Here’s what judge Peter Trachtenberg had to say about Allie Leach’s “On Pigeons (and Second Glances)”:
From its first sentence, “On Pigeons (And Second Glances)” grabbed my attention and rarely relaxed its grip. It’s gross, provocative, sometimes blunt as a mallet, at other times sharp as the instrument with which the narrator cuts apart a “New York dressed” squab. Occasionally it’s tender, and those moments of tenderness are as shocking as the opening. This is a story about the relation between appetite and revulsion, delectation and cruelty, feeder, food, and offal. Think of it as a nightmare companion-piece to The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
On Pigeons (and Second Glances)
by Allie Leach
She’s naked. Her skin is covered in goosebumps; it is a thick, pale yellow, hints of pink glow through her body (those are her insides), as do hints of white (those are her bones). She has a long neck; when stretched out, it’s thin, but when pushed back, looks like a Shar-Pei. Her eyes are black moons circled in yellow. Her legs are skinny and long and pink and snappable. From her feet dart white, sharp nails.
I start gingerly enough, trying to cut in a straight line, a gentle press into flesh with a knife. But the breast bone is in the way. I have to saw. I saw into the body as I would a tree in order to look inside. She has all her parts intact. I find the smooth, brown liver. I roll my fingertips around it, and it feels like a soft, black olive. I find the heart; it’s small, pink-red, with a white film covering. Purple and blue veins wrap around it like a maze. Start here. End nowhere. I find the intestines: both the small and large. They’re tan, thick squiggles that—when stretched out—look like some kind of continuous sausage or rubber ribbon. As I poke around, I shave the skin off with my knife, getting further and further inside the body. I cut too far into her anus and a daffodil yellow liquid streams out like egg yolk. The smell is awful, like something died. And didn’t it? I almost puke in the sink. I almost can’t take it anymore. I almost throw the whole thing away in my trashcan.
What am I doing? I ask myself. Why am I putting myself through something so disgusting? So revolting? I feel like I’m killing the pigeon all over again. It wasn’t enough that it had to go through its first death. Now, it’s going through a second as I carve, poke, finger, dig, pull, detach, and rip. And for what? For my own sick pleasure? For fun? For curiosity’s sake?
Every time I see a pigeon, I stop and stare. If it’s dead I think: I want to take you home and dissect you. If it’s alive I think: what if I killed you? These are my dark thoughts, thoughts that linger like stray cats in the midnight alleys of my brain. Our thoughts have a way of surprising us, revealing sweatshirt layers we had yet to shed. I think about running pigeons over with my bike as I fly down the street. I think about stabbing a big, fat one in the chest. I think about strangling one with my hands. I see the pigeon as exotic, as dirty, as risky, as uncharted territory. At the same time, I want this risk; I want to feel like I’m on the verge of something bad, something scary, something shocking, something new. I want to find these other sides of myself. To dig deeper.
I live in Tucson and pigeons are everywhere. I see them every day. But I only see their outsides: a gray mess of feathers. And I only see their stereotype: that they’re dirty scavengers. But I want to see inside these creatures. I want to taste them. Get to know them better.
My obsession with pigeons and desire to dissect one gets around. I have trusty pigeon correspondents keeping an eye out for me. Two friends—on separate occasions—called me recently to say they’d found dead pigeons around Tucson. One of them found a dead baby pigeon on the road. She kindly let me know where it was located and that she’d help me look for it. The other friend even offered to pick the dead pigeon up for me. But I decide against this (for reasons that will later unfold) and buy a pigeon online instead.
What I buy is squab. Squab happens to be a fancy term (or convenient euphemism) for pigeon. And not just any kind of pigeon, but a baby pigeon. If this isn’t depressing enough, then how about this: not only is the pigeon only four weeks old when it’s killed on a farm, but it never gets the chance to fly. What’s strange about these facts is how they’re marketed on the D’Artagnan website, which, by the way, is where I order my squab. This website houses a variety of gourmet meats that you can buy online and have delivered to your door (as I’ve done).
