The parrot would come
later.
Right now, Bobby “Bear”
Davis had two "Cowboys” saddled up . . . ready to ride.
“Gin!” Bear slammed down
a winning pair of kings. “How ‘bout them
Cowboys!”
For Bear and his
buddies, in the midst of their 20th annual reunion trip to Las
Vegas, gin games topped off long days of golf and nights out on the town
drinking, gambling, and lusting after just about anything that looked like a
woman (and, as some found out, what looked like a woman in Vegas wasn’t
necessarily so). The guys from the Clinton, Missouri high school class of 1970,
now edging uncomfortably into an AARP sunset, had endured Bear’s ear-splitting victory
cry way too many times. The “How ‘bout
them Cowboys” thing got damn old – especially when some of the gin players
had forked over hundreds of bucks that weekend. What’s more, the boys still had
one long day and night left.
Bear’s pleadings for a
couple more hands of gin failed to arouse any enthusiasm. After a few minutes,
only his lifelong pals, Ronnie Olletree and Harley Tucker, remained in the card
room. Bear slurped down the rest of his Coor’s Light and attended to his
night’s winnings, making sure to separate the denominations into painfully obvious
piles in front of him.
“Where the hell did you
ever come up with that stupid ‘Cowboys’ thing?”
“Come on, Ronnie. You
don’t remember Jimmy Johnson from Dallas? 1992? NFL Championship year? He’s the
one that said it.”
“Ronnie, just get ready for tomorrow night’s
game,” Harley advised. “If I know Bear, it’s gonna be dejavu all over again tomorrow night.”
Ronnie’s forehead
crinkled up like dried prune. “What’s a day
jaw voo?”
Harley pointed toward the door. “Say
goodnight, putz.”
“Daggone it, Harley. You
said the exact damn thing last night.”
-----------------------
The following day, the
group played golf at a local course, followed by dinner at a Mexican Restaurant
with plenty of Margaritas and tequila shots to go around. Well-fed and
well-oiled, the crew of small town Missourians set off for another night out,
albeit with less energy and goodwill than in the days gone by. The evening ended
early. Too many drinks. Not enough sleep. Empty wallets. With only minor
dissent, the dog-weary, droopy group headed back to their hotel.
Ronnie leaned up against
a pillar in the all-night shopping mall attached to the hotel building. “Are we
playing gin again?”
“Hell, yes,” said Bear.
“It’s what we do.”
Don Fender, who
predictably owned the auto repair shop in Clinton, groaned and informed a
nearby Vince Palmieri. “I’m staying the hell home next year.”
“You go ahead and do
that, Bender-Fender,” Vince said. “I’m for playing. Damn if I’ll let Bear keep
all my cash.”
One of the few Italian
Americans living in Clinton and, for that matter, in the whole of Henry County,
Vince usually took home the most money of all the card players. The others had
long teased him for being part of some backwoods, “redneck Mafia.” In turn,
Vince cultivated an inexhaustible supply of redneck one-liners to shut up his
buddies. In a self-referential vein, he often warned them, “Never kick a fresh
turd on a hot day.”
“And Bear, if I hear
that damn ‘Cowboys’ thing again,” Vince said. “I cannot promise that a certain
someone will make it home.”
“Yeah, yeah. You guys go
along and discuss strategy,” Bear said. “I’m checking out that novelty store
and see if I can find the wife something.”
“You do that.” Vince
stalked away towards the hotel entrance. “Showdown’s coming.”
* * * * *
As that night’s gin game
edged to an end, Bear couldn’t wait to pull what he thought would be his
greatest gag. His stop at the novelty store had turned up nothing for the wife.
But no problem. He’d scored perfect item for the night’s card playing—a talking
parrot toy.
The parrot, a wooden,
oversized replica of an Australian King species, with a gaudy mixture of red,
green, and blue colors, came equipped with a button-activated recording device.
As the nice young lady at the novelty store demonstrated, all Bear had to do
was twice press a button on the parrot’s breast to record whatever he wanted to
say.
“It’s really simple,”
the shop clerk assured him. “When you want to play it back, then press the
button once.”
