Effete Musings

       Recently, much attention has been directed at our fair city. People like Witold Rybycsinskiii have been coming from far and wide to comment on the strange goings on here, probing our mysteries like scientists examining a moon rock under phosphorescent lights. And occasionally one of these well intentioned travellers will mention something about the city’s pheasants as though they were a mere oddity-a piece of window dressing-to be noted, but not probed, even by these very people who make it their business to probe things. So leave it to me, a humble reporter, to tease out the significance of our local pheasants. Even though I’m not very bright and never received more than an eighth grade education, I make it my business to know whats going on in the city that I call my home. I maintain an office at the Detroit Intelligencier, a local newspaper that hasn’t put out an issue for over twenty years, for funding reasons, whilst still keeping itself at the ready for the day when the funding does arrive. “Ever Vigilant!” is our motto. And in that spirit allow me to elucidate some matters concerning the pheasants.

     Working at the Intelligencier, I have managed to make a number of contacts in the pheasant community. And the truth that I’ve uncovered is that very little happens here in Detroit that does not have pheasant tracks all over it. Indeed these pheasants seem to be the unseen movers orchestrating a number of the things occurring in our city. Right now, the Detroit City Council is contemplating action to have council members elected to represent specific districts in the city. The supposed logic behind this action is neighborhoods will be better served if council members are held to account for specific districts. But the truth is far more strange and it seems that interim mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. has a beak to his ear. In point of fact, there is a scarcely visited district on the West Side that is inhabited almost entirely by pheasants. If, or I might as well say when, the resolution passes it’s likely that we will see our first feathered member of the city council. And others are likely to follow.

     I recently went to meet with one of the pheasant big-shots in an empty lot in Corktown. King P., as he is known, is a bird of handsome plumage and given to erratic gestures. Using a translator, who himself is half-irish and half-pheasant, I asked King P. a series of questions concerning the pheasant agenda. His answers were evasive and often incomprehensible. But his bearing was as regal as I had expected and I noticed he was surrounded by coterie of brown-feathered females. During a pause in the interview, when King P. descended from his thrown on top of a pile of disintegrating textile goods to investigate a Burger King bag, my translator gave me a hot tip. I followed the tip to its source and discovered that it was indeed true. The People Mover Corporation seems intent on expanding with lines along Michigan, Woodward and Gratiot Avenues. But it will be changing its name to the P Mover. P, as the reader may have already guessed, can only stand for one thing.

     How deep does the pheasant influence go? Pheasants have recently been cited at G.M. headquarters and there is talk that the car company will be re-designing and re-marketing some of their vehicles as “Luxury Coops” to capitalize on the regions demographic shift.

       Lest this dispatch come across as alarmist, this reporter should emphasize that there is no reason humans and pheasants can’t co-exist peacefully. However, pheasants have been exhibiting some signs of violence and territoriality, especially during mating season. At any rate, if worse comes to worst, there is a curious fact about the pheasant that could give humans an upper hand in a showdown. Pheasants, it seem, lack the ability to drive in reverse. Therefore it’s rather easy to trap them by luring them into a round tube, closed off on one end, baited with some Burger King or Hunter House hamburgers. But hold on a minute, I hear someone squawking at the door and I really should go see who it is. I’ll be right back…