Read Making Nice for Free Online

concern of mine, and I wouldn’t let him outside until he learned to get off the ground more and could feed himself. I didn’t sleep well the first few nights because I was worried he might be lonely or worse, and on the fourth night I dragged my sleeping bag and pillow out there and curled up on the cool concrete next to his basket. He woke me at dawn by crash-landing into my face.
    And that’s how it stayed for a week or so. Things kind of plateaued. Gary wouldn’t feed himself, wouldn’t stay in the birdhouse or on the perches or in the tree. He just hopped around the concrete all day making his little metallic chips and chirps, waiting for one of us to feed him. I didn’t know what to do but give him time and space, let him build up some self-reliance. I was feeling cooped-up and spring-feverish anyway, having spent six months dealing with my mother’s diagnosis, five watching her die, two since she up and did. It felt—if not good—better to be outside, and the girls were wearing less and less the warmer it got. At one point I was buying coffee in 7-Eleven and sprung a halfie looking at the woman-next-to-me’s newly pink shoulder, the few freckles, the white of her bra strap. Her hair smelled like the concrete at a car wash. It took all of my restraint not to press my index finger against her shoulder burn and watch it go from white to pink.
    I started going for long jogs, dinner with friends, drinks after. Between my sister and father someone was usually around, and both were more than happy to check in on Gary, make sure he was all right. He always was, even when Jackie and I took him out to the backyard to shoot video of him flying over to me and landing on my falcon glove. The plan was to dub in audio of a Crested Eagle shriek, maybe an Andean Condor. We did three takes, all failures. The first one he flew into my chest and fell to the ground, the second into my hairdo, and the third time he went over my head and up onto a pine tree branch about twenty feet off the ground. He wouldn’t come down, and I had to get a ladder and crab net and scoop him. And that’s when I enacted the Tether Rule: Gary wasn’t allowed outside without a kite string tied to his leg. My sister started calling him Tampon.
    Later that week I ran into a drunken ex at The Wharf, and when the opportunity presented itself, I took her by the hand to the parking lot and my car, where we leaned against the hood and French and freestyle kissed for a few minutes before climbing in. We fooled around until someone’s headlights headlighted us up and she told me to stop what I was doing, which was fingering her C’mere style—like, You’re in big trouble now, Vagina. Get over here this instant! When I didn’t stop she said stop again, and I was like, “Really?” and she was like, “Yes really,” and I was like, “No,” and she was like, “Stop,” and I was like, “Please?” and she was like, “STOP!” and I was like, “ Fine .” Then I stopped. She took her heel out of the cup holder and a penny was stuck to it.
    After a quick discussion we decided to go to her place where I got her naked and fingered her Vending Machine style, like I’m trying to get change out of a vending machine — before attempting the Switcheroo, this move I do where I switch my fingers with my boner real fast and hope she doesn’t notice, but she noticed, and since I didn’t have a condom on, since I didn’t have a condom with me, she slapped me right on the dick and I watched it waggle like a windshield wiper. I went back to C’mere-ing her just long enough for her to start enjoying it, then Shoehorned her—a maneuver where instead of switching I go up and under and “shoehorn” it in—and it totally worked and we unprotecto-ed for ten to fifteen before I came in her light brown pubes and belly button and fell asleep for not very long because I woke up to a call from my father at six. Even in that blurry state, I knew before I answered.