HE MAY HAVE LOST HIS ADVANTAGE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Mrs. Roberta Halloran, the Chair of the Attleboro Committee, made the suggestion during the hearing of a vandalism case yesterday that prizes should be offered to owners of parrots and parakeets whose training enables them to call out those doing violence to the property of others. Jasper, a thirty-five-year-old Psittacus, seems a frontrunner for any reward or bounty, as he already has an established habit of condemning or preconizing many in the neighborhood with terse, pietistic jibes: “Cigarette, cigarette” for one, “Filthmouth” for another, “Runaround Sue,” for a third, “Busybody” for a fourth. And yet he may have lost his advantage, as the last of these impugnments was directed at Mrs. Halloran at the conclusion of the hearing, earning from her a sharp look and what portends to be enduring scorn.