I bought Mr. Jangles for Amerie back when we were happy from a student who was graduating and leaving Pasadena to return to the east coast.  Amerie wanted an African grey parrot, something that could talk, something she could train, something that would remind her of her childhood and the bird that she used to have.  After spending a Sunday afternoon in June with her, scouring shops in Burbank for a parrot with whom she could fall in love, I decided that I would take procurement duties upon myself.  Trekking around the smoggy San Gabriel Valley on a day when I could be grading homework or delving into d-branes wasn’t the most productive way to spend an afternoon of rest. 

I told my elementary particle class the following day that I needed an African grey of between three- and-six-months of age and would appreciate any leads on a reasonably priced bird that fit the description.  Devon, a lanky kid who sat in the back of the auditorium, approached me after lecture.  The parrot was already fifteen months old but the price was fair, included a cage and perch, and Devon was doing well in my class, so a couple of weeks later, after finals were finished and grades submitted to the registrar, I completed the transaction with my graduating student in the faculty parking lot. 

On our short drive home, the bird was quiet.  It barely regarded me, choosing instead to twist its beak to the side and peck at the metal wire door of its oversized cage.  If Amerie was disappointed that Mr. Jangles was older than the age of the parrot she’d initially wanted, she didn’t show it.  “I love him already,” she said.  She kissed me and then proceeded to set up the bird’s perch in the foyer, in front of the fixed, paned window, a location she chose so that it could enjoy a view of the conifer lined street.

“The house already feels different,” she said.  “Fuller.”

“Was it empty before?” I said.

“Not at all.”

Having not had pets growing up–I’d preferred chess and cards to animals–I wasn’t enamored with the bird like Amerie was.  But I could appreciate the idea that a pet, even one as nondescript as a parrot, lent activity to a house.  With research, teaching duties, and the quest for tenure consuming my days, I didn’t have time to be home a lot.  We’d bought the house, a creaky but character filled craftsman two years ago as soon as we’d married with hopes of endless nights by the fireplace.  Although we’d achieved the goal of spending our evenings together, the daytimes of separation were less planned.  As I watched my wife stroke the bird’s handsome red tail on that balmy summer night, I thought that the bird would be good for us.

In early July, I returned home from a trying day of research on campus to hear Amerie and Mr. Jangles bantering.  I stood unnoticed in the living room, several steps away from the entrance of the kitchen, where my wife was sitting in a high-backed dining chair, leaning forward onto our square table, and instructing Mr. Jangles.  The bird stood on the mahogany in front of her, its gray wings tucked into its side.  I placed my attaché down beside my foot on the floor.

“I love you, Quarky,” she said.

“I love you,” the bird said.

“I love you, Quarky.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, Quarky.”

“I love you, Quarky.”

Quarky was my nickname, bestowed upon me by Amerie shortly after we’d met.  It was her affectionate play on the word ‘quark,’ that elemental particle and constituent of matter from which all atomic nuclei are composed.  She and I had met more than three years ago at a fundraiser in downtown Los Angeles for one of the foundations that partially supported my research.  She was one of the designers for the fashion show that capped the night.  Unlike me, she was not bookish or mathematically disposed.  She was a wave and I was a particle.  Nonetheless, all matter has both wave- and particle-like properties and so anything can happen on any given night and that night at the fundraiser something sparked. 

As I stood outside the kitchen, the stress of research dissolved.  I could’ve watched her for hours.  But I was intruding on a private moment and didn’t want to violate my wife’s space.  So I palmed my attaché again, withdrew a few steps, and jingled my keys so that she would know that I was home. 

She turned around.  “Hi, Quarky,” she said.  “Come see what I taught Mr. Jangles today.”  She dug an unshelled peanut out of the bowl and tapped it on the table.  The bird jerked its head and watched the movement.  She rasped the table again. 

“I love you,” the bird said. 

“I love you, Quarky,” Amerie said, maintaining eye contact with the bird and knocking the mahogany again.

The bird stuck its feathered chest out.  “I love you, Dorky,” it said.

“Dorky?” I said.

“He loves you, Quarky,” she said, crushing the shell beneath her thumb and forefinger and palming the nut.  The bird shifted forward and plucked it from her hand. 

“I love you, Dorky,” it said again.

“See?” Amerie said.  “He loves you, Quarky.”

