Chapter 28—Removing the Screen

As I removed the screen from the window behind the cat condo, cd watched with suspicion from the back of the sofa. “The window is so close to the wall,” I explained, “that the drape blocks most of the air anyway.” cd did not appear convinced. Mitts peaked around from the side of the sofa then galloped back into the study. Outside, Gulliver waited in the middle of the roof, his eyes riveted on my every move. Shifting from one flat foot to the other, he was the quintessence of anticipation.

“ ‘Hope,’ ” I remarked, “ ‘is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.’ ”

kwawk kwawk kwawk, Gulliver replied.

“I didn’t realize you were familiar with Dickinson,” I said.

KWWAAWK he screeched.

cd hissed.

“Okay,” I said, lifting the screen from its casing. “Everyone calm down.” Setting the screen aside, I stepped across the room to the kitchen counter. Gulliver dashed alongside, his splattily flat little pink feet, slapping across the tar. When I returned to the window, he tore back and stood waiting about five feet from the window, his eyes fixed on the bread I now had in hand.

kwawk kwawk kwawk he said.

As I threw out a small crust, three gulls circling above dropped down. Gulliver threw back his head, let out a piercing shriek, and chased off the interlopers. One managed to snag the bread, but dropped it with a shriek as Gulliver nipped him hard in the wing. I stood back, horrified, as Gulliver shook several feathers from his beak. As gulls overhead continued to circle, Gulliver watched them, tilting his head first this way, then that until the interlopers flew off. Having secured the tar room, Gulliver checked out the bread in my hand.

kwawk he declared, then looked up at me, his head tucked between his little bird shoulders, the picture of innocence.

I threw out a crust, then another and another until the pita pocket was gone. Gulliver pecked the roof clean.

“Good to the last crumb,” I noted.

kwawk kwawk kwawk he said and flew off to the top of his telephone pole.

Beyond the roof, the water stretched to the horizon, teal and calm under a sunny blue sky. It was slack tide, the still hour just before the tide came flowing back into the bay. To the south, Heron moved like cello music through the shallows. Across the bay, the seals were lined up along the edge of the spit, big old bombs that just weren’t gonna study war no more. I heard a glug, and water sloshed onto the beach below. The tide was coming in. Having recognized this, I felt a deep sense of intimacy with my new home.

I closed the window, then took the jar of cat treats from the kitchen into the back room where the cats looked up at me with mistrust until I rattled the jar of lamb and rice morsels. “See,” I said, “there’s enough for everyone.” As the cats snarfed up their treats, a wave of peace washed over me.

Suddenly, a knock jarred all of us from our contentment. The cats watched me and waited. I peeked around the edge of the door. Jab Jab Jab went the bird on the glass. As the knocking escalated, I sat down at my computer to answer some emails. KWAWK screeched the bird, then began pulling at the aluminum window casing.

cd gagged, then blucked up her treats in a slimy mess beside my shoe.

“He’s had his treat,” I said to the cats as I cleaned up the bluck with water and a rag from the bathroom, moving quickly between the adjacent rooms so as to let the bird know I was ignoring him. “You must just let the baby cry itself to sleep,” I continued with a conviction that was unwarranted given the bird’s persistence and the power of that beak, to say nothing of the fact that I was dealing here with a wild bird, not a baby.

JAB JAB JAB when the bird against the glass. “Part of family living is learning to share and be respectful of time and property,” I declared to the cats, fully aware of the rising shrillness in my voice.

By now even on the simple task of emailing was impossible. I stormed out into the living room, directly to the window. The bird, apparently sensing the hostility, flew off to his telephone pole. I returned to the study. “Well, I guess I told him,” I announced to the cats who curled up on the cot by the computer and purred themselves to sleep.

After tidying up my desktop, I went for a walk and returned, expecting to find Gulliver at the window. But the roof was bare. My relief was tinged in disappointment, but I knew this was for the best and went into the kitchen. “Anyone want some dinner?” I called over my shoulder to the cats who scampered out of the bedroom. But as I turned back to the refrigerator, I caught sight of a gull on the railing of the motel deck, just a stone’s throw from my window. The bird was chatting up a woman who appeared to be enjoying a sandwich from the deli and dropping an occasional morsel on the railing. She was a woman in her forties. Casually but strikingly dressed. Upscale. Attractive. A professional woman. Successful, I imagined from her demeanor. Just getting away by herself for the weekend. Everything I wasn’t, I found myself thinking as I felt my mind beginning to spiral down into that place I had come to recognize as dangerous. “This is absolutely ridiculous,” I said sharply as I leaned over to fill the cats‘ saucers. “Oh, not you, my dears,” I reassured them and as they relaxed, laughed off the sting of jealousy...he was just a bird for godsake.

