Aug 1, 20_

I don’t think Deborah Ann loves me anymore. I sent her flowers yesterday, but she never responded. I secretly followed her to the park this morning. She spent about two hours sitting near the lake…feeding popcorn to the goddamn pigeons! Later on, I found the flowers I’d given her stuffed in the trash behind our building. I wish she wouldn’t feed the pigeons. I don’t like pigeons.

Aug 3, 20__

Things are getting weird, I can just feel it. There were three albino pigeons on the sidewalk in front of my building this morning. Well, maybe they weren’t exactly albino, but the fuckers were whiter than white, with maybe a few mottled specks of gray. Pigeons bother me.

Aug 4, 20_

Doctor Wooten wants to increase my dose of Mellaril again. This is the third time in the last six months. I’m seeing pigeons in my dreams, though I occasionally dream of Deborah Ann stepping out of the shower naked. She doesn’t have a lot of pubic hair, but that’s ok.

Aug 5, 20_

There was a huge fat pigeon perched on the sill outside my window this morning. It was gray but had a lot of green throughout. It was staring balefully at me and cocking its head sideways. I slapped at the glass and it flew off.

Aug 6, 20__

I got laid off this morning from my job delivering 55 gallon drums of sulfuric acid. Miss Dworkin said my services were no longer required, or something to that effect. It might have had something to do with me wrecking the delivery truck last month, but I’m not sure. I noticed several pigeons of various shades of gray outside her office window while she was giving me my slip.

Aug 7, 20__

I found out I’m eligible for 6 months of unemployment. It’s ok, because I don’t really like to work anyway. Wino Bob was sitting on the stoop, clutching his brown bag of T-bird when I came in today. I noticed an unusually large amount of pigeon shit on the steps surrounding him. He grinned at me, but I didn’t say anything.

Aug 9, 20__

All pigeons are scum. They bother me. They live on the roof of my building. They choke the streets and fill the skies. They bother me. Even the ones with the green luminous rings around their necks.

Aug 11, 20__

I found out there’re over three hundred million pigeons in this city alone, and that they’re plotting to take over the entire country. I read it in the Enquirer just this morning. It’s good to know that others are noticing the problem. "We should gas them," the paper said.

Aug 12, 20__

I bought a handgun around three o’clock this morning…from this guy I met on the 1-9 going uptown…a Smith & Wesson .38 Special. Not as much stopping power as a Glock, but it’ll do. I spent my entire unemployment check so I’ll be eating Top Ramen for a while, but that’s ok. Deborah Ann hates guns. She told me that once.

Aug 13, 20__

Miss DeGroot in 7B has been giving me strange looks lately. I mean she always seems to be in the hallway or hovering near the mailboxes when I get home. Last night she asked me if I saw this documentary about chimpanzees being trained to mop floors at night in large office buildings downtown. If she weren’t such an orthodox Jew, I’d think she’d been drinking. Deborah Ann still won’t talk to me.

Aug 15, 20__

This morning I went up on the roof of my building with my new gun, and blasted a couple of pigeons into loose feathers and small pink meaty chunks. One of them was brown, the other was gray with lots of blue and green. I had to bail quickly though, before anyone came up and saw me. They might not understand.

Aug 16, 20_

I knocked on the door to Deborah Ann’s apartment around four o’clock this morning. She got very angry when she found out it was me and wouldn’t open the door.

Aug 17, 20__

I blasted another pigeon earlier this evening. A huge brown and white one. I didn’t dare stay any longer…I heard footsteps on the stairs. I hid behind one of the large vents and saw Miss DeGroot stride out of the doorway and onto the roof. She started walking over toward the east end of the building, so I bolted through the door and down the stairs before she could see me. I went back to my room, then cleaned and oiled the .38.

Aug 20, 20_

Deborah Ann returned the set of Ginsu knives I got her for her birthday. No explanation. True, several of them were missing…but the best ones were there. She left a tube of her red lipstick in my apartment the night we made love, so I wrote "Deborah Ann’s a cunt!" on the wall by her door.

Sept 1, 20__

Every morning Wino Bob feeds the pigeons with a loaf of this stale-ass Wonder bread he picks up from the mission or somewhere. This morning I put my foot down and told him he better stop doing that.

Sept 27, 20__

No entries for a while. I’ve been depressed. Every pigeon in the world seems to be hanging out on my block. Deborah Ann’s doing the super, I think. I heard them laughing in the hallway, and he seems to spend a lot of time fixing things in her apartment.

Oct 7, 20__

I’ve got five pigeons in my kitchen now, but only two are still alive. I lured them in yesterday afternoon with half a Big Mac and some fries. I crushed one of them in my hand and two more died of "natural causes." The last two are shut up in the far left hand cupboard above the sink, but I don’t expect them to last long. I sectioned it off with cardboard so they don’t go foraging after my Pop Tarts or anything. I wrapped the dead ones up in tin foil and put them in the freezer. All five were more or less gray, more or less.

Oct 8, 20_

Deborah Ann and I only did it once, but I know she’s madly in love with me. After we did it, she told me intimate things about herself…like how extra-virgin olive oil gives her gas.