The bird jerked its head towards me, squawked, and said, “Dorky, Dorky, Dorky!” 

Amerie was ecstatic but I was startled.  I’d heard the lesson only a minute ago and was confident that the bird had properly pronounced my nickname at that time.  As I inspected Mr. Jangles, his cocky eyes fixated on mine, my instincts kicked in.  I’d been around enough students in my four years at the University to recognize when a pupil was attempting to ridicule the instructor, although in this specific case, Mr. Jangles wasn’t ridiculing the instructor but the instructor’s husband. 

I gave the bird a stern look, using the same restrained glare I delivered in class.  Usually students did anything to avoid meeting my eye contact, burying themselves in their laptops and notepads or pretending to reference their textbooks instead, but the bird either didn’t know proper protocol or was a greater troublemaker than those I usually encountered, because he met my glare with his beady own.  Not only had the bird verbally insulted me but now it was mocking my position in the family as well. 

I furrowed my brow, preparing myself to stare at him for the entire night if need be, but Amerie, unaware of the bird’s insult, pulled my hand, obviously happy from the presumed success with the lessons, and kissed me.

I’d had a rough day on campus.  I was letting my stress affect me when I shouldn’t.  Although I was closer to finishing my latest paper on d-branes before the fall semester commenced, the mathematics still did not fully support my theories.  Accordingly, I didn’t want to trouble myself with my wife’s pet.  Rather I wanted to revitalize myself for the next day.  I wanted to spend time with my wife–chat, make dinner with her, and watch a movie on the couch with her.  I didn’t need to worry about pupil pranks.  I closed my eyes, shut out the bird, and kissed her back.  “Should we make dinner together?” I said.

By the end of the evening, after savoring a meal of Sonoma lamb chops and creamy polenta and watching a sci-fi flick that she’d picked about the end of the world, which I enjoyed as much as she did, I felt better.  I was prepared to delve again into d-brane dimensions the following morning. 

Except for the name calling, I’d had a good night to erase a subpar day.

Over the next week, I made progress in the office, successfully cracking two key elements of my work that related to gauge geometry.  At home, I tuned out Mr. Jangles’ continued mispronunciations of my nickname, especially since wondering aloud to Amerie as to whether the bird’s improper enunciations were intentional brought about from her nothing more than a distracted laugh and peck on the cheek.

On a cool Thursday night, she and I lay in bed with the windows open, enjoying the oddly brisk air while recovering from our lovemaking.  Just as I was starting to share my thoughts regarding my tenure hearing in the fall, she shifted the conversation to the bird.

“I need to take Professor Jangles to the vet to update his shots,” she said. 

I stopped stretching.  She’d called him ‘Professor Jangles’, the first time she’d ever done so, at least in my presence, and I was perplexed by this name change.  “You mean ‘Mr. Jangles,’ right?” I said.

“Same thing.  ‘Mr. Jangles’ or ‘Professor Jangles.’  What’s the difference?”

“A lot.”

“Yeah?”

Having spent years in school, training at the best colleges and universities, I knew firsthand the meticulous work that went into obtaining a professorship.  We were leaders of our fields, not homeschooled hobbyists.  I was surprised and in hindsight maybe a little jealous that Amerie was blurring the difference, especially since she saw how seriously I took my work.

“One is a title of accomplishment,” I said.  “The other isn’t.”      

“He’s been learning so quickly, picking up so many words so fast,” she said.  “It’s amazing that for a bird his age, he picks up speech so efficiently.”

“‘Professor Jangles?’  He’s a bird.”

“It’s a good thing to motivate and reward him.”  She pinched my side.  “Don’t worry, Quarky.  You’re still my favorite professor.”

I folded the sheets around me and turned over.  She clasped my elbow and tried to pull me back towards her, but I resisted.

“What?” I said.

“Come close to me,” she said.  “You just have a lot on your mind these days.”

I exhaled to try to allow my anxiety to leave with my breath.  Even at the time, I knew I was being unreasonable.  I was accustomed to my work coming easily to me and now that it wasn’t, I was losing myself.  “Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it.”  She crossed her ankle over mine and in a few minutes was asleep.