Chapter 27-A Question of Bread

The next morning, I awoke to that primal wail that signals a cat fight. Stumbling into the living room, I found cd with her back arched and her fur puffed mightily outward, no longer my lovable civil disobedient with the alpha complex, having been transformed by a bird into a frothing mass of nerves and rage. Mitts was cowering under the dining room table and emitting a high-pitched wail from deep in her primal past. The bird, impervious to intimidation or lamentation, was standing on the tar roof about a foot from the window, neck craned as he peered impatiently through the thermal pane. Seeing me, he stepped back.

kwawk kwawk kwawk he said as if wishing me a pleasant good morning.

“You have a whole ocean out there,” I told him with a sweep of the arm that sent him flying off to his telephone pole. “And good riddance,” I added to the cats as I laid down their saucers on the floor and flipped the top off the canned food usually reserved for dinner. All thoughts of the bird vanished in the aroma of tuna. They scarfed down their treat and looked to me for more. I knew I was being conned. But it had been a traumatic morning.

Soon the coffee water was whistling in the kettle. The cats had licked their chops clean and were purring happily on either end of the sofa. As I ran the water through the coffee filter, I shook off my guilt having startled the poor little guy. He’d just popped down to say good morning. I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of those spindly pink legs and splattily flat little pink feet. The thought of the bird peering in the window like an expected guest made me laugh. The cats looked up, suspect. Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. I was dealing here with a bird, for godsake. And a scavenger at that. Besides, my first loyalty was to the cats who’d seen me through job loss, heartbreak, and the terrors of depression.

On the other hand, I thought as I lightened my coffee with milk, he wasn’t just any old gull. Knocking on a window wasn’t scavenging. Here was a bird with pluck who understood the importance of outreach...not aloof and solitary like Heron down there in the shallows along the edge of the bay. I sat at the kitchen table by the window and watched Heron move through the shallows without creating so much as a ripple, so elegant, confident, and in possession of itself. There was nothing frivolous about Heron. And, of course, I still aspired to becoming worth of having Heron as my spirit guide.

As I understood the tradition of the spirit guide, animals provided a wisdom called medicine. This medicine was a healing power that helped a person live in greater harmony with the natural world. The wisdom, or medicine, came through understanding of the ways of the animal. Life hadn’t been easy for me over the last decade. Maybe I needed some comic relief in my spiritual quest. Could it be that the Universe was providing such relief through this funny little bird. I leaned over for a view of the telephone pole. Empty. I shook away the absurd thoughts. This was no time to go all new agey on myself. “Hey guys,” I called to the cats, “anyone want to play some sponge ball?” I dropped down to the floor and began tossing the ball against the wall.

The cats, hungry for attention after the long stress of the move, needed no coaxing. They knew the game and took their position between me and the wall, ready to trap the ball as I bounced it off the paneling. Just as I raise my arm for the first throw...

Thonk!

The air in the room stood still. I looked from cat to cat to bird, from bird to cat to cat. I gave the ball a couple of tosses, but no one’s mind was on the game.

kwawk kwawk kwawk said the bird ever so sweetly, his head drawn back shyly between his shoulders.

“I think he wants to be a part of our family,” I said to the cats as I crept closer to the window. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that as the cats left the room, cd looked back at me with her glare of disapproval.

As Gulliver and I looked into one another’s eyes, I thought of what Henry Beston wrote while living alone in a small cabin at the farthest point on the east coast of Cape Cod:

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the sense we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not bretheren, they are not underlings; they are nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of Earth.”

What harm could there possibly be in just a little neighborly crust of bread?

Chapter 26—Thonk!

