The Pretend Big Bird by Will Musgrove

Perched on a branch, I flapped my wings and cawed. One by one, the bird-watchers swung their binoculars toward me, watching. What did they see? Big Bird. To make rent, I used to dress up as Big Bird. You know, lives on Sesame Street, yellow, and, well, big. I wasn’t the real Big Bird. I was a guy in a costume. I guess the real Big Bird is also a guy in a costume, but you know what I mean.

Why Big Bird?

I wanted to act, was another Midwestern boy who’d moved to La-La Land to be closer to pretend. In the meantime, I performed at kids’ birthday parties but had just gotten fired for taking the head off too many times. You try wearing a bunch of feathers in ninety-plus-degree heat. Los Angeles isn’t cold. When I picked up my final check, I was supposed to return the costume but didn’t. On the bus ride home, I noticed the bird-watchers in the park and figured: Why not pretend to be a bird in a tree? Figured, I could use the laugh. So, I pulled the cord, put the head on, and got off. 

“I’m a bird, a bird,” I repeated through the long, plastic beak as I climbed the tree to prank the bird-watchers. 

The bird-watchers scribbled in their notebooks. In high school, I practiced my autograph in something similar. Two big loops followed by a straight line. Again and again, I’d write those two big loops and then a straight line until my name became more than a name. 

“Fly away, birdy,” one of the bird-watchers shouted through cupped hands. “Fly away.”

I didn’t know how. I thought I did, but that ended up being make-believe. There was what was in my head: a real love of pretend. Then there was what the world saw: Big Bird. None of that mattered, though, because I was a bird, and birds can fly. I scooted to the edge of the branch. Above, finches shot through the sky like darts, and I wondered if they, too, flew on belief alone.

“I’m a bird, a bird,” I repeated.

Cracking. The branch snapped. Flapping my wings, I plummeted from the tree like a chick being pushed from the nest. Soon, the bird-watchers hovered over me, watching. What did they see? I looked past their featherless faces at the finches, at the sky, where I skipped across the clouds like a stone. I knew I could never take the head off again, knew I’d forever be repeating, “I’m a bird, a bird,” if I was ever going to make it in this business.

Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Timber, The Penn Review, X-R-A-Y, Tampa Review, Vestal Review, and elsewhere. Connect on Twitter at @Will_Musgrove or at williammusgrove.com.

27 October 2023