Martyr with companions. Philetus was supposedly a senator who resided in the province of Illyria and was put to death during the persecution under Emperor Hadrian. He died with his family. A captain, Amphilochius, and a notary, Cronidas, also suffered martyrdom with Philetus.  

“Chopper” works quite well.

Until now.

Url and his travel cage came home with me on Wednesday with plans for him to stay until Sunday. I’m quite taken with him, and he seems to be quite comfortable with me. He will happily sit on my finger or shoulder or, my preference, on my knee and examine everything quite curiously.

My first sign that something might be up was that I reached into the back seat to get Url’s travel cage and lo and behold, no Url! He had managed to escape in the five minutes between Elizabeth’s apartment and ours and was sitting on the back of the seat. I corralled him and got him back in the cage. He escaped again within about another five minutes of his arrival in the apartment, so we spent some time figuring out how to parrot-proof the cage. In the meantime, Url sat quite happily on his portable perch and surveyed his surroundings.

Although Url and I get along well, it turns out that Url hates Chopper. There was a fair bit of posturing and snapping in the air, and then a good, genuine nip. Thus ends the attempt of Chopper to make nice with the parrot. I spent a fair bit of time that night petting him and generally having a quiet, nice time.

So, when it’s bedtime, we covered Url’s cage and everything was just fine until morning, when I removed the cover before heading to work. He was near the window and had a nice view of the birdfeeders outside, which I figured would keep him occupied during the day.

Go figure.

Sometime during the day, I get a text message to my cell phone that says, simply, “Damn Bird.”

Url got feisty when he woke up and decided to once again liberate himself from the cage. Around 9:30 AM, he begins to chirp aggressively, waking up Chopper, who went to sleep around 3 hours earlier. (For those of you who don’t know, Chopper works for a newspaper and has an evening shift.) So, Chopper headed into the living room to find the source of the noise. Url was hiding, but eventually made a mad dash across the floor. After some hijinks, Url was relocated to his portable perch and given some granola. Chopper went back to bed.

Shortly thereafter, Url made more ruckus. Chopper got up again and attempted to relocate Url back into his cage. (Granted, since Url had already made his dislike clear, Chopper was using a tea towel to catch him, so this was all a mostly-hands-free effort.) Url decided that he would rather climb up the side of the cage and sit on top. This was fine with Chopper, who once again hit the sack … only to come back to Url’s persistent chirping.

This time the corralling was successful and Url ended up in his travel cage. Chopper, needing some sleep, dropped the cover on his cage and (this time for good) went back to bed.

When I got home, I did get an earful. Url was quite happy to see me, and heard the story of his own misbehavior while perched comfortably on my knee, being rubbed behind his neck. When Chopper would get too near, Url puffed up to look larger and actually — yes — hissed at Chopper between threatening gestures of his beak.

To make a long story short, we decided that Url might be happiest at Elizabeth’s, with me dropping by once a day for a little quality time and nutritional supplementation. Chopper certainly will be.

Chopper is, I think, quite wounded at this rejection. Normally, animals of most kinds (and not a few small children) are quite taken with him, and this antipathy is a little hurtful.

All I have to say:

The parrot likes me.

For those of you who don’t know – my guess is that’s a very small number – Heather and I live in an apartment downtown, in the middle of the traffic, restaurants, bars and generally mayhem which that entails.

With me working nights, we have an odd ritual. A few nights a week, I will come home from work at midnight, 12:30 or 1:30, kiss Heather and tell her I love her (the general reaction to which is something along the lines of, “Munh whea anmh ah”) and head to the bar. I will usually leave there between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., depending on my night, the movie that people decide to watch after hours or the number of people at the poker table.

One Sunday night, I left the bar and wandered into the open-til-4 a.m. pizzeria for a calzone. I waited, watching ‘Iron Chef America’ with the cooks and delivery drivers, before continuing home.

When I turned the corner onto King St. and looked down the block toward home, the first thought that occurred to me was, “(Bleep) it, I forgot to take out the trash.” I take out and bring in the trash weekly in exchange for a bit cut off the rent, but normally I don’t remember to do it until late Sunday night for the Monday morning pickup.

I sat my calzone box down on a ledge and proceeded to roll cans out to the curb. After a few, I took a break to grab a bit of calzone before I rolled the last can out.

When I grabbed last can and I cleared the walled driveway a minute of so later, I was startled to see someone rummaging through one of the cans.

He had a mixture of surprise (at seeing someone taking out trash at 3 a.m.), chagrin (at being caught rummaging) and alarm (perhaps that I would have called the police) at seeing me. I had at least two of the same seeing him.

As I rolled the can into place at the end of the can line, he mumbled an apology and nodded and moved down the street.

I was a little flustered too, and began walking back into the driveway when a thought occurred to me. There wasn’t a single thing in those cans that anybody in these apartments still needed.

So I called after the old man and said something along the lines of, “If you want to keep looking for anything, feel free. I’m done with the cans. I won’t bother you anymore.”

He looked shocked, and maybe a little scared, but started to draw his hand out of his jacket. He was holding a mass of bright red azalea blossoms.

Flower sellers are nothing new around downtown. Depending on what they have access to (legally, gifted or otherwise), they sell azaleas, magnolia blossoms, confederate roses (folded palmetto fronds in the shape of roses) or any other flower that tourists or lovers might buy. This was a man trying to earn a pretty honest living for his next sandwich or hit or bottle of beer. At some level, you fundamentally have to admire that.

He handed me two of the stems and said something to me that has been resonating for the last half an hour. “You’re the fourth person that’s spoken to me today. Here, take these.”

He said something else, but I was still puzzling through the azaleas. I shock his hand, and told him to take care of himself. For his part, he smiled and honest smile and told me to do the same.

…

I could have walked inside, and he could have walked away. Neither of us gave up anything important to us or asked anything of the other, and both of us got something significant in return: a little hope, and a little faith in people in general. Small kindnesses.

I love this town.