After dinner the following night, I retired to the living room sofa to do some light journal reading.  Staying abreast of others’ research was important to guiding my own.  I knew that I should go to my den in order to avoid distraction, but I wanted to unwind as much as I needed to catch up and so the couch seemed like a better option.  Amerie joined me a short while later with a couple of fashion magazines for her own review.  With Mr. Jangles on his perch, she and I read together in silent comfort. 

I must’ve been more tired than I’d thought because I dozed off on the couch, something I rarely did.  Amerie woke me up.  “Let’s go to bed,” she said.  I grabbed her hand and she helped me to my feet.  I quickly brushed my teeth and slipped into bed.

Even though the research continued to command an increasing amount of attention and mental energy, I felt relaxed in that moment.  My wife was beside me, tenure was on the horizon, and I was on schedule to finish my paper before the fall semester started.  Amerie usually falls asleep before I do but I could already feel myself slipping away while she was still adjusting the pillows and comforter around her. 

I heard a flutter of wings and opened my eyes.  Mr. Jangles stood at the entrance of our open bedroom door.  He thrust his beak forward and squawked.   

“How cute,” Amerie said.  “I think he wants to sleep with us.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.  I fought off the fatigue, tossed away the sheets, and got out of bed.  I stood over the bird for a second, inspecting it, noting its dark gray beak and red feathers, thinking to myself that indeed it was a handsome creature, and for a moment not only did I appreciate why Amerie, with her longstanding interest in talking parrots, was intrigued with him, but I myself began to develop a pang of affection for him.  Nonetheless, handsome or not, skilled linguist or not, he did not belong in our bedroom.  “Sorry, bud,” I said.  “This is our room.  Your room is out there.”  I stooped, picked up the bird in both hands, and left the room.  I walked across the house to the foyer and placed him on his wooden perch.

“You’re going to fail,” I heard the bird say.

The outburst made me stop.  I faced the bird again, blinking in the darkness and trying to make sure that the late hour of the evening and mental fatigue wasn’t deadening my hearing or tricking my mind.  I was fully awake now. 

“You’re going to fail,” he said again.

“What’d you say?” I said.

But the bird twisted away, directing his attention to the old, cast iron streetlamp beyond the window.  I closed my eyes, collecting myself, telling myself not to get worked up because of a parrot, a bird brain, before turning and walking back towards the bedroom.  While I walked, I could feel his eyes focused on me.

Amerie and I usually slept with the bedroom door open but that night I made sure to shut it behind me.  She was already halfway to slumber by the time I returned to bed, and before I could cough up the initiative to discuss our situation with the bird, she was snoring lightly.

The next day at work, I emailed Devon at his alumnus account provided by the University.  After waiting an hour for him to reply, I sped up the clock on my investigation by calling him, using the phone number maintained by the physics department for its recent graduates.  He answered while he was on his lunch break from his new job doing quantitative research for a fund in Boston. 

“Did Mr. Jangles speak much when you had him?” I asked.

“The usual,” Devon said.  “I didn’t formally instruct him.  I didn’t have time.”

“What’s the usual?”

“Sometimes I read my lecture notes aloud to myself so that they would sink in better.”

“Did he converse with you?”

“Sometimes.  It was mostly basic stuff.”

“Like what?”

“‘Good morning, sunshine.’ ‘Welcome back.’  Stuff like that.”

“You taught him?”

“No, he just kind of picked that stuff up.  Smart bird, I think.”

“Where’d you find him?”

“Off the internet.  Bought him as a baby from a guy that bred them in Lancaster.”

“Why did you name him ‘Mr. Jangles?'”

“I didn’t.  The breeder did.”

“Excellent.  Did Mr. Jangles ever deride you?  Make fun of you?”

“What?”

“Nothing.  Hey, thanks for your time.”

“No problem, Professor.  Listen, I’m thinking of doing grad school next year.  I’m not sure that staring at stock graphs all day is my calling in life.  Do you think that you could write–“

I cut him off.  “Sure,” I said, already hanging up.  “Anytime.”

I tapped my pen against my notepad and went back to staring at equations, back to entropy, back to constants, back to string interactions. 

 I decided that the best way for me to stop thinking about Mr. Jangles was by doubling down on my work life.  I was speaking at a particle symposium at UCLA in a couple of weeks, opening up in full my research to the minds of my colleagues, and then in August I would be off to Palm Springs for the department’s annual faculty retreat.  The time to complete the mathematics on my work was now.  Additionally, I needed to submit the final syllabi for the fall semester in the next few days, and because the university in general and department in specific were reemphasizing undergraduate education, tying teaching to tenure in ways it hadn’t previously, I didn’t want to make this aspect of my job an afterthought.

