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                        HEY, WHAT ABOUT THE PLAYER’S CUT?

I was reading The American Psychopath the other day where a General Woog was stripped of his commission and sentenced in to five years at think-it-over for swearing on the witness stand that he had gone bird riding every afternoon for six thousand years. The Navy and the Air Forces sent out their own shrinks to try to stymie this phantom, but the truth stayed beyond known. The press called the General the Bird Colonel and the court went haw-haw over recess, but General Woog could not be shaken. He went bird riding. He said that every afternoon he would leave his false teeth on the victrola, tell his orderly to take no more calls, please; he wanted to get in a quick nine holes, then he would step to the runway, hoist both hands above his head & slide around in a circle dragging his right foot behind him yelling Bird O Bird, yelling yellow yellow Bird. Soon he would feel a warm light blow down from the sky to make him sleepy, and the cracks in his old face would buzz. “Nobody stared,” he reported. “It was like momma and poppa going out for dinner. I had just kissed momma good-by”& they swooped in fast for a landing, picked up the General and returned him to the falconer’s wrist. Did somebody drop the boy? I am the Widow-Maker. Woog claimed the birds would fly around at low altitudes until he lost his fear, then they would soar toward a giant man who caressed Woog’s shoulders. “The man made me cry. But he was a real man.” Sometimes the birds took him dancing at the Salt Air Pavilion. “I almost forgot about the heat of the broiler. I - at first I was scared that their dance was beyond me - that I’d forgotten how, but soon enough I knew I’d come whenever they would call. They were so nice to me and they never laughed.” To a man the military screamed Guilty, and began to pull the bricks out of their briefcases. General Woog then rose from his chair and began to circle the room in his own behalf. He continued: “In the beginning they would never talk, except among themselves.” Then, through the centuries, Woog began to learn their language. “They talk just the same as we talk, except they never try to win. I learned about fire, how it soothes the shining hand. There are orders. I was one of them. If I could give you one for the road, I’d repeat: How easy, how easy.”

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On the beach General Woog walked among the red and blue birds feeding their young the tiny shrimp and clams revealed by the falling tide. “At first there was total pain. I couldn’t learn at all. Then the birds told me the truth: ‘There’s only one reason for all this false ceremony, all this playboy nationalism you call the world. Somebody somewhere is looking for a sacrifice. And you’re it. Pick a card.’ Naturally at that point I went for my gun. These mocking-birds were making fun of me! I figured ‘Fuck this shit’.  No damn birds gonna tell me’, and like that; but then they would carry me away to one of their dances, and they dance all the time, and dance with me and talk to me and tell me how the air's got so wierd they don’t even come down, there’s so little left to breathe. And I knew those damn birds were just me. And I cried. So I came back to this courtroom to tell you one time before I float out to sea that today’s wing is your imagination. And good night, miles of priestly goo.” Very few folks believed Woog. The General was given a maniac’s discharge, but he was allowed to keep his uniform and flight wings. The jury found him guilty, but it was not enough. “How easy. How easy.” The only way we knew it was the Woog was by the false teeth gleaming in a hideous mildewed smile floating in a glass of water on the old victrola.