Ben the bird consultant

Ben knocks on the door. Without waiting for an answer, he turns the knob, rattling it back and forth like a child would. He tugs too hard and something inside snaps -- the door swings open. A woman stands a few steps away. She covers her mouth with her hand. Ben tells her that her door was broken and she needs to get it fixed.

The woman thanks Ben and offers him a coffee or something cold to drink. Ben declines. He has just downed two 20 oz. strawberry sodas in his car. Besides, he is here to work.

"Where's the bird?" he asks.

***

This is the ad Ben took out in the Los Angeles Times:

BEN SIMPSON
BIRD CONSULTANT
FIXES BIRD PROBLEMS?
HAVE BAD BIRD? BEN WILL FIX.
440 567 1435

He incorrectly believes he paid for a larger ad than he received. The day after the ad runs, he calls the Times and swears at the woman who answers in the advertising department. The word "cunt" is used 12 times.

The woman is a 19-year-old unpaid intern. She goes home that afternoon and cries and cries.

Eventually, Ben speaks with the head of the advertising department, who apologizes to Ben for any inconvenience and, in order to get him off the phone, promises him an extra week free-of-charge. He also offers to run the ad with a complimentary picture. "Might I suggest a picture of a bird?" the head of the advertising department asks.

Ben thinks it over, then decides to go with a picture of Superman instead.

***

The woman shows Ben into the living room. The bird sits on a perch on the other end of the room. The floor is covered in feathers.

Ben approaches. The bird snaps its head up, sizing up its new foe. The woman stands in the doorway, afraid to get any closer.

"You'd better go in the kitchen," Ben says.

***

Ben sits at a bar. He has had a long day. He spent the day trying to convince one of his connections at DreamWorks to insert some product placement for his company -- Ben Simpson's Bird Problem-Fixings -- into a new film.

A man at the end of the bar gives Ben a friendly smile. Ben makes the "jerking off" signal with his hand. The man turns towards the wall.

A woman enters and sits next to Ben. Without even introducing himself, he tells her that he works with birds.

"Oh, really?" she asks.

"Yup," he says. He is drunk. "People have a problem with their birds, they call me. ME."

"Huh," the woman says, looking at her watch. "You must really like birds."

Ben throws his beer glass into the wall. It shatters. The bar goes silent. Ben walks out without paying.

***

Ben has the room to himself. He rolls up his sleeves. He paces back and forth. He opens a window. He struggles to pull the screen out of the frame -- giving up, he simply punches a hole in it and rips out as much of the mesh itself as he can.

He approaches the bird. The bird spreads its wings. This, Ben recognizes, is an implicit threat. He does not stop walking -- he stands tall to display his dominance.

He walks right up to the bird and stares directly into its beady little red eyes. The birds feathers move ever so slightly from the breath coming from Ben's nostrils. "All right, bird," he says. "I know your game."

The bird shifts to the right. Ben hisses like a cat.

The bird is in the air. Ben swings his arms wildly, knocking over a lamp. The bird lands on a coat rack on the other end of the room. Ben stalks over to it and they're face to face again.

"Don't play games with me, bird." Outside the bird's field of vision, Ben is reaching into his pocket. Quick as lightning, he pulls out a whistle, shoves it into his mouth and blows, hard.

The whistle drives the bird into a frenzy. It flaps towards the ceiling and begins flying in erratic circles while Ben, on the ground, chases it from underneath, blowing the whistle at it, making it more and more agitated. Frightened by the whistle and the bird's cries, the woman knocks on the door and asks if Ben needs any help. In between whistling, Ben tells her to fuck off.

Finally, Ben drives the bird towards the open window. It lands on the sill; Ben stops blowing the whistle. Both Ben and the bird breathe heavily. Ben tiptoes towards the bird, then jumps at it, grabs it, and throws it full force out the window. The bird flies off.

Ben pockets his whistle with a smile.

***

Ben is on the bus. His car is being repaired after he intentionally drove into a shopping cart full of food being pushed by a 68-year-old woman who was moving too slowly through a crosswalk. Ben hasn't been sleeping well lately. He takes another bite of his full-sized Entenmann's coffee cake.

The bus is nearly empty, but he stands.

He is standing in front of an older woman who is sitting near the door. He taps him on the knee. He assumes she wants a bite of his coffee cake and ignores her. She taps again. He looks down.

The woman says, "Tweet?"

Ben begins sweating. "Wh-what did you say?"

"Tweet?" says the old woman.

Now Ben is nervous. He drops his coffee cake on the bus's floor. "Don't talk to me," he mumbles.

"Tweet?" the old woman says one more time.

"ARE YOU A BIRD?" Ben screams.

The woman is stunned. "I asked if you wanted to take a seat," she says. Ben mutters under his breath and sits down. He stares directly at the woman for the next three stops, just in case she turns into a bird.

The woman gets off three stops before her own, because she is afraid of Ben.

When she gets up, Ben sees that she has been sitting in front of an ad. It is for some kind of sneaker. It prominently features a smiling yellow cockatoo.

Ben growls. He jumps out of his seat and tears at the poster, ripping it off the wall of the bus. He rips the poster again and again, with his hands and with his teeth. The people in the back of the bus stare at him.

***

Ben walks out of the living room. The woman is waiting right outside. "Your bird problem is fixed," Ben says. Before the confused woman can even enter the living room to see that her bird is gone, Ben is out the front door and halfway to his car (which has since been fixed).

He takes out his keys and sees something green sitting on the hood of his car. It is the bird.

"You go away, bird." Ben says. The bird doesn't move. "I SAID, YOU GO AWAY." Ben could swear the bird winks.

Ben throws his keys at it. He is wide right by three or four feet; the bird doesn't flinch. Ben screams and knocks over a small tree standing in the woman's front yard -- he pushes at it until it snaps in half and falls over. But he looks over and the bird is still sitting there.