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Text version of songs and spoken word.

Home by Jeff Hoyle

Bertrand's Bane by Amber Mersino

“Bushtit! Page 390...” Bertrand carefully placed a Post-it note to mark the page of his Birds of the Pacific Northwest field guide. Birdseed used: Bird Lover’s Blend ATTRACT! Spotted at 0700… he took note of all the particulars, jotting the new entry in his birding journal.

“What, dear?” Eleanor glanced up from her Reader's Digest and set down her magnifying glass.

“Bushtit, Eleanor. Finally, something other than another blasted finch!” He hammered the top of his book with a gnarled finger. “Do you know how many different finches there are in this damn thing?” He didn't wait for her answer. “Fourteen, Eleanor. FOURTEEN.”

“That's nice, dear.” She patted his hand and picked up her magnifying glass again to return to her book, flipping to the crossword puzzle. “What is a nine-letter word for ‘weasel cousin’?” She waited as he glared out the window. “Bert? Weasel cousin…?”

Suddenly, an Eastern grey squirrel landed squarely on top of the feeder from a nearby tree, scattering seeds and birds alike.

“Oh, that damned squirrel…” Bertrand fairly snarled the words through gritted teeth.

“No, dear, I don't think that's right. There are only eight letters in ‘squirrel’…” Eleanor, counting the letters again to be sure, did not look up from her puzzle.

“He chased off my Bushtit! Gluttonous bastard, he must have half the feeder in those cheeks too! At this rate, my warbler won’t have anything left to bother showing up for.” Bertrand found himself growing impatient with his search. The finches were all frustratingly brave, but the Wilson’s Warbler he sought from page 441 was proving to be quite shy and elusive.

Eleanor, having given up on ‘weasel cousin’ for the moment, was writing the answer to ‘laughing wild dog’ with some satisfaction. H-Y-E-N-A… She set her pencil down, remembering a conversation she had with the charming man across the fence. “You know the new neighbor, Roger? Well, I was just chatting with him yesterday and he mentioned a special seed he started using. Oh, what was it... ah yes, Squirrel Away, I think? He says it doesn't bother the birds a lick, but the squirrels don't like it much because it’s spicy. I'm sure he could tell you where to buy it, shall I phone over?”

Bertrand scowled. Roger was an insufferable know-it-all. “No need to feed that man's ego, he'll just stuff his cheeks full of it, worse than that damn squirrel. I can pick something up at the hardware store."

“That’s fine, dear, but really… you should try being a little nicer to Roger. Now, about that ‘weasel cousin’...”

