Heard a new sound. Shrill. Like a horror movie weathervane turned by an evil gust. They’ve been doing a lot of construction on all the streets around this apartment building. But it’s Sunday. I looked out the window and didn’t see the crew. The jackhammerists must be at church.
There it was again.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Walked down the hallway to see if someone was working on the other boulevard. Out that window I saw an old white Rolls Royce limousine attempting to parallel park. I could see the chauffeur inside, his white Mickey Mouse gloves on the wheel. He was pulling the wheel as hard as he could and the tires were not responding in kind. I thought, that’s a shame, no power steering.
It was taking him a long while to get that limousine in the spot. Kinda funny. Inch by inch. Up an inch. Back an inch. And pulling the wheel so hard.
I took my phone out and started to film through the screen of my window. It looked like shit. Then I lifted the screen and filmed the limo with the window open. The chauffeur got out, though he was only halfway in the space with the nose of the limousine sticking out into traffic and cars flashing by. He saw he had room and he hopped back in and moved the car back a bit and then up a bit and then back a bit and then up a bit and then back a bit and then up a bit and then back a bit and then he got out of the limo to look and see how close he was now and he saw me with the phone in my hand pointed at him, hanging out of the window and I said, “Sorry, don’t mean to be rude.”
He had on a lavender suit and a lavender hat. “Take all the pictures you want.”
“I was taking a video.”
“No problem.”
He opened the trunk and pulled out something rolled up in a carpet. Oh. Actually it was just a carpet. A red carpet. He rolled the red carpet out on the sidewalk.
I heard my wife laughing in the hallway.
“He caught you, huh.”
“Yeah. But I don’t think he cares.”
“Sure everybody likes somebody heckling them when they are having a hard time parallel parking.”
Out the window we saw the door of the Rolls Royce hanging open and inside was champagne on ice and all kinds of other lovely things. We watched for a moment to see who he was picking up.
No one came out of our building.
The driver was mumbling to himself.
The driver shut the door.
He mumbled some more and bumbled around the front of the car and into the driver seat and sped away down the boulevard as if to correct a grave mistake.
“He’s forgotten the red carpet.”
We looked at it for a moment.
Took out my phone and took a picture.
Posted the video and the photo on the internet and then took them down because I thought, Ah, I don’t want to get this guy in trouble for leaving his red carpet. Better to not be a tattletale shitty rat of a person and get somebody in trouble.
I mean to say this is just fiction.
This right here.
She wanted to go get some bagels.
We set off out of the apartment and a bride was walking down the hallways from the elevators. Her white dress and veil and all of it. Beautiful.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee.
That sound louder than ever.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee.
The bride stepped carefully across the white marble. An old woman who must have been her mother held her train as she made her way out of the foyer, into the vestibule, out of the building.
The limo had returned.
Must have gone around the block and decided it’d be better to just block traffic in the lane, rather than try to have the bride climb in while the car was parallel parked.
She got in. He closed the door. Loaded the red carpet in the trunk and then pulled away.
Rae said to me, “Guess he didn’t want to embarrasses himself in front of her.”
“He couldn’t back up and pull up a million times and then get out and look to see how much room if she was in the limo, it would be too much.”
“Plus he’d have you filming that too.”
We walked around the corner, past all the roadwork machinery.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee.
“What is that?”
She pointed across the street to the little park. It was that same sound you hear in playgrounds sometimes, a rusted merry-go-round, or swings in need of WD-40. But they didn’t have that kind of stuff in that park. Just some tables to play dominos, benches, the garden the elderly tended.
Inside the bagel shop, a woman stood in a beautiful gown. Three little boys with identical haircuts and midnight blue suits were orbiting her, pointing at muffins and bananas and orange juice in the case. “You don’t need anything in here.” “Get your hands out of your mouth.” “Put your mask back on.” “Why? Because grandma says so.” I could’t help but feel like they were all on their way to the wedding. Where else. I almost asked. Not that we would have walked over to the church and tried to join in, that’s not what I’m saying.
The clerk handed her a cup of coffee and she left with the boys. I saw them climb into a silver car parked in the middle of the crosswalk.
