Birdie, Bernie and Me

By Donna Brodie

Last June, I found a baby bird on the Bowery ─ with no nest in sight, I brought it home.

“What’s your plan for this bird? Don’t rope me in!” That was my boyfriend talking.

I posted on Facebook, looking for anyone who could raise a bird and eventually free it. I had called the Wild Bird Fund but they were overrun and underfunded.

A lifelong Stuyvesant Town resident who I went to high school with on the Upper West Side — when it was serious Needle Park territory — responded, “I’ve asked the StuyTown group for contact info for Bernie Geotz. He’s a local wildlife rescuer.”

Before I called the number, I searched Google for more information. Nothing about a local wildlife rescuer with that name or spelling. But Bernie Goetz, the man who shot four teenagers on the subway in 1984, kept eerily showing up. I was sure my schoolmate would have told me if this was the person whose name was once among the most infamous in the city.

“Google,” I repeated, “I want Bernie G-e-o-t-z, not Goetz!”

Shortly after I left a message for wildlife rescuer Geotz, I got a call. “Meet me tomorrow at the 14th Street and First Avenue crosstown bus stop,” Geotz said.

The next day, I arrived on time and approached a trim man with white hair and a tote bag. A button pinned to his cloth belt read “Don’t Eat Animals.” We talked, or rather, he talked about the squirrels of StuyTown. “They’re the best squirrels in the city,” he said.

I showed him the box in the bottom of my bag with the bird inside. “That box is filthy,” he said. I’d lined it with paper towels. There was some poop on the paper. “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “It was clean when I left the house.”

As I handed him the bag and a sack of cat food I said, “I’ve been feeding it mashed up kitty kibble. That’s what the internet said to do. She’ll take small amounts when she’s hungry and opens her mouth wide. That’s about once an hour.”

 “I’m not feeding it cat food,” he said. “That’s made with meat. Cats stink. I’ll give it egg mashed with yogurt. Cats won’t stink if they don’t eat meat!” And they don’t live, I thought.

“I looked up that it needs protein,” I said. “And you’ll have to give it live grubs in a couple of weeks.” He said, “That’s disgusting” and left with the bird.

Back home, I said to my boyfriend, “I don’t know about this guy.” He replied, “Why? How’d it go?”

“He was raising two feral possums on his terrace,” I said, “but they got inside and burrowed a hole in his box spring. He slept on the mattress and let them live there until it was time to take them to the woods.” My boyfriend said, “That’s a good sign. It shows commitment.”

Later I called my friend Leslie. In the 1980s, we’d gone to The City College of New York together at a time when the public phones on Convent Avenue were in cages so you couldn’t steal the coin box.

I filled her in on the bird story. “The thing is this wildlife rescuer has the unlikely name Bernie Geotz,” I said, “But it’s G-e-o-t-z.”

“Fourteenth Street?” she asked. “Didn’t Bernie Goetz live on 14th Street?”

“This guy feeds the squirrels in Stuytown,” I said. “I think he lives there.”

“Wait. The internet says Bernie Goetz lives at the same West 14th Street address as he did in the 1980s. Didn’t you meet him at the crosstown bus stop?” I fell silent then inexplicably whispered, “Keep this under your hat. Bye.”

“What is it?” my boyfriend asked. “I gave the bird to Bernie Goetz, vigilante subway shooter! We have to get it back. He’s not going to feed it right. Let’s get this bird back before he kills it. Tomorrow!”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I have all day meetings.”

“Can you call him, please?” I asked. “Of course,” he said.

But it was 10 p.m., too late to call an “alter kaker” (old fogey) possibly with a gun. The next morning the phone rang. “Hello. I have to go to Philadelphia. I can’t keep this bird.”

I called my friend David. “I accidentally gave a baby bird to Bernie Goetz.” David grew up in The Ansonia when prostitutes walked a beat in front of the building and Plato’s Retreat was in its basement. No need to explain who Goetz was. “Will you come with me to get it back?”

“I don’t think I can say no.”

Twenty minutes later, Bernie Goetz met us in the lobby of his doorman building. “This bird stank when she gave it to me. Smell it now.” Goetz held the bird up to David’s face. “Very nice,” David said.

“I’m going to feed it,” Goetz said. “Please don’t,” I said. “It’ll open wide when it’s hungry.” In the past 24 hours I’d read everything I could about keeping a baby bird alive. 

Goetz wedged its beak open with a medicinal plunger he pulled out of his pocket and force fed her. “Stop,” I yelled. “I asked you not to!”

David patted my shoulder. “Time to go.”

I brought “Margo,” the female sparrow, back home. For the next eight weeks my boyfriend and I fed her live grubs, berries, and millet.

Every morning, Margo trilled at the prospect of a new day. We placed her cage near a window, where she studied other sparrows pecking at a seed bell. Instinct kicked in. She started bathing in her water tub. She chirped when she wanted more worms with a side of raw broccoli.

 Mid-August, we drove to the Hudson Valley and removed the top of her cage. I had expected to be sad but when she flew high into the tree tops I felt only joy.