Facial recognition abilities make pigeons ideal assassins. But nothing of the sort went on that night. That night, he was hoping to dart out of the crate and fly as far as Timbuktu. Because life in captivity is, well, for the birds—other birds, that is. And he had his eyes set on a different future. He wanted to get as far away from that damn bell tower as his grimy little wings could take him. For now, however, sleeping was just about as good as it was going to get. No point plunging beak first into wishful thinking or, worse, bathing in midnight meditations about the meaning of life, life on an island, island life, and blah, blah, blah.
“I’m going out on a ledge here,” he remembered some fat turd of a pigeon, the public parks’ variety, telling him once, “but it looks like you have to make some choices. Your wants versus your needs, compadre.” They’d been perched on a cavalier at the San Salvador de la Punta fortress, enduring the sea breeze with tensed feathers for what had seemed to be at least three hours.
“Mind your own business, Abelino,” he said, circling the bird and bobbing his head to get a good look at the silhouette of what he was convinced was, in fact, a dodo. When, finally, Abelino’s image pulled together in front of him, quivering like a feathered puzzle, this pigeon told him, “Leave the thinking to me—you’re not exactly what one would call a wise owl.” Abelino must have taken it to heart because he tucked his pin of a head between his shoulders and this pigeon never heard from him again. Yup, too goddamn hypersensitive.
Right before shutting down for business that night, this pigeon stretched his legs a bit and stared out beyond the tower. His eyes were like two polished shirt buttons, glistening in the moonlight. They were orange, each with a small, black circle right in the middle that spasmed whenever he dipped his head. It was December, winter in Havana, which generally meant warmer temperatures than usual. That night, however, he was freezing his rump off. Wind fanned over electrical cables and rooftop clotheslines. Although he couldn’t see the water from the bell tower, he imagined the waves lashing onto the rocks in El Malecón. The moon shone brightly over the city, though—and he loved that.
He much preferred spending the night pecking at some day-old bread in Regla than slurping Daiquirís and Cuba Libres from puddles near the Hotel Nacional.
Below, people walked to and fro in what seemed to him a kind of frantic waltz—perhaps on their way to a place he knew was beyond his reach: a dance club. A night on the tile meant serious sartorial grooming, a strict dress code, mula, and many other things nature had neither equipped him with nor given him access to. But why the hell should he have cared? He much preferred spending the night pecking at some day-old bread in Regla than slurping Daiquirís and Cuba Libres from puddles near the Hotel Nacional.
In any case, he liked sleeping somewhere up high—the higher the better. It might have been the cathedral that night, but in the past, it had been every tall civic building, windowsill, steeple, tower, and roof in the city. Any of those could have been his home—they were the closest he’d come to cliffs in years, so they were home. If it hadn’t been for the food and that damn crate, he would have never dreamt of leaving.
He let a nauseating feeling in the ball of his stomach reach his crop, and he spit out a glob of vile onto the crate’s bottom planks. It had been at least twenty-four hours since he’d had something to eat. He tried to sleep, a white head tucked between gaunt shoulders. Hell, he either found his sweet spot on one leg and went to sleep, or he risked freezing to death. He dreamt, the way humans dream, but never in color. Color, he thought, was for dolphins.
That night in particular he dreamt he was a dove, and not a pigeon. For many, the two were interchangeable. For him, well, let’s just say that he was aware of some significant differences. For one, doves are milquetoast. Hell, wasn’t it a dove that returned with an olive branch? And a dove that’s released in Olympic Games? Nothing of the sort for pigeons. Fuck doves. The funny thing was that he wasn’t sure his captor knew the difference. Pigeons had their own history, dating as far back as 2500 BC. It was a pigeon, after all, who carried the first message in the southern Mesopotamia. And in China, well, in China pigeons were bred since 772 BC. The historical significance of pigeons is, in fact, endless.
He stared down at his legs, thinking that legs much like his carried messages home, and elsewhere. His skinny and frail legs—what a cruel joke. Would the universe have granted him a bigger, stronger lower body, he would have been unstoppable. He was tenacious, though, that was certain. And tenacious was something a dove, with its docile temperament, its annoying cooing, its constant head bobbing, and its pacing in place could never be.
He thought of Cher Ami—now that was a pigeon! The recipient of an award for bravery in the First Great War, Cher Ami was a nationalized British pigeon. What elegance, and poise, and resoluteness. They didn’t make them like that anymore. It was the First Great War, and that poor bastard was the first Cuban casualty. Yup, he was Cuban. With a French name and a British passport, but Cuban.
On October 3, 1918, with 500 men from the 77th Infantry trapped and cut off near Argonne, Cher Ami was sent to Division Headquarters with a plea for help. Shot through the breast by enemy fire, Cher Ami still completed his journey in less than 25 minutes, saving 194 men from the Infantry Division. This most courageous, most wounded pigeon had delivered the message—in spite of his mangled breast, one blinded eye, covered in blood, and with a leg hanging by only a tendon. And in recognition of his extraordinary service during World War I, he received a gold medal from the Organized Bodies of American Racing Pigeon Fanciers. In other words, the pigeon made it happen. Not the dove, ladies and gentlemen. The pigeon.
