoyed whole grains and vegetables. She drank tea instead of coffee. She lifted; she pointed to a small set of free-weights in the corner, and her tiny arms, their skin loose with age, were steel wired. She was kind to accept my help with the groceries; she didn’t need it.
She had inherited Storm from a dying aunt five years ago. He’s a forty-two-year-old African grey. When she first received the bird, she lived in a house with her husband. One day, while he was at work, Fran put a tray of cookies in the oven and began some household chores. The phone rang. It was Fran’s younger brother; their mother was dying. While distracted by the flurry of phone calls that followed, Fran’s cookies burned in the oven, setting off the home’s fire alarm. Fran ran into the smoke-filled kitchen to remove the cookies, open the windows, then set the fans on high. As she did, she noticed Storm in his corner cage and fawned over him: “Can you breathe, Stormy baby?”
From that day, whenever Storm felt he wasn’t getting sufficient attention from Fran, he imitated that fire alarm. Storm raised his alarm, and Fran sprung to the kitchen. Once there, noticing there was no fire, she’d pull Storm from his cage while scolding him. For six months, Storm played Fran this way for attention. When his alarm sounded once in the middle of the night, it was Fran’s last straw. She hired a bird trainer to assess the situation. They instructed, “Your reaction is what Storm wants. Give Storm attention at other times of the day, regularly. When he does this, ignore him.” Fran listened to the trainer; Storm eventually outgrew the behavior.
***
I’ve watched Storm quite a few times now, whenever Fran goes camping on weekends. She doesn’t pay—and I wouldn’t take her money if offered. As a lanky, awkward twenty-two-year-old fresh out of college in Denver, what other plans do I have anyway? I enjoy their company.
I’d heard this first sound Storm made from the apartment before, but never realized it was Storm. Fran cooks a lot; it sounds like a kitchen knife pulled from a block. This scream, though. Storm has been making this noise for at least the past three months. Every time he does, from my own apartment, I hear Fran screech at him: “No, Storm!” or “Don’t do that again!” This is the first time I’ve been in the room when he screamed. It sounds so real, so human, my hands shake as I latch his cage. I stare at him. He stares back.
“I’ll never see her again!” Storm shouts at me in a man’s voice. “I promise.”
“You’re right. You won’t,” Storm replies in a voice that is unambiguously Fran’s.
The knife pulls from the block.
The man screams.
[Image Credit : Photo by Sebastian Svenson on Unsplash ]
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Latest posts by Meg Vlaun (see all)
- High Fidelity - May 28, 2024
A unique story. Well done!