One might think that a four week old baby pigeon, who’s never flown, is tragic. The website seems to think otherwise: “our fledgling birds have never flown and are raised on a protein-rich, whole-grain diet that develops a plump and flavorful breast meat.” What I infer from all of this, then, is that by not flying, the baby pigeon gets all fattened up, all plumped out. I guess if the pigeon did fly, it would be lean and strong. I guess, if the pigeon was old enough to fly, it would never come back.
The website goes on to describe how the squab tastes: “dark, tender, full-flavored meat that is known for its singular ability to retain moisture while cooking, making it a very versatile, easy bird to prepare. It is also among the easiest meats to digest.” The particular squab that I order is described as “New York Dressed,” which means that this squab comes with its head and feet and wings “attached for presentation” (de-feathered, of course). I choose this particular squab not for its presentation, per se, but for a reality check; I’ve never eaten a piece of meat with its head attached. I’ve always been able to disassociate the meat from the animal. And that’s probably why I’m still able to eat meat. But I want to challenge myself, to make myself see a pigeon as close to the real thing (and as close as I’m comfortable with) as possible.
One of my main motivations—besides wanting to say that I’ve eaten pigeon—for ordering the pigeon, for spending the ridiculous $43.93, (18 bucks plus a whopping 26 bucks for shipping) is that I am curious to look inside one, to see its parts: heart, lungs, intestines, liver, kidneys, gall bladder, and everything in between. I’m also motivated by my own unwavering curiosity to dissect, to analyze, to find meaning. I yearn to get inside things, to discover how things work, to use my hands, to get dirty and stinky and maybe even bloody, to explore, to essay into an experience.
I used to love Anatomy class. Although I was never much of a science buff—didn’t know much about chemistry, physics, or biology—I did have a knack for memorizing body parts, for not being afraid to get out a scalpel and dig inside dead things. In high school, I used to slice open everything from owl pellets to fetal pigs, from crawdads to cats (only while in class, of course). I cannot cut open a cat, my lab partner protested. Scalpel, please, I’d request. I liked to pretend I was a coroner. I would perform the autopsy and attempt to find out what went wrong.
I was also obsessed with the T.V. show E.R. I convinced myself that I could be, should be a surgeon one day. My mad crush on Noah Wyle pushed this dream even further. I wanted to be his girlfriend. Oh, Noah. We have so much in common. We’re not afraid to slice into bodies. Okay, now let’s go home and have sex. After my weekly dose of E.R. every Thursday night, I’d saunter into Anatomy class the next morning. Tight plastic gloves? Check. Scalpel in hand? Check. Ready to fearlessly explore the insides of something, anything? Check.
That once fearless high school girl is now a woman. Some of these fearless qualities, no doubt, still remain inside me: I interview complete strangers, unclog dirty toilets, and sing and tap dance in public. But when it comes to this pigeon, I am disgusted, scared even, while dissecting it. I feel for it. Instead of cutting apart an animal to cut a good grade for class, this experience is now self-motivated, self-directed, self-imposed. And, because of this difference, I am more aware of my movements, question my motives, and empathize with the animal.
I get a white rubber stopper to clog the sink and throw in the innards, the organs, the skin, and the fat. I can’t look at the wings and legs and head any longer. If I’m to eat this thing, I need to detach the parts to detach myself emotionally. So I saw off the wings. I saw off the legs. I saw off the head. It takes much more force than I expect. I throw all of it into the sink, which now looks fit for a slaughter house.
After all of this dissection, this mutilation, all I can come up with are two, tiny palm-sized hunks of brown meat. That’s all. That’s all I have from this mess. The soy sauces and vinegar and ginger and cilantro and wine and scallions that I bought to marinade the meat with seem superfluous. All of this for these two dinky pieces of meat? I had to go through an emotional Ferris wheel for this? I had to rip apart a bird for all this? Well, now I must eat it.
Many are braver than I. In Gary Paul Nabhan’s Coming Home to Eat, he describes picking up a Gambel quail seconds after the bird is hit by a truck. He takes it to his girlfriend’s home and “that evening, after plucking and gutting the quail, I stuffed its cavities full of garlic and wild oregano from my garden and basted it in a prickly pear syrup glaze…After a prayer, we each sampled the quail—a rich taste of dark juicy meat, faintly sweet and spicy.” After reading his account, I wished that my experience had been so romantic. But it wasn’t. And I wish that I had been brave enough to pick a dead pigeon up off the side of the road and eat it. But I didn’t. I was afraid—afraid of getting sick, afraid that my insides would fill up like yellow fluid in a septic tank, flood with disease caused by some type of bird flu, then shut down. I was afraid of dying.
