In Which The Girl Tells The Story Of How Dizzy Gillespie Tried To Give Her His Cockatoo

Standalone Part of a Larger Piece – 1,279 words

“Did I ever tell you that when I was five Dizzy Gillespie tried to give me his pet Cockatoo?” she said, shifting the crinkling plastic bags to her other hand while she rummaged in her purse for a metro card.

“Do you mean Charlie Parker?”

She laughed and retrieved the three orange cards from her bag as they both approached the turnstile. The first two beeped Insufficient Fare, but the last made a clicking noise. He stood close behind her, skinny as they were right now both passed through a single gap of the metal arms on one swipe of the card. Two dollars saved.

“Charlie Parker was the bird, I don’t know if he had one.”

They descended the cold concrete steps of the subway, their stop deserted except for the crooked man with plaid bags full of garbage. When they were out of his earshot (because she was always careful of everyone’s feelings, especially those who were invisible) she said

“That sickly sweet smell on him…”

He shook his head “I know, I know. It’s like he’s rotting from the inside out.”

“Death clings to his skin.”

He prodded her away from morbidity.

“Tell me about the bird.”

She put on her fairytale face,

“When I was little my father was just getting his Locksmith business going. Hustling any angle that he could just to get food on the table. Painting apartments at night, doing odd jobs…money was tight, but things were starting to go in the right direction.

One night he was working in a little old theatre downtown. It was a beautiful building, but had long since passed its heyday. The windows were covered over with yellowing newsprint from years ago. Some kids had gotten in and sprayed graffiti inside and now the locks needed changing. Backstage in the dust he found a pile of old black and white photos of different musicians, most long dead, that someone discarded. He put the photos on his toolbox and set to work.

When the last cylinder clicked into place he was exhausted. The building manager came over to inspect his work and write him a check.

‘You did a good job kid.’

‘Thanks. I found these backstage, mind if I keep them?’ Pop said, handing the balding Russian the photos. He flipped through them one by one, pausing on a few, and then handed them back.

‘Keep ‘em. I don’t need them, nobody wants them. Like this whole property. This used to be a heck of a place though. Big acts.’ The Russian said.

‘I can tell.’

The Russian signed the check with fingers like sausages.

‘Listen, if you’ve got time, there’s an old-timer who lives a block away. His needs a lock changed and you seem like you could use the work.’

Pop was exhausted; it was already past dinner. My mother and I were in the little apartment; with this delay I’d be asleep when he got home and my mother would be getting ready for her shift at the Pony Shoe Factory. He desperately wanted to go back to his truck. To mindlessly fish coins out of the old penny jar he’d found in an abandoned house, splurge on a cold soda, and start the long drive home.

‘Of course,’ he said ‘give me the address, call him, and tell him I’ll be right over.’

The Russian’s idea of a block was a little strange, since it was actually three, but a slight rain had begun to fall. The pavement sizzled and sent up steam in the evening light.

The apartment was easy to find, a first floor garden set-up with brass numbers on the door. The buzzer shook the wall. From inside he heard squawking, then cursing. An elderly black man answered the door.

‘You the lock man that Dimitri sent?’

‘Yes Sir. What seems to be the trouble?’ My Pop was looked into his eyes. The man looked familiar and the recognition troubled him.

‘Back door won’t lock worth a damn.’ The man stiffly shuffled aside and let my father enter his home. It wasn’t a fancy place, but spacious enough that it seemed like a palace compared to our tiny apartment. They walked through the living room, the walls covered in black and white photos. He thought back to the photos he’d found at the theatre.

Pop laughed.

‘Mr.Gillespie?’

The old man tuned around, ‘Yes son.’

‘It’s real honor to meet you.’

He laughed throatily, like a younger man, ‘Well, that’s yet to be determined.’

In the kitchen Pop looked at the lock, it would be an easy fix, good news at this hour. On a maple perch in the corner of the kitchen was the source of the squawking. A brilliant yellow and white Cockatoo, its ruff up at attention.

‘That’s one beautiful bird.’ My father said, laying out his tools to fix the offending latch.

Mr.Gillespie grumbled a little and opened the big avocado colored Frigidaire.

‘You seem a little young to own your own business.’ Dizzy said.

‘Just started it a few years ago, after my daughter was born.

They were silent as my father took the intricate lock apart, clicked the pins back in place, oiled the mechanism, and righted the jammed lock.

‘You have a key for this? I have to test it.’

Dizzy fished a ring of keys out of a sagging cardigan pocket.

The latch opened and closed easily. Pop packed up his tool kit and handed the old man a card,

‘You ever need anything else fixed of this nature, I’d be real glad if you decided to call me.’

Dizzy pulled cash out to pay my father, and after handing it to him paused a moment.

‘You know what son, why don’t you take the bird with you?’

Pop raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m sorry?’

The man’s dark eyes lit up “The Cockatoo is beautiful. Your little girl will love it.”

My father considered it for a moment but shook his head

‘Sorry sir, that’s very kind, but my wife would kill me. We live in a tiny apartment, and she’s got enough to worry about with the baby.’

Dizzy laughed his throaty laugh,

‘Smart man. My wife just fell in love with that bird in the shop. But they shit everywhere, and they live for a hundred years!’

Pop laughed too and Dizzy walked him to the door. They shook hands again.

As my father was walking down the steps, the old man called after him.

‘Young man! Remember something about wives and daughters,” the man’s wrinkled face curled into a cat’s grin ‘sometimes you just have to give them what they want. Otherwise you end up all by yourself, holding the bird.’

My father laughed again, and walked out into the dark towards his truck.”

                   The sound of the train rolling up broke her concentration, and she jumped back a little. Looking around furtively she touched his pocket,

“The whisky is sticking out. Your pockets aren’t deep enough. The bouncer will take it. Give it to me. I’ll put it in my bag.”

He seemed skeptical,

“Won’t he look in there and take it anyway?”

She shook her head. They stepped onto the train and grabbed a seat.

“Look.” She opened her black purse to reveal a hole in the lining. The bottle could sit in the bottom of the bag, between the leather and satin. Undetectable. Unless somebody realized how heavy the purse felt.

“It’s foolproof.” She said.

He handed the bottle over to her and sighed,

“Let’s hope the bouncer is a fool then.”