Baby Rat w/feathers
I went by my girlfriend Noe’s place in Boyle Heights. It used to be my place, but I decided to move downtown.
My girlfriend loves everything and everybody. When I went to her place she was like, “Browne I have something to show you.â€
So she takes me to the fire escape and shows me a baby rat. With feathers. I think some people call them pigeons.
“Isn’t it cute?†Noe.
I just sort of stare, she continues, “The mama was there and then there was an egg, so I couldn’t kick it out. It’s nature. It’s beautiful.â€
An egg is not a bird, apparently she hasn’t been reading her pro-choice literature.
That nest and egg would have been on the sidewalk on the pavement if I still lived there. A sort of lesson to all of the other pigeons to stay off MY fire escape, but the universe works in mysterious ways and Noe lives there not Browne, so a lucky break for the pigeons of Boyle Heights.
Browne Molyneux
Hahaha I love how you filed this under gentrification. Coming from parents who are animal freaks, that’s soooo cute. At one point in our lives they housed a hawk and a vulture. We also had a pidgin for a pet couple of years ago too. His name was Scooby and he tried to peck at us when we grabbed him to pet him. Don’t judge us.
I just thought in my head how the average person would probably be horrified if I took a pigeon and it’s nest and eggs and threw it off my balcony.
If I did that and left the broken eggs on the sidewalk with a little sign that said, “stay away.” People would think I was nuts.
They would probably think I was a monster, but you know if a family, an artist or just every day person off the street got thrown out of their home owing to raising real estate prices, no one would be horrified, but you know in America there are no death squads, but there is something worse the repo man and your credit score. This country economically murders people every and no one thinks that’s bad. People just tell people to work harder and what if I told that to pigeons. What if I yelled “fly faster you bastard” as I shot at them with my bb gun, I bet people would take issue with that. I bet I would go to jail or at least get fined.
I’m not saying on some levels I don’t hate pigeons I do, but you know still I just thought about that how one form of murder is ok and the other is not. And who decided what was ok and what wasn’t…I may be thinking too much…
Browne
Growing up, my family in Mexico had all manner of birds loose and in the house. They thought they were beautiful! I was horrified to sit at the lunch table at my uncle’s with an African Grey Perched on the shoulder of my chair cat calling me. I didn’t want to touch them. I screamed when they flapped after me trying to alight on my shoulder like some kind of Disney cartoon. When I was little my mom told me birds had lice, so I was scared shitless of them. On the other hand, you’d have thought I brought a bloody baby’s head on a pigpole into the house every time I brought a puppy in or pet a dog on the street or tried to feed a cat. They would scream at me that I was going to catch a disease or have worms and made me scrub my hands with hot water before I could touch anything else. It was such a cultural disconnect for me. I was freaked out that every morning stale bread got soaked in water and laid out on the roof for the pajaritos (said in a baby-talk voice with tilted head and cooing). Ugh. I saw people do some fucked up things to dogs there… pick them up by the neck and throw them in the street, kick them… beat them with things. Cultures place different values on different animals. I was really surprised when I showed my neighbor how huge all the lizards that live on the roof of my garage had gotten and she told me to kill them. “But you’re a VEGAN! You work for an animal rescue!” “I don’t care,” she said. “Lizards freak me out.”