Blue Feathers

Blue Feathers
or
All Things Creepy, Crawly, Slimy, Furry, and Feathery!
Edmund Gee
March 2012

Bobby liked... no, he loved... no, he delighted in all things creepy, crawly, slimy, furry, and feathery.  He was delighted and curious toward all creatures like spiders, lizards, leeches, mice, and birds.  He collected frogs, fish, and jellyfish for pets. At six years old, he delighted in mosquitoes, calling them a school of fish. He learned to raise young birds, and how to care for them.  He learned to launch the birds into the blue sky when they were old enough to fly.  And while he cared for his birds, he collected the creepy, crawly, and slimy critters that he would bring home inside a marvelous, glass, Ball canning jar.

It was early spring, sometime in 1959, just following the last of the melted winter snow.  Bobby had spotted a pair of blue jays building a nest in the woods. The woods were located in a special part of Bobby’s creepy, crawly, and slimy world of discovery. 

One day, while visiting the feathery nest builders, he found that if he waded up to his knees and waited patiently in a slimy, black-water creek leeches would attach to the skin of his legs.  He came home, his blue eyes bright and wondrous, imparting his wisdom about a pair of blue jays that were building a nest.  Then he produced that marvelous, glass, Ball canning jar full of the shiny, slimy leeches.  Pulling a leech from the jar, he put it on his skin.  Breathlessly, we waited to see what would happen.  It was a time of great discovery.  The blob of slime squirmed, snuggling onto his arm.  It dug below his skin.  Bobby laughed.  What a wondrous joy he’d found.  Simple.  But I cringed.  My skin crawled.

Now...carefully, Bobby peeled the leech off his skin.  As he pulled at the leech, his skin pulled up with the leech.  I had heard of vampires, and this ugly thing was a vampire.  Leeches suck blood, and this one was sucking Bobby’s blood.  My shoulders quivered with cold creeps.

Days passed.  Bobby didn’t bring home anymore leeches, at least for a while.  One night we lay on our backs in bed talking of what young brothers do with bugs, about boats, with birds, about swimming, and other boyish things.  Bobby said, “You know, I’m gonna get us a night light.  We need one.  Don’t you think?”

Moonlight streamed through our bedroom windows.  Early warm spring air tossed the curtains about, blowing them like loose sails on a sailboat.  After a long and cold winter, I longed to fix up our blue sailboat.  Ahh, I could hardly wait for my adventure on the high seas.  I turned my head to Bobby, “A night light?  We’ve got the moon.”

“Did you like the snake I found today?”  Bobby asked.

“It felt cold.  Does it bite?  What about your night light?”

“Lightning bugs.  I’ll put a bunch of them inside my jar,” he said sounding like a mad scientist. I pictured him smiling in the dark room.

Bobby’s jar was a well-used jar.  Mom used it to keep fruit preserves fresh.  But Bobby, needing a place to secure his wonderful treasures needed a jar.  Bobby was a natural politician. I remember how he got the prized jar.  Mom was busy cleaning, what seemed to me, like a thousand of them.  “Can I have just one jar,” Bobby pleaded, embracing one as if it was the best thing he’d found in all his life.

“No.  I need every one of my jars, Bobby,” mom said.

Bobby was a darned good salesman.  He produced a frog, a slimy, dripping wet frog from his pocket and proudly showed mom.  “I need a jar so I can keep my frog,” placing the creature amongst the just cleaned glass Ball canning jars.

What was a mother to do? Mom thought a moment, “Bobby’s frog in a jar or a frog under the sofa?”

Startled, mom handed him one of the Ball canning jars, complete with the gold, two-piece, screw-on lid.  With great excitement, Bobby stuffed his pet frog into the glass jar and screwed on the top.  We all gathered around the jar, marveling at his frog.  The jar was an all occasion container; of mom’s canned fruit; of Bobby’s frogs, spiders, gooey things, furry gerbils, and a few feathered friends.  Inside the jar, the frog sat croaking.  Its black, bulging eyes studied us.  With curiosity, we tapped the jar delighting in Bobby’s slick, green frog.

As the days became warmer and longer, Bobby would come in dirty, his pants ripped, and wet up to his waist. But, Bobby’s face glowed, satisfaction etched on his face.  Dad would say, “Bobby’s been in the swamp juice again.”

