Psychiatrist Bob's parrot

A friend goes by the name Bob. He has an acquaintance who is a psychiatrist also named Bob. I was named after Uncle Robert. Some few people call me Bob. This psychiatrist friend of a friend is a bit odd as you might guess by his trade. He is tall as he is old and he has a pet parrot.

The parrot has his own bedroom on the twenty-second floor of an apartment building off the mall on Larimer St. downtown Denver. His very large square cage dominates the center of the room. You can walk around the cage but that's about it. Psychiatrist Bob talks to his parrot in baby-talk. To witness very large six-foot six old man do this is creepy, to be honest. I don't like that parrot.

The psychiatrist knew that I painted Egyptian frescos but he wasn't interested in buying one. A downtown department store named Joslin's took down a window display that incorporated life size cutouts of Egyptian figures that were blank. Now, this is very odd because Joslin's was right next door to the Federal Reserve Bank where I worked and I did not see the window display. If I did, it would have appealed to me immediately. The store discarded the life-size cutouts and Psychiatrist Bob asked the people in charge if he could have them. So Bob ended up with these cutouts.

The window display coincided with the Denver Museum of Natural History exhibition of Ramses. It was a very big deal for the city. It was a large show with monolithic statues, even the Ramses mummy. I went to that show five times. I produced posters for the Federal Reserve employee's club that hosted a tour to the exhibition. Another individual named Dennis is a dentist who lives directly across from the museum on Colorado Boulevard. Dennis the dentist lives in a very large brick house by himself. He hosted a party for professional people to visit the Ramses exhibition. Through the original friend Bob, Psychiatrist Bob asked me to come to his downtown apartment to help him paint these two cutouts to contribute to Dennis the dentist's party. It was a very large party, all professional people.

Fine.

I show up to Bob's downtown apartment and he's got that goddamn parrot chained to the balcony railing. So now the parrot is part of the deal. There are three doors that lead to the balcony. One from the living room, another from Bob's bedroom on the opposite side, and one from the parrot's bedroom, the main door in the middle, a large patio door. The cutouts are leaning against the glass to the parrot's bedroom door.

Bob had everything set up and ready to go. Acrylic paints, water, brushes, cloth, all set up on a small wooden table directly under the parrot.

The parrot kept grabbing brushes from the table and chewing them. It kept dropping brushes over the balcony until there weren't any left. Bob and I had to go down to the alley and collect the brushes that the parrot gnawed on and dropped. The parrot was a giant pain the butt. 

Then Bob pulled something that I did not appreciate. 

We were painting the cutouts side by side working together each to our own cutout. He invited me over so that I could show him what to do with these things, how to even approach it. What colors to use. How to get a face on it, how to make white silhouettes into cartoons, he ignored my advice and totally f'd up his cutout. He messed up the eye, messed up the color fields, messed up the necklace, messed up the bracelets, messed up the placement of the ear, the hair and the outline. He messed up everything. Then right in the middle of the project he said, "I have dentist appointment downtown here, just a few blocks away." (Not with Dennis the dentist) He said he'll be back in an hour. 

Now I'm at his apartment by myself. And I don't even know this guy. 

I set my mind to the task at hand. I'm painting the necklace and keeping it simple. The jewels will be simple primary colors, like rows of jelly beans. I get in real close. It's tedious. Goes like this: line line line line line line line line line line, at least a couple hundred times. Time stops as I draw rows of lines. As my mind stays focused at the tip of my brush the rest of my mind free-associates. My mind flies around the whole universe. It goes back into time. It goes forward ahead. It thinks about other things that aren't about painting a life-size cutout. I plan the rest of my day. I imagine my next meal. I think about work that is a few blocks way. I think about the party these cutouts are for. I don't think about Bob I don't think about the parrot, I don't think about being twenty-two floors up, I don't think about being on a balcony, or in somebody else's home. I just fly around the whole world and stay at the tip of my brush.

My mind is a million miles away from here, and it's right here at the same time. Suddenly, in a very clear voice, perfectly enunciated and loud, a definitive statement, "Hello Bob!"

S-t-r-e-e-e-e-e-a-a-a-a-a-k. 

It scared the living shit out of me! It sounded like a swat team flipping over the balcony. That bird had not said a single word until he called out my name. Twenty-two floors up! The bird had gone so quiet I had completely forgotten it was even there behind me. I didn't even know it could talk. 

And now I could kill that f'k'n bird. 

He wasn't even talking to me, he was just repeating what his owner taught him.