The late afternoon sun had just begun to dip behind the tops of the towering cedars that sheltered their charming neighborhood. A light spring breeze weaved through the foliage; the gentle waving of branches beckoning their feathered tenants to leave their chatty foraging and return home to their nests. Eleanor was in her yard, soaking the mulch at the base of her favorite tree, a weeping willow with 3 sets of decades-old initials carved into its weathered bark. She ran her fingers fondly over the letters and the heart that encircled them, then reached under her shirt collar for her necklace. The locket that once had flowers on the outside was now nearly smooth from daily wear. She opened the dainty clasp and held it up in the speckled light that filtered through the leaves to better see the faded pictures of the two young men in their uniforms. She closed her eyes, remembering that day as clearly as if it were yesterday…

~~~

Eleanor yawned, awoken by a knock at the door. She rubbed her eyes, still tired from staying up so late the night before with her friends, her mother having indulged her with rare lenience as a gift for her 18^th birthday. More persistent knocking pulled her from her bed, and she headed towards the front door. “Keep your shirt on, I’m coming!” She opened the door to her handsome young neighbor’s face beaming at her in the bright morning light.

“What’s crackin’, sleepyhead?” Bert ruffled her feathery hair, leaving her looking rather like the angry-faced little grey fluffball of a bird he’d spotted earlier that morning. The resemblance made him chuckle as he dodged her swatting hand. “Truce, truce! I’ve got a birthday present for you!”

Eleanor’s face was transformed by excitement, and she smiled. “What is it?”

“It’s a surprise, but I didn’t wrap it… so you have to cover your eyes tight, NO PEEKING. I’ll lead you there.” She clasped her hands tightly over her eyes and Bert waved his one good hand in front of her face. Satisfied, he took her by the elbow and carefully guided her down the front path to the sidewalk, around the set of mailboxes and through his front gate, crossing his yard to stand in front of a lovely willow tree.

“Can I look?”

“Not yet…” Bert took a silver locket from his pocket, opened it with his thumbnail and hung it from a nearby branch in front of her. “Ok… now.”

Blinking in the bright light to adjust her eyes, Eleanor gasped when she saw the beautiful necklace and she plucked it gingerly from where it dangled. She looked at the pictures, one was Bertrand and the other was her brother, Wilson. Bert was discharged early after losing his hand, and had moved in next door a year ago, but her brother had yet to return home. No letters had come from him in weeks, and she missed him dearly. “Oh, Bert, it’s lovely!” She hugged him tight. “Thank you!”

“There’s still one more…” Bert said quietly, looking over her shoulder with a twinkle in his eyes.

Eleanor slowly turned to the tapping on her arm. “…Will?!”

“Surprise! Happy birthday, Rigby,” Wilson said with an impish grin.

A sob caught in her throat, and she threw her arms around her brother’s neck in disbelief. “H-how? When?”

“It’s over, I’m home for good. Bertie here picked me up at the airport early this morning…”

~~~

Tucking the old locket safely back under her shirt, Eleanor smiled at the memory and a silent tear meandered down the tip of her nose to help with her watering. She reached down for the hose, carefully adjusted the nozzle and misted the delicate snowdrops nodding their pale velvety heads among the new buds of the soon-to-be vibrant array of tulips she had planted last fall, a faint rainbow shimmering in the gentle spray.

In the yard next door, Roger was stacking freshly split firewood, whistling along to the warm, crooning, “I did it my way…” of a Frank Sinatra record, drifting out of his open kitchen window.

Bertrand was walking out empty handed from his fourth and final hardware store when he received a call checking to see what on earth was taking him so long.

“Bert, I just finished watering the flower beds. When will you be home to finish the weeding? You’re not still looking for that birdseed, are you?”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t exist. I think Roger may be blowing smoke up your a—" Bertrand’s sentence was cut short by his wife yoo-hooing over the fence.

“Evenin’ Roger, ha-looo!”

“Wait, Eleanor no, you don’t need to—” Bert gripped his phone, annoyed, but completely helpless to stop her.

“…Yes, he’s out shopping for it now… Wonderful, thank you, Roger.” Eleanor, with honeysuckle-sweetness, spoke back into the phone to Bertrand. “He says he buys it at Queenie’s Pets, dear.”

Of course it would be there, Bertrand thought, grumbling under his breath. Probably between the stained-glass bird feeders and cashmere dog sweaters.

“This stuff had better work…” he said as he hung up the phone, imagining the smug look Roger must’ve had on his face.

Early the next morning, they sat at their little table by the window to watch the newly filled birdfeeder. Eleanor clicked away with her knitting needles and Bertrand opened his field guide, pausing for a moment at the inscription on the first page:

“Dearest Bertie,

Who could’ve guessed that falling into that foxhole to land on top of you would give me the gift of the best 50 years of my life? You know, I never stopped falling, and you never stopped giving me a soft place to land. If only we had another 50 years, maybe we could finally find the rest of these darned things. Don’t let Rigby get into too much mischief, and promise me you won’t give up on the birds. Whenever you see my warbler, you’ll know I’m with you. The fence didn’t mean that much to us, did it, old friend.