His face was bright with investigation and discovery.  He exclaimed, “The blue jay mother is sitting on her nest.  She’ll lay eggs soon.”  His bright blue eyes were hidden behind a messy, straw-yellow set of bangs that Mom said was his hair.

Bobby freed the frog. We watched it slip back into The Pond.  It hopped away, making thankful croaking sounds. Then it splashed into the murky pond water.  That afternoon, Bobby found some interesting life forms at the beach. The beach was the rocky edges of Connecticut’s Long Island Sound. And that night we watched intently as several small jelly fish, flapping, opening and closing, pushing, propelling water like some unseen person opening and closing an umbrella, pulsed their way up and down inside that wonderful glass Ball canning jar.

I had to admit the jellyfish looked cool. Jellyfish bothered me when swimming in the ocean water. Sometimes I would swim into stinging jellyfish.  But here inside Bobby’s Bell canning jar, they looked awesome.  I was on the opposite side of the jar and saw Bobby’s staring eye, magnified, making it huge like the eye of some monster.  He peered at the wondrous sight of the slightly pinkish jellyfish, as if an invisible person opened and closed a fluid umbrella.

“Today, I saw the father blue jay bringing the mother food.  It looked like he was holding worms in his beak, or something.” Bobby yelped with amazing excitement and his eyes full of delight.

Or something, what? It could have been any kind of something; a squirming, creepy bug, or a smelly fish found stranded in a shallow tide pool.  It could have been easy pickings for a bird looking to feed its babies.  The father blue jay may have delivered a slimy worm, or anything creepy, crawly, or slimy.  Everyday Bobby would make the trip over to The Pond. The Pond was Bobby’s secret place.

I don’t remember the grownups ever calling the pond a certain name.  There, Bobby would climb the tree and get as close as he could.  He’d study.  He’d watch.  He’d observe.  Taking mental notes, he collected a brain-full of all things creepy, crawly, slimy, furry, and feathery.

He truly loved the wonderful things of nature, the creatures that thrived and the creatures that squirmed beneath the black pond waters. At the bottom of the pond, where the dark mud, a chocolate pudding color, protected the crawly, slimy, wet creatures at the bottom of The Pond.

On one of his trips to the woods and The Pond he returned with more bird wisdom. But in one hand was clutched a turtle.  This turtle, this special turtle was to become famous. Now the turtle was a slow and dull looking creature, whose outer shell was natural shades of browns, the color of The Pond’s goopy bottom mud.  It had bright black eyes.  Marvelously, his head and feet could hide from prying boy eyes.  Bobby brought the turtle home, head hidden, in that wonderful glass Ball canning jar.  At the bottom of the jar, Bobby had thoughtfully stuffed in some brackish pond slime to help make the turtle feel at home.

Bobby dumped the turtle out of the jar and slowly its feet and head emerged from the protection of its dull brown shell.  We marveled at the turtle’s slow crawl.  Bobby hated to have mom come and announce that it was time for a bath.  But this day was different.  Bobby had a real water pet to take with him.  “Look, mom, I’m giving my turtle a bath!”  Mom was horrified when she saw the poor turtle swimming for its very life in the hot, soapy bathtub water. 

After the bath, the turtle was never quite the same.  It stayed inside its shell a lot, its mind battered by the storms life that Bobby caused.  I liked gluing plastic model boats together.  In doing so, mom had bought a rainbow of bright paints to finish the boats.  Always paint the boat’s bottom hull red.  Always paint the decks tan.  Always paint the sides white.  I had other colors too. Blue waterline trims.  I used green for people’s clothing, silver for the anchors, and black for all parts iron.

“I gotta let the turtle go,” Bobby said. “But when I see turtles, I want to know if it is my turtle.  Can we paint him?”  he asked, snuggling the cold withdrawn creature up to his warm neck, loving it with all his six-year old boyish might.

“Sure,” I said rather dubiously.  “What color do you want to paint him,” I asked, handing Bobby a jar of bright anti-fouling red used for boats.

“All those colors,” he said, scanning my rainbow collection of colors.

That morning we painted the turtle with many colors.  Its naturally etched shell made patterns of octagons, squares, and pentagons.  It was just like coloring in a coloring book.  In my mind I could hear mom instructing, “Stay inside the lines, boys.” 

We completed the turtle’s paint job. Now, that dull brown turtle looked striking, beautifully exotic, and breathtaking.  Here was a turtle we had transformed into the most colorfully painted turtle in the whole world.  We’d created it ourselves.  Even the claws of the turtle’s feet were painted with different bright colors.  Gaudy.  Garish.  Extreme.  It’s no wonder that when God created the animals that He made man last.  Man would have wanted to help God color all the creatures with bright colors.