After some practice,
Bear had it down.
Bear smuggled the parrot
into card room before the others arrived. With scotch tape borrowed from the hotel’s
business center, he fastened the bogus bird out of sight, under his chair. As
the gin game commenced, Bear looked forward to a moment when he could instigate
his prank. He hadn’t put together anything this good since he and Harley shaved
off Ronnie’s eyebrows at Boy Scout camp.
Not more than a half
hour into the card playing, Bear had his two kings in hand.
He extracted the parrot
from its hiding place, and raised it up for display.
“Guess what, little
buddy?” Bear whispered in the parrot’s ear. “Yes. That’s right. We’ve got an announcement.”
Bear fingered the yellow
button on the parrot’s breast, pressing twice, triumphantly announcing to the
others, “Gin!”
“How ‘bout them Cowboys,” bawled the parrot in voice familiar to
all. For good measure, Bear engineered an encore of the bird’s chant.
Bear cackled loudly at
his joke, but scant few of the card players in the room joined in. Sitting at
an adjacent table, Vince summed up the overwhelming sentiment as he lurched to
his feet and shouted, “Damn it, Bear. That’s one time too many. Hand over that
damn parrot. Now.”
Vince further threatened
“to open a can of whoop-ass” on Bear, but calmer heads prevailed. The two
belligerents retreated and all agreed on a last, peaceful drink before calling
it a night. But a dramatic turn of events lay in the offing.
* * * * *
The next morning, the
hotel telephone’s shrill ring cut into Bear’s eardrums like a buzz saw.
“We’ve got the parrot,
pal,” a low voice drawled, “and it’ll cost you plenty.”
Bear cast a hurried look
at the bedside table where he’d placed the parrot and his cash winnings from
the previous night. “How the hell did you guys get in my room? I’m calling
management.”
“Oh . . . we are shakin’
and quakin’. Have a listen to this.”
“Please, Bear. Save me.” The high-pitched, squealing, somewhat
birdlike wail cut deeply into Bear’s heart.
* * * * *
Despite the trauma of
his missing, imperiled parrot, Bear showed up for his tee time at the Yawning
Canyon Golf Course the next morning.
“Mr. Brent Davis . . .
Please report to the golf shop. You have an urgent telephone message.”
“What the hell?” Bear
backed off from his tee shot on the opening hole. “Go ahead guys. I’ll catch up
in a minute.”
Back at the golf shop,
the assistant pro directed Bear to a house phone located in the neighborhood of
two bulbous women eying a stack of brightly colored, argyle sweater outfits,
complete with mini golf “skorts”.
“Help me, Bear. Save me,
please,” the parrot screaked in Bear’s ear. “Ooooooo. They’ve got me.”
“Who’s got you, little
buddy?” But no answer; only a dial tone.
“A gentleman dropped this off for you this
morning, sir.” The assistant pro handed Bear a crumply paper bag.
The women gasped and
retreated behind a glass case filled with assorted golf trinkets, their eyes
fixed on what Bear cuddled in his hands -- a ketchup smeared, ghastly fractured
parrot wing. Bear accelerated the shoppers’ exodus by waving about the little
fellow’s severed body part.
Bear hightailed it out
of the golf shop parrot’s wing in hand. Midway down the second fairway, Bear
caught up with his golfing partners and filled them in on his adventure. Even
allowing himself a birdie on the first hole he’d missed playing, Bear ended the
golf outing shooting a 110 and losing ninety dollars in bets.
Back in Clinton a few
days later, Bear paid out a hefty ransom equivalent of his gin winnings to
regain the one-armed parrot. Despite a surgical procedure to re-attach its
wing, needless to say, the incident had deeply traumatized the bird.
*********
The parrot’s
post-traumatic mental state lay well beyond Bear’s ornithological therapy and
counseling abilities. For the next year, the poor Polly preferred privacy,
hiding deep in a dresser drawer amongst stinking socks, passing the time
analyzing alliterative phraseology. Only after Bear convinced the tormented
creature that accompanying him to the to the upcoming Las Vegas class reunion
would be restorative did the parrot reluctantly emerge from its P-PSTD.
