A Tucan Against One

In the morning after breakfast in the lodge dinningSeveral faces looked at Evens, about thirty-feet away,
room, Chick Evens and his wife, Delilah, moved out tofolks playing checkers, reading books, and having loose
the open air patio, where there were three hammocks,conversations, they gave him a 'shame on you,' look.
they were deep inside the Amazon, one hundred and"Shoo," yelped Evens, but the bird insisted on staying.
twenty five miles from, Iquitos, Peru, it was the monthThe feathers on the bird's throat, stood out now, it
of March, of 2001, their first anniversary.was war, or at least a battle to be.
He had slept well, was looking fresh and wholesome,The Tucan came around towards Evens' hand he let it
for his past middle age appearance. He picked up aloose, dangle over the hammock, and when the bird
magazine as he slipped over and into the loose andcame to bite it, he grabbed his beak, and shook the
dangling hammock, constantly looking about for Bigbird, and let him go, and the folks now had turned to
Beak, the Tucan mischievous bird. Although it had alook at the American that was beating up on the poor
colorful beak, and was a large and beautiful lookinghelpless Tucan, but Evens paid them little to no
bird, it was a pest at best, a provoking menace atattention, his thoughts were on the bird.
worse, that had attacked Mr. Evens two days in aThe bird was now madder than a hornet, and
row, but was the lodge's mascot, an icon of sorts.attacked Mr. Evens, trying to reach him, and Mr. Evens
He was, the Tucan, simply an attention seeker amonggave the bird a good swat, and that stopped his
the people of the lodge, and Evans did not allocate anyonward thrust, and Evens took that as a victory. But
of his time, nor wish to accommodate the bird withthe onlookers were starting to get restless.
any of his time, thus, avoiding giving any attention at allFor several minutes the bird circled under the
to the bird, whom he called the Beast-bird, or thehammock, devising his plan of attack or retreat.
Bird-beast, and this annoyed the Tucan."Have you and the bird got over your squabbling yet?"
This was his third day at the lodge, and he'd be leavingasked Delilah.
tomorrow, and he was hoping to lay back and enjoy"Very funny," responded her husband, "too bad he
the rest of the morning, when Big Beak arrived,doesn't go over there to visit you."
another nickname, Evans bestowed upon the bird,Evens was now talking to the bird, as if it was a deaf,
shaking his feathers in the sunlit heated morning, underchild, "Read my lips," he said, "go away, leave me
the shadow of his hammock.alone."
The Tucan then started making noises under the"You simply should not pay the bird any attention, and it
hammock, if they had anything in common, it wasn'twill go away, be nice to the bird and off she'll fly to visit
this, it annoyed Evens; although the one thing they didsomeone else." said Delilah.
have in common was the sun, the fresh air, but not the"I'm tired being nice to this bird-beast, I don't want to be
sight of each other.nice, I want it dead or gone out of my life."
"Here he goes again, with them confounded weird"Don't talk like that, if people hear you they'll kick us out
noises," said Chick to his wife.of here," said Delilah, adding "she's not going to eat you
The Tucan moved down towards the end of theup."
hammock, and with its long stretched out, hard boned"I've tried hard to be its friend, I've come to the
beak, he grabbed a hold of Chick's toe, it was hangingconclusion, no American can make a Peruvian Tucan
over he hammock, and he wouldn't let go, until Chickhappy, no matter what."
took a swat at him, missed him with his round folded"No," said Delilah, "you got to be more patient like us
up magazine by no more than an inch, which onlyPeruvians."
enticed the bird-beast to play more games to getWritten 2-13-2009. Dedicated to Rosa.
more attention.