(based on a curious and inexplicable incident that really happened)
Call me Jake. You might find this difficult once you’ve beheld my appearance, which bears an eerie resemblance to another, one whose peculiar looks and reputation are far, far better known than my own. The same goes for that one’s name. Maybe you’ve seen me here and there around the neighborhood and had the thought “My God, look who’s here, I thought he only existed on TV!” all the while thinking his name, certainly not “Jake.” Who can blame you for jumping to just such a conclusion? But you’d be wrong, at least if it happened to be me. As far as I know my famous lookalike has never set foot on Iffley Road, but anything is possible around here, as we shall soon see.
To compound this, I have a friend. No, much more than a friend, more like a best pal or sidekick, a sharer of adventures and escapades and occasional aimless afternoons and harebrained money-making schemes, someone who I think of lovingly as my soulmate and partner in crime, not that we ever violate any laws or codes of conduct, at least as far as we know. She goes by the name of Lentita, and she tells me she is either Cuban or Puerto Rican or Dominican, or maybe a mix of all three, depending on her mood. I don’t press any further on this, since for one thing what does it matter? and living here on the edge of Jamaica Plain’s Latin Quarter it all makes a kind of sense.
Lentita also struggles with the burden of closely resembling another famous personage, and getting confused with them, and having nobody ever get her name right, at least until they’ve known her awhile. One look at the picture and you’ll understand, and I don’t blame you for wondering why we have anything to do with one another, since it only adds to all the confusion, and in a major way. Call it compatible chemistry or love triumphant or something like that. Whatever you do, don’t call it destiny, like we saw each other on some enchanted evening across a crowded room and were irresistibly drawn together because we’d each seen the likeness of the other on TV. For one thing, we both abhor crowds, and avoid them.
If anything, my first impulse upon seeing Lentita was to not believe my eyes, that she was clearly an apparition of some kind, at best a trick of the imagination or at worst somebody’s cruel practical joke. My second impulse was to run, quickly, in the other direction, because when reality gets too strange your best bet is to get out of there. I was certain, of course, that it was not she but the famous personage whom she resembled so perfectly, and what the hell was that personage doing on Iffley Road? I guess I didn’t really want to know, though after parting in haste, terrified that I’d be easily overtaken by one who had the advantage of four legs and an equine disposition, I soon realized she was not in pursuit. Then I was disappointed, wondering why that was so.
As it turns out, maybe destiny really is an irresistible force to be reckoned with, and when it comes down to it reality can be downright unbelievable at times, as this story will show, and what of it? Lentita and I have come to be pals of the bestest kind, a pseudo-celebrity odd couple sharing good times together. So what if we never made a cent cornering the local Osage orange market, or convincing people there were endless uses for leftover sunflower husks from the bird feeder (in the moment I can’t recall a single one, except for garden mulch, and is it our fault people are so closed-minded about what makes good mulch?). And our appearance on Antiques Roadshow with all those old electronic treasures was kind of a disappointment, but my guess is we were just ahead of our time, just you wait another 100 years.
The pesto debacle was certainly a close call, or as Lentita humorously later commented, it woulda been a helluva way to go, kind of like that memorable wood chipper scene in Fargo. She can be such a caution, that Lentita, and her PR and Dominican friends claim she’s even funnier in Spanish! But none of our ill-advised get-rich-quick schemes and death-defying kitchen misadventures could have prepared us for the day the nest got violently torn all to hell on the front porch, a day that shall live in infamy, though it’s possible it might’ve happened in the middle of the night. An event especially notable because until that day (or night) the front porch was the place where nothing ever happened, certainly nothing of note. House sparrows nesting don’t count, because for one thing they nest everywhere, and are known to keep a low profile. I won’t go so far as to say pariah species, though it is also true that house sparrow nests are messy affairs, to the point where they’re kind of an embarrassment to much of the tightly-knit avian world, where some species are known for their glorious nest construction and little else.