We walked to The Pond. Sadly, Bobby let the turtle slide back into its familiar brackish pond water.  Its feet and head extended, the quickest we’d ever seen it move.  Quickly it sped down into the deep weed-tangled bottom, that brown mud, to heal itself from the horrors and rigors of having been Bobby's special pet.

For months thereafter, there were reports by the local kids that they had sited the painted turtle, the famous turtle.

We ventured into the forest.  Bobby led me to the blue jay’s tree.  We climbed.  I think it was an oak tree, but I didn't know one tree from another and still don't.  The tree type didn’t matter to us.  A tree was a tree was a tree.  As we climbed the tree, the blue jays dived, screeching, warning us.  One of them grabbed my hair with it claws.  Stark chills ran down my spine.  “What am I doing up here?”  Quickly I climbed back down the tree, safe from the feathery dive-bombers.  But, Bobby just kept climbing, smiling, and reaching for the branch where the nest lay.  The birds dived at him, screaming in his face.  They tried pecking at his eyes.  One of them latched onto his shirt and fought with the lose cloth.  It was a hellish time for the birds and for me.  Yet Bobby enjoyed all things creepy, crawly, slimy, and feathery.

Trying to protect their babies, the blue jays fought valiantly.  Bobby was ecstatic.  He had watched them build their nest.  It was wondrous watching the father bring food to the mother blue jay.  He’d seen their eggs, and now he’d seen their fragile babies.  He showed me with his fingers how wide they opened their beaks when they saw him.  They wanted food and it didn’t matter from whom it came.  “I want a baby bird,” Bobby told me.  “I’m gonna get one and make it my pet.”

One day Bobby returned home with a furry white mouse, but it could have been a rat.  He didn’t care, but mom let out a startled shriek.  In the light of all things that Bobby brought home, mom should have understood about a mouse.  She didn’t want it creeping around the house, sniffing for food, darting suspiciously from dark corner to dark corner.  Nor did she fancy it climbing up her dress.  Bobby proudly showed us the mouse that he carried safely home in that wonderful glass Ball canning jar.  Its pink nose sniffed at the clear glass.  Wrapping around its body was a long thin, pinkish, wire-like tail. It followed the circular floor of the jar.  Glowing reddish-pink eyes looked out, wondering what we were.

Both of us had fun with that furry mouse.  We never named him; just called it, Mouse.  Bobby gave him rides in the back of a yellow Tonka dumpster truck.  The mouse seemed to like our attention.  I had made a small boat of mahogany plywood; its square sail made from the discarded piece of flowered green cloth my mother gave to me.  At The Pond, the mouse bravely sailed across to the opposite shore.  An adventurous mouse indeed, for Mouse made many voyages, never attempting to abandon ship, or cause mutiny.  He was a very brave sailor, acquiring his “sea-legs” early on.  Then we took him down to the seashore. With an off shore breeze flowing out toward Long Island, we launched our gallant ship.  That majestic ship, captained by Mouse sailed away.  We never saw the ship or Mouse again.  We stood on the beach watching having learned the law of unintentional consequences.  We watched the gallant little ship, with its brave sailor become smaller and smaller until it merged with the wind and waves so very far off shore.  Now and then the green sail waved a brave good bye. Both Bobby and I were saddened by this awful turn of events. Bobby looked at me with tears in his eyes, “I’ve lost Mouse. Do you think the wind will bring him back?”

The inside of the jar had taken on the odors of its past citizens.  Its odor was that of the wilds.  Bobby never washed his wonderful glass Ball canning jar.

The day finally came when Bobby brought a baby blue jay home.  His yellowy hair tousled, and his new blue and red striped shirt torn.  He’d been attacked by the blue jays.  Bobby was undaunted.  He had been victorious!  I wondered if the bird felt right at home because of the mixture of wild smells in that wonderful glass Ball canning jar.

He brought home the little bird, wobbling upon a fistful of fresh green grass. It had a misty, muted blue look with fragile strands of down, hinting of gray-blue.  It screeched.  It opened its mouth wide and squeaked.  From everyone, it demanded food.  Now! It squeaked for food to be delivered... at once.  It could not wait.  Its little wings vibrated behind its wide-open beak.  Anytime a hand or dark object was above its head it let out a loud screech, its bill wide open, and ready for food to be stuffed down into its pink throat.  It wasn’t scared.  It wasn’t frightened, just hungry.  The little ball of feathers was always, always hungry. 