One morning in early June, Gulliver didn’t show. I checked the top of his telephone pole. Empty. With both relief and disappointment, I opened the window. My disappointment vanished when the cats hopped up on the sill and began sniffing away at the fresh ocean air. As I sat sipping my coffee, Vinny called to say he’d gotten a small U-haul truck lined up and would be arriving with my furniture the following morning around ten. Suddenly, the bird seemed to be just a passing fancy, the entertaining prelude to our new life which would soon be starting in earnest. The cats and I played a little ball, then sank into the sofa for a quiet morning of reading. Two or three times I found myself glancing up at the window and remarking to myself how peaceful the world now felt.

That afternoon, Chuck and I moved all his furniture to the empty apartment next door, and I spent the evening deciding how I would arrange my things: Bedroom in the small room next to the living area, so I could fall asleep and awaken to the sound of the sea. My desk and computer would go in the back room where I would be away from the glare of the afternoon sun, yet able to look across the living area through the wall of windows at Netarts Bay and the Pacific. My line of sight would fall through the middle of the window, between my recliner and the cat condo where we would spend our evenings reading and watching the sun sink into the sea.

When Vinny arrived, I was ready. The delivery was swift and completed by lunch. I’d packed so efficiently that by dinnertime I’d slipped the contents of each box into its perfect place, hung my pictures, and driven all the cardboard to the recycling facility. That night, I sat down to my stir fry, surrounded by my books, music, and the furniture that had been molded to my comfort. With the cats now enjoying the view from their condo, I uncorked a bottle of merlot and wandered around thinking how great it felt to have pared down my possessions to the essentials. After dinner, I sat at the table sipping wine and watching the tourists on the motel deck next door, all those poor city folks who would soon have to go home. But I was home, home with an oceanfront view in a friendly little rural town with no shops. Best of all, I couldn’t have been more ready for my new life.

Thonk.

There he was, the bird beside me at the kitchen window, craning his neck and eyeing my plate as if to say what nerve I had dining without him. To let him know that a new order had begun, I got up and moved to my recliner near the cats. The bird followed. The cats looked down from their condo, a three tiered structure with ramps connecting a bottom floor to a mid-level haven for hiding, and an alpha platform on top. As always, cd was on the top shelf, and Mitts was at mid-level with easy access to her safe-house.

kwawk kwawk kwawk said the bird.

I pretended to ignore him. kwawk kwawk kwawk he repeated.

I’d never really taken the time to look at him this close up. His white breast was so pure and feather fresh. His gray eyes looked old and seemed to take in things differently from the way human eyes do. He was keeping track of the entire panorama of sky, sea, crows, swallows, and other gulls, while also remaining aware of my most minute gestures. I began to notice the tiniest things about him, like the velvety texture of his gray wings, the bright yellow rings around his eyes, and when he yawned, how his mouth got so big it looked as if he could swallow a baseball.

The day was beginning to fade, and I felt mellow with merlot. I slid off my recliner onto the floor and edged toward the window. Gulliver stepped back and loosened his wings, wary and ready. I tapped on the glass next to the open window. tap tap tap

kwawk kwawk kwawk he replied.

The exchange continued for a minute or so and then my heart leaped up as this wild thing moved closer and with his bill tapped lightly on the glass about three feet away. As the exchange progressed, he moved closer and closer until he was tapping his bill where I tapped my finger. And there we were with only the breathless vacuum of the thermal pane between us.

When my knee got a crick and I moved, Gulliver jerked back and flew off. It was only then in the fading light and the sudden quiet of his departure that I realized that the cats had left the room.

Chapter 25-Under the No-Bread Policy

Establishing my boundaries with the bird seemed like a very positive omen for my new life. I’d stood up for myself, was in control. Feeling assertive and empowered, I also felt a great tenderness for the little guy who now stood on his flat little pink feet in the center of the tar with his head pulled in between his wings. He looked so innocent and subdued that I knelt down with my arms resting on the window sill and my forehead pressed against the window pane. The bird turned his face to the Pacific, but I could tell he was checking me out, you know, with that kind of cute sideways thing birds do. I tapped lightly on the window with my index finger, hooking it to emulate the shape of his beak.
kwawk kwawk kwawk he replied then padded across the tar in the direction of the slider.

Well, I thought, maybe just one small crust. But no, I told myself. No bread, at least not until I was sure of his intentions. And so for the next several days, I tapped and he kwawked until it seemed quite evident that he really did want more than bread. By the fourth day, it occurred to me that bread was merely the social device this poor gull was forced to employ with humans whose communication skills were less developed than mine. I even wondered if we had some psychic connection because in some miraculous way he seemed to show up exactly at the time I went into the kitchen for a meal or snack. He would then just stand by the window watching me eat. It was on the morning of the fifth day that I looked into his gray-blue eyes and knew that his name was Gulliver. It felt very intense and telepathic.