~Wilson”

Bertrand looked out past the fence to the house that he would have preferred to stay empty, then back to the fluttering around the birdfeeder. He sighed with disappointment at the American Goldfinch from page 521, but dutifully made note of it in his journal. Spotted at 0630, bird seed used: Fancy Pants Squirrel Away. It was almost painful for him to buy anything suggested by Roger, but if it worked… He gazed back to the window, then stiffened in his chair. “Eleanor, here comes that puff-tailed little tree-pig!”

Eleanor glanced up from her knitting just in time to see the squirrel dive head-first into the feeder, filling his cheeks even fatter than before. “Oh my… I think he likes it, Bertrand.”

Bertrand's face turned as red as the peppers on the expensive bag of birdseed he had wasted his money on and he and the squirrel locked eyes for a moment. Two dark, calculating eyes glittered back at Bertrand, challenging him to come through the glass. They blinked twice, now satisfied that the blustering man was sufficiently trapped, and one more little handful of seeds was stuffed into his very taut cheek before he wiped his face off on the feeder and jumped down to scamper off with his spicy prize.

“Roooger!” Bertrand growled.

“Now dear, don't blame Roger,” Eleanor chastised, frowning slightly over the rim of her glasses.

“No, I think I'm going to name that little bastard Roger. And this means war. Did you hear me, Roger? WAR.” He shook his fist at the window. “Not spicy enough for ya? Oh, we'll see about that! Let's see what they have on good ol’ Amazon…”

“Ok, dear. Have your little war,” Eleanor rolled her eyes, shook her head a little and snipped at a stubborn strand of yarn.

Bertrand's lip curled back in a smirk. “Oh, ho-ho! Here we go, Flaming Squirrel Seed Sauce? Add. To. Cart.”

“Add some sewing scissors too, would you Bert? This old pair is giving me fits.”

“And done. Should be here by this evening.” Bertrand, distracted by his scheming, did not notice the Black-capped Chickadee from page 384 of the field guide rummaging through the seeds in the feeder.

The next morning Eleanor sipped her tea and thumbed through her thick quilting pattern book, deciding on her next project, possibly a gift for Bertrand on their upcoming anniversary. She schooled the mischief from her face, quietly searching for the one covered in finches.

Bertrand sat perched on the edge of his chair with his nose fogging the glass of the window, waiting for any sign of his fluff-butt nemesis. His fingers still stung from mixing the flaming squirrel sauce with the birdseed that morning. The cuts on his hand from his afternoon of gardening had caused a rather unpleasant experience which peppered the task with a few more expletives than his lovely wife deemed acceptable. A pair of Dark-eyed Juncos (found on page 470 of the field guide) frolicked unnoticed in the feeder as Bertrand scoured the yard for any sign of Roger, the squirrel.

“Where are you, ya little devil…?”

Eventually, a tenacious little face peeked out from behind the birdfeeder, nose and whiskers twitching furiously.

“I think you're being watched, dear,” Eleanor said, as she looked through the window, and smiled at his pluck.

Bertrand faced the squirrel, and they stared each other down. Slowly, the squirrel reached out his tiny paw and grabbed a big handful of seeds, stuffing them into his cheek. He rubbed his face on the feeder, wiped at his tingling mouth vigorously with his paws, working himself up into a proper frenzy as he squinted, looking for Bertrand through the sudden singing in his eyes.

“Would you look at that… Eleanor, I think it's working!”

“Congratulations, dear.” She wasn't smiling anymore, and her cold tone combined with the pathetic swiping of those little paws instantly made Bertrand feel more than a little guilty.

Roger whipped his tail, angry and staring hard at him through the window, his eyes running with tears and swollen half shut. Methodically, the squirrel packed his cheeks full to bursting and glared at Bertrand with saliva dripping down his chin.

The old couple watched in horror as he fell off of the birdfeeder and attempted to bound across the grass, stumbling and stopping to claw at his stinging face. The hairs on his tail stood straight out and he screeched a muffled warning to his mate as she tentatively approached in concern from the shadows of the flower planters.