A return to the bright
lights of Vegas had to be carefully orchestrated for maximum security . . . and surprise. Nonetheless, with Ronnie and
Jimmy Hawk standing guard at the first night’s gin game, the parrot made a
smashing reappearance in Vegas. The parrot’s “How ‘bout them Cowboys!” echoed repeatedly throughout the card
room. Bear ended the evening with a record breaking winning streak – not to
mention a wallet bulging with other folk’s hard-earned cash. As part of the
security plan, the parrot spent the night in the hotel’s vault, safely
protected from several outraged members of the Clinton High class of ’70.
Things didn’t go quite
so well the next night. A still-angry crew of gin players over-powered the
two-man security detail and grabbed the parrot. They raced downstairs to the
outdoor pool and chucked the bird into the deep end, where it sank to the
bottom with but a feeble, gasping sound. The head henchman of the chucking syndicate,
Vince Palmieri, nearly fell in the water laughing at the look of despair on the
faces of what the parrot could only conclude were . . . passionate, but
powerless protectors.
No matter what the parrot’s
perspective (was he necessarily “all wet”?), Bear dove, fully clothed, into the
dark waters for a daring rescue. He retrieved his prize and struggled to the
pool’s surface. Harley grabbed the bird and immediately launched CPR as the gin
players clustered around to watch. After several chest compressions, the parrot
groaned and drew a quavering breath.
Bear pressed the
parrot’s button. “Speak to me, little guy.”
“Gluuurrp.”
The parrot was alive,
but the physical and mental torture left it without a voice . . . just what Vince
and his associates had intended.
* * * * *
Back in Clinton, Bear
again stowed the parrot in his sock drawer. The thing looked like a piece of
river driftwood, with its once bright, gaily colored body now dulled by the heartless
soaking in chlorinated pool water. Most importantly, the parrot had lost its
main attribute: the power of speech. No more “How ‘bout them Cowboys” for that bird; no more you know what,
figurative language. Nevertheless, Bear couldn’t easily forget the bird’s
glorious days of service and asked his mechanically adept son, Stan, to have a
look at the parrot’s sorry condition.
“I’ll give a go, Dad,”
the son promised. “You’re just wanting him to speak again, right?”
“That’s it. If you can
do this thing, I’ll be one proud Dad.”
“What about the wing?
You want me to firm it on better than last time?” Years before, Stan had
performed the original wing reattachment surgery.
“That would be
fantabulous, son. I’ve done raised you right.”
“Damn all. This thing
stinks something terrible.”
A week later, Bear had
the parrot in hand, miraculously and exceptionally brought back to life (plus a
$65 parts and service bill from his son). When he pressed the button and the
parrot sounded a full-throated, gin game winning war cry again, Bear thought it
all worth the price. But then came a most magical moment. The parrot spoke
without mechanical prompting.
“Call those assholes.”
Without missing a beat,
Bear grabbed his cell and hit Vince’s number.
“What’s up, loser?”
Vince answered.
Bear positioned his cell
next to the parrot’s beak.
“THE PARROT LIVES!”
roared the remarkable wooden-winged creature, its voice electric (what else?) .
. . spirited . . . bold . . . with only a hint of gurgle.
Over the long days and restless nights remaining, the bird reviews what might be said if summoned and button pressed. A taunting challenge to arms? A brief and heart-rending parable? A brutish, foul-mouthed disparagement? Hmmm. All struck the parrot as unworthy of its place in history, and none would completely restore the excitement of those Vegas nights. Only one thing came close . . . “How ‘bout them Cowboys! ”
* * * * *
POSTSCRIPT: Despite the
parrot’s miracle resurrection, the bird’s enemies maintained their original
threats of fire, concrete entombment, evisceration, and a dip in the community
swimming pool. In fear of that vendetta, Bear’s parrot has remained mum,
entombed, retirement disturbed only by the incursion of male hosiery into its
resting place. Alas, reports are the parrot is aging fast and failing.
