"Don't answer it," I said to Sam. Our door in the inner city is constantly knocked on; our previous door in the suburbs rarely so. Sam has a full-time job and cannot spend his days answering requests to fix leaking baths or carry cash to the bank.
Sam opened the door and it was Mervin.
"There's a bird on the second floor," he said. "It's in trouble."
Sam followed Mervin upstairs. Mervin pointed and turned to let Sam look. It was a pigeon, the most common of all birds, the bird most likely to foul (弄脏) your newly washed car. And it wasn't flying away. It was stamping in circles. As Sam bent to look, Mervin coughed, "Number two."
Sam asked him to repeat that. "Number two," Mervin said. "The pigeon has been sitting in his own number two, and now it's stuck to his foot."
It had rained for five days, and the bird was young. It could have been sheltering in a wet nest of its own waste, which had then dried on its foot, preventing it from flying away. The pigeon moved in a few more circles. Sam bent to take another look. Mervin said, "All right, then." and walked away.
"Why does everyone think you must solve the problems around here?" I said to Sam when he returned with his story. "It's a bird. Just leave it on the stairs, and let nature take its course." Sam didn't agree. Then he went to the garage and emptied the cardboard box containing our imported camping mats. He returned with the gray pigeon in the box. He showed the bird to our children and they decided to keep it.
They put its foot in the warm water bath and got rid of its waste. Immediately the pigeon erupted in a bomb of feathers and began flying.
