Image Source: JACK LAKEY/TORONTO STAR
Have you ever heard the rumours about the beaked beggars?
By Quincy Jackett, Staff Writer
Outside the east entrance to any subway station loiters a group of beaked beggars with tousled feathers and glossy gray eyes. They shuffle over salt-stained pavement, bobbing heads, watching feet pass without pause. When the wind howls through the station doors, they huddle close, murmuring old stories from the sky. Sometimes, they waddle too close to the automatic doors, sliding them open for those leaving. They tip their worn, mud-stained postal caps and let a half-smoked cigarette drop from their beaks before nodding toward the passerby’s bag—waiting and expecting some spare crumbs in exchange for their generosity.
But no one ever stops. No one ever spares. No one ever listens to their broken calls or notices the rhyme scheme of their cautious coos. Instead, the beaked beggars are stepped over—shooed away with a bristled broom. Their ruffled feathers with shiny green streaks are never good enough for a page in a scrapbook or collector’s box. Victims of the New World, victims of the telephone, victims of loving too dearly. Late at night, the beaked beggars flock around a trashcan bonfire and curse the mailman. They trade stories about boats and subway rats and women with curly hair.
If you listen closely you can hear them complain about the price of stickers, missing the last train, and being caught in the rain. They occasionally recall the bees who died at sea and about the one lover who never knew to meet the other with a packed bag and open eyes on the last harvest moon at Peggy’s Cove.
They whisper sweet sonnets about ordinary love, birthday cakes, and women by the names of Iris and Grace. They hide in their dusty alcoves waiting to one day go back home to maybe some overgrown grove. They peck at the skinny red ribbon tied around their leg, holding a weathered telegram in place.
Have you ever stopped and asked the post pigeons for directions to the nearest corner store, their mother’s middle name, or how to spell Wednesday? If you do, they might just trade all the secrets about the rock doves for that piece of bread at the bottom of your school bag.
I heard they used to be loved. I heard their pockets used to be lined with pennies from the postman pension plan. I heard they used to be known worldwide as the feathered apostles.
But, wings always melt when flown too close to the sun. And no one has time to sit on a park bench to exchange pigeontails.
I heard they descended from the harpies. And ever since they lost their carrier vests, their chests echo with lost heartbeats.
