Everyone at my end of the condo thought new tenant might be a homeless squatter. A family of birds could’ve easily made their home nestled inside his whiskers. He always wore a green puff jacket with a bit of puff spilling out from a rip in the elbow, and had moved into an apartment on the same landing next to me, strolling the walkways in leather sandals, while everyone had moved on to shoes. He always walked with a peacock with a jeweled leash around its skinny neck; he never tugged at the bird or became impatient as it wandered around the cars in the parking lot or toward the mailbox. Rarely did I see him with the peacock during the day, mostly at night, its blue feathers luminous beneath the motion-sensor detectors.
On this particular evening, I was getting into my car and leaving for an appointment, when for the first time in months, he spoke.
“Nice weather we’re having.” A tooth was missing from his lower jaw.
It was awful weather. Clouds, rain, and dipping temperatures that required turning up the heat which was even more expensive than the previous year. But I was pleased that after almost a full year, my neighbor had said finally something. I asked his name. He mumbled something which sounded like Terry. I wasn’t sure. The peacock cocked its head and shook its crest of feathers. “Is that your pet?” I listened to the peacock’s loud krah, krahing that scared away dogs twice its size that were out for an evening poop.
“No.” His response was clipped and certain. “I take care of her for a friend.”
No matter what he said, I was sure the friend was not retrieving the peacock, if there ever was a friend. It’s not unusual for people to help out friends when they go on vacation or attend a conference. Just last month, I dog-sat my sister’s basset hound. But a peacock? It wasn’t on the HOA list of acceptable pets. How do you keep a peacock in the house? Inside a bathtub? A closet? Not by any stretch. But one thing was for sure. This Terry-person was strange, adding to my last months of tumbling into the New Year like wet clothes in a clothes dryer, with a crescendo of fifty percent off sales and two for ones, drowning out what was actually happening in the world.
“Be careful,” and without another word, he turned away and continued walking toward the swimming pool.
In retrospect, I wished I’d been able to read the signs. Each time I went to my car, ravens landed on an oak tree branch with the sun bouncing off the curve of their scepter-like beaks. The ravens arrived in pairs, then threesomes, almost like the ones that taunted and attacked people in Hitchcock’s film. But these ravens weren’t aggressive; they just stared, which is exactly why I found them unnerving, especially when one landed on the hood of my Toyota and preened its feathers oblivious to the fact that I was pulling out from my parking spot.