Golden Ostrich

The Golden Ostrich
Powder Blue Tuxedo Boys

It’s the summer of 1985. Patrick and Timothy are living on an old chicken farm in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. The boys have decided that raising ostriches will make them rich.

Patrick: To hell with those crazy chickens and their eggs. The rooster crowing at dawn. All that cackling.

Timothy: Yeah. I don’t like being woken up at dawn, and all the hen cackling brings back bad memories of the commune.

Patrick: You mean Patchouli Pastures outside of Occidental.

Timothy: Yeah. Those hippie chicks would cook in the communal kitchen and laugh as they compared all of our bedroom tools and expertise. It was annoying. Cackling is most unpleasant to me.

Patrick: And we all know why. Anyway, I tell ya, Timothy. These Ostriches lay golden eggs. We’ll make a fortune in the omelet market.

Timothy: The strippers downtown will buy the feathers.

Patrick: We can say that ostrich meat is the healthiest on Earth, leading to a very special muscle development for men and big tits for women.

Timothy: We’ll be rich! Now, if we can only get this truckload of ostriches through San Francisco, across the Golden Gate, and to our farm near Healdsburg.

The boys have bought an old WWII Army transport truck. It still has the white star on the side. Today, Patrick and Timothy are wearing the Army fatigues they were given at Army Surplus when they bought the truck.

Timothy: It was nice of the guy at Army Surplus to give us these fatigues.

Patrick: We probably overpaid for the truck, and he felt guilty.

Timothy: We do look like we fit the truck we’ll be driving.

Patrick: The five ostriches are down in Gilroy just south of San Jose. I bought them for $100 each. It’s a steal. They are all teenagers and horny ones at that. We’ll get lots of eggs.

Timothy: Gilroy is the Garlic Capital of California. Have these ostriches been eating garlic? Will that affect the eggs?

Patrick: Naaahhh. I’m sure it will be fine.

The Powder Blue Tuxedo Boys wake up bright and early on a beautiful sunny 80-degree day. It’s Tuesday. The boys leave at 5 AM for Gilroy from Healdsburg to avoid rush-hour traffic on Highway 101.

They are wearing their Army fatigues, even the caps, wraparound sunglasses, and drinking cheap beer from a six-pack at their feet. The big Army 6×6 cargo truck lumbers down 101 at 55 mph. Patrick is driving.

Patrick: This thing will only go 55.

Timothy: I can see why Sammy Hagar didn’t buy it.

Patrick and Timothy make it to the ranch in Gilroy, buy and load up the five ostriches into the back of their truck. The ostriches are trilling and chirping away.

Timothy: I hope they like Cheerios. That’s all I brought for ‘em.

Patrick: It’s only 2 hours to our ranch. A couple boxes of Cheerios will hold them over.

Timothy: They smell like Italian ostriches. Garlic is on their chirping, trilling breath.

Patrick: I’m sure some clean water and a good diet of Cheerios will cure them of that.

Timothy: I’m beginning to think we should have brought Lucky Charms.

The boys drive the truck slowly back onto the highway. The ostriches are free to roam in the back, and sudden movements could cause them to crash about.

The birds never stop chirping and trilling. They eat all the Cheerios in the first ten miles of the trip.

Timothy: Do these birds ever shut up?

Patrick: Maybe.

The boys drive north through San Francisco and get on the Golden Gate Bridge. All six lanes, three north, and three south, are barely moving. It’s a traffic jam. Patrick and Timothy, in their Army fatigues and Army truck, stick out like sore thumbs on the bridge full of yuppy commuters.

Timothy looks out his window on the right side of the cab and sees four serious young women in a VW Beetle. Their bug is covered in bumper stickers; “Save the Whales”, “Stop Drug Testing on Animals”, “Stop Animal Cruelty.”

Timothy leans out the window and says to the VW driver, “Shouldn’t that say, ‘Stop Cruelty to Animals?’”

Driver of VW: Who are you, Army boy? And what’s in the back of your truck? I hear ostriches.

Patrick: What the fuck are you doing? Those are some of those animal rights Nazis. They’ll want the birds.

The back of the truck is thrown open. Four women’s voices shout, “We are freeing these ostriches from your cruel and evil Army experiments!”

Timothy: What the fuck? The birds are running all over the bridge. The drivers are freaking out.

Patrick: Those birds are ours. We paid good money for them, well, kinda good. We’ll have to go out there and corral them like ostrich cowboys.

Timothy: What the fuck do you know about being an ostrich cowboy? Watching old episodes of Rawhide doesn’t count.

Patrick: Well, what would Rowdy Yates do in this situation?

Timothy: We’ll have to use some blankets to corral them against the side of the bridge and then herd them back into the truck.

Patrick: That’s a plan. I’ve got a blanket and there are some old Army blankets in the back.
Patrick pulls out his blanket that he’s been sitting on as the truck’s bench seat is a bit worn out.

Timothy: What the hell is that? That blanket looks like Reagan’s brain on acid.

Patrick: I bought it at a Grateful Dead concert.

Timothy: I think we’ll just use the olive drab Army blankets.

Out on the bridge, the five ostriches run around in a small group trapped by all the cars. Some drivers honk at the ostriches. This just makes the birds angry and they lunge and hiss at the drivers who quickly roll up their windows and lock their doors.

An orange 1970 Ford Pinto has Ethel and Ralph, about 60 years old, on their way to the San Francisco opera house for a performance.

Ethel: Don’t honk your horn, Ralph. It just riles them up.

Ralph: They look like big chickens.

Ethel: Those are ostriches, Ralph. You should read National Geographic once in a while.

Ralph: I’m always out with the chickens either feeding ‘em, or getting the eggs, or candling the eggs to sex ’em. It’s a full-time job.

Ethel: At least you know how to say “sex.”

Ralph says nothing.

Two officers of the Bridge Security Team (yes, the Golden Gate Bridge has its own police, towing, and maintenance departments) show up to deal with the ostriches.

Freddie: How the hell did five ostriches get on our bridge?

Hal: I think those two dumb looking Army guys probably know.

Freddie: Hey, you Army guys! What do you know about this ostrich business?

Patrick: Some animal loving loonies set them loose while we were stuck on the bridge. Help us corral them and get them back into the truck.

Timothy: You guys watch Rawhide, don’t ya? Just copy Rowdy Yates.

Hal: I love that show.

The four of them, using blankets, slowly corral the five ostriches and get them back into the old Army truck. The four women in the VW start yelling at the two Bridge Cops.

Patrick and Timothy slowly walk backward toward the truck cab. The road ahead is clear. Patrick fires up the engine, and the boys head north at maximum speed with their five birds, who are now trilling and chirping again as they find a few Cheerios they’d missed earlier.

…

The ostrich enterprise didn’t work out for the Powder Blue Tuxedo Boys. All the eggs and meat reeked of garlic. No one wanted them.
Patrick: Maybe we should sell the ranch and move to Los Angeles. It’s the city of angels. Lots of opportunities for two smart guys like us.

Timothy: Why not? I hear there is a good bar there on Hollywood Boulevard called The Frolic Room.

And the rest is history.

TJM