The bird seemed to sense my dedication to my work because he didn’t provoke me during this time, or at least not in any new ways.  He still followed Amerie to our bedroom every night and continued to call me ‘Dorky’ and continued to tell me that I was going to fail but at least he didn’t invent other ways to torture me.  I let the bird’s insolence wash over me, figuring that it’d picked up the bit about failing from Devon.  Caltech was a competitive university and even a student as bright as Devon must’ve expressed aloud his insecurities about exams occasionally.  

Amerie was also naturally busy at this time of year, revamping designs for fashion week at the end of July, and so besides dinner and sleep, we didn’t spend much time together.  After eating, she was back at her computer, tinkering with current designs and creating new ones, while I retreated to my den to review notes from my day’s research and hammer away at equations that still didn’t work.  Mid- and late summer, while traditionally a lighter time of year in terms of workload for most couples, was not that way for us.  However, we were not overly concerned about our dwindling time together.  We understood that it was cyclical, a temporary thing, and that in the fall we would again share Merlots on the porch in the nippy autumn air, just like we had when we’d started dating.

The Friday night before the symposium, we spent the night at a hotel on the Westside so that I would be closer to the conference the following morning and she would be nearer to her collection preview in Venice.  We cracked crab legs, drank cognac with dessert, and retired to our suite flushed with flirtation. 

The next morning, well rested and happy from my night with Amerie, I presented my d-brane research in the lecture hall of the Physics and Astronomy Building at UCLA to fifty of my colleagues from other California universities.  These events, attended by people who were not only colleagues but competitors as well, were never love fests.  A young stringist from USC was especially dismissive of my work.  He harped on the constraints in my equations, interrupting me several times during my presentation to state that they were inadequate for the enormity of my observations.  I reminded him and the other fifty frowning faces sitting in the auditorium that my work was in progress and that the mathematics, while theoretically intact, were still rough around the edges, still a few weeks away from completion. 

I called Amerie on my drive home that afternoon to share my day with her but she was occupied with last minute flourishes at her show and couldn’t speak long.  I wished her success, told her that I missed and loved her, and reminded her that I was going to cook dinner.  Her events routinely ran late, and because she was usually too busy during them to put down anything beyond a few finger foods, I’d made it a habit over the past couple of years to prepare a meal for her on fashion nights. 

When I arrived home, Mr. Jangles greeted me from his perch with a long stare.  I nodded at him, but unlike Amerie, I made no attempt to tickle him on the chin.  Instead I focused on balancing the two paper bags of groceries in my arms with the duffel over my shoulder and attaché on my wrist.  I crossed the living room towards the kitchen, where I set the bags down on the counter and duffel on the dining chair.  While reviewing recipes for gazpacho on one side of my brain and d-branes on the other, I proceeded to the den to set down my attaché.

But upon entering the room, both the recipe and physics evaporated.  Pages from notepads were ripped from their binding and flung on the floor.  Stacks of journals lay disheveled on the ottoman.  Letters from the department, which were usually filed by subject on my desk, were strewn and shredded.  I gripped my attaché more tightly.  A chill crept through my body as I started to think that we’d been robbed.  I reached into my pocket to withdraw my cell in order to call the Pasadena police but as I was about to dial, a familiar, guttural squawk pierced the house and I stopped.  We hadn’t been robbed, I realized.  We’d been vandalized.  Vandalized by Mr. Jangles.

I wanted to murder the bird immediately–forget dinner, forget my work, forget Amerie’s thoughts on the matter.  I tried to separate what I wanted to do, which was get rid of the bird, from what I should do, which was discuss the bird’s insolence with Amerie and formulate a plan with her for expelling him from our existence.  To calm myself, I started tidying the den, pacing it, picking up papers, stacking journals, and arranging my desk.  When I was done, I was calmer, but even so, I was still angry.  I left the den, making sure to close the door behind me, and went to the foyer. 

