shut the f*ck up Richard..

spending my days contemplating dick.

it being summer, warm sweaty days with ample breeze, I have spent some long hours outside. being outdoors back at home where I am right now, I can’t help my thoughts drifting to good old dick. enjoying the ambience, whether that is reading a book with a glass of chilled red or in front of the laptop doing road trip research, a continuous loop runs through my head.

hello. hello. let me out. let me out. hello.

it isn’t my internal monologue pleading to get out on the road. or some terrifying daydream. no, this is the monotonous chatter of a bird. a talking bird. what kind of bird, I’m not clear on. all I know is his name is Richard. or in a popular phrase regularly yelled by my neighbour “shut the fuck up Richard”. a typical weekend home scene: sitting outside, dad cooking a barbecue, everyone gathering around, laughing, chatting. a beer in one hand and something appealing to the masses softly playing in the background. think Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Kenny Rogers. everyone happy and engaged, and then the volume rises. Ricahard wants to join in.

hello. hello. how are you? hello?

it isn’t long before you hear the tired phrase. “shut up Richard”. sometimes it may start without profanity, but it always ends there. if I didn’t know who the voice belonged to I might have imagined a middle-aged woman, skin wrinkled by the sun, definitely a smoker, you can hear it in the harsh rasp of her voice. probably called Sharon or Barb. a mental image of bogan Australia personified. but I do know who owns the voice, someone only several years younger than me. we played together as kids. back when you had gangs of street kids riding bikes, going next door after school. I used to play in that backyard. hours of trampolines and sprinklers and whatever games we came up with. in fact, one of the games often involved playing in the plants down the side of the shed. this was a small narrow strip between the shed and the fence next to my house, taller than the usual fence line with an extra layer of corrugated iron adding the height. I learned embarrassingly late in life, certainly well into adulthood, that we were playing in a small crop of marijuana bushes. the innocence of childhood and all that. but back on track, all I know is Richard is an inheritance that came along with the house.

I’ve known Richard was a fixture for years. there is no mistaking that chatter. but I've never had more than fleeting thoughts about his disembodied voice. only now, a month into my visit, his words a constant refrain in my ears do I finally start to wonder. the words echo through my ears, the repetitiveness of them become a mantra I can’t shut off and the curiosity seeps in. Richard, what are you? galah? eclectus parrot? a cockatoo? a plain old budgie? at this point I need to know. I ask my mum. “do you know what Richard is?”, “I think he is a cockatoo? ask your father, he knows more”. I’m not shocked by this suggestion, dad is the social butterfly of the family and has an extensive vault of information about acquaintances across town.

how are you? how are you?

turns out I have seen Richard before. most people in town probably have at some point, whether they knew it or not. Richard is a relic of the Ada Ryan Gardens. the one guaranteed place of greenery in this dusty, old town. the first major park in the city down by the foreshore. I learnt, writing this, that it was originally the site of the town cemetery and was relocated in 1918 to allow for these gardens. a haven of large trees, tennis courts, playgrounds and barbecues. but this story isn’t about the gardens, it is about Richard. this park also has bird aviaries and used to contain a kangaroo enclosure. memories float back from visiting the kangaroos, lolling about in their enclosure filled with nothing more than red dirt, a dry old saltbush. my adult brain realises this is cruel and uninspiring for the poor marsupials, but as a child, it was a fun treat.

next to where the old kangaroo enclosure used to live are the aviaries. quite a reasonable amount of them, though I never lingered by them as a child like I did with the roos. birds have always inspired terror and queasiness in me. staring too long at the many winged creatures flitting about would send shivers down my spine. the loud cacophony of so many birds and unique calls. the constant and chaotic movement. the overpowering smell of bird shit, rotting fruit and other detritus. the tiny feathers floating around and inevitable mice running rampant in the bottom of the enclosure would overwhelm my senses. I doubt I ever lingered too long, though the talking birds were always cause to pause.

oh no. oh no,

Richard is, in fact, a cockatoo, a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo to be specific. possibly the most visually iconic of Australia’s cockatoos. these birds are not only fiercely intelligent and adaptive but intimidatingly large for birds, particularly when you pair them with their commonly seen relation, the galah. we, in fact, had a galah for a time growing up. clearly an escapee from somewhere nearby, our galah was clearly already domesticated and arrived on the wind. I like to think he adopted us, chose us and just moved in. we would bring him inside, watch him waddling around the lounge room. all fluffy pink and grey feathers, jumping on our heads and repeating just the one word. hello. clearly the only word in his repertoire. the galah who only ever had the name cocky, despite my every effort to give him a real name, it never caught on. then one day, much like he came, he left again. or else he expired, my mum reluctant to break the news to us children.

but back to Richard again. dad tells me he spent some years living at a small country pub, where his owner lived for a time. I can only imagine what a bar fly cockatoo might have discovered there. in fact, it shocks me his language isn’t more colourful and varied with a flair for the kind of profanities that frequently fly in dilapidated front bars. sadly his owner passed a few years ago. I hear he was brought along to the wake, chilling in the beer garden, an integral part of proceedings. now Richard is an inheritance, passed along with the house to the next in line. I wonder about him even more now. I imagine I’ll wonder for a long while, content building daydreams around this chatterbox that I’ll likely never set eyes on. I hope to never stop hearing his inane repetitiveness that punctuates the quiet of the street. the cacophony that has come to feel like a shrill friend in my back pocket. as I contemplate leaving again I look forward to hearing his words once again.

see you later.

(this is not Richard, an old mate perhaps? a current inmate of the afore mentioned aviary that dear old Dick was apparently sprung from)