“Oh, Bertrand!” Eleanor gasped. “He has a wife, poor thing!”

Suddenly, a hawk swoops down, snatching the thrashing squirrel out of his writhing misery, a gooey string of seeds trailing from his open mouth.

“Red-tailed Hawk, page 159. Food: extra spicy squirrel…” Bert was dumbfounded.

Eleanor smacked at him repeatedly with her big pattern book, “BERTRAND CORNELIUS!”

He knew the foolish words were a mistake the moment they fell from his lips, and the flash of scathing fire in his sweet Eleanor's eyes sent him scuttling in regret. He didn't dare say another word, but he knew he had better make it right, somehow… This was a side of Eleanor that he had never actually seen before, and Bertrand felt miserable. He crept sullenly back onto his chair and flipped the pages of his field guide back to that very first page, silently promising Wilson that he’d figure out how to fix things.

As the days passed, Bertrand looked out at the birdfeeder that had been cleansed of the offensive seed and refilled with the Squirrel Away brand that they all actually seemed to enjoy. The feeder was being shared rather harmoniously one particular afternoon between a big fat Western gray squirrel munching away, and a vibrant American Robin.

Page 411… Bertrand wrote solemnly in his birding journal and looked out across the yard, a pang of guilt making him wince as he noticed a small female squirrel cautiously foraging with three precocious young kits in the shadows of the flower planters.

Eleanor sat across from him, stab, stab, stabbing a brown wool blob, aggressively needle felting, and occasionally slanting her eyes at him in disapproving silence.

He couldn't stand it anymore. He disappeared into the kitchen and rummaged around in the pantry until he eventually emerged victorious with a bag of shelled walnuts.

Eleanor paused her stabbing and watched through the window with curiosity as her husband tromped outside to the woodpile and pried a carefully selected chunk of bark from a log. He created a makeshift bowl from the bark and filled it full of walnuts. Ever so carefully, he set it in the protected corner of the flower planter and laid a few branches over it for cover, looking to the trees and back, making several adjustments until he was sure the buffet would be safe from aerial attack. He surveyed his work, brushed the bits of wood off of his hand onto his jeans and hoped that the late squirrel’s missus would accept his apology.

Roger’s pleasant voice floated over the fence, “Ho there, neighbor!”

“Afternoon, Roger.” Bertrand sighed and turned towards the low spot in the fence between the two yards. A familiar sadness wrapped its talons around his heart and squeezed as he gazed at the tops of the boards, worn as smooth as Eleanor’s locket by arms resting there during a lifetime of shared conversations. It really wasn’t his fault, Bertrand realized, that as pleasant as he was, it was just the wrong voice floating over that fence. As usual, his sweet Eleanor was right, maybe he could try to be a little nicer to Roger. He stepped up to the fence and leaned over, seeking some inspiration to help him break his awkward silence. “Lovely sunflowers you’ve got coming up there.”

“They really are, aren’t they?” Roger chuckled and shook his head. “The birds really seem to love them too.”

They both startled in surprise as a bright flash of yellow flitted by the tall flower and alighted onto the fence post right next to Roger. There it stood, watching Bertrand intently with its black eyes, as still as a golden statue, a black cap crowning its tiny head.

“Wilson’s Warbler, page 441…” Bertrand said in a hushed, reverent tone.

Turning from him, the bird hopped onto the sunflower, plucked a seed and flew off to land in the willow tree. He swallowed the lump in his throat and looked back at Roger. “You know, Eleanor and I would love for you to come over for dinner.”

“I’d love to, Bert.” Roger beamed, “I have some cucumbers ready for picking that I could bring for a salad…”

As Eleanor watched the two men chatting at the fence through the window, she smiled softly and murmured, “Well done, dear. Well done,” and continued her wool stabbing cheerfully as a charming little acorn formed in her hand.

Monte by Perry Wilson

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