The full extent of the tragedy will never be known, though questions arise as to whether it was even tragic, by most measures. The upshot is that a once busy scene of frenzied sparrow activity has turned into a ghost porch, totally deserted and eerily quiet. Too quiet. The mess has been cleaned up and the birds have skedaddled, it seems for good. All we have is the police report, which essentially says nothing, and those startling pictures: the dangling clump of nesting material that had formerly rested on the shelf above, the enclosure that had protected it on the floor far below, grass scattered everywhere.
Far more disquieting is the complete and total inexplicability of it all, of the kind that can bring on chills and trigger hushed conversations amongst the locals, not just on Iffley Road but for many blocks around, from Franklin Park at the top of the hill to the pigeons gathered atop the old brewery building at the bottom, though it’s true that when pigeons converse, it’s always kind of hushed anyway. In retrospect, maybe it was wrongheaded for L and I to try our hand at sleuthing to get to the bottom of all this. Maybe we should have paid more attention to the dark and seamy side of life revealed in those detective stories we’d practically inhaled in our youth, and did we really want to risk going there? Maybe we should’ve thought about how they don’t call film noir film noir for nothing, where it’s about much more than the murky and shadowy black and white cinematography, though that’s sometimes the best part. Maybe we should have acknowledged that this whole thing started with an act of violence, or what sure as hell appeared to be violence of some sort.
But in this case it was violence of a kind that passed by completely unnoticed, ruckus-free, In a Silent Way if you’re a Miles Davis fan (and who isn’t?). Whoever heard of a silent explosion? Yet that’s what this was, though explosion might be too strong a word. The unadulterated not-Photoshopped pictures prove something of an explosive nature happened, after which the curious unsettled mind demands to know whodunnit? Or in this case it might come down to what, as it’s all so strange.
But don’t we all just love a mystery, and doesn’t an unsolved mystery kind of gnaw at you? This one sure gnawed at us, and the fact is, life at 39 Iffley Road has long been, if anything, mostly routine and unremarkable. Too unremarkable. The seasons come and go, the snows of winter blanket the yard and then give way to the snowdrops, then the crocuses, then the tulips, followed by all manner of flora after that. A major seasonal feature is the bird feeder in the backyard, offering a daily handout to the local feathered residents, along with a certain conspicuous aggressive (though kind of cute) furry species. Those Home Depot black oil sunflower seeds are out there from Thanksgiving to Easter, and it might be said the scene on some days is lively, indeed, and not just the days when 50 grackles show up out of nowhere, or Ms. Cooper the local raptor nabs a chickadee and slowly, bloodily, picks it apart under the holly bush. Hey, we all gotta eat! It might also be said that the ever changing yardscape from spring through fall is visually remarkable, a feast for the eyes, and thank heavens for that. But extraordinary, singular, strange, mysterious, and troubling? Not so much.
Not until this event. Which happened on the front porch of all places, where the action has long been especially slow and the living easy, unless you find the breeding business of so many house sparrows from spring through summer to be of interest, which it just isn’t if you’re not a house sparrow, at least not until now. One day there were a couple of nests out there, perched high atop the support columns, further protected by an L-shaped enclosure. It was safe, almost fortress-like – or so we thought – from the wind and the rain and the nefarious interests of other animal species with which our urban neighborhood abounds. This excellent nesting location has always been available to all takers, but traditionally house sparrows are very aggressive takers, indeed. Ask anyone who’s installed so-called “bluebird boxes,” to their great consternation (and dearth of bluebirds). Haters will tell you house sparrows are a goddamn scourge, and this includes some number of people who identify as “birders.” Go figure.
The human apartment owners in question would’ve been prime suspects, in other words, but for years they’ve taken a live-and-let-live approach to what we might as well call the Sparrow Question. Following good sleuthing practice, L and I interviewed them extensively, and though homo sapiens are well known for their mendacity and duplicity, we were convinced they could not have cared less about what went on out there on that front porch, save for their clear enthusiasm when it comes to the occasional spectacular views over the Stonybrook Valley offered by a second floor perch high on a hillside. In their wisdom the sparrows have never interfered with their enjoyment of those.
