Age 7: The Pigeon Boy, The Suction Bush, and The Darkness

They were real pigeons. They lived in a huge metal cage with a wood roof, worn and tattered but nonetheless, it was home. I tippy-toed to peer in at the eggs, the feathers, and of course, the poop. It smelled, but not too bad. There was plenty of fresh air.

The pigeons cowered a bit, restless and uneasy with someone else’s eyes on them. I moved along the cage, from left to right, all the way down the line. They had food and water, I noted, and they could surely fly out the top of the cage any time they wanted. There was a hole of freedom at the top.

They all belonged to my best friend, Anne. Anne had a really nice Mom and Dad, and a big brother, too. The big brother did things like play after dark, and he liked to play with bugs, too. He said that the pigeons were his, which started Anne screaming at him, saying,

“No! They are mine!”

He said that they were “ homed,” and he was ”the one that homed them”, so they belonged to him.

Huh. They could fly away any time they wanted, he said, then come back. They liked to come back home again, that’s why they were “ homed.”

I thought that if he “ homed” them, then maybe he was right, and Annie was wrong.

It seemed like they should be his, maybe, right?

I was only seven years old, and this was going to be the first night that my Mom let me spend the night with anyone. Anne was my best friend, and had been my best friend since kindergarten, so we were best friends for three whole years, positively a lifetime!

We played hopscotch together before school, our desks were next to one another in class, and we ate lunch together, too. We called ourselves “Bestest Friends.” Bestest Friends Forever. In fact, it seems we invented BFFs.

The back yard was wondrous and delicious. There was a huge bush in front of a hill, and trees were scattered about so that there was plenty of room to play, run, catch ball, or do jump rope. Neighbor kids whose names I didn’t know just walked on over, because there was no fence around the property. It was just wide-open space.

The sun was going down now, casting a sideways shadow on the hill. Crispy air surrounded them, but it was fine because they were running around so much that the cold was unnoticeable. It just wasn’t even cold.

It was getting dark, and I was not used to playing outside after dark. It was beginning to get kind of scary, and the other kids wanted to play Hide and Seek.

Well, I wasn’t about to be a big baby about it, so I said “okay.” Since this was my first night away from home, I really did not want them to think I was a baby. Another wave of neighbor kids joined in, and it was turning out to be a glorious night. Anyway, if everyone else’s mom let them stay out in the dark to play, then it must be okay.

No one knows how it started, really.

Somehow, we were in front of a huge, dark green bush with soft leaves and flexible branches. We decided it was a ‘suction bush.’ Whenever someone unwittingly walked by, the bush ‘sucked’ them in, and their arms and legs were left to hopelessly flail in the darkness. It took someone else to help them out, because the suction was so powerful.

Relentlessly, I shrieked with laughter as a Rescuer helped me out of the dark, ominous suction bush. For hours, neighbor kids took turns first getting sucked into the bush and then scouting it to be certain no one was sucked into it.

Sometimes, the Rescuer would be Anne, and I could see Anne’s big eyes peering at me and then pulling me out. We struggled together, with Anne’s grip tightening around my wrist, then my forearm, then my elbow. Pulling and pulling, until finally I was free.

Other times, a random hand would pop into my face and grip my nose. It was dark, so then at least I knew where it was and I could grip that hand and then that wrist would pull, pull me out. I noticed that when a boy pulled me out, especially if it was Anne’s brother, who I now named the Pigeon Boy, it was different. He didn’t need to climb up my arm to get a grip, no. Instead, he just effortlessly and deliberately pulled me out in one full sweep.

I started to close my eyes to see if I could tell who it was that was pulling me out of the bush, and I got it right every time I guessed it was The Pigeon Boy. He had big hands with fat fingers, this Pigeon Boy. I mean, he was strong. His fingers swallowed my wrist and pulled me to freedom in one huge Swoop! of strength.

Pow! I was out in one second!

That was the first time I really knew how strong a boy could be. I jumped in the bush again. It was fun to just close my eyes and wait to see who would come for me.

Again and again, The Pigeon boy gripped me strongly as I shrieked in horror at the bad Suction Bush. Again and again, I was reduced to tears and laughter when I was rescued. I was breathless! And again and again, that Suction Bush pulled me in, as if that was its sole mission.

I rubbed my eyes now, as they were tearing in the darkness, and I felt tiny crumbs of soil on my cheeks. Then I looked at my own slender hands.

They had strips of dirt on them, as the bushes rubbed off on me. My brown hair was strewn and tossed about, riddled with pieces of leaves, tangles, and knots. My blue pants and matching blue and white shirt were so dirty that my first thought was that my mother would be mad if she could see me now.

But the whole night was fun, and I continued to laugh. It was so fun that I forgot about my mom just about the same second that I realized how much fun I was having.

The Suction Bush, The Pigeon Boy, and the Pulling and Pulling went on!

It went on for hours and hours and I just wanted the night with its impending bedtime to never come. Much later, when we could barely see in the dark, us Bestest Friends ran away from that mean old bush, laughing because we were smarter than it.

I had never stayed out so late to play, I had never gotten so completely dirty, and I had never played that close to a boy. I wasn’t going to mention to anyone that it was past my bedtime, because I did not want to give anyone the idea that it was time to stop playing (or that I was still a baby, of course).

I told myself to stop thinking about stopping playing.

And I played as if playing would never end.

And I played and played. And I learned how to let the night go on forever.