"Everybody needs someone to Love Thaam. Everybody needs someone to love them." Every morning as I left my back door onto the porch , there he was crooning. I thought he might scare the birds away but he attracted them instead. It took me 2 years of chucking quarters at them to get them to go away. Well he brought them back and they were pooping everywhere once again. Even in his apartment, they sure were. The man left his window open all the time with boxes of corn flakes and cat food sitting on the ledge. If it was not bird shit it was cornflakes I was cleaning up. This man loved birds so much that he carried a dead sparrow in his pocket. "Hello this is my friend" he would say as he held a bird in his palm. with its neck dangling to and fro. Man, talk about bird brained.

One day I came back from my trip from Jersey to find that my battery was dead. Someone broke in and played car. You know turned the head lights on, turn the wheel, vroom vroom noises, the whole works. Nothing stolen, just well hidden. See I thought someone had stole my bracket for my leaf-springs. No, but I did find them a year later stuffed under my seat. The man killed my battery and left my hydraulic jack in the rain. It seized. He just got in, flashed the lights and wipers and said ok!

If it was not bird shit or corn flakes it was broken railing posts and empty beer cans. For there was my other neighbor who kept mixing pot and alcohol. Not good. For next thing he knew he was punching moving cars. In the front grills. In one of his visits to the seventh floor, Joe the singing bird man would sit in the hallway and communicate with him through the closed door. Every morning for a week. See Bill was gone that week and was not to return for another three. But that did not phase Joe from not having these conversations. " I know you Might not like me, but you could talk to me." But Joe did have some friends, I think? One morning through my door I heard two voices, I think, planning their days intinary. The one said to the other or himself, that they should become freedom fighters for the day. Free themselves, or himselfs, from reality that is!

"Everybody needs someone to Love them" and sharp left kick and he is into the girls apartment below mine. He has been serenading these girls from outside their window now for a week. He thought it was time to make his move. They just put their hand on his forehead and just pushed back and slammed the door. Crazy maybe, but harmless.

We were sitting in Bills kitchen when Niagara falls hit. Drips were falling on our heads and hands. The cards were starting to stick togethor. We looked up and seen traces of yellowish brown line streak across the ceiling exposing every joint between sheet rock. Then came the rain, cubicles of water fell through dividing his kitchen into sixths. We knocked on Joe's door. We asked him to turn off the water.

"But mister, I am paranoid of water."

"Can you just turn it off !"

"Once I was walking through a park, and it was only raining on me."

"Yeah, but can you turn the water off."

"I am paranoid of water"

"Come down and you can see the water falling."

"I don't want to fight you mister"

"No just come see the water, I already invited you to have a beer"

"No mister, I am afraid of water."

Then he was gone, apartment left for the birds. The biggest and most expensive apartment in the joint, bird shitted. Out lived his usefulness and his Veteran checks. Off to sunnydale farms. Just another insurance check collected for the landlord. In came the second hand white wash and the new neighbors. Rent raised and money saved on renovations, Land lord was doing well. But what about Joe? He served his purpose. Fought someone else's battle and lost his own. Battled the tenancy levels of the state. Endowed the landlord full of property claims. But what about Joe? He just wanted someone to love him. That's all.

About the Author

Christopher Jon Luke Dowgin is propietor of Docspond Life Coach Services and has been giving individual, group facilitation, and Key note addresses to comunities and Fortune 500's. Delivering the message of the mission along with the bottom line growth potential. Also Christopher is owner and designer at Norgeforge Illumination Studios .