(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Hey.

yeah you.

Yo, over here.

No–no, up here.

atta boy.

I’ve heard you want the truth. No sugarcoatin’. Straight from the horse’s mouth as they say. Anyway, first let me tell ya my feet are killin’ me. I’ve been standing up here all day, like I do every day, but I won’t bore you with my griping.

Ok then, back to your question. You want the lowdown on Buffalo’s grand old Central Terminal, right? The city opened the doors in ’29, the year of the market crash. The place had a big time legacy, fifty years–half a c-note. Granted, most of what I’m tellin’ you is straight from my knuckleheaded ancestors. Don’t get me wrong, I mean no disrespect. One look at us and we’re immediately stereotyped as a bunch of bird-brains. I’ll have you know we’re famous for picking out very intricate patterns. I’m digressing, sorry. Just go with the flow. Right? Right.

The place was a real beaut. Shades of real cracker-jack class, Art Deco kind of class. Mosaics, marble and yellow brick mixed with sunlight blasting in from cavernous windows, so bright it could make a bird sing. In those early days, the fedoras and women in their Pert hats seemed to glide across the terminal floor, stopping by the curved lunch counters for cup and a slice. The smells of coffee, peanuts and petroleum wafted up to our perch. We were fat back then, feasting on handouts and discarded food. Enough about us.

People would wait for family or friends to arrive—some went off to other places. The din of the crowd and the long black trains beat with a pulse that made the terminal jive. As the years bled into decades, hats gave way to beehives and Goodman stepped aside for Elvis. The slow decline grew like mold. Times have been tough on this old place. The bricks are chipped and the marble dull. The windows are broken and the tiles, filthy. The glitter and the glow, long gone, scarred by neglect and rust. Sights and sounds reverberate only as echoes of the past from footfalls of the long-dead.

I have heard the mutterings of restoration, of progress. The low note drone of revival and of rebirth. The city’s identity is relentlessly tied to its past. Planning the plan, which hangs from a noose—decaying from a lack of movement. Money, oh glorious money, the savior of mismanagement and hard times. The problem is that you can’t polish a jewel in a sea of muck.

As for me, I stand up here, day after day, a scribe of the past and a soothsayer of the future. I twist my gray pigeon head up under my wings to pluck the tics and fleas that bother me. My brothers flank me left and they flank me right and we speak with a coo that is soft and mournful. We can see everything.

Now, I have only one request to make of you. Please move to the left a bit. I need to let a crap fly, down to the resting place of progress.