The bird nodded at me, its beak cutting both the air and my constraint simultaneously.  “I’m not Amerie,” I said to him.  I wrapped one hand around his torso and the other around his mouth, closing his beak, feeling the graininess of him.  I placed him inside his oversized wire cage, a place he hadn’t been once since I’d brought him home six weeks ago.  After making sure that the door to his cage was firmly closed, I retreated to the kitchen, my anger still present but placated some, to begin dinner.

When Amerie returned home at 11:30, not only had I already eaten but I’d smoked two cigars as well.  I rarely smoked anymore, lighting up only twice a year, once to celebrate the grading of the ultimate final examination of the fall semester and once while doing the same for the spring.  Amerie wasn’t a fan of tobacco and had told me so when we’d first started dating.  But I’d felt jittery and unfocused while waiting for her return and had needed something upon which I could unleash my energy. 

She wrinkled her nose when she walked into the kitchen.  “Smoking?” she said.

“A little.”

“Must’ve been a good day for you.”

“It was okay.”

“Mine was great.”

“Yeah?”

“The buyers were happy.”

“That’s good.  Mr. Jangles vandalized my den.”

“What?”

“Yeah.  Shredded everything.”

“Really?  How bad was it?”

“Bad.”  If I hadn’t already cleaned up the mess, I would’ve led her by the hand to the den to show her the damage, but there was nothing to display and so I just sat there at the table, my arms folded on my chest and legs crossed. 

“He’s never been alone for this long,” she said.  “He was probably just scared.”

“Maybe we don’t have room for a pet,” I said.

“He’s a bird, not a Doberman.  He doesn’t take up any space.”

“He’s violent.”

“He was scared.  Where is he now?  He didn’t even greet me.”

“He’s in his cage.”

“His cage?  I never keep him caged.”

“He likes it.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

She rose from the table and left the room.  I followed her to the foyer.  “Poor Professor Jangles,” she said.  She opened the wire door, placing her hand at the opening, and Mr. Jangles strutted onto her wrist.

“Welcome home,” Mr. Jangles said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, talking to the bird.

“I think the bird should apologize to me,” I said.

“Apologize?” she said.  “It’s a bird, Lev.” 

“It says everything else.  Why can’t it apologize?  You should teach it to apologize to me.”

“Get real, Lev.”

“I love you, Dorky,” the bird said.

“See?” Amerie said.  “Professor Jangles loves you even though you’ve been a complete nerd to him.” 

She tickled the bird on its chin and then walked back towards the kitchen.  I followed her.  She placed Mr. Jangles on the counter before grabbing a flat-bottomed bowl from the counter and serving herself gazpacho and bread.  She sat at the table while Mr. Jangles remained on the counter.  She brought a spoonful of the summer soup to her lips. 

“It’s delicious, Quarky,” she said. 

I didn’t acknowledge her compliment.

As she ate, she told me about her day: the successes of the runway, the buyers she’d won over, the stresses and joys of this time of year.  I heard her but didn’t pay much attention and after a few minutes she seemed to notice because she stopped talking.  She finished quickly the last few spoonfuls of gazpacho, took her dishes to the sink, and placed Mr. Jangles back onto her wrist.  I heard her putting him on his perch for the night and then saw her pass by the kitchen towards the bedroom.  By now it was well past midnight, and although I was exhausted, I didn’t follow her to bed.  Instead I retired to the living room and turned on the television, tuning to a police procedural, the only type of show that I had even the minimum ability to stomach.  I fell asleep on the couch before the show ended.

We recovered.  We went to dinner the next night at a favorite restaurant, shared gnocchi, split a steak, and drank wine.  Over dessert, she apologized and for the sake of reciprocity, I did the same.  Even though sharing a night out meant that we’d already implicitly forgiven each other, the formalness of voicing our regrets felt good, especially since the bird still hadn’t apologized to me in any form whatsoever and didn’t seem as if it ever would.  That night, Amerie retired Mr. Jangles early to the perch and she and I slept again in the same bed, alone, just the two of us, the closed door successfully shielding us from intruders.  I woke up on Monday morning feeling happy again.