For my thirteenth birthday, I got a BB gun.  Wow.  Now I could shoot cans floating in the Sound, pellet leaves high in the trees, zap tin cans from the garden fence post.  I practiced.  I practiced a lot with that Daisy BB gun.

Bobby parented a baby.  But perhaps it could be said that the baby bird had a mommy named Bobby.  Every minute of the day and night, Bobby hunted for food like the bird’s real parents.  Steadily the little bird grew.  Mom took on the role of mothering the little bird when Bobby went to school.  She helped Bobby with copious handfuls of bread.  Bobby fed ground up worms to his baby.  Finally, it had grown too large for the Ball canning jar.  The baby blue jay did not have a name.  We never did give it a name.  Soon the little bird grew to be the size of its natural parents.  Its squeak was no longer that of an infant baby bird, but the real screech of a wild adult.

My aim with the BB gun improved.  I could hit a can off the garden fence post at fifty feet now.  Deadeye Ed, my mom called me.

Although the bird thought it was a human, it longed for its natural realm, that of the trees, the blue sky, the tantalizing fresh breezes, and from where its own kind that screeched out their wild calls.  Bobby set the birdcage near the window in our room.  Compelled by its own natural instincts, it yearned to be free of its wire cage.  Bobby took pity on the bird and helped it learn to fly – inside our bedroom, of course. 

Little brothers can sometime be such a bother. Bobby and I had one of those pesky little brothers. Tommy was his name. At four years old he could get into and out of our room faster than a cat burglar.

Tommy, to this day remembers his crimes against his older brothers. He did what he did because he was the baby of the house.  He clearly remembers his most cunning crime ever.

Though not a crime he would watch the blue bird flutter from wall to wall as Bobby taught it to fly. Yes, Tommy watched and thought of the bird’s freedom.
One bright day Tommy entered our room. Bobby and I were investigating a spider downstairs. Tommy’s eyes became big, wide. He was alone. There were no big brothers to boss him away.

His young mind raced. “I want to see the bird fly.” He thought. And he knelt down, eye to eye with the blue bird. For a split moment it seemed that the bird was chirping, “Freedom! Freedom!”

Tommy talked softly to the bird. Then he asked, “Do you want to fly away? To freedom? High in the trees? To the other birds?” And in the recess of his mind there was a thought, an evil thought. His thought was the likelihood of being in trouble. But what kind of trouble would it come to? His brothers might yell at him. Mom might give him a spanking. How serious would his trouble be? He was about to find out.

And again the bird seemed to chirp, “Freedom!” as his wings fluttered, stirring up small loose feathers at the floor of his cage.

Tommy unlatched the bird cage door. In his fingers he held a piece of bread to lure the blue bird out of its cage. Then it hopped out, ignoring the gift of food, alighting upon Tommy’s head. It wings vibrated and sputtered and it became airborne. But in midair it realized the white wall was coming at it quickly. 

Tommy threw open one of the bedroom windows. The little bird, raised from a tiny baby, nursed by all, loved by all, was about to find out what it was really made to do – to fly high, fly fast, and to fly away.

The blue bird screeched past him in a blue blur.  And to this day, Tommy admits he did not know what ever possessed him to turn the bird loose. 
This bird was Bobby’s sacred pet.  He’d raised it from infancy.  He loved that bird.  The bird knew all of us, especially Bobby.  Bobby was its mother. 

Below in the back yard Bobby and I heard the window slam open. Each of us holding some kind of spider looked up. We stood, mouths agape, frozen, horrified.  Bobby’s bird flew… away.  Gone.  Fast.  Up.  Flapping.  Screeching.  The bird was free. We quickly ran upstairs and saw that our little pesky brother, Tommy had let the blue bird loose. We looked out the open window to see it circling our house.  Then it landed in our maple tree. I think it was a maple tree, but I still do not know my trees.

We scrambled pell-mell out of the house, Bobby crying pitifully.  “I’ve lost my bird.  My poor blue jay!  He doesn’t know how to live in the wild,” Bobby sobbed.  Tears ran down his cheeks.  “You did this,” pointing an accusing finger at Tommy.  Narrowing his eyes in frightful hate towards Tommy he demanded, “Get my bird.  Get my bird down from the tree.” He blubbered with the tone of a stricken mother, a fearful father.

