PIGEONS IN THE
PARK
by Roy
Dorman
“I knew your parents,
grandparents, and
probably some of your great-grandparents,” said the old man as he threw popcorn
to the dozen or more pigeons that had gathered around him by the park bench.
A few of the birds stopped
eating popcorn and
turned their heads questioningly at him in that way birds will do.
Oscar Brinkman had been
feeding pigeons in this
park for many years. While he was employed as a bank teller, he’d done it
during his lunch break. Now that he was retired, he gave out popcorn any time
he chose to.
“I wanted to let you
know that there may be a
time soon when I won’t be giving out popcorn,” he said.
This time, more of the birds
stopped eating to
look up at him.
“My son and his wife
moved in with me recently.
My house had just gotten too much for me to maintain by myself. My son is a
great kid, but his wife is not a nice person. She’s nasty to me and I know he
feels badly about it.”
Almost all of the birds
were now listening.
“I think he’s
afraid of her, but I’m not,”
Oscar continued. “But that’s probably gonna cause me to have an ‘accident’ one
of these days. One of those fatal accidents. I can tell by the way she looks at
me sometimes. Like she’s sizing me up.”
All of the pigeons were
now facing Oscar. He’d
stopped throwing popcorn. People passing by gave the group a wide berth as if
they could sense something not quite right was going on here.
“We live at 304 South
Street. She’s usually
laying on a blanket in the backyard sunning herself about this time of day. If
ya wanted to, ya know, go and meet her.”
Heads were now cocked to
the side as though the
pigeons were listening to something only they could hear.
Then, as one, the flock
rose and flew away from
the park.
***
Oscar was still on the bench
when the pigeons
returned. He’d been throwing popcorn to a couple of squirrels, but they
skedaddled when the flock landed.
The birds were damp from
getting cleaned up in
the park’s fountain. Some of them still had traces of blood on their beaks and
breasts.
Oscar started throwing popcorn
to them again,
and the pigeons pecked away, strutting and cooing.
“I’m going to
be meeting with my financial
planner here tomorrow at noon,” Oscar told them. “I think he’s been stealing
from my retirement account. He says I’m making money, that there are always ups
and downs in the market, but I don’t know. Maybe since you’ve got a vested
interest in my popcorn money you could be here. Ya know, listen in to what he
has to say.”
Now the late afternoon sun
was warming Oscar’s
face, and he closed his eyes. He dozed.
The pigeons continued pecking
at the crumbs.
When no new popcorn had been thrown, a large male looked up at Oscar with a
questioning look. Ascertaining that Oscar was asleep, it hopped up onto his lap
and snatched the almost empty brown paper bag from his hand.
It threw it to the pavement
and there was a
raucous free-for-all for a few minutes until the bag was finally empty.
The birds took a few seconds
to look up at the
sleeping Oscar and then took off for who knows where.
But they’d be back
tomorrow at noon. They fully
intended to check out that financial planner fellow.
There were future generations
to consider. Children,
grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren.