As August heated up, blanketing Pasadena with triple digit temperatures, I retreated to my office, locking myself in the air-conditioning, taking lunch at my desk instead of outside in the courtyard because of the heat.  When I did step outside for air, I frequently found myself smoking a cigarillo to alleviate some of the nervous energy that occupied me constantly.  Amerie, aware of the time crunch, did most of the cooking those days.  I loved her even more for taking care of me.  Eating dinner with her nightly kept me grounded, prevented me from slipping down into a d-brane hole.  After dinner, with the oppressiveness of the day having dissolved into comfortable warmth, we watched movies on our miniature player out on the porch.  She picked the movies, usually choosing sci-fi that never had a true scientific basis, but I didn’t mind the inaccuracy of the films, because as long as I was spending time with her, I was peaceful. 

Either out of respect to me or standard of care, I’m not sure which, Amerie kept Mr. Jangles inside the house during those warm nights.  Although his sentencing me to failure and mocking of me were never completely gone from my thoughts, they were sufficiently in the back of them such that I was able to live without hesitation.  I didn’t interact with him anymore and he didn’t threaten me either. 

At the end of August, I put my work on hold to attend the faculty retreat in the desert.  The Monday night before the retreat, Amerie helped me pack a large duffel, stuffing it with khakis, comfortable shoes, and enough socks and underwear for the four-day retreat.  The next morning, she woke up early with me.  We ate oatmeal and drank coffee as the sun started to break the horizon and then she walked me to my car on the driveway, where she kissed me, wished me a good week, and told me that she would miss me.

Although the retreat, with its kegs, impromptu discussions with other professors, and team building exercises, used to be fun, it’d lost its charm over the last two years.  Before I was married, the miniature four-day throwbacks to college life were entertaining.  But now they were tedious.  Not only did the retreat interrupt my workflow, but I didn’t like spending time away from Amerie.  This year was especially cruel because my workflow was already stunted.  Whatever momentum I had before arriving in the desert was precarious.

During the retreat, I texted Amerie in between meetings, phoned her nightly from my room, and routinely arrived late to team golf and bocce because I was messaging her on my laptop.  When I slept, I stayed on my side of the bed out of habit, even though I had the entire king mattress upon which to stretch out.  I tried to sneak in some work on d-branes but the consuming schedule and my homesickness made me unproductive.  I missed her ankle on mine while we lounged on the couch.  I missed our pillow chats.  I missed our morning coffee.  I missed her.  After dinner at the resort’s banquet room and closing remarks by the head of the department on Friday evening, after four days of strategic planning, syllabi reviews, and project updates, I was eager to leave.  I checked out of the hotel while the rest of the department swapped stories near the open bar in the ballroom.  Unlike my colleagues, I had no desire to spend the night at the resort on the department’s dime just to sneak in an extra golf game the following morning.  Additionally, I was tired of smiling at them and telling them that all was well regarding my research when it wasn’t.

On my way, I texted Amerie. 

Can’t wait to see you, she texted back.

Traffic, though, was uncooperative, and what could’ve been a two-hour drive dragged into one that was three and a half.  By the time I pulled off the Lake exit on the 210, it was close to 1 a.m.  Knowing that Amerie would be asleep, I did my best to quietly let myself into the house, avoiding the creakier floorboards on the porch.  I dropped my attaché in the den and then went to the bedroom.  I didn’t turn on the floor lamp, instead using the light from the hallway to guide me, so that I wouldn’t wake Amerie.  But she stirred anyway.

“Quarky,” she said.  “You’re home.”

“Sorry I’m so late,” I said.  “Traffic.”

By now, there was little point in trying to slip into bed unnoticed, so I went over to Amerie to kiss her.  She smiled, her eyes still half closed.  I lingered for a second beside the bed, remembering how much I loved coming home to her, before heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth and dump my clothes.  A couple of minutes later, I returned to the bed and slid into my side of it, burying myself beneath the comforter and beside my wife.  I wrapped an arm around Amerie’s waist and closed my eyes.

And that was when a feeling of imprecision overcame me.  I realized that in the short time that I’d been home, I hadn’t seen Mr. Jangles at all, even though I’d already wandered through the foyer, living room, and den.  I squeezed Amerie’s hipbone, causing her to stir again.  I could feel someone staring at the back of my head and knew even before he spoke that Mr. Jangles was in the bedroom. 

“Dorky,” he said in his usual guttural, ugly voice.

