Excerpt:

“There's a parrot on the windowsill,” said Tom Skelton, and squinted at the third floor window of the building where, indeed, a parrot sat on the outside ledge. It stared beadily down at them, its head tilting from side to side to take them in with one eye, then the other, in turn.

“Yeah.”

“...And there's another one,” Tom added in a voice of discovery, turning his attention to the window next to it.

“Yeah.”

“Your new place is covered in parrots.”

Tired of repetition, Michael Pri simply nodded. His car was parked on the sidewalk in front of his new apartment; the cable car, passing by on a rattle of chain and grinding wheels, was full to bursting with tourists, all of which were engaged in goggling at his furniture currently adorning the same sidewalk. He felt like one of the San Francisco sights, and was obscurely resentful at the certainty that visitors from Omaha were passing judgment on his love seats.

Tom, a tall, loose-jointed friend from long-gone college days who had ostensibly come with him to help with the move, but who had spent most of the afternoon thus far in unhelpful, sardonic commentary on the happenings of the moment, lit another joint and shoved it in the corner of his mouth. “Better than pigeons,” he said philosophically, and eyed Michael's coffee table with an acquisitive leer.

"I'm on the third floor," Michael said, dumping the last of the boxes out of his car onto the sidewalk. Something tinkled inside it with a sound of ominous finality. While 'covered' was an overstatement, there were at least seven or eight red-headed conures currently perched around the building's facade, peering down at them with expectant anticipation. The addition of a new box to the collection of belongings on the sidewalk invited comment. The conures obligingly commented.

"Bawk?" one asked another.

"Bawk," the other answered knowledgeably, and scratched its head in what Michael felt was a contemptuous fashion.

"Is there an elevator?" Tom asked, ignoring this avian byplay.

Michael shrugged.

"This is one of those things you should check before you move into a new building," Tom said.

"Sorry."

"Especially before your friends offer to help you move."

"You didn't offer," Michael said. "You just showed up."

"And you're lucky I did."

"Why? Are you going to help me move?"

"I didn't offer," Tom reminded amiably. "I just wanted to see the new place. And I was bored."

"How does this make me lucky?"

"At least you get my company for the day."

"I'll remember to send you a thank you card."

Tom, oblivious to sarcasm, removed his joint from his mouth and waved it at Michael in an inviting gesture. The sweet smell of marijuana drifted across the background smell of the Italian restaurant on the next corner. Michael waved it away, while above them, the conures turned their interested attention from his belongings to his companion.

"Buuuurk," crooned the earlier commentator, and received a small, congratulatory wave of hisses from its companions. Michael had the distinct impression that they did not approve of the joint.

"Sorry," he said upward.

"Bik," said the Greek chorus, not unkindly, and ruffled their plummage. One green feather came spinning down from above.

"Who're you talking to?" Tom asked.

Michael stooped to pick up the first of the pile of boxes that was stacked up against the plain white stucco front of the apartment building, and on a whim picked up the green feather as well. "Nobody," he said. "If you're not going to help, keep an eye on the stuff at least, will you?"

"Can I play with the radio?" Tom asked.

"No," Michael said.

"Thanks," Tom said happily, and wandered in the direction of the car. Two seconds later, Cyndi Lauper was making the block an earache for the musically educated in the vicinity.

Michael shifted the feather to hold it pinned against the front of the box and bulldogged his way up the two low concrete steps to the front door. There he hesitated, old qualms arising again at the sight of the battered wood. The lock, to which he had been given the key by the landlord only two days before, was of the simplest kind and barely offered even the pretense of security; the gap between the frame and the door itself was wide enough to stick a pen through, and looked as though it had been chewed on at least once. The paint was flaking in great, peeling strips; he noticed that while there was an ancient metal mailbox inset into the wall, with one partition for each of the residents – seven, by their number – here even the pretense of security was absent. Two of the metal doors hung creakily open, hanging on by a single hinge while tongues of junk mail lay tilted on their ends inside.

There was movement behind the front door. He registered it by the faintest change in the whistling draft that cut through the gap and bit at his skin. He retreated just in time to avoid a mouthful of splintering wood.

The woman on the other side barely reached up to his chest, not surprising given his own 6'2" height. She was small and Asian, round-headed in a way that gave her a striking resemblance to one of the small bobble-head Buddha statues that the cynical vendors in Chinatown sold to tourists desperate for last-minute gifts for friends back home. He had enough presence of mind to glance at the mailboxes again; one of the weather-beaten strips of tape that labeled them read, "Li." Admittedly, in San Francisco, where percentage of Asians in the population was such that any random passerby had a 1 in 3 chance of being Asian, this meant little. “Sorry,” he said. She stopped dead in the doorway and stared at him with bright, shining eyes. Beyond her, the corridor stretched long and stark and barren, carpeted with a rat-eaten, raggedy red strip of fabric that easily dated the Kennedy administration.

"Oh," she said. "That's a good sign. I wouldn't have thought they'd take to you so quickly. I didn't know you were an ox."

Michael was left with the surreal sensation that he had entered the conversation halfway through. "Sorry?" he said again, and this time made it a question. "I'm moving in," he added for good measure, in case the woman had him confused with someone else. "For the first time," he tacked on. And then as an afterthought, finished, "Today."

"And you brought your own things," the woman said with visible delight, as though this was a rarity in new tenants, to be encouraged and congratulated where found. She pressed herself past him to hold the door open with her back and waved him through. "There's a door stop," she said. "But he went down to the laundromat to see if he could find one of the gerbils. I can't imagine he had much luck, since it's Wednesday. They don't do Wednesdays. I'm Naomi. I live on the first floor. And you must be four."

"I'm on the third floor," Michael said cautiously, and leaned the box he was carrying to burden most of one arm, peeling the other away to offer a hand to Naomi. "Michael."

Her handshake left him feeling bruised. For a small woman, she had a great deal of vigor, and a limited understanding of human anatomy.The human wrist simply did not bend the way she wanted his to go.

"Ow," he said.

"There's no elevator," she said apologetically, as though she were somehow responsible for the building's lack. "That's not really a problem, though. Oh, and you brought furniture." She looked past him at the pile on the sidewalk.

There was something in her voice that made him pause. "Is that a problem?" he asked.

"I'm sure it might not be," she said.

He paused to consider that reply. "Is there something unusual in bringing my own furniture? The landlord didn't say that the apartment was furnished."

"Oh, it's not furnished. At least, I don't think it is. Anyway, it looks like you have tasteful things," she said, as though consoling him for a loss, "So it might not mind at all."

"'It?'"

"Are you attached to them?" she asked sympathetically.

"'It?'" he repeated, refusing to be diverted and sticking to the first point. "What's 'it'?"

"Well," she said, carrying on her half of the conversation without bothering to wait for him to catch up. "I shouldn't be surprised."

He had the distinct impression she was listening to someone else's dialogue. "Hello," he said, and waved a hand in front of her face. She blinked. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

"Goodness," she said. "What a question." With a friendly little nod she let go of the door, letting it creak slowly closed to bump into his rear. "I'll go find the door stop!" she called, whisking off down the sidewalk to the salutatory cheers of the parrot peanut gallery above them.