Sunday, March 29, 2009

Damn Polly and her cracker lust


The best thing about parrots is their preternatural memory for simple phrases.

The worst thing about parrots is their preternatural memory for simple phrases. And their weakness for showing off.

I, Ezekiel Smith, am here to tell you that there is nothing cute about being partnered with a yappy avian that tells everyone with a gentle hand about all your secret codes and assignation spots. Not when it results it forces you to jump off a gunrunning vessel into the icy Arctic waters.

This is not the bird with which I have such a dire history. There is a family resemblance, however. I will not be keeping this specimen. He would, however, make an ideal gift for a prying law-enforcement man I know of in Frankfort. Yes, when life gives one parrots, one is best off converting them into parrot-ade.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

The musical question "Do you know who I am?"


They thought they could break me in the Albanian prson camp. The solitary. The beatings on the soles of the feet. Hard labor as the harsh winds tore into our flesh.

In my fitlth-strewn cell I kept my sanity by whistling Bach's Fourth Brandenberg Concerto in G major, from beginning to end. And after I made contact with my handler, before I was airlifted out, I recorded my rendition in the commanders office. It was the one thing I left in the splinters of his desk.

The same tune I whistle now in the presence of the current sheriff. Just on the off chance that he should forget which of us is master.