There is one bodega within a square mile radius of my apartment that has tonic water, and it is home to a mid-size parrot named Biddy.
I first encountered Biddy while waiting in line, waiting for a bunch of people to finish buying lotto tickets. There, sitting on the unattended cash register, was a yellow and gray parrot staring right at me. So I said hello.
The bird let loose a screech that sounded a lot like a dry squeegee scraping a windshield, only much louder, and I decided to break off eye contact with the bird. This did not help – - the bird shrieked again. I guess this was “hello”.
Yesterday I stopped in and said hello to the shop owner, and asked if the bird was around. “Oh yeah,” he said, “he’s over there in his cage. He’s mad at me.”
Sure enough, sitting in an open cage, was the parrot, staring back at me. The shop owner tried to get him to fly over, but Biddy wasn’t interested.
He told me that the bird seemed to have an understanding of just about everything that went on around him. “Just like a person, he wanted to play and I didn’t have time for him,” he said, “Now I have time and he won’t come over.”
Biddy, sounding like a car radio with the volume low, muttered a few things that I couldn’t really hear. The shop owner called to him a few times, and Biddy continued muttering.
Eventually, after much prompting, Biddy flew over and sat on the shop owner’s shoulder. Looking at me, after a long time, almost shyly, opened his beak and let loose another deafening shriek.
