The Pigeon

I am fascinated by dreams and have dreamt I could fly maybe five times. I’ve looked it up on the internet under “dream dictionaries” and flying in a dream signifies positive things are afoot in your life. The last time I had a flying dream was maybe seven years ago and all I remember was how powerful and effortless it felt, in the dream. Last week during my work lunch break in Tribeca I walked toward 7-11 craving their shitty mozzarella sticks. When I walked up I noticed this pigeon kind of flailing on the sidewalk near two green mailboxes. It was clearly injured and trying to walk or fly or move at least. As I walked closer it sort of limped off the sidewalk onto the street. I got about three feet away and could see that one of its wings was clearly hurt. The immediate problem was that it was still trying to move while in the street. The street was Broadway, which assured it would get run over. I knew immediately I wasn’t going anywhere until this was resolved somehow. I looked up and noticed a construction guy wearing an orange work vest and a helmet. He was carrying a stop sign used to direct traffic away from the site he was working at. He quickly scooped up the pigeon with his sign and placed it back on the sidewalk out of harm’s way. “It’s been there all day,” he said kind of sympathetically. It was still sort of flailing around trying to ignore its injury but it wasn’t moving as much now. An Asian man selling hats and sunglasses on the sidewalk walked over and threw some crumbs near it. Next to the bird was an empty overturned plastic container used to hold salad dressing when you get something to go. Clearly people had been trying to help but didn’t know what to do. I knew I couldn’t leave since this image of a helpless animal would never leave me if I just walked away. I called 311 and told the woman there was an injured bird on Broadway. She promptly told me that the animal shelter wouldn’t pick it up if it was a pigeon. When I told her it was she told me I could try to bring it up to the animal shelter but there was no guarantee they would take it. Now I was fucking torn. I knew my conscience wouldn’t let me just leave it there and I also knew this was not going to be a short endeavor. I bought some seeds and water and sprinkled it around the pigeon who was now perched under one of the mailboxes and was not moving much at all now. I placed the container of water right in front of it but it didn’t drink it and averted its beak. I placed the seeds there and it kind of pecked at them for a few seconds before stopping. I was kneeling on the sidewalk when an older Asian woman walked over with packets of crackers she had gotten at a bodega. “You want me to give him these?” she offered. I took a pack and crumbled them and placed them near his beak. It didn’t really react to the new food. Out of ideas I finally remembered a filmmaker I knew I knew who told me about a documentary he made about pigeons. I knew he was my best bet since I had already called a few other animal centers I found online only to be met by voicemails. I called my friend who told me to put it in a box and take it to this Bird Rescue Association on 87th street and Columbus. I went into a store and asked for a box. The sandwich guy had a shoebox in the back for some inexplicable reason and I asked for a plastic bag from the counter. With my hand covered by the bag I carefully placed the pigeon in the shoebox feeling eyes all over me from passersby. The pigeon didn’t fight me at all or even ruffle its feathers since it was void of any kind of energy. I walked to the train and took the 1 up to 86th street with this pigeon in a Keds shoebox. I kept opening it to see if it was still alive. I was terrified I would suffocate it. One time when I opened and looked it turned and seemed to make direct eye contact with me. Luckily the train wasn’t crowded since it was only like 3:30. I didn’t want to deal with people shoving me with an injured bird in a shoebox. I finally got to the place and wondered how long it would be before the pigeon would be able to fly again. I was already thinking about how wonderful it was that I saved this pigeon stuck in the middle of the street. I was really patting myself on the back as if I were Oskar Schindler or something. No one else had done anything like I did. When I walked in to the Bird Rescue Center there were about five large ducks in the middle of the room just walking around as if they owned the place. There were bowls of water around and every now and then the ducks took sips. I assumed the people there would be so happy and thankful that I had done this great thing and I envisioned everyone showering me with praise about what a great guy I was. That didn’t happen. No one there was mean but no one seemed ecstatic by what I was doing either. A woman handed me a clipboard and told me to fill it out with my name and other info. I was annoyed that I had to fill out paperwork just to bring in an injured pigeon. A bird was hurt so why did they need my email? Of course New York City was going to make this all harder than it needed to be. There was an Asian man behind the counter talking on the phone loudly. He seemed frazzled. I filled out the short form and put them both down since I wanted to keep tabs on my pigeon that I had taken the time to rescue so gallantly. I imagined future emails giving me updates on the bird as if I had sponsored a child in Africa. I thought about how lucky this pigeon was that I came along. I sat down and waited patiently with my shoebox pigeon. Finally the Asian man hung up the phone and walked over. He took my box, walked into an adjacent room and opened it up. He took the pigeon out quickly without hesitation and placed it on a table. He immediately made a sound I knew conveyed bad news. “Ahhhh….” “What?” I asked sort of knowing where this was headed. “This is really bad. Its wing is really badly broken.” “Can you fix it?” “The bone is sticking out. See?” he pointed to the compound fracture in the middle of the wing. I couldn’t believe how calm the pigeon was and had been the whole time. “Once that happens there’s nothing we can really do. Even if it lived it would never fly again. The only solution is euthanasia,” he told me. I immediately lost my euphoria I’d had. I looked down at the pigeon who must have been terrified and in a lot of pain. Its eyes were blinking and its head was moving back and forth sharply. “Do you think it’s in a lot of pain?” I asked. “Yeah. I would definitely say it is.” “When would you put it to sleep?” “Right away,” he answered matter of factly. “I’m sorry,” he added empathetically, reacting to my facial expression. “I just found him on the sidewalk,” I said already trying to distance myself emotionally from the bird. I hadn’t asked for any of this. What did I care about this bird? The last thing I needed was an emotional attachment to some pigeon of all things. I looked down at its helpless body on the table still being held by the vet with one hand. I felt like I had totally failed it. That was it? I wasn’t some hero. All I had done was take this pigeon to its death. I turned around and left quickly almost stepping on one of the ducks in the waiting room. On Columbus Avenue a flock of about twenty pigeons flew about ten feet above my head. As I watched them sail over the trees all I could think was how carefree and lucky they were. At any moment their fate could completely change and everything might be taken away. What must it be like for a bird to lose its ability to fly? How would they process that mentally? Could they even process it mentally? How much capacity does a pigeon have to process things mentally? I went home, lay down on my lumpy bed and felt drained. The pigeon had to be dead by now. I kept seeing its eyes looking into mine. I surely will never forget its eyes. The only relief I could conjure was that at least it wasn’t in pain anymore. I would never be able to see a bird flying in the sky the same way ever again. Watching something float through the sky effortlessly was something I would no longer take for granted. The littlest of things can forever change how we see things. This pigeon had made me take notice of something I had been oblivious to pretty much my whole life. I rolled over on left my side and fell asleep. Four days later I dreamt I could fly.