That evening, I went walking along the beach and arrived back at the foot of my hill to find Heron fishing with that silent grace in the tide pools at the foot of my hill. An old woman I’d met earlier in the day told me about the heron who’d come to her door every morning and evening for nearly nine years. “The people next door just have a gull,” she had confided in a whisper tinged ever so slightly with derision. When returned to the apartment after my walk, there was Gulliver waiting by the window, peering in with the impatience of one an old schoolmaster tapping his foot.

The cats who would be happy swallowing a canary were becoming increasingly distressed over what to do with a twenty-inch bird who was not only intruding on their territory but commanding so much of my attention. They’d long since grown frustrated by a chase that ended in glass and never ruffled a feather on Gulliver's back. While Mitts began whining for a treat every time I talked to Gulliver, cd kept up her alpha intimidation. The bird remained impervious to staring. To assuage my guilt, I promised the cats that every day after lunch and dinner, we’d play their favorite game which amounted to my throwing small sponge balls off the wall and then chasing the ones they couldn’t nail with their paws while lounging on the floor. Then we’d have quiet time as I read while they curled up on either side of me. The cats had always enjoyed these good times even more than catnip. But something had changed.

When I chased the tiny sponge balls as they bounced off the wall, Gulliver followed me back and forth on the roof. And when the cats and I sat, he would tap on the window, as if to remind us not to forget he was now part of the family. If I waved him away, he would approach the window so that anticipating the knock was just as annoying as the actual tap. I'd become too distracted to read, and the cats were either on edge or would just go into the back room, where they were starting to spend more and more time. By week's end, I moved into the back room for playtime and reading. But our furniture had yet to arrive, and I developed a sore back from reading on the hard mattress, immobilized and weighted down with a cat piled on each shoulder.

Impressed by my no-bread policy, Chuck and my neighbor Buzz were encouraging. “Just shoo the little buzzard off,” Buzz told me. I knew he was right. And yet . . .

Chapter 24-Line in the Sand

Throughout the second day of the rest of our lives, I unpacked with the cats looking on. By lunch, they’d become a bit more adventurous, exploring the nooks and crannies of the apartment and enjoying the view from sill across the wall of windows. In late morning, I left them to drive the six miles into the town of Tillamook for groceries. By the time I returned, the cats were comfortable enough to ignore my return. I set down the grocery bags on the floor of our kitchette and opened the refrigerator door. Almost immediately, there was thonk outside on the roof. Mitts fled. cd dropped down from the sill, fluffed herself up, and hissed. I knew without looking: the bird was back.

Pretending not to notice, I glanced over my shoulder and saw him peering through the window, watching my every move. kwawk kwawk kwawk he said.

cd backed away, then after feigning unconcern, hopped up on the sofa along the back of the room.

As I began putting food into the kitchen cupboards on the far side of the refrigerator, the bird padded down to the kitchen window for a more direct view. kwawk kwawk kwawk he repeated.

I’d stuck the stale pita bread in the refrigerator. But no. I’d been warned. The move was expensive enough. I wasn’t about to encourage this bird and his friends to peck through my screens. Having put away the groceries, I stepped into the living room for the newspaper I planned to read while eating lunch. The bird raced back to the living room window as if holding my attention were a matter of desperate urgency, then tore back back again to the kitchen window as I returned to the counter and began cutting up an apple and some cheese for my lunch.

I chuckled at thonk of his splattily-flat pink feet and called to the cats, “It appears that we escaped the spiritual hazards of Las Vegas, only to be stalked by a bird.” No response from Mitts. But cd stared at me from the sofa with her pinched-face look of disapproval, and I knew I should be shooing this bird off in no uncertain terms.

kwawk kwawk kwawk he said, and I smiled at him as I sat down at the table by the kitchen window with my lunch. As I lifted the first slice of apple to my lips, the bird let out a KWAWK and knocked on the glass with his beak. I waved my arms at him, and he backed off but then hooked his beak into the aluminum casing and yanked as if determined to take out the window. I thought of buying him off with a pocket of stale pita. But no. I came here to be free and find peace. Freedom and peace were my right. And I certainly wasn’t going to be blackmailed by a bird. I took my cheese and apple and some cat treats into the back room where we had a nice picnic lunch and some quality time. Mitts was relaxed; cd, approving.

