The Human Stain

What is it with crows and parking lots? What is that all about? We'll never know what that's about or anything else. Other birds are kind of dull next to crows. Yes, bluejays have that terrific bounce. The trampoline walk. That's good. But crows can do the bounce and the chesty thrust. Most impressive. Turning their heads from left to right, casing the joint. Oh, they're hot shit. They're the coolest. The WHAT DO YOU DO. . .? caw. The noisy caw. Listen. Just listen. Oh, I love it. Staying in touch like that. The frantic call that means danger. I love that. Rush outside then. It can be 5 A.M., I don't care. The frantic call, rush outside, and you can expect the show to begin any minute. The other calls, I can't say I know what they mean. Maybe nothing. Sometimes it's a quick call. Sometimes it's throaty. Don't want to confuse it with the raven's call. Crows mate with crows and ravens with ravens. It's wonderful that they never get confused. Not to my knowledge anyway.

Everybody who says they're ugly scavenger birds—and most everybody does—is nuts. I think they're beautiful. Oh, yes. Very beautiful. Their sleekness. Their shades. It's so so black in there you can see purple in there. Their heads. At the start of the beak that sprout of hairs, that mustache thing, those hairs coming forward from the feathers. Probably has a name. But the name doesn't matter.

Never does. All that matters is that it's there. And nobody knows why. It's like everything else—just there. All their eyes are black. Everybody gets black eyes. Black claws. What is it like flying?

Ravens will do the soaring, crows just seem to go where they're going.

They don't just fly around as far as I can tell. Let the ravens soar. Let the ravens do the soaring. Let the ravens pile up the miles and break the records and get the prizes. The crows have to get from one place to another. They hear that I have bread, so they're here. They hear somebody down the road two miles has bread, so they're there. When I throw their bread out to them, there'll always be one who is the guard and another you can hear off in the distance, and they're signaling back and forth just to let everybody know what's going on. It's hard to believe in everybody's looking out for everybody else, but that's what it looks like. There's a wonderful story I never forgot that a friend of mine told me when I was a kid that her mother told her. There were these crows who were so smart that they had figured out how to take these nuts they had that they couldn't break open out to the highway, and they would watch the lights, the traffic lights, and they would know when the cars would take off—they were that intelligent that they knew what was going on with the lights—and they would place the nuts right in front of the tires so they'd be cracked open and as soon as the light would change they'd move down. I believed that back then. Believed everything back then. And now that I know them and nobody else, I believe it again. Me and the crows. That's the ticket.

Stick to the crows and you've got it made. I hear they preen each other's feathers. Never seen that. Seen them close together and wonder what they're doing. But never seen them actually doing it.

Don't even see them preen their own. But then, I'm next door to the roost, not in it. Wish I were. Would have preferred to be one. Oh, yes, absolutely. No two ways about that. Much prefer to be a crow.

They don't have to worry about moving to get away from anybody or anything. They just move. They don't have to pack anything.

They just go. When they get smashed by something, that's it, it's over. Tear a wing, it's over. Break a foot, it's over. A much better way than this. Maybe I'll come back as one. What was I before that I came back as this? I was a crow! Yes! I was one! And I said, "God, I wish I was that big-titted girl down there," and I got my wish, and now, Christ, do I want to go back to my crow status. My status crow.

Good name for a crow. Status. Good name for anything black and big. Goes with the strut. Status. I noticed everything as a kid. I loved birds. Always stuck on crows and hawks and owls. Still see the owls at night, driving home from Coleman's place. I can't help it if I get out of the car to talk to them. Shouldn't. Should drive straight on home before that bastard kills me. What do crows think when they hear the other birds singing? They think it's stupid. It is. Cawing.