The Birds Part I

Submitted by Taco Bell- Pilot at Large

The five flight students were sitting outside of room C-303 on the third deck of the Bachelor Officers Quarters in Corpus Christi TX, enjoying some afternoon adult beverages, and watching the sun start it’s slow descent to the west. The buzz of the little red and white Navy T-34 trainers in the landing pattern overhead made a racket every fifteen minutes or so, but that was the sound of freedom. Unlike the shrieking of hundreds of seagulls hanging in the stiff sea breeze just a few feet from the railing of the walkway from the five men. As they leaned back in their deck chairs, Adam Bolachek, a six foot four former linebacker from Penn State, in his deep baritone voice barked “These God Damn seagulls are Rats with wings and crap on my car all the time.” Everyone reflected on this true statement for a moment. We also knew of his hatred towards the highly skilled dive bombing rats with wings, who assaulted our cars in the parking lot on a daily basis. Once, at the beach, he caught a seagull by looping his fishing line in a circle with the little clip device and catching one by it’s web feet. He then let it fly off and would reel it back down to him till the bird tired enough to be set free. He, by no means would get hired at P.E.T.A, but I dare a member to say anything to him for fear of being squashed…

Adam then bellowed out, his voice only came in one caliber…loud, “Hey, anyone ever fed a seagull an Alka-Seltzer tablet? I heard it makes them blow up, something about the gases expanding in their stomachs.” It was a quiet moment as each guy thought about all the poop they had cleaned off their cars and soon it was a mad dash into their rooms to search for some tablets. Maybe five minutes later, everyone was on the edge of the railing, tossing tablets at the hungry, hovering birds. They might catch one, but couldn’t swallow it, too big. They tried breaking it up into smaller pieces to feed to them. It didn’t work either. The birds never blew up, they were truly rats with wings and could eat anything.

Taco Bell, remembered his Russian History professor, feeding vodka soaked corn kernels to the pigeons outside of the classroom. “Hey guys, what if we tossed them some alcohol laced pieces of bread?” It was another mad dash to the different rooms, looking for bowls, bread and alcohol. Pete Noah had a bottle of 180 proof grain, set your throat on fire stuff, Taco had some wonder bread and the pretty smashed crew started to have some fun. They rolled the bread into tiny balls and then dipped them into the grain, following by a toss up into the air towards the hungry birds. The greedy little rats would dive down and attack the balls, swallowing them whole. It was the funniest sight to see when the bird realized that the bread had a chaser to it. They tried to cough it up but to no avail. Only one ball was required to get them drunk off their rockers. Pretty soon, they started to crash into each other, the walls, the lamppost, the tree’s and there was starting to amass a small bird body count down on the grass below.

Adam, then had the bright idea of using his officers sword to wack a couple of the birds. Chanted by the others, Adam hauled back with his sword over his head while Pete stood a couple of feet in front of him and tossed the bread into the air. I’m sure that the beer played a big part of it, but Adam misjudged the birds and Pete, the tip of the sword came slicing down the front of Pete’s shirt leaving a nice thin from mid-chest section to his belly button. Through the haze of the beer and laughter of the others, the realization that this game was dangerous, dawned on the group, thus ending that fun.

Adam went to his room to collect a heavy duty trash bag, followed by picking up some of the dead birds on the ground who proved that you shouldn’t drink and fly. After dumping them into the dumpster, they returned to drinking some more beer and watching the poor schmucks beating up the pattern.

The grey Navy police pickup truck pulled into the almost near empty lot. An overweight chief got out of his truck and walked across the white feathers strewn all over the ground and said up to the group “Afternoon Gents, we got a call from someone in the building here that a group of fellas were killing some seagulls. This isn’t true is it?” All five were shaking their heads back and forth like the little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Oh no chief, nothing like that happening here.” Adam bellowed back down. The chief looked at all the feathers on the ground, Pete shouted down “Don’t mind those feathers chief, the birds are molting.”

The Chief looked back up and said, “Well if you see anyone doing something stupid like, would you remind them that it’s a $200 dollar fine per bird since they are protected down here in Texas.” He returned to his truck and waved. The group broke out in snickers… “Holy cow Adam,” Taco said “go bury those bird out in the sand dunes by the beach and hope that he doesn’t check the dumpster.” as he watched the truck driving out of the parking lot. Adam was pissed now though, “Who the hell turned us into the cops??? The only cars in the lot are ours and wait a second, isn’t that Larry’s truck there?” The words no sooner passed from his lips when Larry’s door opened and closed and he walked to his truck there. He got in and never acknowledged the hello’s from the party on the third floor.

They all looked at each other and in unison said… “Larry!!!!”