I slung off the comforter.  “Quarky–,” Amerie started to say but I wasn’t listening to her.  I was leaping across the room, pulling the chain on the lamp.  Light filled the bedroom and I saw Mr. Jangles perched on the armoire, his chest thrust forward, his beak upturned in a mocking grin.  I rushed towards him, trying to grab him, but he flapped his wings and hopped backwards, away from me.  I reached out for him again but again he dodged me, flying to the bed, my side of the bed, standing there as if he belonged, as if he were me.

I heard Amerie say something, but I was too shocked at finding Mr. Jangles in my bedroom to even try to decipher her.  I approached the bed from Amerie’s side, moving more slowly now, my anger channeled, and reached out for the bird.  He hopped backwards away from me again and so I hopped forward.  Although I landed across Amerie’s legs, I successfully slipped my fingers around Mr. Jangles’ torso.

“What are you doing?” Amerie said.

I didn’t answer.  Instead, I got out of bed again, Mr. Jangles in my hands this time, opened the door, and tossed him outside into the hallway.  He fluttered to the ground.  I didn’t take the time to return him to his perch.  I was sure that he would find it on his own.  I shut the door for the second time that night.  I kept the light on and stayed standing.

“Why was the bird in our bedroom?” I said.

“He’s been sleeping in here while you were away,” Amerie said.

“In our bedroom?”

“Yeah.  In our bedroom.  What’s the big deal about that?”

“You never told me.”

“It’s not a usual topic of conversation, Lev.”

“We talked every night and you never told me that he was sleeping in our bedroom.”

“Professor Jangles kept me company while you were away.  What’s the big deal?”

I tapped the doorknob.  “Nothing,” I said, before turning off the light and returning to bed.  I didn’t get beneath the covers and I didn’t reach out to touch Amerie.

“You crushed my legs when you jumped on the bed,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“What was the big deal?”

“Nothing.”

“Maybe you’re stressed out from work.  From the paper.  It’s been a hectic summer for you.”

I didn’t say anything. 

“Get under the blanket with me.  I haven’t seen you all week.  Come close to me.”

She reached out for me.  I let her take my hand in hers and guide me beneath the covers.  Within minutes, she was asleep, but I took much longer to slip off, and even then my slumber was fragmented, because every time that Amerie nudged close or reached out to me, she woke me up and I had to ask her to scoot back over to her side of the bed.  I knew that I shouldn’t be angry but I was and so I tried to blame my mood at least partly on the late hour, long day, and longer week.

I spent much of the next day cleaning, wiping down the wooden furniture in the bedroom with polish, washing in bleach the sheets, and refreshing the comforter.  Amerie asked me what was wrong.  I told her I was fine.  I just wanted to work off some energy.  She gave me a sidelong glance but didn’t push me to respond.  She asked me if I would go with her to visit her parents in Calabasas for a few hours.  I declined, telling her that I needed to spend some time in the den, work on the math, deal with the deadlines.  She seemed to want to say something to me but didn’t.

I had difficulty concentrating that afternoon.  Even with the bedroom rid of Mr. Jangles’ stray feathers and disrespectful presence, the memory of coming home to his intrusion stuck.  Additionally, even though he was out of my bedroom, he was still in my house.  The bird was obviously, both through deed and word, trying to usurp my place.  Amerie, though, was too enamored with the thing, too fixated on her own childhood memories of life with a benevolent bird, to understand what was happening.  Mr. Jangles had been in the possession of at least two previous caretakers and without having to research, I concluded that Amerie, with her loving touch and attention to detail, was a godsend owner, especially compared to an always studying student of physics and a profit-oriented breeder.  In his short life, Mr. Jangles had jumped around thrice already, and being that he was going to be around this planet for half a century, he’d found stability with my wife.

That night, I had difficulty sleeping again.  As I heard the familiar rhythm of Amerie’s breathing change, becoming deeper and slower, I nudged her, irked that she could be so relaxed while I was tense.

“What?” she said.

“We should find the bird another home,” I said.  “We have a small place.  He needs more space.”

“Professor Jangles loves the craftsman.”

“He’s not a good–,” I almost said ‘person’ but caught myself.  “–bird.”

“What are you talking about?  He’s great.”

“He’s boorish.”

“He’s a bird.  Birds are eccentric.  He’s smart.  He’s loyal.”

“He’s mean.”

“Stop being jealous.”

