"Yes," Arlen said. "Tootsie belonged to William." His voice lingered on the name, and he looked out the window again. "I was just getting to know William. He asked me to keep Tootsie for him while he was away one summer . . . I suppose he was testing me."
"Ah," Oliver said, vaguely.
"Tootsie and I got along very well. I tried to teach him to say
'William,' but he preferred to sing." Arlen paused to drink.
"I moved in with William that fall." He uncrossed his legs and crossed them again, waving the other boot in the air. "To make a long story short, I moved out three years later. William was away for the night. I was feeling shitty, and I explained the situation to Tootsie. 'I'm leaving in the morning,' I told him. 'It's not your fault; it's not William's fault; it's not anybody's fault. We just didn't quite make it, that's all. Almost, but not quite.' Tootsie listened to me. You know how they do, with their heads cocked to one side. He was in a cage with a fail-safe door; the kind that are hinged at the bottom—if they aren't positively latched shut, they fall open so you'll know to latch them." Arlen swirled the whiskey around in his glass.
"In three years, Tootsie never got out of his cage. The next morning, I got up and went into the living room. 'Goodbye, Toots,' I said. 'Toots?' He wasn't in his cage. I walked over, and there was Tootsie on the table beneath his cage. He was lying on his side, stone dead."
"No way," Oliver said.
"Stone dead. I don't know how he got out. I don't know what happened. All I know is that he died when the relationship did. I think his heart was broken."
"What did you do?"
"I buried him beneath a tree on the Eastern Prom," Arlen said. "I haven't seen William for years. He moved out of town." One of the parakeets burst into song. "There he is now."
"Who?"