Handsome freaks: Chapter 3 / Part 3 - Pigeons for Dinner
_"..he could actually taste her disappointment in her hand rolled Gnocchi. In those moments, he would have to grasp the cup twice because the material of his hand and bone would slip through the tin cup the first time he tried. He kept this a secret though and only told the birds at night."_
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Chapter 3 / Part 3
Pigeons for Dinner
Elmo noticed that Pio had not come down for any meals in several days; he could hear his stomach yearning through the ceiling. He thought tried to take his Pio food, but he was discovering, that on some days, he would wake and his insubstantiality of skin and bones would not even lift normal objects anymore–such as food. The loaf of bread was like smoke in his hands and he could not grasp even a fork. But as some solidity returned in the morning he immediately prepared and brought a pot of crushed boiled potatoes with butter, salt and leaks up to the roof.
Pio was shivering under his covers which were heavy with water. It had rained the night before and he was cold and wet.
Elmo, not knowing when or how he lost his solid grasp on things, took no chances and began immediately–while he was still a solid form–to build a shelter over Pio’s bed.
With no money for supplies and a vengeful satisfaction, he dismantled the wall that separated Zola’s room from the hallway; there was enough wood bellow the plaster to form the top of the overhang for Pio's bed. He used the rolls of cheese cloth from Zola’s workshop to cover the easement. Finally, he arranged large palm leaves.
Finally, knowing Pio’s loneliness, he built a large bird cage with the final scraps of wood and plaster meshing. He attached the cage as a headboard to the bed. When it was completed there were three cages total from post to post, each with an approximate capacity of twenty birds (by Elmo's figures).
He laid a thick blanket over the bed-side of the cage so that Pio could block the bird's view of him sleeping if he wished. Elmo spent the next week at the park capturing and stuffing select white pigeons into a bag on his shoulder; he then transported them to the cages until they were full to capacity.
He knew that whatever changes were to happen at their apartment, be it large or small–a bed covering or a few birds in a cage... it had to happen while Zola was gone. She always had the energy to stop one of Elmo’s schemes, but not enough to undo the scheme once it was already done.
She arrived home two weeks later, returning from her trip to the new moon festivals in Spain, to find her wall removed and transplanted onto the roof, and a flock of pigeons that had taken comfortable residence on the roof and in the apartment courtyards.
The birds became Pio’s life. They kept him safe from the hunger on the quiet nights when he was alone. There was no “one,” bird that was a friend, it was all of the birds. A collective of animal souls filled with one spirit. Even if an individual bird or two left for another roof top and new ones found a home on the perch of his bed, they were always one flock, one entity. In them, Pio could see the invisible wind, like his invisible one-time father Elmo.
The birds told him secrets about life and he told them his own secrets. Such as the secret he held even from Elmo–that his solidity would fail sometimes; especially when Zola was disappointed in him and begrudgingly made his meals. In those times, like bitter garlic that sat too long in the pantry, he could actually taste her disappointment in her hand rolled Gnocchi. In those moments, he would have to grasp the cup twice because the material of his hand and bone would slip through the tin cup the first time he tried. He kept this a secret though and only told the birds at night.
Pio's feeling of imprisonment on the roof found a kinship with the birds who were also imprisoned at night in their cage; though Pio’s bars were invisible but as real as his invisible weak and frail brother. He had not ventured into town for many months. Though he was only twelve years of age, he stood nearly seven feet tall and loomed over even the tallest men in the village. The children, who were at one time his friends, laughed and poked him in the belly with sticks, trying to produce the famous bubbles to play with. The townspeople stopped and stared in herds around him. The alchemist followed him openly, pulling hair from his arms for their potions.
Anger burned in his chest night and day like indigestion. An anger he found, not particularly pointed any one child, or alchemist, but more at the idea of his “lot in life,” as the priest called it. It was directed at his mother who had so carelessly convicted him like a harlot. He found it hard to be angry at her for very long because of the fact that at the same time he longed for her to touch him, to hold him–to tell him something, anything with a soft tone of acceptance. He longed for the love of his mother, who happened to be the last person in the apartment who was not encumbered by a transparent condition, yet was the most invisible one of them all.
If not for the birds and the divine dreams that seem to fly in on their wings at night, Pio would find life too unbearable.
Zola hated the birds, especially the waste they would drop in the courtyard. Pio would often find one of his bird friends on the dinner table, roasted to a perfect crisp brown, with Rosemary and thyme. He would eat the pigeon to the naked bone, but would secretly resent his Mother for putting such contradictory feelings in his stomach. He had long since given up arguing with Zola. Words were of no use with Zola.
He wished he did not need her, then he could hate her purely as he hated his lot in life.
The evening of Pio’s thirteenth birthday (the year of accountability), Zola asked him to assist her on a trip to Spain for the week of 'a thousand celebrations'. She would need to take three times the soap and supplies that she usually carried, and told Pio she needed his inhuman strength to transport the burdensome load.
To Be Continued...
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I'm Ezra Vancil a musician and Artist working in Texas.