(Foto de Sheila Jordan por David Sinclair)The Bird meets the Bird
I had a little parakeet that I called Tori. I named him Tori because one of my artist friends, Harvey Cropper, said that Tori means bird in Japanese. I never let the bird out of his cage when anybody came over because he was a real pain in the ass and would land on your face if you were lying down. I taught him to say, “Hello, Bird, hello, sweetheart,” but I would always put him in the cage when anybody came because he wouldn’t talk much when he was in his cage.
So, this one time, Charlie came up to my loft during the daytime. He knocked on my door and said, “Hey, are you home?”
I said, “Yeah, who is it?”
He said, “It’s Bird.”
I said, “Oh yeah, cool. Just a minute, though, I have to get the bird in the cage because otherwise he’ll be jumping all over you.”
Bird said, “No, that’s OK, I don’t really care.”
So I couldn’t get Tori in the cage, but I let Bird in anyway. Bird said, “Can I just rest for a few minutes?”
I said, “Of course.” There was a couch that I called “Bird’s bed,” and I said, “You know where your bed is”.
So Bird goes over to his bed and lies down, and all of a sudden my bird, Tori, flies over to him. I said, “Oh no, look, the bird’s on him.”
Bird was almost asleep, and my bird, Tori, says, “Hello, Bird.”
Bird jumped up because it schocked him. He says to me, “What are you, a ventriloquist?” I said, “No, I didn’t say that. Tori said that.” He says, “Oh, get out of here, of course that was you.”
I said, “No, that was Tori.”
He says, “Oh yeah, right.” So he lies back down again, but this time he’s a little bit more awake. Tori lands right on the side of his shoulder and looks right up in his mouth and says, “Hello, Bird.”
Bird leaps up and says, “Goddamn, that bird does talk.”
I said, “I told you.”
He loved that, because my bird was very clear when he spoke. Tori kept jumping around and saying, “Hello, Bird, hello, sweetheart.”
Bird, needless to say, didn’t get any rest that day. He laughed, gave me a kiss on my cheek, and said, “I’ll see you later.” And he left.
(in Johnson, Ellen and Jordan, Sheila: Jazz child: The story of Sheila Jordan)