TOKA

“I say big fella, be a sport and open that cabinet above the stove.” Gerald supposed that the request was reasonable, even innocuous. So, he rose to his feet without responding, and proceeded to fulfill the simple request.

Gerald thought to himself that most might be put off by this rather benign ask from a stranger. The request was not an issue, rather it was the origin that would give pause to most.

Gerald stepped to one side and watched as a forty-five centimeter African Grey Parrot flew from its perch across the room to land in the now accessible cabinet. The bird was the color of wood ash, and the big man watched as it rummaged about on the lowest shelf of the open cabinet. The bird walked slowly from one end of the cabinet to the next. It didn’t take long, and the African Grey bobbed its head up and down in an effort to see over some of the packages and containers on the lowest shelf where it was searching. Gerald waited patiently till the bird stopped and said, “can you take out that blue canister and place it on the counter please?”

Again, Gerald didn’t see why he shouldn’t comply with the polite request, and so he did. The bird hopped down to the counter and slowly circled the blue container that was nearly as big as the bird itself. Gerald continued to watch, without speaking, as the Grey went around the container, all the while bobbing its head up and down. On its second circumnavigation of the canister, it spoke again. “Would you be so kind as to open it,” the bird stopped as the big man slowly moved to open the blue container. “I would do it myself,” the bird stated, “but I don’t have opposable thumbs.”

Once he had opened it, the big man stepped back and was greeted with a definite aroma of cinnamon. After Gerald had stepped away, the Grey bird used its black beak to turn the canister on its side and out poured a small mound of dried crickets. The insects were lightly dusted with cinnamon, and apparently were delicious, at least as far as the bird was concerned.

The big man watched as the Grey bird commenced to crunch and munch its way through a small pile of apparent cinnamon crickety goodness. He considered what was happening in silence. Gerald mused that as a younger man he would have been talking up a storm right now. Back then he had been prone to fill any silence with talking. He used to chat about anything and everything. It didn’t have to be pertinent to whatever situation in which he might find himself. It hadn’t been that he actively disliked silence; he just liked to talk.

Gerald found his musing interrupted by the Grey bird. “You can understand me, can’t you?” A slight smile crossed his coarse features, and he simply nodded slowly in the affirmative. The bird considered the big man. It bobbed slightly up and down as it did so, and cocked its head to one side as if to view the large man from a different angle.

“But how can this be?” wondered the Grey.

Gerald spoke to the animal for the first time. “Well, your kind are noted for their skill at mimicry.” He continued with, “perhaps it’s as simple as that.” At this, the Grey straightened its head and took the slightest step back from its diminished pile of crickets.

“My kind,” it said. “That’s a tad rude don’t you think.”

The smile left his face, and one of his thick eyebrows raised slightly as Gerald considered this. “I beg your pardon,” he said to the Grey. The bird responded with, “you can beg all you like, but I’m not certain I will grant you my pardon.”

Gerald thought a moment and almost absentmindedly reached down and took a single cinnamon dusted cricket and popped it in his mouth. As he chewed on the snack, he couldn’t help but notice that the large Grey bird positioned himself in front of and nearly over the pile of insects. The big man thought to himself that it sure looks like he wants to bite me.

Gerald spoke again, “I really do apologize.” The bird cocked its head to reexamine the large man. He assured the Grey, “I certainly did not mean to offend such a magnificent bird as yourself.”

Another slight smile crossed his face as the parrot slowly moved from the pile and spread his wings to their full span of nearly sixty centimeters. It settled back down and said, “maybe you are not so bad; for a human”

Later in the evening he was back in the office of the chief librarian. After the excitement from earlier in the day it was calming to be poring over old books and manuscripts with the attractive academic. She had commented that it was surprising to her that Toka had seemed to like Gerald. Her bird did not care for many people it would seem. He smiled a bit when she made that statement because he recalled the African Grey stating that his person was quite clever for a human, but not very imaginative when it came to giving names. Apparently his name Toka, meant simply Grey in the Hausa language.

As she was showing him several maps and nautical charts, she commented on her feathered friend. “I found him on the jungle floor you see.” She had gone on to say how her father had helped her formulate the appropriate diet, but that she herself had fed the young grey around the clock for nearly a week before she was sure that he would survive. “He’s been with me for nineteen years now.” She had a soft voice that he was finding to be quite entrancing. He speculated that she would have a lovely singing voice. “I’d be quite lost without him really.”

She voiced a sentiment that her Grey friend had already expressed.

Gerald thought back to Toka saying nearly the same thing earlier. The bird had expressed his concern that T. Russell, or Terri as Toka called her, seemed excited or upset when she had arrived to the flat he shared with her. Gerald shared a bit of the encounter that they had gone through involving the three men at her office. He just gave the basics. He remembered being near enough to see the sleek automatic that the tallest of the three men had pulled on T. Russell when he asked that she accompany them.

He had rushed the man and pinned his weapon arm to the tall man’s body so that it was pointed away from the Dr. and actually at one of his accomplices. Then Gerald had struck a powerful blow with his elbow, to the side of the man’s neck. This had caused the other man’s knees to buckle. The big man’s plan was to thrust his foe aside and deal with the other two, but the Dr. beat him to it.

She had thrown her keys at, and struck one of the other two men in the face. Then she had forcefully flung the unlocked door open and into the chest and face of the third man.

The big man told Toka, “honestly, I think the Doc caused more grief to those blokes than I.”

The Grey made a sort of chittering sound that Gerald could only assume was laughter.

The bird expressed concern and made Gerald promise to keep his person safe. Toka had hopped back to the shelf where his cricket cannister had rested, so that he could be at eye level with the large man. The Grey cocked his head to one side, and then the other. He said, “you’re on the larger side as humans go,” his head bobbed slowly up and down. “And you move like a predator.” Gerald nodded slowly in agreement. He did not enjoy violence per se, but he was very good at it.

“I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your person Toka,” Gerald told the Grey. “So I promise to keep her safe, if not entirely out of mischief.”