"EVERYBODY SHOULD TALK and listen at the same time." Maggie said it more than once.

"Saves time," she contended matter-of-factly.

She was a woman who liked to talk, probably not listen, and who couldn't throw anything away. It was said that she owned nine art deco sewing machines, although she'd never been known to find more than three of them at a time. Her real name was Maggie, and that's what they called her to her face. Otherwise she was "Magpie".

It was easy to see why people thought of her as a birdlike; she even worked with birds. She rehabilitated them, not wild ones that smashed into windows or power lines, but pet parrots that had been neglected or abused. She didn't nurse physical injures, like a veterinarian would; Maggie helped birds recover from the kinds of habits that make them hard to live with. For more than a decade, she had worked to temper ill-tempered parrots. It's not a field that's easy to make a living in. She was more often paid with a bird than to help one.

Fifty or so noisy or cantankerous parrots lived in Maggie's large basement apartment. Expenses being what they were, however, Maggie needed a roommate for the house upstairs.

I recommended that last roommate, unfortunately, a student in my Thursday evening painting class. Monica turned out to be more than a bad artist. She moved in on September first, with great pomp and circumstance, and lasted a mere eleven days until a major bipolar incident. Starting at sunrise she began having conversations with people who weren't there. By mid-afternoon, when the police came to take her away, she was naked and throwing eggs against the wall.

The landlord reacted badly. Maggie and the parrots had to go, and there weren't many choices. They found a row house in an iffy neighborhood. Dovecourt was "transitional housing", a place someone lives when emerging from the streets, or just before becoming lost in them. After you'd been there a while, you could pay by the week, if necessary. Single moms and a coupla couples, also with children, filled a dozen connected units surrounding a courtyard. Simply surviving in this environment called for teamwork by all the neighbors. It was the kind of place where you could borrow toilet paper the day before pay day, if you could find somebody who still had some. Everybody was honest, at least about important matters; and in a city fraught with dangers, Dovecourt was safe. The neighbors adopted the bird woman and helped her care for the ornery parrots.

The children were friendly, mostly polite, and everywhere in evidence. As a matter of fact, it looked like most of the females in the place were producing another child. Shannon was the exception. She doted on Dana, her only daughter, and often talked about what it was like being a third wife when there were two ex-wives and five kids needing shoes in another state.

Shannon and Dana and Maggie became fast friends. Dana helped Maggie feed the birds and clean their cages. Shannon helped, too, sometimes, when Maggie was gone for days on speaking gigs and tracking pet parrots that had flown away.

Winter came early and hit hard that year. It snowed twice in September. October was freezing, windy, and gray. With moving expenses and exceptional heating bills, Maggie served black-eyed peas and jalapeno cornbread for Thanksgiving. And, like most people living on the edge, Maggie paid her bills as on the last possible day. She paid her November heating bill the day before the gas would have been turned off.

By the first week in December there was another Demand for Payment or Disconnect, but Maggie wasn't nervous. She had what she needed, $150, and was on the way to pay the bill more than two weeks early when a tearful Shannon walked through her unlocked door.

"I can't believe it!" Black Maybelene mascara streaked down her cheeks. "I've been so careful. It can't be! I just found out I'm pregnant."

Maggie put her purse down and went to the refrigerator for milk.

"Here, have some of this; it'll calm you down."

"I can't have a baby, I just can't have a baby! There's no money, and I can't quit work to see through an adoption. If I can't end this thing this week, it'll be too late, and I'll lose my job because of the chemical fumes."

Shannon swallowed a huge gulp of milk, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Our truck is broken down, and Dana needs to get to the dentist. The rent's paid. I worked overtime last week. I've got 90 bucks. I need $240 for the surgery. I won't have the other $150 until my next pay day on the 23rd. If I can't find the money by Tuesday, I'm up the creek!"

Maggie was panicked. She knew she was an easy touch. She'd been conned before, losing her VCR bonding a flaky ex-lover out of jail. And she still had nightmares about the schizophrenic roommate and being homeless with all those birds. She had the money Shannon needed, but she needed it, too. Her birds needed it. The utility company expected it. The weather had lingered below freezing for a week.

Shannon's payday was December 23rd -- the day Maggie's gas would be disconnected if she didn't pay the bill. There was no margin for error. If Maggie loaned her utility money to Shannon, and Shannon flaked out, there would be no heat, and the birds could die on Christmas Day.

Now, anybody who knows birds knows that a magpie's most common defense is to fly away. And that's what Maggie did, at first.

"Oh dear, Shannon," she said, "I was just walking out the door. Take a nap on the sofa. Help yourself to another glass of milk. I'll be back in an hour. You'll feel better. We'll talk."

Leaving her neighbor in tears, Maggie went off to pay the gas bill but came back with a check made out to Shannon.

Maggie and Shannon and Dana held a giant yard sale the very next weekend. Decorating the Dovecourt patio with twinkling colored lights, they recruited children to play carols on an old tape recorder. They served hot apple cider, kept an open fire going in a barrel, and gift wrapped purchases free. Maggie even sold a couple of sewing machines.

With her neighbors' help, Shannon raised enough money for a vasectomy for her husband.

The freezing winds continued to blow; and a host of new challenges appeared by the end of the month. But Shannon kept her commitments. The teeth and the truck were fixed. The out-of-state shoes were bought, and Maggie's utility bill was paid on time. The new year rumbled in looking exactly like the old one, and 50 ill-tempered parrots got fat on black-eyed peas and jalapeno cornbread.

ParrotChronicles.com. Published 2002.