I said, hoping to calm Bobby’s anger, “Here,” handing Bobby some stones. “We’ll drive it down when we hit him with these.” Then I tossed the first stone, but the blue bird fluttered to a higher branch.

“Go get your BB gun,” bobby tearfully demanded.  I did.  I was trembling all over, frightened.  I’d would be Bobby’s hero, a big brother and help retrieve his greatest achievement in life. But Bobby’s magnificent work was getting away from him.  He knew it.  Bobby was angry -- angry with Tommy.

Bobby’s face colored red with anger. “I’ll get you back, Tommy.”

“Get your BB gun and shoot his feet, but don’t kill him!” Bobby bellowed. Somehow, Bobby sounded like our dad, grown up, adult, taking charge, knowing what to do, betting all would be right in the end.

I took aim.  Carefully.  I squeezed the trigger.  Pap!  The BB hit the branch below the bird’s claws.  Bark flew, driving the frightened bird even higher, squawking, screeching, and scattering feathers.  “Hit him in the leg.  I can fix its broken leg,” said bobby.

I was nervous.  Bobby was crying. His heart ached.  This was his baby, and it was in harm’s way.  He had to try anything.  He would use everything at his disposal to save his baby.  Taking aim again, I squeezed the trigger.  The gun jerked with the sound of poofing air.  The BB hit.  The BB hit the bird.  Feathers flew.  The bird’s wings opened out, showing his beautiful blue feathers and a little bit of that young gray down.  His head fell to the side, and then his claws lost their grip on the branch.  Bobby’s beautiful bird, his greatest achievement in life, fell down through the leaves and branches, and plopped dead on the ground.

The neighbors, I don’t remember how many, but the neighbors came running to restrain Bobby. He had gone into the house, pulled open the kitchen drawer containing the knives. Brandishing a knife, he shouted up and down through the house, “I’m going to kill both of you!” He hollered, chasing us out into the street, “I’m going to kill both of you!”

For many years after, Bobby mistrusted us.  Tommy had let his bird out through the window, and then I had shot it dead. Like Mouse who sailed away, now his beautiful bird, raised from a tiny baby, shot dead.  The bird never had the chance to do the things all free wild bird do which are to fly high, to fly fast, and to fly away.

For months, that wonderful glass Ball canning jar sat alone, not used.  I had shot, with the purpose to save, not kill, bobby’s bird.  Along with shooting the bird that day, I had shot Bobby’s heart, too.  His heart fell to the ground with his bird.  He loved that blue jay so much.  No one could know just how much he loved that baby blue jay.  Bobby, my own brother, hated me.  He hated Tommy for freeing the bird. For a long time he would not acknowledge us.  He would not talk to us, muted, silent.  I and Tommy had killed our own brother’s heart. 

Bobby and I slept in the same room.  Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would wake to hear Bobby crying, sobbing softly about the loss of his greatest achievement ever in his young life.  “My bird.  My bird.  I loved him so much.  I raised him.  I taught him to fly, and he loved me,” Bobby grieved.

But life goes on.  Bobby found other exotic pets, which found homes inside his wonderful glass Ball canning jar that mom had given to him.  There were green salamanders, colorful, coils of snakes, and more leeches, slick and slimy.  Tiny gray fish. Olive green frogs.  And the great variety of bugs he found like the red speckled ladybugs, bright green grasshoppers, furry, black spiders, nasty brown potato beetles, and those always fun to play with dark gray curly-up, roly-poly bugs.

One day he brought in fireflies that lit up like dancing fairies.  They flicked and flashed a greenish light inside his wonderful glass Ball canning jar.  He had made his nightlight.

And yes, he raised more birds.  But the blue jay was his first; his first love; his first-born; his first attempt.  I know that long after I tried saving his bird, he always regarded me with dark suspicion.

For Bobby, life was all things creepy, crawly, slimy, furry, and feathery. He loved his job working as a naturalist for the U.S. Park Service.

In 2006, at the age of 52 years old, Bobby died of throat cancer. I wrote this story to commemorate the loss of my brother.

Sometimes I still wonder just how far out to sea Mouse sailed out into the choppy waters of the Long Island Sound. Sailing from Connecticut, could he have landed safely on the shores of Long Island? Or could the mouse, turned Captain Mouse, have gone down bravely with his ship?