Tuffy

What the hell was that? It feels like a wad of paper under my bare foot but as I tilt my rocker forward again and look down, the wad of paper has turned into a pile of fluffy green feathers. My God, it looks like Tuffy, our parakeet, only a lot flatter. I reach down and cup him in my hand and his little head droops to one side and one eye stares blankly back at me. Oh Tuffy, what have I done? I feel your little heart beating under my thumb and for a moment I think you might be all right but the faint throbbing has stopped now and I guess you are a goner. I know I should be feeling sad and guilty, old pal, but I’m not. I’m just mad as hell at you. It’s your own damned fault. If you hadn’t been such a sick little pervert, this never would have happened. Your disgusting foot fetish has finally caught up with you. How many years have I put up with you incessantly humping my big toe when you thought I wasn’t looking?  How many times have I been tickled to consciousness while trying to nap in front of the TV only to wake to find you puffing bravely away on one of my lower digits and leaving heaps of regurgitated bird seed as a form of payment? I know you were lonely and were desperately looking for something that approximated a mate, but for God’s sake, Tuffy, my big toe? C’mon! Anyway that’s all over now, pal, your time has come, you are no more, you have passed, you have kicked the bucket, you are deceased, you are no longer with us. All well and good for you, old buddy, you are at peace now but I’m the one who has to break the news to Andrea. She’s out in the kitchen visiting with her friend, Frances. I don’t dare tell her now. They’re both saps for animals and Frances is worse than she is. No, I’ll have to wait ‘till she’s alone. You never know how she is going to react. I don’t even like riding in the car with Andrea, she’s always making life threatening swerves to avoid hitting small animals and if I leave her on her own, every other trip will see her bringing home a stray of some kind.

All of our animals are foundlings or give-aways, even you are - I mean, were - Tuffy. I suppose your original owner will have to be informed, too.  I’ll leave that up to Andrea.  Maybe she’ll put it off for a while, like she did when that obese cat, Tommy, suddenly died of heart attack after just a week or two with us. We knew how much he meant to the sad girl who had to give him up and didn’t have the heart to tell her so, over the next several years, whenever she phoned to see how her pet was getting on; we simply pretended he was still alive. I was always on the lookout for a lookalike cat in case we got a surprise visit.  It was an act of kindness and we fooled the unsuspecting girl, Tuffy, but there’s no way I’m going to fool Andrea about you.  

She still bugs me about the time I let her African Grey Parrot escape. That was easier to handle than this will be because she was up in Montreal at the time and I was holding the fort down here in the Valley. I know I shouldn’t be comparing you to that parrot from hell--you were just a trifle weird and confused but he was a holy terror.  I don’t know how we put up with him. Everybody except Andrea had to wear hard hats around while he was granted freedom of the air on his daily exercise flights. It was that or risk being dive bombed, getting raked by his talons and the hell pecked out of our heads. It wasn’t even safe at the breakfast table.   Sometimes we would forget he was lurking out there somewhere until someone screamed, “in-coming!” and we would have to dive for cover.  Andrea cried like a baby when I called her and told her that Toby had absconded.  I swore that I’d tried everything I could to catch him but she insisted that I have another go at it even though we both knew he would only come to her. I went along with it when she insisted that I record her over the phone doing her famous birdcall. Then she ordered me to parade around the neighbourhood gawking up into trees, cage in hand with my ghetto blaster screeching, "Here, Toby, here, Toby! Come to Momma, Toby!”  It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t also insisted on me wearing one of her old blonde wigs during the search. Some of my neighbors are still looking funny at me. I finally captured that old parrot; actually he turned himself in when the weather got colder. I can still see the old bugger sitting on that icy window sill with a bent beak, his feathers ruffled and looking like an owl or some other large bird of prey had recently had his way with him. He was a beaten bird and when I went out to grab him, he surrendered without a fight.  As it turned out, maybe he should have extended his hiatus a little more because shortly afterwards he was fatally dispatched after rudely waking up our beagle, Dukie, with a peck on the dog’s nose.  “Let sleeping dogs lie.” 

No, Tuffy, old boy, you weren’t like him; there was nothing dangerous about you. Granted you were a bit of an embarrassment to the family and we always tried to make sure that nobody was going around barefooted when we had guests visiting. On the few occasions that you made advances on unsuspecting strangers, we always interceded, made excuses and covered up for you. “Don’t ask and don’t tell.” But now you’re dead, my sick little friend, and I have no beagle to blame. It’s all my fault.  I suppose I could stuff your little body in the toe of Andrea’s rubber boot and when she pulled it on she’d think she did the deed. No, it could be days before it rains again. Hey, you’re starting to stiffen up a bit. Maybe I could wire your little feet to the roost in your cage. It could be a day or two before anyone notices and I’ll be away in Halifax by the time the shit hits the fan. No, that wouldn’t work either;  you’re much too wide in profile and too narrow head-on to be convincing. 

Maybe I should nip off to town and give Andrea a call from there? No! That’s ridiculous. I’ve got to be a man and face the music. How bad can it be? Who am I kidding. I know how bad it can be. There’s going to be hell to pay, Tuffy. Anyway that’s the kitchen door closing. Frances must be leaving. Andrea will be alone now. I guess I better go in and ‘fess up.