Ah, but after that, the List of Usual Suspects is long, indeed. Just take a look at all the surveillance photos taken at that bird feeder! I was calling them “mug shots,” trying to keep things in the sleuthing vein, but Lentita, a stickler for accuracy, reminded me that sometimes photos are just photos. The pictures did offer a convenient list of sorts, and we dutifully followed up on as many of the characters involved as we could. Whether the results were shocking or revealing depends a lot on your familiarity with the various characters. Let me just say that none were strangers to us, though it became clear that most were surprised that Jake and Lentita, whom they’d always dismissed as lightweights never up to anything of consequence, meant business this time. We were a bit shocked ourselves, to be honest.
We started with “Wroy” wren (all names have been altered to protect the suspects’ identities, especially if they happen to be innocent). Wroy, as expected, showed little interest in this matter. A Carolina wren, his appearances are few and far between in winter, while in summer, like most of his species, he cannot regale you enough with his loud three-note call, while he remains totally hidden from view in the dense leaf cover of the backyard maples. Totally obsessed with his singing career – and admittedly he has magnificent pipes for such a diminutive creature, like all wrens – we figured his lack of interest in the case was genuine. Carolinas are riding a wave of recent immigration from the south, and it seems likely that they’re not interested in making any trouble, at least not until they’re better established.
The same goes for “Red,” the local red-bellied woodpecker. He and his kind have been pouring into the Northeast from the south in big numbers over the past decade, flashy and conspicuous. You can bet this has aroused suspicion that there’s some kind of takeover in progress, at least amongst the longtime locals like the bluejays and doves. Whoever heard of woodpeckers taking over anything, except for the occasional dead tree? Yours truly and Lentita have long wondered why birds are quick to feel threatened by species other than their own. L contends that to be alive is to be unsure of oneself by nature, and suspicious of those who are different, especially if they seem to be better-looking and there are lots of them, with more arriving with every spring migration. I couldn’t say it better. Consider it part of our effort to become world weary and cynical hard-boiled detectives. It goes without saying that Red and his kind were soon off our list of likely suspects.
Those doves and jay on the other hand, were a different story. As species who battle with gangs of sparrows all winter long over sunflower seeds, it was not surprising that animosity prevailed. “If those noisy pipsqueaks didn’t operate in such numbers I’d show them who’s boss” sputtered “Betty” bluejay, and “ya know they don’t belong here at all, they’re not from around here, and they didn’t even migrate here following God’s plan like other birds! They’re unnatural, maybe even satanic.” Can you believe such words could arise from the beaks of sweet, meek, gentle-looking creatures like those mourning doves? As any good sleuth will tell you, appearances can be deceiving.
There’s something to what they said, however. House sparrows are a European species, and though none are known to have flown across the Atlantic Ocean, it’s a fact that some came by boat to New York City in the 1850s, to be released in Central Park. Forget about why such a nutty thing ever happened; what matters is that it did and that the rest is history. The fact that house sparrows are clannish, aggressive, and prolific breeders have been key elements to their species success – talk about survival of the fittest! – but as one might expect this has not made them any friends.
In fact, they have any number of enemies, far more than just those on the suspect list. It’s not out of the question that a bluebird or gang of bluebirds flew in from the suburbs and did a hit, so to speak. Just sayin’. The only upside to this is that a victim with a lot of enemies makes for a better sleuthing challenge, something Sherlock Holmes would’ve loved. For us neophyte sleuths, not so much, but what could we do?