Nabhan says earlier in the book that “if life itself is inherently dangerous, then surely eating to stay alive must involve some risks.” So, I stop and ask myself this: what risks am I willing—and not willing—to take with my food? When and where do I close my mouth and say: No, thank you?
While the brown squab breasts roast, I pop open a beer. I lie on my bed. And cry. I feel like I just killed something. I am having people over, but I don’t want to now. All I want to do is taste squab breasts by myself, honor the meat and the baby pigeon from whence it came, and then sleep for twelve hours straight.
But I don’t. Instead, I buck up, clean up, and check on the oven-roasting squab. I slice into the breast, checking to see if the meat is fully cooked. It is now done, in fact, it is now over-done. I once cooked chicken breasts for my family and got my little sister sick; her breast meat was salmon pink on the inside, not fully cooked. Now that I’ve learned my lesson, now that I’m paranoid, I cook my meat thoroughly (perhaps, too thoroughly). The breasts are a dark brown, cinnamon-chocolate color. They look like two, tiny livers.
I bite into the breast, along with my two wonderful friends who brave this tasting experience with me, and my first thought is the texture. The meat is thick and dense and somewhat tough.
“What do you think?” I ask my friends.
“It’s very…salty,” one of them says. My other friend—an on-again-off-again-vegetarian—nods her head in agreement. And I agree, too. It’s no wonder why they’re so salty, as I’ve rubbed the breasts in salt and marinated them in vinegar and two different kinds of soy sauce.
That night, after I eat the pigeon breasts, I think about giving up meat for good. I think about this—long and hard—for about five minutes. In some ways, I wish this experience had been more of a life shaking, core changing event. I would love to say this: thanks to this experience, I no longer eat meat. Or even this: thanks to this experience, I only eat meat that’s local. But I would be lying. I would be lying if I didn’t mention that I still love meat, crave meat, adore it, even. And while I have no intentions of eating a pigeon again, I barely second guessed my motives the other night as I chomped down on chicken tenders and buffalo wings. I wasn’t sure where the meat came from, but I was positive that it tasted wonderful, delectable. Dipping the chicken tenders into tangy, honey mustard sauce and smothering the hot and spicy barbeque wings into ranch dressing, I instantly thought: this tastes way better than the pigeon.
Why is it that my taste buds are wired for that instant gratification from the chicken wings and tenders, but not for pigeon? Is it simply that I’m a bad cook or could it be something else? Could it be that my preconceived notions of taste got in the way? Could it be that my taste buds knew their final answer before the breast meat even landed in my mouth?
It’s no secret that I am familiar with chicken, have eaten it since I was little. But I’m not familiar with pigeon, haven’t eat it week after week, day in and day out. But let’s say I did. Let’s say I lived in the country, and my Dad shot wild game birds, like pigeons, on the regular. Let’s say that he stuffed these birds with bread crumbs and rosemary, painted them with butter, and roasted them in the oven. Let’s say these birds tasted delicious. That would make this pigeon story of mine a completely different bird, so to speak. But, as of now, I don’t see pigeons in this light. They aren’t on my menu. I didn’t enjoy the taste. The bird felt like a waste. Because I don’t have any plans to eat another pigeon anytime soon, I begin to see them differently—not as meat, but as birds. Just birds.
Bert (of Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie) likes to collect paper clips and bottle caps, eat oatmeal, and watch pigeons. He loves pigeons. So much so, that he has pet pigeons, two of them, named Bernice and Arnold. When I was little, I had a soundtrack to Sesame Street with many of the show’s famed songs like “Rubber Ducky,” “C is for Cookie,” and “Doin’ the Pigeon.” In the pigeon song, Bert imitates the movements of a pigeon, or as he says, “the kind of ballet that sweeps me away.” This ballet includes a bent leg, arabesquing in-and-out, as well as bouncy head that juts in-and-out. I’m reminded of this song when I watch pigeons. I’m reminded of the joy that Bert feels when he watches pigeons; a joy so strong that he’s moved to dance like them.