I didn’t respond.  Seeming to recognize that she’d affronted me, she tried to bring me back to her side by turning towards me and kissing me on my cheek.  When I didn’t react to her affection, she did it again, and when I still didn’t reciprocate, she propped herself up and climbed on top of me.  She bent over and kissed me yet again.  I felt the warmth of her breath and smelled a tinge of lavender from her shampoo.  But even so, I wasn’t into the moment, and hadn’t been since last night, and so I declined her invitation to intimacy, twisting away from her and telling her that I was tired and maybe we could have fun another night.

“Don’t worry,” she said.  “I won’t interrupt your busy life anymore by asking you to be a husband.”

As I fell asleep, I realized that she was still awake.

As we entered September, I felt the deadlines I’d established for finishing my work tighten around me.  School would be starting during the third week of the month.  I needed to finish my paper now.

I told Amerie that I wasn’t going to be able to head out of town for Labor Day weekend as was our custom because I needed to work.  Although we hadn’t yet made formal travel plans, we’d been toying with the idea of heading north to San Francisco for the weekend to catch the opera, eat oysters in the city, and shop for antiques.  She didn’t speak to me for a day after I told her I couldn’t go.   

I spent that weekend on campus.  I slept on the worn, leather couch in my office one night when I felt on the verge of a breakthrough and didn’t want to bury my revelation by returning home.  But the next day, I still hadn’t corrected the deficiencies in my work.  I came home early on Labor Day, exhausted from the all-nighter, but again Amerie refused to speak to me.  She stopped making dinner for me thereafter as well. 

I slept at the office more frequently, she spent more time with Mr. Jangles, and eventually, on the eighteenth, a Friday night, three days before the start of school, she left.

“I’m going to my parents’ for a while,” she said.

“What about the bird?” I said.

“He reminds me too much of you.  Too much of us.  Take care of him.”

She walked out of the craftsman, my duffle bag in one hand and her makeup case in the other.  I watched her leave and I noticed that Mr. Jangles did too.

It’s been four weeks since Amerie left to her parents’ to clear her mind.  Mr. Jangles is still here at the craftsman.  He still mocks me with his twisted grin, still insults me, still defames me.  I’m four weeks into the fall semester, four weeks into the syllabus, four weeks into teaching kinks and vortices and gauge theories, but still I feel as if I’m spinning my wheels.

I’m distracted, irritable during lecture and impatient during office hours.  Students keep their distance.  The department head sends me emails.  My equations on d-branes–and hence my paper–are still unfinished, awaiting the refinement that only comes with deep concentration, something that has escaped me for weeks now. 

I toy with the idea of killing Mr. Jangles, strangling him, silencing his squawk forever, but the thought of Amerie and her possible return prevent me from doing so.  I’ve felt enough of her coldness already, without ever having harmed the bird, to even wonder what manner of wrath I would incur if I hurt him now.  She and I have been married for two-and-a-half years.  I hope that she will soon collect her thoughts, oil her internal machinery, and return to the home that she and I have shared since our wedding.  I hope that she will forgive me for pushing her away.

I’ve developed a schedule for staying connected to her.  I leave her a voicemail in the mornings while I drive to campus, wishing her a great day and reminding her that I love and miss her.  I text her during lunch, telling her that I hope her morning was a good one.  After work, while I sit in the den, racking my brain about spatial dimensions, I email her to brief her on my day and wish her a good night.  Sometimes, out of hope that doing so will hasten her return, I include Mr. Jangles in the communications.  Mr. Jangles and I miss you, I say.  Mr. Jangles and I just had dinner, I say.  Mr. Jangles and I love you, I say.  I shudder internally when I include him in my exchanges but my love for Amerie is complete and I want her back. 

Nightly I feed Mr. Jangles, clean his cage, and place him on his perch, as if he and I were friends.  Then I toss the liner for his cage into the bin in the backyard.  I smoke a cigarillo outside, making sure to blow smoke away from the back door so as not to dirty the house for Amerie’s return.  After smoking the cigarillo down to its tip, I reenter the house, taking my time, wondering if maybe tonight is the night that Amerie will be back behind the kitchen counter but thus far it’s been empty.  On my way to the bedroom or back to the den, I make sure that I’ve closed the doors to both rooms, a habit that is as essential to me now as brushing my teeth.  And then, while I try to sleep or ring out equations, I hope that maybe the next day will be the day that Amerie returns home to me.