30—Will It Be Love in a Pita Pocket or Screens?

May 21, 1999—the first morning in my new apartment. And what a great apartment it was—three small but conveniently arranged mahogany-paneled rooms with a wall of windows looking out from the main living area over Netarts Bay at the Pacific. The sky was blue, the ocean calm, the air brisk and alive. And at the foot of my hill, there was Heron gliding through the shallows.  

MITTS had finally come out from the back bedroom to join cd on the window sill where they sat chittering at the swallows darting past the tar roof that jutted out over the apartment below us.  

My landlord Chuck was a round-faced affable man who’d brought me dinner the night before and moved in some furniture from the adjacent apartment until mine arrived. He’d even agreed to find some screens for my windows. All I had to do was promise not to feed the gulls. Gulls, he explained, had pecked right through every screen he’d ever installed in this apartment. Well, one gull in particular—the one that when Chuck’s mother lived downstairs and opened her patio door, would walk right in and help himself to the cat food. 

“White trash of the bird world,” my neighbor Buzz warned me. “They might soar like angels, but the city dump is their smorgasbord.”

Looking forward to the flow of salt air through my apartment, I went into the back bedroom to unpack. Hearing a knock, I headed out through the living area to the door. “Must be opportunity,” I said to the cats who’d ensconced themselves on the bed. Opening the door, I saw only the long narrow hallway leading to the carport. Puzzled, I returned to unpacking. 

Again, a knock. This time the cats went with me. Still, no one. What the hell?

As we headed back through the living room, there was a third knock. But not from the door. From the wall of windows. Mitts yowled and fled. 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 through the large middle pane. From a distance, gulls had always looked, well, small. And cute. But this bird was over a foot tall. And there was nothing cute about the way he began attacking the window with his big yellow beak as if the thermal pane were an obstinate crab.

"Shoo!" I cried and waved my arms.

cd retreated.

jab Jab JAB went the bird. 

Fearing the glass might shatter, 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.

And gee, he was cute, all freshly white with those cadet gray wings and that sunny yellow beak. When I approached the window, he side-skittished back to the edge of the roof on his oh so adorable rickety-spindly pink legs with their nubby knees and splattily-flat rosy pink feet. “kwawk,” he said, with a cute little tilt of his head.

White trash of the bird world—no way.

The bag of stale pita bread on the kitchen counter caught my eye. 

The bird just stood, drawing his head in oh so shyly between his cute birdie shoulders. 

What harm could there possibly be in sharing a crust with one of God’s creatures?

So I tore up a slice of the bread, slid open the window, 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, out of nowhere, a swarm of gulls descended on the roof, flapping and squawking over the free lunch. I slammed shut the window and gaped at the frenzy which made junior high school cafeteria duty seem like a teddy-bears’ picinic. 

Suddenly at the center of the fray, one bird let out a shriek and then, wings spread wide, 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!

My heart quickened. 

Another pita pocket in hand, I started toward the window where he was waiting for me, or so I thought until he hooked his beak onto the aluminum window casing and bracing those spindly pink legs at a determined angle, began to yank. When the metal refused to give, he pecked the roof clean of 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. 

Pita pocket in hand, I knew I could get him back. 

But clearly, all that little con wanted was the bread.

There was a knock. This time at the door. It was Chuck with the screens.