Charlie the Champion

See also:
The Real Mrs. P.
and
Charlie’s travels
and, from last year,
Tomato’s Pulitzer Award

Charlie the Champion
By Audrey Ronning Topping

I first encountered Charlie on Cat Street in Hong Kong. I was browsing for antiques when I heard a terrible screech and turned to see an evil-eyed opium peddler squatting on the curb beside a scruffy white cockatoo. Manacled to a wooden perch, the bird was surrounded by children who were taunting him with sticks. They laughed when the half-crazed creature snapped back with his hooked beak, flared his saffron crest, and cursed them in Chinese. I was overcome with pity and admiration. This valiant creature was a fighter.

I wanted to free him, but could not bear the thought of keeping a bird in a cage. I was about to walk on when the cockatoo looked at me imploringly and said, “OK OK OK!”.

I was hooked. How did he know I spoke English? After some haggling, I bought the cockatoo, and a whole new dimension came into my life.

At home, I removed his shackle. He was grateful and began to follow me around the apartment like a dog. He couldn’t fly because the cruel peddler had clipped his flight feathers, so he waddled around like a duck and used his beak and feet to hoist himself up our potted trees.

Charlie’s Human Flock
In the wild, baby cockatoos learn survival from their parents. They learn alarm and comfort signals, and communicate socially from tree to tree. Now, in captivity, Charlie began imitating the only flock he knew: my family became his human flock.

Charlie had a remarkably quick mind and a long memory. He soon learned to call us by name and cried out when we left him. So to reassure him, we all shouted back, just as his cockatoo flock would have done.

Everyday he picked up new words. First “Hello, Charlie” and then “Hello” to anyone in range, then “Shut the door,” which soon became “Robin,” (daughter No. 4) “go back and shut the door.”

His most frequent word was “Why?” Often when I spoke to the children, Charlie would ask “Why?” It drove me crazy. I finally shouted back, “Because I’m your mother!” That became his next phrase.

Before long, we could see the results of love and care. Charlie’s feathers grew back thick and glossy. He developed an arrogant glint in his eye and established himself as top of the pecking order with our four cats who, to my amazement, restrained their killer instincts even when Charlie filched their food.

Although we never tried to teach him anything, he learned himself on a need-to-know basis. We were convinced he would never fly again. But after some months of watching the children playing in the courtyard far below, he suddenly dived off the balcony, glided eight stories down on his crippled wings, and landed on the shoulder of Susan (daughter No. 1). The surprised children shouted “Super Charlie!” and swung him around on the end of a long stick. He loved it. Soon he called out “Super Charlie!” each time he landed in the playground.

“Is Zat So?”
When my husband, Top, was reassigned to New York to become foreign editor of the New York Times, we flew back the long way and Charlie turned out to be a much better traveler than the cats. We were in Germany long enough for Charlie to learn “Wie gehts?” before we settled in Scarsdale, New York, where he became an instant celebrity, greeting everyone from his tree in the garden. “Hello there! How ya doin’?”

He slept in the kitchen, where he acted as watch-bird, but spent most of his time in an old apple tree in the garden. There he hacked out a duplex apartment for himself with two entrances and several peek holes. Charlie could not fly up or take off without help, but in the mornings he would hoist himself up with his beak and claws, and glide from tree to tree. Around cocktail time, he would call “Audrey!” or “Top!” until we came to fetch him.

Charlie spoke English to us and Spanish to our housekeeper. He meowed to the cats and barked and whistled to our three dogs. They came obediently when he called, and guarded him from stray animals in the garden.

Unlike the other members of our family, he was a good listener, so we all confided in him. He would cock his head and say; “Really, is zat so?” or “Si, si, amigo.” We were soon convinced that he could understand everything we said. He could keep a secret, too, so we spilled out all our problems to him. I encouraged this because he was cheaper than a shrink.

Eventually we began to think of Charlie as a person of consequence – and so did Charlie. He never missed a party and was usually center stage. Our friends directed their jokes to Charlie because he laughed the loudest. He became addicted to the gin-soaked olives in Top’s martinis. Then he would sit on Top’s knee and mutter to himself.

The Battle
One clear blue Sunday afternoon, we prepared a cookout in the garden for Joanna (daughter No. 5). It was her 22nd birthday. Charlie was perched on the top branch of a tall tree, holding court with about 20 fat crows he hung out with. They had become friends through the years – Charlie spoke fluent crow and allowed them to share the apples in his tree house.

Surrounded by his subjects, Charlie was in his element. Every few minutes, he would hang upside down on one leg, flap his wings, and shout, “Super Charlie!”

Suddenly, the air was shattered by his screams. We looked up to see two large hawks diving out of the sky straight for Charlie. One hawk grabbed Charlie in its talons and began to fly away. The crows took off after the hawks like fighter planes attacking a bomber, cawing to signal other crows to join them. They soon formed a billowing black cloud above the hawks and prevented them from gaining altitude. The villainous birdnappers flew out of the garden and headed across a busy street. Top, Joanna, and I ran below, shouting and flailing with sticks while the crows flew above, circling and dive-bombing. Incredulous motorists screeched to a halt. Finally the crows forced the hawk into a tree.

We watched in astonishment as Charlie escaped and made a last gallant effort to survive. He swooped and looped like the Red Baron while his winged allies held the enemy at bay. For one glorious minute he really was Super Charlie. Then the second hawk rocketed down, snatching him from above. We heard one last scream. But Joanna would not give up. She raced by us, her long hair, now streaked with sweat and tears, streaming behind her. As she shouted to the heavens, a strange thing happened. The hawk gave up. Circling downward, it dropped Charlie at her feet. Joanna knelt to pick him up – hoping, wishing, and praying for a miracle. But it was not to be. His neck had been broken, his spirit released. She laid his limp body in my cupped hands.

Dear Charlie. He died a champion. In his heroic battle, he had, at last, flown high, like the free spirit he was meant to be. That evening, the birthday celebration became a funeral as the whole family gathered to pay respects to one of our own. We saved a few saffron crest feathers and buried him in the garden.

Charlie was composed of the stuff that legends are made of, and in our family he has become just that. None of us will ever forget the adventures we shared and lessons we learned during our 25 years with Charlie Cockatoo.