Whatever Polly Wants

Whatever Polly Wants

Paula

Paula puzzled and wondered what to get her younger brother Paul for Christmas. It was 2020, the year of Covid – 19. Paul was home all the time, doing his work on-line as a programmer. He had no social life outside of his workplace, no real friends, and no wife and children. So he was feeling very lonely. He wouldn’t say that, of course, but as his sister she was good at reading what he felt, even if it was mainly through the tone of his voice on the phone, and the look on his face when she zoomed him.

Their city had a high infection rate, so they only saw each other masked-face to masked face a few times in the month. She knew he needed more than that. After a lot of thinking on the subject of his Christmas gift, she came up with what she believed was the ideal one.

Paul

           Paul hoped that his sister would call him today. He was not good at calling her, because he felt that it would show her that he was lonely, and she would worry about him. He did not want her to worry. And he could not come up with a non-lonely reason to explain to her why he was calling. So he did not call her.

           His phone rang. It was Paula. He was feeling down enough that if it were a call asking for a donation, or asking him whether he needed duct-cleaning, he might have tried to string them along just so he could talk to someone, anyone. 

           Paula sounded excited. She told him that she had finally come up with the perfect Christmas gift for him, one that would be a complete surprise. Paul wasn’t big on surprises. He was getting her a pair of woolen scarfs, not for the first time But her enthusiasm made him feel better than he had for a while, so he did not have to completely fake the somewhat smiley sound in his voice.

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day Paul went over to his sister’s place. He knew that she would have a tree up, he never did, and that her place would look Christmassy in a lot of ways. His place definitely did not, and had not ever. He had put the two scarfs in a Christmassy bag, with red paper stuffed on top of them. He had never liked wrapping presents, nor was he particularly good at it.

He knocked on her door, and soon handed her his gift for her. She had nothing to hand over to him right away, but she did say.

“Paul, I have your gift in the spare room. Let’s go see it now.”

When Paul opened the door, he got the surprise of his life – a present that talked. It was a large green parrot, with a yellow top of the head. It was perched in its cage. He or she gave him a big ‘HEL-LO-OH’ when he walked into the room. He wanted at first to look around to see what his ‘real gift’ might be, but soon realized, by the look on his sister’s face that the parrot, the cage, and the bag of bird food were for him. 

           He really had no idea what to do. So he gave the bird a somewhat sedate ‘hello’. His sister then began her spiel. 

“This bird is a yellow-headed Amazon. She doesn’t have a name yet, that’s up to you. She can talk, and is actually quite chatty. She is going to keep you company from now on. You won’t be alone anymore.”

Paul wanted to ask Paula, “And what am I going to do with that? Stare at it? I can’t take it for a walk, or play fetch with it like a dog.”  But he remained silent. His sister seemed so enthusiastic

           She walked over to the bird, opened the cage, put her arm out and said, “Step up”, and the big bird took a long step onto her outstretched arm.

           “I guess this is lesson one in parrot parenting” he thought, so he reached out with his arm, and said “Step up” to the bird. There must have been something in his tone of voice, in his hesitancy, that made the bird decide to stay right where it was.

Paula took a cracker out of a box on the table beside the open cage, and handed it to her brother. Paul held it like he was afraid that it would break. Then he very tentatively said, “Polly want a cracker” and held one out to her. The bird did not budge from his sister’s arm. This was not a good beginning. This could be a long dragged out relationship, Paul thought. He’d heard that these birds live as long as a human.

Paula put the bird back into the cage, then got her brother to take the cage into the room where they were going to eat. He lifted it like he thought it, or the bird was going to explode if he wasn’t careful. 

They had the usual turkey dinner. Paul thought that the bird was staring at him like he was eating one of its relatives. If he had known parrots better he would have known that the bird wanted him to share his feast.  

During dinner, Paula talked about the bird, and little else. She told Paul that it was a female. Paul thought, “That figures, I don’t have much luck with women.” Then she explained that she was a yellow-headed Amazon, whose species originally came from Belize, and that British pirates and other sailors had brought these birds back to their home country. The birds in Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island were both yellow-headed Amazons. Paul thought, “Maybe you have to be a pirate to be able to handle these birds.  Maybe these parrots are why pirates have a patch over one eye.”

Paul took the bird in the cage, along with the bag of bird food home with him. The bad beginning continued throughout the weeks that followed. As his sister had instructed him, he let the bird out of the cage in the morning. No problem there.  Getting her back in at night was more difficult. She would only occasionally respond appropriately to ‘Step up”, and when she did, she would often poop right away on his arm, or, worse, she would fly to his head and poop on that.  Other times, he would just put food that she liked best, apple slices, into the cage, and the bird would eventually fly in. When she did, he would quickly slam the door, with a loud “gotcha” and turn off the light in the room so it wouldn’t make any noise.

During the course of the day, neither “Polly want a cracker” nor “step up” would work. She would come to him when she wanted to, and that was not very often.

           With all these difficulties, Ralph had not come up with a name to call her, even though Paula had told him that parrots recognize their own names when they are called. And they sometimes give their owners names as well. Ralph did not want to know what the bird might think to call him. She did occasionally swear.

The Flight

It was late in the morning. There was a knock at the door. Paul could see from the van parked on the road that someone was making a delivery. He opened both doors up wide, to receive what he knew would be a new air filtering device. He forgot to think of the parrot. When the screen door opened, the bird flew out. Paul signed for the package, and then started looking for the bird, hoping that she might be up in the big maple tree in the front yard. She wasn’t.

           He walked outside, trying to find where she was, but she wasn’t anywhere in sight. As time passed, and the sun began to set slowly, the disappearance of the bird began to affect him more emotionally then it would have ever thought that it would. He called his sister, asking her what he could do to get her back. She told him to put her cage outside, and put food inside it. She had read somewhere that such a strategy could work sometimes with parrots that escaped outside.

           He did what she suggested, putting the cage on the ledge of the front porch where two lines met. Paul did not feel that this would be enough. He started shouting, first a series of ‘step up’ cries, then he held a handful of crackers up high and yelled with as much volume as he could muster, “Polly want a cracker. Polly want a cracker.” He was about to despair of ever seeing her again when he heard the flapping of large wings. He looked towards where the sound was coming from, and he saw her, flying around the maple and towards the porch. She landed on his arm and took a beak-full of crackers, crunching them loudly. She must have been very hungry.

Then she looked directly at him, and said the one word, “Polly”, and then made her way into her cage, upon which event, Paul quickly closed the door.

           She had a name now. And soon Paul and his bird Polly became flock-mates. He taught her his name, and called her with hers. She would land on his outstretched arm whenever he said to her “Step up.” “Polly want a cracker” would bring her to him, and him to her. Their shared vocabulary would grow, as would their relationship.