Oct 10, 20__

The two pigeons in the cupboard are still alive, so I’ve been reading them specific passages from Ivy Compton-Burnett. I think they like it…it seems to whip them up into a hot lather! I named the lighter-colored gray one after Deborah Ann.

Oct 12, 20__

I’ve lured several more pigeons, all of various shapes, sizes, and colors, into my apartment, then snapped their necks. There’s very little room left in the freezer now. I suppose I’ll have to figure something out pretty soon. The two in the cupboard died some time during the night. I wrapped "Deborah Ann" in tin foil and placed it in front of her door…the other one I tossed out the window.

Oct 15, 20_

The Unemployment Department sent me on a job interview today. An apprentice embalming position at Dunn Brothers Mortuary. I wore a dark suit and arrived three and a half hours early for the interview. They seem to like me…I start tomorrow.

Nov 2, 20__

No entries for a while. I’ve been depressed. All those dead folks at the mortuary kind of freak me out. I don’t think about Deborah Ann or pigeons as much though, which could be interpreted as a good thing.

Nov 5, 20_

There were numerous pigeons out behind the mortuary yesterday! They were rooting through the garbage cans because someone didn’t put the lids back on. I poisoned several of them, and afterwards stomped on them, then lined them up on the ground near the back fence. I did slip one in the side pocket of my suit jacket for later, though.

Nov 6, 20_

Mr. Noakes, the funeral director, found my pigeon display right after lunch today. I was watching him through the crushed velvet drapes as he scrutinized their twisted bodies. He had a weird look on his face. I need to get my dark suit cleaned, I guess. The mortuary receptionist said I’m beginning to smell.

Nov 13, 20__

I had it out with Wino Bob yesterday. I pretty much let him know that there would no more pigeon feedings in front of my building. He didn’t say anything, so I pulled the dead pigeon out of my jacket pocket and shook it at him. I’ve been wearing my dark suit for three days straight.

Nov 17, 20__

Miss DeGroot keeps eyeing me strangely whenever she sees me in the hallway, so late last night I placed one of the frozen, tin foil-wrapped pigeons in her mailbox. It didn’t quite fit so I had to force it in through the narrow slit. It would have gone in easier if I’d let it thaw for a bit, but live and learn I always say.

Nov 20, 20__

There are so many different types of pigeons it makes my head spin. I hate them all. No word on what Miss DeGroot thought of her "mail", but the vibes in the building are getting bad. I wrote a 10 page love letter to Deborah Ann, but I was afraid to put it in her box. I ended up mailing it to a woman named Doris McTeague in Queens. I picked her name and address out of the phone book.

Nov 25, 20__

The gun is fun, but loud and inefficient. Rat poison seems to be the way to go…sprinkled onto food and left in certain strategic locations, like the rooftop.

Dec 1, 20__

Wino Bob continues to feed stale bread to the pigeons. I’m really getting angry. I had another dream about Deborah Ann. She was, as usual, just stepping out of the shower. Mr. Noakes took me aside this morning and insisted I have my dark suit cleaned.

Dec 13, 20__

I gave Wino Bob a bottle of T-Bird as an early Christmas gift. He seemed surprised that I was nice to him, and thanked me graciously. I’d already twisted off the top and dosed it with liberal amounts of rat poison, then re-closed it. I don’t think he noticed.

DEC 14, 20__

They found Wino Bob this morning, curled up in the fetal position in the alley next to my building. "Deader than a doornail," Miss DeGroot said. I killed another pigeon too, this time with my cane. The fat fucker was gorging on a stale Krispy-Kreme donut someone dropped on the sidewalk, and didn’t move fast enough. I left it where it lay.

DEC 16, 20_

Imagine my surprise to find Wino Bob on the embalming table today. It’s a weird feeling when you know the person.

DEC 17, 20__

These two policemen came to my room this morning. They asked me lots of questions about Wino Bob, and wondered if I had seen anything. They also asked a few questions about my past history. That made me nervous, but I think I did ok. I told them I’d embalmed Wino Bob just the day before. They wrote something down in a notebook, then left.

DEC 25, 20__

Merry Christmas! I took care of Miss DeGroot this morning. She followed me up and saw me loading the .38. I bashed her in the head with the pistol grip, then dragged her over to the airshaft. She made a loud noise when she hit the bottom, but what else could I do?

DEC 27, 20__

They haven’t discovered Miss DeGroot yet, and the pigeons don’t hang out on the roof as much as they did…probably on account of all the dead ones strewn about. I’m making progress.

DEC 29, 20__

There’s a pretty nasty smell in the hallway on the first floor. The residents are starting to complain. I saw the super coming out of Deborah Ann’s apartment last night around eleven. He mumbled something about snaking a clogged drain as he passed me in the hallway.

DEC 31, 20_

I don’t feel so connected to reality lately. I think I’m missing some vital point of life. The super thinks the bad smell is coming from somewhere in the basement. I may have to move soon. I have a sister who lives in Poughkeepsie, but I haven’t talked to her in over 13 years. We were on pretty good terms the last time I saw her, though, and I’ve got a sneaky hunch there’s not as many pigeons up there…I mean compared to the number living here in the city, that is.