When Shirl and I moved to Sebastopol in the 1980s, we were already well past hippie or hipster age, or whatever it was back then. Everyone was wearing ties in the city. Shirl liked to wear skirts that troubled her when she walked, and I wore overalls that fit just as well with or without a shirt.

We rented a cottage they called it, really a shack, on that street where everyone had metal statues that looked like birds or funky humans regardless they had to be life-sized and brightly colored. The street was a tourist attraction, slow drivers sticking cameras out of their car windows, later phones, and smiling like they were on hallucinogens. 

The neighbors said just call Ricardo he makes the best twirly birds and wind-up men out of car parts. But Shirl thought of herself as an artist even though she had only made beaded necklaces up to that point and maybe half a knitted scarf. She bought, no joke, a blow-torch and filled up the back of my truck with scrap metal from the junkyard.

I could see the thing’s beak from the kitchen window, where I sat with a mug of chicory coffee, the fixings of which I brought from New Orleans on my last stint with the Coast Guard. The coffee called in a slow drawl for beignets but the last time I tried to make them I got these burns on my chest that called for a military-type story and I was embarrassed to lie about that. But I did, you know.

The beak sat on the lawn pointing to the sky and Shirl was spray painting it bright red with a can of the stuff graffiti kids aren’t allowed to bring on the public bus. She should have been wearing a mask but she was smiling pretty big and I hated to ruin her buzz. Also, I would think you’d start the painting after the whole thing was soldered together but I’m not an artist.

Shirl put the bird together, pieces loosely connected by round bolts and laced wires.The neighbors came out to the street like you’d normally be able to in this quiet part of town if it wasn’t for the metal doodads on all our lawns.

She started waving her arms around like Vanna White pointing to the bird thing and lifting its wings to show that it could move. The locals were taking pictures of her with her bird and Shirl looked happy enough to stay. I was glad because I was tired of rolling with her wanderlust and trying to get out of moving every two years when she got inspired by some new place. Maybe this new place would be our old place, I thought. 

I walked out onto the lawn and started introducing myself to the neighbors.

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Jill Bronfman’s work has been recognized in seven literary contests and been accepted for publication in more than five collections and over thirty literary journals. She has been accepted to several literary conferences and residencies. She has performed her work in The Bay Area Book Festival, Poets in the Parks, The Basement Series, Page Street, and LitQuake, and had a story produced as a podcast. She is an upper-tier reader for The Masters Review. She has an MFA from Pacific University and teaches writing at all levels from graduate to kids. http://www.jillbronfman.com