Published satire, “The Pigeon,” by Lurene Helzer, San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 2000. This comedic episode is spoof of metropolitan life, most of which floats by unnoticed in its absurdity every day. It is also, on a deeper though not immediately noticeable level, a satiric comment on the dot-com revolution as it was occurring in the San Francisco Bay area in late 2000. The paper initially mistook it for a completely accurate series of events, which it was not. For example, there was no drunk on the corner, and there was no “I wonder who does her teeth” comment.
The published form can be seen in two versions, however. The original version, unedited, that ran in that Sunday’s SF Chronicle, is the one here. A second version, edited significantly, remains today on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website (sfgate) if you search for it by using my last name then, which was Helzer.
The Pigeon
I was about to cross Sacramento at Franklin when I felt the revulsion in my nerves of seeing a car rip across a pigeon on the street. Feathers were floating above the street in an eddy. The bird is struggling – frantically hopping on one leg – to reach the other side of Sacramento. The shining paint of death is racing toward him.
“Oh, No!” I exclaimed. “I can’t just let another car get him! I can’t leave him to die that way!”
By this time, because it was the start of the San Francisco Bay Area rush hour, others in my neighborhood were standing around on the corner. “Please, can you help me? I need to get this bird out of the street at least!”
There was a couple there. They had looks of concern on their faces because I was in such a state. The man, with very smooth, young skin that looked well cared for, seemed like the sort I could bother about the issue.
“Sure! I’ll give it a try,” he said. His girlfriend watched in suspense. The man reached a few feet overt where a plastic shopping bag was skipping with the wind. He quickly grabbed it. I had my hand clenched to my heart. He snuck toward the bird, quickly wrapped the feathered body in the bag, and jumped up to the curb. He placed the shocked, bleeding bird in the shadow of the fire hydrant.
“Oh, thank you so much. I just couldn’t stand to see the poor little bird hit twice, even though he’s sure to die,” I said to the man. The bird lay by the hydrant, a tiny stream of extremely bright red pigeon blood rolling down the hill toward the Hard Rock Café.
Another young woman had joined the gathering crowd on the street. She was holding a plastic storage box and had dark, shiny hair pulled away from her face with a silver barrette. She was my neighbor.
“Look!” she said, pointing to the middle of the crosswalk with her free hand. “That one’s just standing there and he won’t move!”
I don’t know how best to describe the look of this second bird. I guess the thing that comes to my mind is from the movie, “Them.” In that movie, made I guess about 1953, the atomic bomb has somehow created a mutant strain of giant ants.
The movie opens with the aftermath of a giant ant attack. A few cops are driving in the dry and dusty New Mexico desert – they don’t know about the ants yet – and they find this little girl wandering amongst the cacti, completely unresponsive and blanked out. They take her back to the station and sit her in a big bamboo wheelchair. The camera moves in to show her vacant eyes on stark black and white film.
(I have to admit it brought to me the image of the look my dog used to get in his eyes when I told him to sit, and he sat, staring hypnotically at the Milk Bone in my right hand, and in debilitating suspense, even quit breathing because that’s what he thought the word “sit” meant when there was a bone in the picture. One time I put the bone back in the box, just to see what would happen. His ears changed big time.)
You’re watching this movie and you’re thinking, “Wow! Look at her! She’s in a complete state of medical and psychological shock because a giant ant killed her dad.” The camera stays on the girl’s face and you start to feel a little traumatized yourself. I had to stop eating my meatless beef jerky for a minute. Man, that’s what you call shock.
That was the unthinkable disbelief and horror on that second bird’s face. He was standing in the middle of the crosswalk, his legs spread apart strangely, absolutely still, looking straight ahead toward the San Francisco Bay Bridge. He was unblinking, like a condemned prisoner just waiting for someone to do the vile deed. Never have I seen a pigeon so prepared to face death. Forgive me for being so frank, but I saw the face of Socrates.
Faster than anyone could think of the possibility, a car rushed toward the crosswalk on a green light to finish off this helpless one’s pitiful life. “NO!” I yelled. Too late. The car rushed over the bird.
