The story of Jay 2Pay-Z and Joe's garage -- Conclusion

But, as I'd predicted, we couldn't let go that easily -- luckily for 2Pay-Z. Against Wei's advice I wanted to go get a closer look and make sure 2Pay-Z was okay on the ground. I strolled over to the garage in a leisurely manner and came upon 2Pay-Z standing between two cars -- calmly facing a BIG GREY CAT which was slowly creeping toward him from maybe four feet away. 2Pay-Z was standing there with his neck stretched out and his little beak wide open, patiently waiting for the nice puddy-tat to drop some food into his mouth!  The puddy-tat seemed momentarily nonplussed by this, but was still about to pounce. The adult Jays were going absolutely nuts with their siren-like hollering in tandem. I charged the cat, yelling, and it reluctantly fled.

I could imagine 2Pay-Z saying to himself, "Dat's funny! The puddy-tat wan away! I tink dat silly puddy-tat thought I was gonna EAT HIM!"

I now have a much greater understanding of the Tweety and Sylvester dynamic than ever I did before.

I picked up 2Pay-Z and put him back in his stewpot, then I put the stewpot in a larger box from which I figured he could not possibly leap, and put the box back atop the Jeep. I figured this would discourage the cats and keep him in the "nest." The new question was, would his dumbass parents still recognize him in the high-sided box instead of the stewpot, and be able to feed him in there? So we watched that new set-up from afar. Praise "Bob," Ma Jay came and after some meditation upon the new arrangement, returned to her routine of feeding him.

THEN IT STARTED RAINING. We couldn't leave 2Pay-Z in the box because it would fill up with water and he'd drown! So we went to open Joe's garage and put the box somewhere in there, sheltered from the rain but still out of cat-reach. But -- just as I got there, I almost STEPPED ON 2PAY-Z!! -- who was somehow on the ground again, and looking rather fucked up, too. Barely responsive to anything. I started to put him back in the box -- but he was already in there!

Suddenly it was like a scene from the movie, The Prestige. I realized these were TWINS, and, as the moral of The Prestige tells us, one twin always ends up in the box.

In this case, the one in the box was the lucky one. Obviously his brother, whom we named Le Professeur de Magie, had been in the nest this whole time and just recently fell (or was kicked) out. He was not in good shape, though. He staggered instead of hopped, one wing was shorter than the other, and he wouldn't eat. And his Mom was squawking at us to LEAVE HIM WELL ENOUGH ALONE THIS TIME. So we left him there on the ground. Joe was due home by this time anyway.

When Joe arrived we told him the whole saga. He had read on some web page just what to do -- he found a hanging flowerpot that would drain, made a "nest" in that and hung it from his garage where the parents could see it but the cats couldn't get to it and the rain couldn't fill it. Joe put both 2Pay-Z and Le Professeur in there, and as we watched from our yard we could see Mom Jay flying up to the hanging flowerpot nest, perching on the edge and urping grub into 2Pay-Z 's demanding and bottomless yap.

Le Professeur, however, did not seem to be taking food. Things didn't look good for Le Professeur. He was only half the size of 2Pay-Z , too. We theorize that the growth hormones, vitamins, steroids and god knows what else from the doses of Puppy Chow Sludge that he got all Saturday had turned 2Pay-Z into some kind of UberJay.

**

The next morning, we went to see how the two babies were doing in the hanging flowerpot nest.

Le Professeur was gone, as we half expected. But 2Pay-Z! Our little boy had grown so much in 9 hours that we barely recognized him. And he's so mature now. He just looked at us calmly as if to say, "Oh, Hi, Uncle Stang and Aunt Wei." HE DIDN'T EVEN OPEN HIS MOUTH AND GO "EEGH EEGH EEGH" -- he's such a big boy now that he knows the difference between us and his Mom and Dad!

As soon as we stepped away, his mom flew up to the flowerpot and barfed him up some lunch.

A little while later I went out onto our balcony, and who should fly up to a branch of our own tree, and perch not 10 feet from me, but 2Pay-Z 's dad. He just sat there looking straight at me. After a minute I said, "You're quite welcome!" He nodded, hung around a minute more and then flew off back to the nest.

**

The following morning, Jay 2Pay-Z was gone. I would like to think he was carried back to the nest by magic, or that he is now in Blue Jay Heaven. But I can't. My theory is that The Circle of Life got him and turned him into cat shit.