Spend any time in the West End of Portland at night, and you might be lucky enough to hear a series of short, high-pitched peeps fall out of the atmosphere. Sitting in a plastic chair late at night while my neighbor smoked a cigarette, I remember the first time they skittered across the backyards and alleyways and onto my ears. Although nobody could recall hearing them before, everybody could have sworn that, most likely, they had been there forever.
Short bursts of bright, breathy air, eerie and sure of themselves. Just below our level of consciousness. We started to enjoy their unpredictable, inexplicable presence.
After a number of months, my neighbor passed on a message from a tugboat-captain friend of his who explained that, although most crew now depend on electronic radios, certain older workers prefer a system of call-and-response using high-pitched whistles. I have since learned of a number of other people enchanted by these sounds of the neighborhood, and the following is my tribute:
My neighbors and I have all since been forced to leave our former home in the West End, which still sits empty after a seemingly unsuccessful attempt to chop the place into condos.