Poor, great Cher Ami, he thought, rooting his head into the deeper most regions between shoulder blade and shoulder blade. It was the pigeon on which we depended when every other method failed. During special periods of peace there’s the telephone, the telegraph, flag and smoke signals, and yelping dogs, but when the battle rages and the world gives way to barrage and machine-gun fire, to say nothing of gas attacks, ambushes, and bombing, the pigeon was the go-to bird. Not the goddamn dove.
Perhaps because, according him, what followed deserved the utmost reverence, this pigeon cooed it into Havana’s night air:
“The following pigeons,” he said, “received all sorts of medals for bravery: Blue Cheq. Hen “Winkie,” and Corsario Negro, White Hen, White Vision, Red Hen, Beachbomber, Beachcomber, Grizzle Cock “Gustav,” Barbarossa, Dark Cheq. Hen “Sweet Lass,” Cimarrón, Red Cock “Commando,” Flying Dutchman, Blue Cock “Royal Blue,” Caribbean Coast, Pepe of Orange, Oriente Express, Billy the Kid of Las Villas, Jaque-Mate, Broad Arrow, All Alone, Mercurio, Cock “Duque de Artemisa,” Mary, Sarita “El Último Cuplé,” Princesa and, last but not least, “Rock Hudson & Doris Day,” a most formidable couple.
Was his memory what it used to be, he would have come up with a few more names. In any case, most in the list died in appalling circumstances. And he was glad, for once, that he was safely tucked inside a crate, waiting for the sun to break.
When morning came, beside his left leg, there was a breakfast of day-old bread soaked in milk. At first, he refused to eat, until the man standing about fifty pigeon steps outside the crate’s door barked out, “Dale, eat it, if you know what’s good for you.” He then figured that waiting for dried papaya bits and sunflower seeds would get him nowhere, and he ate. He gobbled it up, until his crop looked like a swollen bladder. With Cher Ami still clinging to gray matter, he wondered if he, too, would be assigned the delivery of an important message. For that would make it all worthwhile, wouldn’t it? The last night’s hunger, the lack of suitable sleeping quarters, the morning’s breakfast—all of it. He remembered Abelino’s words, too. And why not, why shouldn’t he both need and want to do something important? Something memorable, even historic. His long, thin toes curled around and gripped the bottom of the crate. No, he wasn’t leaving after all.
As soon as the man noticed he was done with breakfast, he opened the crate door and grabbed him. It took only a few seconds for this pigeon to remember the week’s training, and his itinerary. He was to fly clear across the city and come back in no more than twenty-minutes. Did this guy think he was stupid? Couldn’t he have thought of a better mission? Hell, if Cher Ami had been capable of so much more, why wouldn’t he be? Wasn’t there a message to deliver to someone, somewhere?
He was furious. You did not treat a pigeon in that way, not even if he were a camp prisoner. Did the man mean that he should venture beyond the crate wearing nothing but feathers? Where was the goddamn message? This made it simple for him to want to peck at the man’s eyes. Hell, blind him, but he thought better of it. He was aware of the fact that he was now in a tricky situation. He thrashed against the man’s grip, but when he lifted him up in the air and out the bell tower, this pigeon got ready. “Up you go,” the man said, hurling him into the clouds. He had no choice but to fly.
Below him, a large crowd gathered, and cries of joy soared up into the sky like lost balloons. Some people, those nearest a large platform, stood to attention and saluted. Others waved flags in the air. This should be an uncomplicated and quick affair, he thought, speeding up the flight. He figured that, if he could make it back in less than 15 minutes, the man would have no choice but to recognize that he was meant for bigger things. It is not even certain he knew what that meant, nor did he have time to decide what to do one way or the other, so occupied was he with trying to fathom how to make it back in record time.
Suddenly, it was clear to him that they were competing for the same shoulder.
He lowered his button eyes toward the crowd. He was hungry again, and wondered it was possible to find something to eat. He was making good flight, surely there was time for a pit stop somewhere. But where? People stood shoulder to shoulder and he couldn’t see the ground. When he flew closer, one shoulder—broad and olive green, like some exotic tree branch—stood above the rest. Right as he was about to make a landing, out of nowhere, a pack of doves pierced his line of sight. Goddamn it. He tensed his body and plunged through the air. Suddenly, it was clear to him that they were competing for the same shoulder. He zigzagged across the pack’s flight path, flapping his wings and cooing, “Get away, get away! Go back to your crate, bloody bastards!”
The pack relented, taking off in the opposite direction. He, however, made a straight line for the man, landing on his broad, left shoulder. The crowd went euphoric. This was surely something. It must have meant something. Certain that the cheers were meant for him, and suddenly aware of a camera right behind him, he puffed up his breast toward the masses. Gripped the round shoulder with long, thin toes, bobbed his head, and defecated. “Cher Ami,” he cooed into the man’s left ear, “this one’s for you.”
Featured image: A dove lands on Fidel Castro on January 8, 1959.