In the song, “Feed the Birds,”—from the movie, Mary Poppins—a little, old woman sits on the steps of St. Paul’s cathedral in London, feeding bread crumbs to birds. Come buy my bags full of crumbs, she asks onlookers, passersby. The woman is swarmed with pigeons; they cover her body like accessories. The song never fails to choke me up, to make me wish I could talk with the animals. Lyrics like this get me every time:
Come feed the little birds
Show them you care
And you’ll be glad if you do
Their young ones are hungry
Their nests are so bare
All it takes are tuppence from you
It’s such simple act—feeding birds—that I nearly forgot I used to do it. We were a feed the birds kind of family. And it’s no wonder. My sisters and I were obsessed with Mary Poppins growing up. So much so, that, when my Mom was pregnant with my younger sister, my older sister Mary and I suggested (demanded, really) that she name her Jane if a girl, and Michael if a boy, which just so happen to be the names of the children in Mary Poppins. She was girl. And thus, she was named Jane.
Growing up, my sisters and I made birdhouses with my Dad, striking nails with hammers, slathering brick red paint onto wood. We had birdfeeders—those huge, compact, Hershey’s kiss-shaped blocks of seeds. And we fed them bread crumbs, much like the little, old bird woman.
When I bike down Mountain Road on my way to school, close to my home in Tucson, even closer to the University of Arizona, I pass a house-o-pigeons. A front yard, rather. A woman, who I’ll call Carla, sets out two bowls full of bite-sized pieces of bread. Flocks of pigeons gather in gaggles in her front yard; it’s their home. Some eat ravenously. Some hang out on the power lines, sunbathing. Some take baths in water bowls.
When I find Carla, she’s sitting in her seal-gray Toyota Camry; it’s covered—not surprisingly—in bird shit.
“Do you live here?” I ask her.
“Yes, me and my brother do.”
She peeks her head out of her car window; she’s smiling. Her face is like a weathered, brown handbag covered in lovely wrinkles. Her hair is black, highlighted with gray, and her bangs are long, resting just above her eyebrows. She has on a striped black and white shirt underneath a dark gray hoodie. The hoodie is covered in tiny white hairs and brown dirt. Glancing into her car, I see that it’s dirty, too: filled with old newspapers, grocery store ads, and more brown dirt, more tiny, white hairs. I can’t help but think that she kind of reminds me of pigeon—a very cute, smiley one.
There are about twenty pigeons in her front yard. Each one is unique. I find this odd. When I think about most birds—ravens, blue-jays, blackbirds—I often think how much they look alike, identical even. Pigeons, though, are different. The color combinations and speckles and details that differentiate one from another are endless. Some are white with gray dots. Some are half gray, half white. Some are blue-gray. Some are gray with iridescent purple necks. Some are solid black. Some solid white.
“How long have these pigeons been coming to your house?” I ask her.
“I have nooo idea,” she says shaking her head. “These pigeons were starving though. You should’ve seen ‘em when they first came to our house. They were so thin and dehydrated. Now look how big they are!” She points at the pigeons and laughs. It’s odd that she’s sitting in her car, just watching her pigeons, but, at the same time, it’s kind of awesome. Awesome in a Tucson-is-so-weird kind of way.
“Did you just get back from the store?” I ask.
“No, I just like to sit out here in the sun and watch my pigeons.”
She goes on for about a half hour about the pigeons. And not just about pigeons, but about other animals. In addition to the pigeons, cats and dogs come to her door. Maybe it’s because of the food, but, I think, they have a sixth sense about this home, this woman.
“They know it’s a safe haven, don’t they?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t know, Allie,” she smiles and rolls her eyes. I find it endearing that she includes my name after statements. She continues to do this, periodically, while I talk with her. It’s as if she’s known me for years, but I just met her minutes ago. She welcomes me into her yard just as effortlessly and gracefully as she welcomes the pigeons, the cats, the dogs. I feel like she’s taking me in, taking me under her pigeon wings, in a way.
