SNITCHED OUT BY SANDHILL CRANES

It's my bread. 

They serve three meals a day, and some sort of bread appears on every tray. It may be two dry, hard, cold biscuits, almost inedible, or dry, crumbly cornbread that bursts into pieces when you throw it over the razorwire, or two slices of white bread that, when squeezed into a tennis ball-sized lump, can be thrown farther, to the waiting seven-foot alligator, Wally, on the shore of the weed-choked pond. 

So why should there be an issue when a dozen or so prisoners filch their bread from the chow hall and toss it to the waiting white ibises, grackles, sparrows and sandhill cranes? It's our bread, given to us by the State.The birds appreciate it more than we do. We can eat the tasteless oatmeal, the cold, lumpy yellow grits, or the semi-cooked potatoes instead.

I am an animal lover. Always have been. Everyone in my extended family loves animals. If there's a hungry animal, I'm going to feed it. Is it such a sin that I sneaked out a chunk of cornbread to share with the birds, bread that otherwise gets dumped into swill barrels to feed some local farmer's pigs?

This is what happened. Along with at least a dozen other men, I tossed a handful of bread pieces over the razorwire fence to the waiting birds. The sandhill cranes, beautiful gray-plumaged creatures with bright crimson crests, close to four feet tall, crowded to the front past the smaller birds. Some braver souls would hold the bread on the palms of their outstretched hands. The cranes would reach through the chain-link fence with their fearsome pointed eight-inch black beaks and peck at the bread. I wouldn't risk it. I threw my bread over the fence.

A few years ago, at another prison, I saw a man hold out a chunk of bread on his palm to an approaching sandhill crane, that promptly speared the bread, and his hand, driving that sharp-pointed beak through the palm. Ouch! It is better that I toss the bread over the high fence or through the chain-links instead. Safer.

It was late, five-thirty p.m. Supper. We were at least a hundred yards from several guards standing in front of the chow hall. We tossed our bread scraps to the birds and alligator and returned to our dorms. Fifteen minutes later a guard came to get me.

''Come back to the chow hall, Norman.''

''Am I in trouble?'' I asked. It's always a good idea to try to find out what's going on before you get there, to form a defense.

''Do you know what my two pet peeves are?'' he asked, as we walked past the scene of the crime.

''I've never spoken to you,'' I said. ''I have no idea.''

''Not wearing socks, and feeding the birds,'' he answered his own question.

Now I knew who he was, the guy who watched the line of men on their way to the chow hall, staring at their Crocs. If they didn't have on socks, he sent them back to the dorm to put on a pair, or miss the meal. "Sockboy," some called him. I didn't know his name. 

I always wear socks, so it must be feeding the birds. Did he have binoculars, to pick me out of the distant crowd? Why do these people even know my name? I try my best to maintain a low profile.

I resisted the impulse to reply, ''If I were a guard, my pet peeves would probably be sharp knives, staff smuggling drugs, and gang activities, rather than petty issues like socks and birds,'' but I listened to my wife Libby's advice to keep my mouth shut. I also heeded McGarrett's advice from ''Hawaii 5-0'' in the 1960's--''You have the right to remain silent,'' and I exercised that right. Let them do what they were going to do, and get on with it.

He turned me over to the chow hall guard to work awhile, who wasn't interested in silly games, but went along with it, handing me a broom. I swept the chow hall. Took half an hour.

An inmate cook was preparing a couple dozen hot grilled cheese sandwiches to take back to his dorm to sell, along with a stack of at least a half-dozen sandwiches for the guards. I smiled at the irony -- you can't feed the birds, but you can feed the guards. Render unto Caesar. He offered me a sandwich for a dollar.

I wandered through the kitchen eating my grilled cheese and drinking my iced tea, offered by another kitchen worker, to the open back loading dock where workers were stacking cardboard and feeding the birds loaves of stale bread left over from supper. I counted over fifty white ibises, their long, downward-curved pink beaks pecking away at a plethora of manna. I couldn't count all the grackles, blackbirds, or sparrows. The regal pair of tall sandhill cranes parted the flocks of lesser minions as they filled up on bread. They knew where the action was. I thought, that guard would have a heart attack if he came to the rear of the kitchen and saw this.

''You wanna feed the birds, man, just come back here after chow, every day,'' another worker said. ''We load 'em up.''

The days went by. I continued to feed the cranes. When they spotted me coming from twenty or thirty yards away, they would stretch out their long black legs and run to me. I had flashbacks of velocirapters in ''Jurassic Park.''

''They know you, Norman,'' someone said.

A few days later, the cranes and a dozen ibises had flown in and landed right in front of the chow hall exit door. I walked out into the sunlight. The cranes spotted me and ran forward, stopping right in front of me, silently demanding some bread. Another guard laughed.

''You've been snitched out, Norman,'' he said, ''By birds. Go ahead, feed 'em. I don't care.'' He turned around.

I tossed my bread to the cranes. Several ibises ran over, squawking. I threw some bread to them, too.

Charlie

09-23-2021