Pleased with myself, I began to feel the exhaustion from the move and fell into a deep nap. Shortly after two, I wandered out into the kitchen to revive myself with some tea. I’d barely set the kettle on the stove when I heard the thonk.

I turned abruptly, and driven by a flare of annoyance made a forward stomp in the direction of the window. Jolted, the bird took off and landed on the top of a telephone pole just past the motel to my right. Good riddance, I thought. But then while waiting for the water to boil, I gazed up at the telephone pole, feeling guilty for behaving so aggressively toward a bird. “Be the change you want to see in the world,” Gandhi had said.

As if reading my mind, the bird took off, flew out over the bay, circled back in a figure eight, then dropped down onto far edge of the tar roof with the most darling web-footed thonk, and stood, one pink foot lapped over the edge of the other—utterly and irrefutably adorable.

How about that, I congratulated myself, he understands now that if he just backs off a little, we can be friends. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw cd watching me from the sofa with her pinched-face look of disapproval.

Chapter 23-Subverting the Dominant Paradigm

On the second morning after the first day of the rest of my life, the cats and I awoke to another sunny blue-ocean morning in Paradise. The cats followed me into the kitchen where I started heating up water for coffee and was about to pull back the lid of the cat food can when our attention was diverted by a thonk outside on the roof: the bird.

kwawk kwawk kwawk he said, then padded to the window and peered into the living room like someone who was expected.

“Ignore him,” I told the cats as I spooned out their food, then set down their saucers.

The bird padded across the roof to the kitchen window. kwawk kwawk KWAWK he repeated with an edge of urgency.

Mitts retreated to the back room. cd ate but with one eye on the bird. My water was now boiling so I set the single-cup filter over my cup, poured the steaming water over the coffee, let it drain through, set the filter aside, and added a bit of milk. Refusing to make eye contact with the bird, I returned to the bedroom and slipped under the covers. With the steam of freshly brewed coffee warming my face, I opened my book, The Great Blue Heron by Hayward Allen, a beautifully illustrated description of the life and temperament the bird I had chosen as my spirit guide in this new life.

“‘Look on the one that stands near the margin of the pure stream,’” Mr. Allen began by quoting John James Audubon, “‘See his reflection as it were into the smooth water. How calm, how silent, how grand is the scene. You might imagine what you see to be the statue of a bird, so motionless it is.’” Yes, this was exactely what I wanted for myself: the still spirit, the singular purpose, the . . . jab jab JAB insisted the bird, registering his dissatisfaction against the glass and then in three piercing screeches KWAWK KWAWK KWAWK

I stormed out of bed into the living room and waved my book at the bird. “Look, Shorty,” I told him, “this is the bird I want in my life. Not you. So buzz off. Trash barrel gulls like you are a dime a dumpster.”

The bird backed away from the window and stood at the far edge of the roof, his neck pulled back so that his yellow beak rested on his feathery white breast as he stood gazing plaintively at me on those splattily flat little pink feet. I felt like a brute. All the poor little fellow wanted was a simple dry crust to get his day started.

Just at that moment, an eagle flew up the bay, it's white head gleaming in the clear crisp light of morning. Birds scattered. The eagle remained elegant and undeterred as gulls and crows dive-bombed it. Hey, I thought, maybe I should go for a raptor as my guide. Those guys could really stir things up just with a simple fly-over. But I’d always had those ongoing issues with authority figures. Over on the motel roof next door, a couple crows caught my eye as they hippety-hopped around a gull, distracting the poor thing this way, then that while ripping off the chips some tourist had tossed out. You just couldn't get any more clever or anti-authoritarian than a crow, so shiny, flip, and hippety-hop. But shiny, flip, and hippety-hop can get old after a while. No, I was going to stick with my Great Blue Heron.

Returning to Mr. Allen's book, I learned that the image of Heron’s early ancestors appeared on the wall of an Egyptian tomb and on stone along the shore of a lake in Ontario. In my world, the seagull was a symbol of the soul of the world, shot out of the sky for sport then lamented with Chekhovian subtexts. I wanted more. I was done with the literary life, done with viewing life through metaphor and philosophy, done with the western academic tradition of life experienced through a community of ideas that too often complicated life’s simplest truths and obscured its essence.