We all had our heads down in a kind of grief and sadness for three seconds. We looked up and could not believe our eyes. The car’s tires had completely missed Socrates. He remained with legs apart there, beak proudly up, staring blankly. He was still waiting for his immortal number.
Two of us ran out to the street to stop any more cars from moving forward. Some homeless guy set his bottle by the mailbox and started directing traffic. The man with smooth skin retrieved the plastic bag from the first bird and began to chase the second bird, who was making some great evasive moves. It was rush hour. People in their cars, though, seemed to realize that we were trying to save a life. They’re San Franciscans. They’ll stop for that without honking.
I don’t think they knew it was a pigeon, though. Let’s cut the cards: If they knew, they would have hit Socrates, and the rest of us, too.
The olive-skinned man finally caught the second bird and let him down on the sidewalk. He and his girlfriend left. Now, the bird decided to take a walk, under the car of the dark-haired woman who was just minutes before intending to get in her car and go somewhere. She whipped out her cellular and called the SPCA.
“Oh, right! Like they’re really going to come for a pigeon!” I said.
“Why not?” she said with the phone to her ear. She heard something. “Oh, well I’ll leave a message.”
I ran into the apartment to get a broomstick to nudge the bird away from the car. Just as I thought I had him going in the right direction, he decided the top of the tire made a good perch. We saw a woman positioning her car just then in front of the occupied car.
“I’m terribly sorry,” I said to the woman, standing up with the broom in my hand. “We’re trying to get this bird off the tire.”
“No problem. I’ll wait,” she said. She was young and dot commish, with dark, cool sunglasses and long, straight brown hair.
I looked at the woman next to me, the owner of the red car with Socrates on the tire. “Wow, that lady is really nice. Most people would probably get sick of this and just go get another parking place.”
“Yeah,” said my neighbor. Her eyes squinted toward the woman in the waiting car. “I wonder who does her teeth.”
I finally got Socrates off the tire. The black haired woman took off, and her replacement parked there. She got out of the car and stopped to hear the story.
“This bird is in shock because he lost his leg, and the other was stuck on that lady’s tire,” I said. I was holding that broom still. The knees of my pants were dirty.
The woman patted me on the back lightly. “You’re nice,” she said, walking downhill.
I found an old tuna fish can box and put both birds in there. I set them outside near my alley. I poured water over them so they would be clean of blood. I left them there overnight. In the morning, Socrates was gone, and One-Leg was still sitting there. The next day, I bought a plastic tube of sunflower seeds and gave some to Legless. He wouldn’t eat at first, but started to peck a bit later. I brought him in the house and kept him there for a night. The next day I put him outside near the curb. I thought he would enjoy being outside.
He was looking better. He started showing signs of gratitude, responding when I spoke by focusing his eyes. The next day, I had him in the house again, and the next day put him by the curb again.
I couldn’t decide what to do with him, because when I had him indoors, the cat kept pacing by him. That pace was a little too deliberate for my taste.
I guess the best way to describe the cat’s pace is to recall the time I was at a nightclub in a seedy part of Hayward. The kind of place that is conveniently located next to a 24-hour Denny’s restaurant, and a cheap motel with hollow plywood doors.
There was this greasy looking guy that walked by me. He let his eyes travel up and down my body as he slowly walked past. I felt disgusted and preyed upon.
“Hi,” I said.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
“Hell no.”
Well, that is the way my cat was looking at this bird. All these years, I thought I had a nice, white-furred and pink-eared cat, but now I see that when there is a victim in the room, PolarKitty turns out to be another kind of cat altogether: PimpKitty.
So, I put the bird out by the curb again.
I came out the next morning with a cup of water. I was going to give him a bath and some fresh sunflower seed. But I saw that the box was not there. Instead, I saw a flattened out slab of cardboard near a tire on an SUV, with a lifeless wing sticking out.
“Damn!” I said, walking back toward the apartment. The meaningless sound of a distant car alarm seemed to follow up the steps. I did not feel bad, though. I did not feel bad at all. I mean, my neighborhood is usually kind of boring.
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