The Charlie Story

Nadja Bernitt

Charlie was thrown from his nest before he had all his feathers. He and his pigeon nest-mates bounced like gray rubber balls. At least that’s the way my neighbor Betty described it. She said the sorry sight was made worse when a delighted tomcat pounced on them, a scene she had stumbled on one spring day while buying hay for her horse from a farmer in Eagle, Idaho. The suburb is only about 10 miles out of Boise, where we lived at the time.

        Betty told me the farmer was trimming a tree when he found the nest and how he took sport in throwing the birds to his barn cat. Her four-year-old daughter was with her. “Kid, she threw such a fit that I had to save it,” Betty said, referring to the bird. “Poor dumb thing already had a slice out of his neck before I could get to him.”

        I asked if she had taken him to a vet, but she assured me she had not. She said she took him home, got out a needle and thread, and sewed up the gap.

        “Just sewed it?” I said, amazed at her nerve to tackle surgery.

        Hands on hips, she threw her head back and looked down her nose at me. “What’d you expect? Any self-respecting vet would laugh me out of his office if I’d taken a half-dead pigeon to him.”

        I’m sure she said this to educate me, a chicken-hearted Californian unaware that real vets cared for horses, cattle, and hunting dogs, and exotic birds such as scarlet macaws or African grays. 

        Regardless of her outward nonchalance, I suspected Betty was a closet bleeding heart. After all, she’d rescued the humble bird and named him Charlie. 

        As we stood chatting, her daughter carried out a cardboard box from their kitchen. Charlie was in it. I peered down at his pitiful bulging eyes and his pin-feathered neck, sutured with black thread. I didn’t see how anything so helpless could survive. 

        I asked what he ate, and Betty said she dug worms from the garden, smashed them with water and oatmeal and fed him with an eyedropper. She figured since he hadn’t died it must be okay. 

        My daughter was the same age as Betty’s, and the two girls played together almost every day. We watched Charlie’s progress with awe. He grew plump. His feathers filled in, and within several weeks he looked like a common, street variety charcoal-gray pigeon with an iridescent ring around its neck—except, of course, he didn’t fly. May passed, then June and still he hopped around their yard, up the stairs, and into Betty’s kitchen. He perched on her hand, walked up her arm, and occasionally took a ride in the car. To my surprise he came when called, a trick that entertained the immediate neighbors. We all talked to him as if he were a darling puppy.

        The first of July, Betty brought Charlie to my house in his box and asked if I would keep him for her for a couple of weeks as they were going camping, and she didn’t know what else to do with him.

        I’d never cared for a bird, other than my aunt’s canary, and that was when I was a pre-teen. Betty held him out to me and I let him walk onto my arm. Of course, I agreed to do it. He was a remarkable bird. She left me his food, his box, and a wire top for it with a brick to secure it. She said to put him in a safe spot at night, where no stray varmints would get him, to just let him do his “thing” in the daytime.  I suppose I appeared nervous, because she said, “He’s a pigeon, kid.  Don’t fret over him. A little bread, his grain, some water. He’ll either make it or he won’t.” 

        I did worry, though. How could a bird avoid danger unless he could fly away from it? 

        After two worrisome nights, I took it upon myself to teach him to fly. I did this on our deck. I set him on chair seat and placed his food on the floor in front of him. He eyed the food below, walked in circles and finally fluttered down to get it. Next I set him on the six-foot fence that ringed our patio, encouraging him with more of the same. Within two days he was not only flying down but up and from one side of the fence to the other. In four days he was flying to a shed in a neighboring yard, and then to visit our neighbors. 

        When Betty returned from vacation she was so proud of him she practically cooed like a mother pigeon. His new mobility allowed her more freedom, as well, but of course he wasn’t just her bird any more.  Charlie flew between several houses: Betty’s, mine, and two other neighbors who enticed him with bread crusts at their kitchen windows.  But mostly, he hung out at our house.

        The newly-independent Charlie never flew high. It was as though the sky had a lid. I blamed myself for that. I’d never thought to raise the flight standard, perhaps set him out on our second-story roof top.  He seemed satisfied to soar no more than 10 feet or so off the ground.  Charlie stayed in the neighborhood, though some days he disappeared for hours. Several times I found him in our Mustang when we’d left the windows down. 

        He was a darling, and by the end of the summer he’d gotten the urge to mate and nest. He’d fly or walk in our back door laden with twigs in his beak. His favorite nesting place was the top of the refrigerator. Inside, he’d ruffle his neck feathers and strut around our feet. Embarrassing as it was, Charlie developed a foot fetish and on occasions when my daughter’s teddy bear was left about, he’d perform lusty acts with it as well. We turned a blind eye.  

        “Oh, Charlie,” we’d say and shake our heads. 

        I worried about him with winter coming and the advent of closed houses. “What will happen to him?” I asked my husband, who shrugged the question off just as Betty had. 

        Small spaces attracted him, boxes, garbage cans, cars, and sheds. We lived near Boise State University and college students often parked in front of our house. He’d hop from one vehicle to another cooing and doing the neck-move. One sunny October afternoon I watched him. He looked normal, like any old pigeon, sunning himself on the top of a shiny new pickup with fancy wheels. 

        I pushed aside my fears. Surely he would survive winter, perhaps even find a mate. I set out his food in the usual place that evening before we went to a movie. The food was still there, untouched, when we returned. I figured he’d gone to roost at Betty’s, as he often did. But the next day, still no Charlie, not at her house or mine. I worried in earnest.

        Days passed, then a week. Then a month. He never came home. 

        My husband and I suspected that he’d hopped into that pickup.  Charlie wasn’t afraid of strangers, and he adored taking rides, so the owner might not have discovered him until he was well down the block. But what on earth happened when Charlie jumped on the person’s arm or walked across the dashboard? Screams? Thrashing? An accident?

        Betty’s suspicions were more uplifting. She suggested he’d flown to BSU’s Student Union building only three blocks away—a perfect spot to find delectable crumbs left from hamburgers and sandwiches at the outside tables. But who knew what really happened?   

        For months I’d call, “Charlie?” whenever I’d spot a flock of pigeons, but I never got a response. I finally quit calling his name. Betty pretended it was nothing to her, but it was a loss. A delightful, curious, wacky wild thing had come into our lives and accepted us. We felt special. I still feel that way when I recall those months, and I never glance at a pigeon without remembering Charlie.

Nadja Bernitt holds a master's degree in English from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where she also taught fiction writing. She has numerous awards for her short stories, memoirs and mysteries, including Final Grave, a finalist in St. Martin's Press Malice Domestic contest, soon to be published by iUniverse and available on Amazon.com. She lives on Siesta Key on Florida's west coast with her husband, Bob. Following her passion, she volunteers for the Sheriff's Office, devising new mysteries and, in between, writing memoirs.