“Why do some people think that pigeons are such dirty birds?” I ask her.
“I guess because they eat so much litter. But, you know, humans are dirty, too. They’re the ones making all this litter,” she says angrily. I agree with her. I’ve often thought pigeons were dirty and gross. One morning, while running in the alley behind a bar, I found, next to a dumpster, pigeons eating half-eaten pizza slices. Such scavengers, I thought. Why can’t you eat your own food, your bird food? But, after talking with Carla, I realize that it’s our fault they’re eating the litter; we created it and they’re starving. Plus, with the abundance of pigeons around Tucson, the fight for food becomes brutal, and they take whatever they can get.
Though some pigeons, Carla’s pigeons, it seems, can be a little picky. “The pigeons are kind of fussy,” she tells me. “They only like the white bread that I get from Fry’s or Walmart. I’ve tried popcorn and bird-seed, but they don’t eat it.” This tidbit complicates their stereotyped image, the one I had previously become familiar with: pigeons scurrying around trash cans, hoping someone will miss the basket, litter a little. Birds lingering next to dumpsters, hoping the garbage man will spill hamburger buns, onion rings, and mozzarella sticks onto concrete.
Because pigeons have adapted to city life, they have become urban scavengers, quite commonly called “the rats of the sky.” Typically, pigeons are not fussy eaters, as they only have 37 taste buds (humans have 9,000!) Pigeons that live in the country, that live in the wild, often can’t depend on garbage scraps. Instead, these pigeons live off wild grains, seeds, berries, fruit, and insects. Wild pigeons are said to be much healthier than street pigeons, which are often said to harbor diseases (though this stereotype has often been contested). In response to questions about the effects of pigeons on human health, in 1986 the Association of Pigeon Veterinarians issued a statement that concludes, “…to our knowledge, the raising, keeping, and the exercising of pigeons and doves represents no more of a health hazard than the keeping of other communal or domestic pets.” A spokesman for the American Pigeon Fanciers Council says this statement applies to feral pigeon flocks, too. He says “the homing and racing pigeons that people raise stay healthy even though they often come into contact with feral pigeons.” So, while many of us see pigeons as dirty birds, in truth, they’re actually not much dirtier than, say, your dog or cat.
In her book, On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry talks about her complicated relationship with palm trees. She used to think they were the ugliest of trees; she hated them: “palms are not beautiful; possibly they are not even trees.” But, over time, she starts looking at them in a different light, eventually concluding that they are truly beautiful.
I once watched a group of pigeons as they sat on the concrete ledge of a fountain. While small and lively finches bathed themselves in mini-waterfalls, the pigeons sat lazily about, watching the other birds. And, if they weren’t watching, they were waddling around the dirty ground, rummaging for left over bits of food. Why can’t you be more clean? I thought. Why can’t you be more energetic, more spritely like the finches? I realized that, over time, I had developed a kind of bird racism, a kind of bird caste system. I put birds in their respective houses. This one is clean. This one is beautiful. This one is dirty. The instant I saw a finch, I thought it was cute. The moment I saw a pigeon, I thought it was disgusting. Go on a diet. Get away from me. You’re full of diseases. If a finch landed in my hand, I would be delighted. If a pigeon landed in my hand, I’d yell, “Gross!”
The more I stare, the more I start to re-think the pigeon. When the male chases his mate, he puffs and shimmies. Instead of singing, he gurgles and gargles, like an Adam’s apple rattling in someone’s throat. There’s something strangely regal about them. Maybe it’s their shiny blue-green-purple necks, the way these colors shine against the blazing Arizona sun. It’s as if they’re wearing necklaces made of emeralds, amethysts, and aquamarine.
“Look at those two,” Carla says, pointing. “They just kissed each other with their beaks. They’re the only ones who do that.” For while, we are quiet—she in her car, me standing alongside—watching pigeons.
“Thanks for talking with me,” I say.
“Of course, Allie. Take care of yourself.” Carla shakes my hand. It’s a beautiful moment. But for some weird reason, out of some strange instinct, as soon as my fingers slide past her palm, I glance at her, I glance at the mass of pigeons and think—and I hate myself for thinking this—I need to wash my hands.
