STOMPIE
Simone is the patron saint of wounded animals.
The seagulls of Sea Point never had such a good time
as they had since we arrived here. Every time a bird gets its claws tangled in
nylon fishing line, or gets its toes chopped off, it heads straight for our
patio where it gets untangled and top quality whole-grain bread, and shelter,
and sympathy.
You’d be amazed how many seagulls lose their toes or
get tangled in nylon. You have to get to know seagulls in order to learn this.
And then there is Stompie.
He is easily recognisable – his left foot is missing
completely, and he hobbles around on a stump, although he flies normally. He is
the tamest of the seagulls (and now he is also the fattest, although when we
first got here, he was emaciated), and if Simone doesn’t feed him to his
satisfaction, he follows her into the kitchen, saying, “hey, wassup, what are
you going to do about my supper then, hey??” – Frikking cheek, hopping around
on his stump …
I think we’ve known Stompie for at least two years
now. Even Princess knows him, and calls him by his name, as if that was a
perfectly normal thing to do (work for the Friedlands, get to be like the
Friedlands …) Of course, Stompie thinks its perfectly normal too. I wonder if
he knows our names (or maybe he just knows us as “Feeder” and “Asshole”)
Then last week when I was taking down the succah, I
noticed that one of our plastic patio tables had blown over in strong wind the
previous night. As part of the general clean-up, I flipped the table back onto
its legs – and there, under the overturned table, was a squashed dead seagull. Omigod, I thought, some bird must have
sought shelter from the wind under the table, because this is a natural place
for a seagull to seek shelter (after all, this is where the food comes from),
and then *wham!* the table got him …
Then an awful thought struck me: the tamest bird of
all was Stompie. It was probably Stompie. Simone wasn’t on the patio at the
time. I’d better get this off here, I thought, before she comes back outside
and gets all grief-stricken and we all have to sit shiva for a week. Gingerly I
got hold of the dead bird by its wing and flipped it over. One gnarled claw
pointed at the sky. I couldn’t see another claw. Oh, shit. Its Stompie, I said
to myself.
I walked into the kitchen as if nothing had happened,
fetched a plastic bag and returned to the patio. Looking around quickly, I
checked that Simone wasn’t in sight, then deftly flipped the carcass into the
bag, tied it closed, took it into the kitchen, and dropped it into the bin. “I’d
better get that bin out of here quickly”, I said to myself, “or the smell and
the bird-lice will be all over the place” …
“I’m just taking the rubbish out, Sim”
(inaudible answer from the bedroom)
And off I went …
I wondered when Simone would notice.
Days went by. Every now and then I’d enquire casually,
“so has Stompie had his supper yet, Sim?” - and I always got a non-committal
answer which didn’t make it clear whether Simone had actually seen the damn
bird or not.
Eventually I couldn’t take it any more. This morning I
put the question to her directly: “have you seen Stompie recently?”
“Well, he doesn’t come every day – sometimes days go
by and he doesn’t show up”. This wasn’t helpful. Simone was going to start
wondering if I was obsessed with the bird or something – I couldn’t keep
pretending that I was just asking casual questions like this.
I was quite sure that the bird was dead and done for,
I was just worried about how Simone would react when the awful truth dawned on
her – although I suppose there must be a billion ways that a seagull could meet
its maker – in the Cape, I suppose that that would happen by a weaker bird
being blown into the sea (which isn’t a bad way to go, if you think about it –
I once knew a girl who told me that she would like to die one day by falling
off a high cliff into the sea – but she was quite stoned at the time we had
that discussion).
So imagine my relief when Stompie suddenly appeared on
the patio this afternoon, stomping around cheekily, marching behind Simone and
demanding his supper (he gets fed separately from the other seagulls, so that
they don’t steal his crumbs – Simone stands between him and the others, and
they hop about in impotent fury at this shamelessly preferential treatment). He
was obviously hungry, because he followed her into the kitchen, and I had to
shoo him out.
Good old Stompie. Must have been someone else under
that table …
Finally, I can tell Simone this story.
© Harry Friedland 2008
View my blog posts at https://hjfriedland.blogspot.com/
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