Read A Convergence Of Birds for Free Online

though DM would’ve embraced the reason. Crickets were thrumming in the mudroom. Its broken ceiling, mouse entries, torn screen door made it “open to the elements,” both an interior and exterior space. Like a Joseph Cornell environment. The inside crickets duet with the garden crickets faintly contributed to by the staccato hoots of a saw-whets owl. In the trees the owl’s call was ventriloqual; I couldn’t say exactly where the owl was located. A summer earlier I’d taken a night-long course, “Vermont Owls.” I’d bought a new flashlight. One man had strips of glow-in-the-dark tape on each wrists. I couldn’t figure out his need for these distinguishing marks. When it comes to coffee, I thought, “percolated” isn’t a word much used these days. In the downstairs rooms, it occurred to me, on most every wall was a bird painting or print. In this respect, the house was like a historical aviary. The presence of these works was the result of the only form of acquisitiveness I was not ashamed of, except the beloved house itself. It was in 1973 that I purchased my first bird art, Bengal Crow, 1785, by Aert Schouman (1710-1792), at auction for $2,400. That sum comprised roughly one fifth of my income for the year. In 1979, I sold Bengal Crow, under sad duress, for $8,500 to the exact same person who’d auctioned it off in 1973. He had written to me, “I’ve thought from day one it was a mistake to ever let it go.” I needed the money; I also acquiesced to his regret. Eventually, I used part of the money to pay rent, travel to the arctic, put a down payment on Parrot, by Edward Lear, to a private owner in San Francisco. Once you put your name out there, notices of bird art come in fairly often. In a 1984 catalogue from a famous auction house, I saw Bengal Crow again. On auction day I phoned in a bid, but Bengal Crow had been sold minutes before—it went for $13,000. I wondered if ill fate had befallen the seller, and, if so, what sort. I wondered if in years to come he’d write another letter.
    One night, very late, reading The Cryptogram, a play by DM, in the guest room so as not to disturb my wife, I heard a car go past, “Duke of Earl” on its radio. The song drifting out. I wondered if the saw-whets owl heard it. The song brought back some memories, from even before it had been recorded. Like of my older brother’s girlfriend, her name was Paris, who, in 1959 often wore a T-shirt that read EXIST TO KISS YOU. She owned a pet parrot. My brother had fixed a hook to the ceiling of the car over the back seat of his 1948 Buick, so that Paris could hang up the parrot’s cage while they were cruising around Grand Rapids, Michigan, a hell-hole. The parrot’s name was Screwloose. The Buick, a black hippopotamus of a car, had the word Turboglide in beautiful, silver cursive letters flowing across the dashboard. Metal letters. The car had a gray plush interior, armrest ash trays, fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. I was having great, embarrassing difficulty learning to write cursive in elementary school. Paris suggested that I take a pen and paper, sit in the front seat, and, using the word Turboglide as a model, practice my handwriting. So I did that. (I would’ve done almost anything Paris suggested.) Whenever I saw the car in the driveway, I’d get my pad of paper, pen, and the two-page guide called, “The Cursive Example.” My teacher used that phrase for our weekly handwriting assignment: “Time for our cursive example, students.” One time I filled up a dozen or so pages, Turboglide, Turboglide, Turboglide, and so forth, right while my brother and Paris were making out in the back sear. Finally, I got an A minus on my next cursive example, improving up from a C minus. (In retrospect, I think this allowed me to think of the act of writing as having erotic possibilities.) In the rearview mirror that warm evening, I saw that my brother and Paris had their shirts off.
    On the wall next to the