In which the three winos each tell baby Pigeon Boy a bedtime story

PART 2:

Solly's tale and Pigeon Boy's subsequent folly

Pigeon Boy, this story I am about to tell you has it all over the story Rudyard tells you, for in strict contrast to Rudyard’s story, you have my personal assurance that this one is of the true variety.

You know it is true for a start because it does not begin with the words “once upon a time.” All good untrue stories begin that way. You will hear a story that begins thusly and you will think to yourself “this story may be many things, but true does not make the list.”

There is a briar patch on the far side of the park that looks like a hangover feels. Do you ever see this briar patch? This story takes place a very few years ago here where we sit and also at that briar patch that looks like a hangover. I stop to remark that this is another way to determine a true story. If you have someone who is there at the time – in this instance, I am that someone – and you have a place which can be pointed to, as I am currently pointing to that hangover patch – these are things you can use to say to yourself “this story is true.”

Now, I know you to be a brave sort of person, but I must regardless warn you that this story is the sort that is scary, so if you want me to stop in its telling, you just holler and I will stop.

Where am I? It is years ago when I am just finding this park to live in. It is a day like this one with some clouds over there and the sun doing that very thing that it is doing right now. I am taking the opportunity to lay under the sun and away from the clouds. I am, truth be told, taking stock of my eyelids, if you catch my meaning, when I feel something here in my side. There is the bottom part of a cane and it is poking me. As I look up to the top of this cane, it becomes clear that this is a very fancy cane. This cane is held in a gloved hand. And the further I look at this swell, poking me with his cane, the more fancy I see he is. Just dirty with money. I do not think you know the type, as I cannot remember anyone fitting that description visiting the park since we take up with you, but I know you can imagine it.

If I thought he was fancy before, when he starts talking it is leaps and bounds fancier. It seems he loses his way as he says to me “pah-don me,” he says, “do you know the way to the uppah west side?” Like that. Hear how that sounds?

Now I know the way to the uppah west side, of course I do. But there is a hungry moth’s chance in a nudist colony that I am going to help a fancy swell dandy like that wandering through my park after a night, no doubt of being rich and having fun and getting so lost as to not recognize which way is west.

So what I do next, see, is something I regret to this very day. Not a day goes by, I do not regret telling this Chauncey, as a joke, you understand, that it was on the other side a your hangover patch over there. Remember, I think it will be quite a gasser...Geets tearing his knickers on the thorns. He tips his hat to me, this fine fellow which at the time, makes it all even funnier that I am sending this guy on a wild goose chase of sorts, but makes what happens next worse in the retrospection of it.

What I didn’t know is that a nasty wolf makes his home over there on the other side of those bushes. How I come to find out is that Geets starts yelling his fancy melon off.
I bolt up faster than I ever do before or since from the yelling and I run towards him just in time to this nasty old wolf dragging this poor rich dumb mug through the stickerbush. I try to help the guy, but there is nothing I can do.

Used to be city folk come through here trying to find the wolf, but they give up looking. Every so often, I hear it howling moonwards. There is a time I hear the wolf whenever I walk by the briars, but I do not go near them very much anymore. And you should not either, Pidge. Stay away from them. Little guy like you it would not take two bites that nasty old wolf to eat you right up. Do not ever go near them briars, okay Pigeon Boy. For me?

But in the way of children of a certain age (between ten and twelve years, nobody could exactly figure it), the Pigeon Boy did the opposite of what he was told. He was an explorer and here was a part of the park he had not yet fully explored. He had his pigeons with him; he always had pigeons with him. One curious pigeon in particular rested on his shoulder. This pigeon was a comfort to the boy. He knew no fear with that particular pigeon whispering in his ear.

Pigeon Boy waited until a bottle distracted Solly. He didn’t have to wait very long at all. Then he and some of his flock went to see if there really was a wolf. Could it still be alive if it were from a story from so long ago? Would he be able to hear it or, better yet, see it? Would it be as vicious as in Solly’s story? He hoped so.

The pigeons that followed in his wake bobbed from foot to foot in a way that would hint at excitement or anticipation were it not a function of their physiognomy.

The briar patch was a tangled scar on the landscape, separating a part of the park that was landscaped and clean (certain unsavory characters aside) from a part that retained the qualities of the land’s feral beginnings. No matter what time of year, the briar patch was husk brown and sturdy. Even the occasional rose that managed to live on this bramble seemed russet and as liable to slice a person as the thorns that looked like crocodilic orthodontia only more dangerous.

It took using his thick coat to push away the patch for Pigeon Boy to make his way through unscathed, and even then, he was only able to push head and shoulders to the other side before getting decidedly stuck. The pigeons were no help. They flew from one side of the briars to the next. Only one curious pigeon stayed on Pigeon Boy’s shoulder, kneading it with his tiny talons perhaps in an attempt to loose the shirt from the thorns. Perhaps not. In his forced stillness, Pigeon Boy took in the Other Side of the Park. A creek bubbled through. The trees touched tips overhead, letting in only sporadic fingers of sunlight. It was darker. It smelled different. There were mushrooms here. Moss. The rocks were or seemed wet. The trees too. Everything was slimy with either wet or dark. It was cold here. There was more dirt than grass and things rustled in bushes, Pigeon Boy himself among them. The birds seemed to get antsy, flying over and back, over and back and Pigeon Boy just wanted to return to his side of the park. If a wolf could live anywhere in the wilds of New York, this is where. He could believe that. And then as if summoned by the thought of it, a wolf -- the wolf -- padded across the creek. The soft sound of its feet giving lie to its speed. The time it took appearing in Pigeon Boy’s peripheral vision to being right there next to Pigeon Boy, sniffing at him, its cold nose streaking the dirt on Pigeon Boy’s face was not enough. “Solly was wrong. It would take more than two bites to eat me up,” he thought of this wolf. “But not much more.” He tried to free himself and move backwards through the briars, and the wolf started to growl. The sound shook Pigeon Boy and all calm left him. He forced himself backwards and he could feel that the thorns were scratching him deeply, but it didn’t hurt. He saw the wolf open its giant jaws and he reconsidered. “Two bites would do it.” He winced and in turning his head caught the orange eye of one particularly curious pigeon for the last time, as the wolf snapped its jaws shut over the bird.

Pigeon Boy screamed and time stopped. Just stopped. And there was blood. Blood pounded in his ears. Blood flecked his shoulder and chin. The smell of blood like a shot. His blood ran cold. Time stopped and there was blood and there was cold. The cold of this other side of the park and the blood spilled there. Blood and cold. That was all there was until time started again. Blood and cold until a lever somewhere was thrown and movement and understanding thrummed forward once more. Which wasn’t much better. Because even then, blood marked the cold-blooded wolf’s teeth as it turned to Pigeon Boy, who remained frozen with the thought “maybe it will only take one bite, like it did with --” and pain shot through Pigeon Boy. The thought mercifully unfinished. For now. The pain came from all around him. Thorns raking him properly as he was extracted all at once from the briars -- yanked backwards. Solly and Rudyard pulled him through the hangover patch back where he belonged.