Keep working down the list, for one thing. If appearances are anything, one could say common grackles would qualify as prime suspects. Thundering about the sky in massive flocks, black as death with a penetrating china-eyed stare that asks “are you lookin’ at me, punk?” However, same as with those doves, appearances can be deceiving. A nicer bunch of feathered guys & gals you’re never gonna meet. Grackles happen to be a clannish, successful species in their own right, and as one said it: “House sparrows got nothin’ on us, the little pipsqueaks – we outweigh ‘em four ounces to one in case you didn’t know that, good luck to ‘em but they better watch out, sometimes they annoy everybody around heah.” We would’ve guessed it was some kind of Boston accent until we realized grackles head south for the winter, so it might’ve been East Providence.
It was also a grackle who couldn’t talk enough trash about “Cocoa” cardinal, who clearly had a personal bone to pick with the little red guy with the huge personality. “Cocoa” is an easy target, bright, brash, and really loud, belting out that machine gun staccato of a call from March through August, long after you’d think there was no point to it anymore. Surveillance caught a particularly ugly moment, where it appears there’s some sort of pecking-order feud going on, with Cocoa obsessed about being top bird. Talk about insecure!
We couldn’t find Cocoa anywhere, as it turns out, but his partner “Connie” told us he was “out of town on business.” This seemed a bit too convenient (a good sleuth can never be too suspicious of what anybody says) but like all cardinals she showed remarkable candor, told us Cocoa had a lot of reasons to bear a grudge against those sparrows, that in fact nobody of any species liked them. “We cardinals have spent decades slowly working our way up from the south over generations, following God’s intended plan, while those sparrows got their free boat ride and then took over like they owned the place, and always had – the nerve!” then added “but you wanna talk grudges, what about Cock Robin?”
You could have squashed me with a brick in that moment. Cock Robin! Of course! Kid’s poem, first saw the light of day sometime around 1744, Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book if I had it right, damned obscure but any good detective will have a mind totally cluttered with potentially useful trivia most have long forgotten. Somewhat less obscure was the opening stanza: Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow.” (!!!! – italics and exclamation points are mine) The silly rhyme goes on and on (and on!) after that, with flies and fish, beetles and owls, larks linnets and rooks and too damn many others chiming in about taking part in the funeral. But hold on to your hats: being a British poem, the sparrow in question is European, a so-called “old world sparrow,” the most common member of which happens to be (you guessed it, or if you didn’t please get with the program!) – the house sparrow.
Think about it. We’re talking almost three hundred years of resentment, which puts it way beyond the level of grudge. Blood feud would be more like it. Connie immediately guessed why we rushed out of there, screeching “Yeah! Yeah! Go talk to Rocky and leave us poor cardinals alone!” knowing that any contact with the local robins had to begin with finding “Rocco” in the usual spot where he held court, a utility line in the back yard. To no great surprise he played down the blood feud thing: “You gotta remember Cock Robin was a long time ago, and the robin in question wasn’t even an American robin, but one of those Brit robin redbreasts” (he kind of grimaced when he said this) “which any dummy can tell you is not even a thrush like us, but one of those stupid little flycatchers, what kinda bird eats flies anyway? not me, for sure” at which he kind of turned up his nose or beak or whatever, in disgust.
He certainly had us there. But his answer seemed too well-prepared, almost like somebody’d tipped him off about our coming. We stood there somewhat sheepishly until Lentita gave me a look which said we were wasting our time, and besides she had another idea (L can say a lot with just a look sometimes, she’s amazing like that) and before you knew it we were talking to little “Angelo” on the chain link fence down below, a first-year bird who wanted us to know he’d recently scored his first worm. We congratulated him on this (good sleuthing can require clever manipulation of potential informants sometimes), then asked him innocently if he’d heard about the crazy thing that had recently happened on the front porch and wasn’t that something? His initial response was not especially useful or revealing: “What front porch, where? I haven’t left the back yard since the day I was born. Is there a front porch? I didn’t know there was a front of the house! Do you think I might get to see it some day? Gee that would be something!”
