Introduction: My Strange Affinity With Crows
My life has several times been marked by an eery connection with the beyond; once or twice even with back of beyond. Not with the presence of poltergeists or anything that goes bump in the night, but with birds, and in particular, crows. Let me capitalize that: Crows. As if eternally entangled in a reel of the Hitchcock film, my fretful life creeps forward from one restless encounter to the next. Forthwith, I here attempt to exorcize the very forces that haunt my twisted life. Twisted by spirits incarnated in Crows.
Episode One: Crow Attack!
I’m walking down the street, minding my own business and trying not to inhale all the fumes from the local restaurants as best as I possibly can. No, this was not a dream. Burger King in particular smells like a rendering plant on a hot summer day, and it’s hard not to keep that famous scene from In a Year With 13 Moons out of my head. Anyway, this Crow starts dive bombing me like a kamikaze pilot heading towards the Lexington. But this crazy bird actually lands on my head and starts tearing up my hair. Or at least scratching my scalp. Overwhelmingly Freaky. Or perhaps it was just looking for more food; evidently these crows are pretty well fed by the locals. Or . . . maybe it was the devil, making a bird’s nest in my hair.
I too have a crow attack story.
About twenty years ago I took a part-time job delivering the morning paper on Queen Anne Hill.
It was just two days a week and I worked for the regular carrier.
Well, one June morning at four or five AM I was attacked by crows apparently protecting their nests (I found out that they are unusually aggressive in early summer).And, although I was never struck, I took the attack very seriously because they stalked me up the street. In fact, they stalked me up several streets from Prospect to Highland, 3rd N. to Queen Anne Ave N.. At one point–so help me–they waited outside a large apartment building until I was done delivering inside.One evil bastard even grinned (if you don’t believe me all I can say is that you should have been there).
The next morning I was prepared: batting helmet, safety goggles and tennis racket; I was going to kill a crow. And sure enough they attacked again, but this time in such overwhelming numbers I was forced to take refuge in a doorway.
(I found out later that a resident watched the whole fiasco and complained to the regular carrier rather than invite me inside.
Crows are among the most intelligent animals. The crow family, including blue jays and magpies, are the only birds who raise their offspring in packs. And have you ever noticed the way they hop into the road to pick something up and then hop back when a car is coming?
Crows are bad omens and bad Indians when it comes to leaving women and children behind; turn the women into squaws and adopt children into Indian ways (not that there is anything wrong with that).
MY STRANGE AFFINITY WITH CROWS will be a regular serial feature on Korrektiv.