However, when Cohen brought home a bird feeder full of dried corn, Schwartz said, “Impossible.”
Cohen was annoyed. “What’s the matter, crosseyes, is your life getting too good for you? Are you forgetting what it means to be migratory? I’ll bet a helluva lot of crows you happen to be acquainted with, Jews or otherwise, would give their eyeteeth to eat this corn.”
Schwartz did not answer. What can you say to a grubber yung?
“Not for my digestion,” he later explained to Edie. “Cramps. Herring is better even if it makes you thirsty. At least rainwater don’t cost anything.” He laughed sadly in breathy caws.
And herring, thanks to Edie, who knew where to shop, was what Schwartz got, with an occasional piece of potato pancake, and even a bit of soupmeat when Cohen wasn’t looking.
When school began in September, before Cohen would once again suggest giving the bird the boot, Edie prevailed on him to wait a little while until Maurie adjusted.
“To deprive him right now might hurt his schoolwork, and you know what trouble we had last year.”
“So okay, but sooner or later the bird goes. That I promise you.”
Schwartz, though nobody had asked him, took on full responsibility for Maurie’s performance in school. In return for favors granted, when he was let in for an hour or two at night, he spent most of his time overseeing the boy’s lessons. He sat on top of the dresser near Maurie’s desk as he laboriously wrote out his homework. Maurie was a restless type and Schwartz gently kept him to his studies. He also listened to him practice his screechy violin, taking a few minutes off now and then to rest his ears in the bathroom. And they afterwards played dominoes. The boy was an indifferent checker player and it was impossible to teach him chess. When he was sick, Schwartz read him comic books though he personally disliked them. But Maurie’s work improved in school and even his violin teacher admitted his playing was better. Edie gave Schwartz credit for these improvements though the bird pooh-poohed them.
Yet he was proud there was nothing lower than C minuses on Maurie’s report card, and on Edie’s insistence celebrated with a little schnapps.
“If he keeps up like this,” Cohen said, “I’ll get him in an Ivy League college for sure.”
“Oh I hope so,” sighed Edie.
But Schwartz shook his head. “He’s a good boy—you don’t have to worry. He won’t be a shicker or a wifebeater, God forbid, but a scholar he’ll never be, if you know what I mean, although maybe a good mechanic. It’s no disgrace in these times.”
“If I were you,” Cohen said, angered, “I’d keep my big snoot out of other people’s private business.”
“Harry, please,” said Edie.
“My goddamn patience is wearing out. That crosseyes butts into everything.”
Though he wasn’t exactly a welcome guest in the house, Schwartz gained a few ounces although he did not improve in appearance. He looked bedraggled as ever, his feathers unkempt, as though he had just flown out of a snowstorm. He spent, he admitted, little time taking care of himself. Too much to think about. “Also outside plumbing,” he told Edie. Still there was more glow to his eyes so that though Cohen went on calling him crosseyes he said it less emphatically.
Liking his situation, Schwartz tried tactfully to stay out of Cohen’s way, but one night when Edie was at the movies and Maurie was taking a hot shower, the frozen-foods salesman began a quarrel with the bird.
“For Christ sake, why don’t you wash yourself sometimes? Why must you always stink like a dead fish?”
“Mr. Cohen, if you’ll pardon me, if somebody eats garlic he will smell from garlic. I eat herring three times a day. Feed me flowers and will I smell like flowers.”
“Who’s obligated to feed you anything at all? You’re lucky to get herring.”
“Excuse me, I’m not complaining,” said the bird. “You’re complaining.”
“What’s more,” said Cohen, “even from out on the balcony I can hear you snoring away like a pig. It keeps me awake at night.”
“Snoring,” said Schwartz, “isn’t a crime, thanks God.”
“All in all you are a goddamn pest and free loader. Next thing you’ll want to sleep in bed next to my wife.”
“Mr. Cohen,” said Schwartz, “on this rest assured. A bird is a bird.”
“So you say, but how do I know you’re a bird and not some kind of a goddamn devil?”
“If I was a devil you would know already. And I don’t mean because your son’s good marks.”
“Shut up, you bastard bird,” shouted Cohen.
“Grubber yung,” cawed Schwartz, rising to the tips of his talons, his long wings outstretched.
Cohen was about to lunge for the bird’s scrawny neck but Maurie came out of the bathroom, and for the rest of the evening until Schwartz’s bedtime on the balcony, there was pretended peace.
But the quarrel had deeply disturbed Schwartz and he slept badly. His snoring woke him, and awake, he was fearful of what would become of him. Wanting to stay out of Cohen’s way, he kept to the birdhouse as much as possible. Cramped by it, he paced back and forth on the balcony ledge, or sat on the birdhouse roof, staring into space. In the evenings, while overseeing Maurie’s lessons, he often fell asleep. Awakening, he nervously hopped around exploring the four corners of the room. He spent much time in Maurie’s closet, and carefully examined his bureau drawers when they were left open. And once when he found a large paper bag on the floor, Schwartz poked his way into it to investigate what possibilities were. The boy was amused to see the bird in the paper bag.
“He wants to build a nest,” he said to his mother.
Edie, sensing Schwartz’s unhappiness, spoke to him quietly.
“Maybe if you did some of the things my husband wants you, you would get along better with him.”
“Give me a for instance,” Schwartz said.
“Like take a bath, for instance.”
“I’m too old for baths,” said the bird. “My feathers fall out without baths.”
“He says you have a bad smell.”
“Everybody smells. Some people smell because of their thoughts or because who they are. My bad smell comes from the food I eat. What does his come from?”
“I better not ask him or it might make him mad,” said Edie.
In late November Schwartz froze on the balcony in the fog and cold, and especially on rainy days he woke with stiff joints and could barely move his wings. Already he felt twinges of rheumatism. He would have liked to spend more time in the warm house, particularly when Maurie was in school and Cohen at work. But though Edie was good-hearted and might have sneaked him in in the morning, just to thaw out, he was afraid to ask her. In the meantime Cohen, who had been reading articles about the migration of birds, came out on the balcony one night after work when Edie was in the kitchen preparing pot roast, and peeking into the birdhouse, warned Schwartz to be on his way soon if he knew what was good for him. “Time to hit the flyways.”
“Mr. Cohen, why do you hate me so much?” asked the bird. “What did I do to you?”
“Because you’re an A-number-one troublemaker, that’s why. What’s more, whoever heard of a Jewbird? Now scat or it’s open war.”
But Schwartz stubbornly refused to depart so Cohen embarked on a campaign of harassing him, meanwhile hiding it from Edie and Maurie. Maurie hated violence and Cohen didn’t want to leave a bad impression. He thought maybe if he played dirty tricks on the bird he would fly off without being physically kicked put. The vacation was over, let him make his easy living off the fat of somebody else’s land. Cohen worried about the effect of the bird’s departure on Maurie’s schooling but decided to take the chance, first, because the boy now seemed to have the knack of studying —give the black bird-bastard credit—and second, because Schwartz was driving him bats by being there always, even in his dreams.