This was clearly a waste of time, but then the kid blurted out, in that non-sequitur style common to all children, but baby robins in particular: “Don’t you just love squirrels? I really like squirrels, I meet so many hanging out with my dad up there on the utility line, though they talk so funny, like just the other day he said he was gonna ‘do a hit’ – what’s ‘doing a hit?’ I thought hitting was just hitting so how do you ‘do’ one?” Lentita and I looked at one another with astonishment. Was this truth from the mouths of babes, or what? I know that in Psalms 8:2 it actually says “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has thou gained strength” but wasn’t little Angelo helping us gain strength, so to speak, by offering this hot tip? Lentita tells me there’s too much clutter in my mind and I think about things too much and maybe she’s right. At any rate, we both realized it was past time to stop questioning and get over to the crime scene. Should we have gone there first and had we been going about this backwards? A classic beginner’s mistake? There was no time to ponder that.
The crime scene had been cleaned up, but we still wanted to see it for ourselves, if only to make sure nothing had been overlooked, there in that place where “nothing ever happens.” We especially wanted to scope out the epicenter of the violence, way the heck up on that tiny cramped shelf near the ceiling, at the heart of the mystery. Ground zero of the unknown, so to speak. What would it be like? Might some of the awesome energy that triggered the event still linger up there? Were we being foolhardy in our naïveté? Was “danger” our middle name, so to speak, even though neither of us has a second name to begin with?
There was also a second challenge I was facing, perhaps even more of a threat to my well-being. I am speaking of a vertigo condition of the worst kind, of the sort that can give me trouble just using a kitchen step stool. This whole sleuthing thing was getting out of hand, and I knew it, but at this point I felt swept along by forces beyond my control, like it was my destiny to solve this mystery and bring the neighborhood back to its senses. I wanted to stand up for those house sparrows, as obnoxious and unpleasant as they probably were, because nobody else seemed to care and that’s when Jake and Lentita know they have a job to do! I’m sure L would say the same if somebody were to ask her, which nobody has as yet. Oh well.
I can’t even remember how we made our way up there, as ascension to that place by two as small as we would seem impossible. But we made it (use your imagination) and to be honest things turned out to be ten times as disgusting as one might expect, even after being “cleaned up” by the authorities. Working for the city can often mean you show up late and go home early, but let us not jump to ugly conclusions. Besides, who knows how many generations of birds have been hatched and lived out their spectacularly messy first days of existence in that place? A formidable clean-up challenge, indeed, and did I say it looked and smelled totally nasty?
So was it the appearance of the place? The acrid penetrating scents whirling about up there? The terrifying altitude that confronted one in every direction, unless one closed one’s eyes? All i know is that suddenly all was whiteness, an overwhelming pallor, with everything drifting out of focus, followed by visions, images, of what?..… vegetables, bizarre distorted eggplants and tomatoes…a cat of hideous proportions…a cyclist in the snow, racing past the early snowdrops…an automobile accident beyond description, amongst the spring crocuses….and….and….
“Jake, Jake, c’mon snap out of it! Jake, wake up!” It was Lentita, of course. “Jake, you’ve been out for hours, you okay? What happened to you up there?”
“The awful smell of that place! The filth! There was something evil up there, I swear to God! Did you sense it? Did you discover anything important up there? Did you figure out what must’ve happened? It was the squirrels doing the hit for the robins, wasn’t it? How’d they do it?”
“No Jake. Turns out we had it all wrong. They sent the raccoon sisters out from Downtown. You remember, Rikki and Rookie? Anyway they talked to everybody, checked out the porch – my God, Jake, they’re even better climbers than those squirrels! You shoulda seen ‘em, all over that porch. Anyway, in the end they say nothing much really happened, that those sparrows have scrammed and they ain’t coming back, and everybody’s happy, okay? That we should go back to our oranges and radios and to forget about this. In the end it was about a lot of nothing, and Downtown should know.”
“But Lentita! The explosion, like everything got blasted off that shelf, like the pictures showed.”
“What pictures, Jake? Forget it, Jake, nothing ever happens on the front porch, everybody knows that and so do you. Hey, the Osage orange season is starting pretty soon, we better get busy.”