“Every heron,” wrote Allen, “has its own dance of seduction.”
Yes, G. B. Heron would be my guide.

Chapter 22-The First Day of the Rest of . . .

I stood before my wall of windows looking out over the Pacific, sipping my morning coffee, and feeling full of optimism for my new life. The sky was blue, the ocean calm, the tide out. Heron moved gracefully through the shallows. I was home. The air tingled with clarity as the sun caught the first rays of sun rising over the forested hills behind us.

The cats also seemed pleased with their new surroundings. cd was sitting wide-eyed on the window sill, chittering at the swallows darting past the tar room jutting out over the apartment below us. Mitts watched from the sofa, her white whiskers shooting out like exclamation marks above her round eyes. Both had the look of wonder no less that that shared by Lewis and Clark when they first beheld the Pacific.

Nearly nine o’clock. I finished my coffee and went into the back room to begin unpacking. Just as I opened my penknife to slit open the first box, I heard a sharp knock. “Must be opportunity,” I said to the cats on my way to the door. Mitts sat up, alert and wary. cd flicked her tail.

Opening the apartment door, I saw only the long narrow hall leading to the outside door. Puzzled, I went back to unpacking.
Again, a knock. This time the cats went with me. Still, no one. What the hell?

As we headed back through the livingroom, there was a third knock. But not from behind us. From the wall of windows. Mitts yowled and fled so that I nearly tripped over her. cd leaped onto the back of the sofa and hissed, tail up, and fur on end. Oh my God. Standing on the tar roof was a seagull peering in at us. From a distance, gulls had always looked, well, small. Small and cute. But this bird was a good foot and a half. And when it started jabbing at the glass as if the thermal pane were an obstinate crab, there was nothing cute about it.

cd retreated. “Shoo,” I said and waved my hands.

jab Jab JAB went the bird. Fearing it might break through, I stood between fight and flight, somewhere in the vicinity of Code Blue. But then having gotten my attention, the bird stepped back and began chatting me up. kwawk kwawk kwawk he said.

I relaxed, and gee, he really was cute, all freshly white with those cadet gray wings and that sunny yellow beak. Being unfamiliar with avian etiquette, I approached the window. He side-skittished back to the edge of the roof on those oh so absolutely adorable rickety-spindly pink legs with their nubby knees and splattily-flat rosy pink feet . . .

Of course, I’d been told that gulls are scavengers, that they may soar like angels, the city dump is their smorgasbord. White trash of the bird world, Buzz had called them. And when Chuck put in my screens, he’d told me that when his mother lived downstairs, she couldn’t open her patio door that one particular pest didn’t barge right in and help himself to the cat food.

Yes, I’d been warned. But you know what the song says about fools and love. Besides, the pita bread on my counter was just on the verge of stale. What harm could there be in sharing a crust or two with one of God’s feathered creatures. So I tore up a slice, slid open the window, loosened the screen, and then placing my heart in a small piece of pita pocket tossed it onto the roof, along with the rest of the crusty crusts. Within seconds, a swarm of gulls materialized out of nowhere, flapping and squawking over the free lunch. I yanked the screen back into place, slammed shut the window, and gaped at the frenzy, which made junior high school cafeteria duty now seem like a teddy bears’ picinic.

Suddenly at the center of the fray, one bird let out a shriek and then, wings spread wide and flapping, began running and screeching back and forth from one end of the roof to the other. Within seconds, he’d cleared the tar and was swaggering back toward me, his wings bent slightly outward as if he’d just holstered his pistols. kwawk kwawk kwawk he said.

It was my adorable one!

Another pita pocket in hand, I started toward the window again where he was waiting for me, or so I thought until he hooked his beak onto the aluminum window casing and bracing those spindly legs at a determined angle, began to yank. When the metal refused to give, he pecked the roof clean of the few remaining crumbs then flew to the top of the telephone pole just beyond the motel next door. There, he assumed the statuesque pose for which gulls are famous. I gazed longingly but then had to face it. All that bird wanted was the bread. Glancing down at the pita pocket in my hand, I knew I could get him back . . . but no, I was better than that.