When we came out of the store she was still parked there.
Another person was walking towards us down the sidewalk with a massive bouquet of white flowers. I thought for sure they must be bringing them to the woman’s car but then the bouquet carrier turned down the alley next to the physical therapist and was gone.
I stared at the mouth of the alley as if they’d made a mistake about to be corrected.
But no.
A man walked up next to Rae and I thought he was going to get in the silver car with the grandma and the kids but instead he stomped a styrofoam clamshell on the sidewalk.
“Fucking take that.”
He ground his foot onto the styrofoam and I thought he was joking but then he threw his arms back and went RUUUUUUUGGGHHHH like Frankenstein’s monster. And I saw in his eyes just how serious his entire life and universe were.
“Should we cross the street?”
I followed Rae across the street.
The silver car pulled away. The man walked slowly that same direction.
We went back towards our building.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
We decided the shrieking was a bird, the most annoying bird we had ever heard in our lives, living in a bush or scrub in our little fenced in courtyard.
But at our apartment door she said, “No, it’s next door.”
She pointed at the door.
“It’s coming from in there.”
Shit. We stood looking at the door. The old neighbor had moved out and we’d seen the window open from the courtyard the other night when we were drinking beer out there. Thought it was pretty ballsy to leave a window open like that when you’ve moved out. Maybe had done it vindictively. Who knew how long the place would be empty and when the next tenant would show.
“A bird must have flown in.”
“What should we do?”
“What do you mean? It’s simple. We axe the door down and let the bird free.”
We went in our apartment and I toasted the bagel. She was standing next to me and waiting her turn to toast her bagel.
“I mean, it’s going to be really bad when the next people come and there’s all this bird shit everywhere.”
“And the poor dead little thing. No, we’re gonna tell the super.”
“We’re going to sound insane. Hello there’s a bird …”
“We’ll have to gather more evidence first.”
I put the bacon in the oven.
“I’ll go to the courtyard and see if the screen of that window is down, I can’t remember if it was. And if it’s not down then we’ll call him. Or if it is down and torn, same thing.”
When I looked up she was already gone.
She came back huffing and puffing.
“So I saw someone painting.”
“Okay, so maybe they have some kind of scraper or a roller and it’s making that sound?”
“They were using a nice little brush.”
“It could be the renovator, or a painter, and he’s got headphones on and doesn’t realize this crazy ass bird is in there with him.”
“More likely he brought it with him.”
“Yes, he takes his cockatoo to work. Sure.”
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
“It’s gotta be the new neighbor.”
“With a fucking pet bird.”
“The actual new neighbor themselves.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
“It’s not 1977, nobody owns a bird anymore.”
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
“No!”
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
“We’re going to have to listen to that thing for years. This isn’t good. I’m going to go knock on their door.”
“We’ll have to move.”
“Did they see you when they were painting?”
“I wasn’t spotted. But you can’t go over there. We’re going to look like psycho nosey neighbors.”
“We are, I guess. But it’s more psycho to own a bird.”
“Maybe that window isn’t for that apartment.”
“It has to be. Just relax, I’m going to go knock. Watch the bacon.”
“What are you going to say?”
“That I was just making sure their fire detector isn’t going off. Say through the wall it sounds fire detector-ish. Though extreme. We couldn’t be sure.”
“Great idea.”
And so I went over there and the neighbor opened the door and said they’d just moved in and said no it was a bird they owned and sorry and it was a little quieter when it sat on his shoulder but he couldn’t do that right now because he didn’t want the bird sticking its head in the paint can and I said I lived just next door and it had been a strange morning already but no the bird was not bothering me at all.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee
Screeeeeeeeeeeeee.
I couldn’t see the bird. Their cage was just around the corner. Just out of sight. He closed the door. Screeeeeeeeeeeeee. Screeeeeeeeeeeeee. Screeeeeeeeeeeeee, it said, Screeeeeeeeeeeeee. Screeeeeeeeeeeeee.
hi Bud, just found your page. I loved this piece. There's so much blank space built in that made me want to race through this.