Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab Lab. Radio Lab. Shorts! From...
WNYC. C. N.P.R. Hey, I'm Jada Boon-Rod.
I'm Robert Colwich. This is Radio Lab, the podcast. And we're going to St. Louis.
Yeah. Nice, nice and direct. He likes that because he lives there, but you'll like that because you're about to meet something somebody unusual. Unrelated to my mother.
Thankfully, this comes from our producer, Pap Alters. It's the story of a rescue. A double rescue, really. That's one we've been wanting to tell for a while.
So a few months ago, I went to St. Louis because I heard this story about a guy who had this pet that basically saved his life. Then the pet is a bird. It's about this guy named Jim Eggers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to record. And in 2005, Jim was living by himself in a little apartment in St. Louis.
Working in a Halloween industry. He was the winter, so Jim had just finished up his latest season at the local haunted house. I've known the Halloween stuff for 19 years. What do you do?
Most of the time I've been in costumes and so forth or wear masks. You know, jumping out from behind dark corners and scaring people. And scream and you know, go nuts. Which is kind of a strange gig for a guy like Jim because he has a really hot temper.
What's technically your diagnosis? I have a bipolar disorder with psychotic tendencies. And what that pretty much is is when I'm having a mood swing or whatnot, I can become extremely dangerous and violent. Well, I was there and he was totally calm.
But Jim tells me that once he feels a mood swing, he starts coming on. It feels like real strange and tingly. It might just be a few seconds before all of a sudden boom. Here you are like the incredible Hulk.
Have you ever physically attacked someone and hurt them? Yeah. Jim's known around his neighborhood for just losing it from time to time. He shouts at people on the street, punches, dents, and people's cars.
One time he even poured hot coffee from a second story window onto his neighbor's head. I go off on people and it's horrible. And if you ask Jim, he'll tell you this. I'll go back to when he was seven.
At the age of seven, I lost my kid brother in a Mississippi River. I saw him drown. And you saw him? Yeah, I witnessed him drowning.
We wandered away from home. We were not properly supervised by my parents. And I told my brother not to go over into the river because it was deep. He didn't listen to me and then the currents dragged him down.
I saw him bob up and down three times and the third time he didn't come back up. And I was pleading with God, you know, crying. Please bring him back. I'm going to be in trouble.
And when Jim's parents found out, they believed him. You know, it was my fault, my brother drowned. I should have been, you know, I should have saved him. And then other times they told me that, you know, they wish it was me that died instead of my brother.
And then when he was 16, Jim's mom threw him out in the house. She just said, when did they get out, Jim? Yeah. And she said she didn't want me over there anymore.
Get out. And then he kind of spiraled out of control. He ended up living on the streets for years and just getting angrier and angrier at everyone around him. And then in 2005, which is our part of the story begins, Jim did something that got him in very serious trouble.
Tell me about that Archbishop situation. Okay, as far as the art. He didn't read news reports about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. And for reasons that aren't entirely clear, Jim had become convinced that the local Archbishop, Archbishop Raymond Burke, was involved in covering this stuff up.
Bailey Knopry's did have sexually assaulted children and so forth. And one day he was watching the news and he saw a Burke on there. Like on the 12 o'clock news. Talking about something.
Can't remember what. And at that point I snapped and checked up a phone dialed the archdiocese asking him to connect me to his office, which is like idiots they did. And when they did, I told him, you know, I ought to come down and kill you. I said, I may even do that Sunday.
A couple hours later, Jim went out to run some errands. And when I head out the door, here were the police. Jim ended up getting sentenced to a year of probation. Just a few weeks into his probation.
Something happened that would basically set the story that we're telling about Jim in motion. It was a typical Sunday morning in Jim's at church. Then he runs into this couple. These people that own variety, Burj up in Valley Park.
The husband stopped me and said, well, we know where you can get an African Grey parrot. And they told me that she came with a cage. I said, why would they approach you? Well, I was putting $100 aside every month to pay for a baby African Grey parrot.
And you have to understand that Jim is kind of an animal man. He said dogs, the cats, guinea pigs and stuff like that his whole life never occurred. But when Jim read about these African Grey parrots, he became kind of obsessed with getting one. Because I knew they were highly intelligent and they were a lot of fun.
So when the Burj up people came up to Jim and said, we can get you an African Grey parrot. And she comes with a cage for $550. And he thinks to himself, that's like half what I was going to pay. So he says, I'll go ahead and take it.
Because I was too good of a deal to pass up. There was a catch though. The bird wasn't at the shop. It was being sold by this local kid who was just trying to get rid of her.
I went over there and she looked absolutely horrible because the kid didn't take care of her. She was about a foot tall. You want some peanut butter? Get a black beak.
Pretty yellow eyes too. Pure sing yellow eyes. Right, red. And tail feathers.
When Jim first saw her, she didn't have any flight feathers in her left wing. Because she tore all of them out. Yeah, she was plucking her feathers. That's an awful thing birds do when they get really stressed.
And she looked horrible. I almost wanted to say no after I saw her. But he knew he couldn't just leave her there. So he paid the kid, took her home, gave her lots of loving and care.
And within three days she bowed her head. I mean she pretty much bonded with me. Like the third week I owned her, I was in another room on the telephone and she said, Hey Jim, do you want a beer? And it's like, I don't drink beer.
Hey that's you. She asked me if I wanted a beer and then she'd tell me stuff. And stuff like, Will you get me a beer? You know, made me choke on my coffee.
But a few weeks later, Sadie started imitating Jim. Yeah. She'll impersonate a little chuckle that I do. It's like, yeah, yeah.
It's even better than Elmo could laugh. Sadie spent more time with Jim. She learned to say words and phrases. And then one day, several weeks after I had her, something kind of wonderful happened.
I came home and I was like in a really bad mood. I knew I had to do something. One of those moments when Jim could just feel he was about to lose control. And talk to myself and calm me down.
What would that say? I was talking to myself and I was like, I'm just talking to myself and calm down. You'll be okay. Everything's fine.
You know, it's not so bad. And then she started repeating that. St. calm down.
You'll be okay. Everything's fine. Exactly. Just like Jim was saying.
Word for Word. And I was like, wow. And it gives me an ideal. Jim started rewarding Sadie.
Every time she said something that might help calm him down. Like, you know, you'll be okay. Treat everything's fine. It's not as bad as you think.
Treat. Shut up. Treat. I love you Jim and you'll make a kissing sound.
Treat. So Jim went online and actually found this special kind of cage that you can carry around on your back. Then I took her with me just everywhere. Even got her registered as a service animal.
Kind of like a seeing eye dog. I mean everywhere. Where would you go there? I've taken her into churches.
I've taken it. I've taken it. I've reborn the public buses. Take her to the gym.
Yes. I've even taken her into like a couple of casinos through here. And Jim and Sadie had a pretty good situation. When Jim started feeling himself get mad, he'd tell himself, calm down.
Sadie would repeat him. But then one day, a few years ago, Sadie did something that went beyond mimicry. Jim says he doesn't exactly remember the first time in half. I can't think of anything right now because I'm like blanking out.
But it probably went something like this. Jim's just out in the neighborhood one day. He's got Sadie in her little backpack cage. And something happens that sets Jim off.
I don't know, a car cuts him off at the crosswalk. Immediately, Jim starts getting that tingly feeling. Yeah. And then in the split second fraction of a moment before Jim starts to talk himself down like he does.
Calm down, Jim. Calm down. He hears. Calm down, Jim.
From Sadie. Exactly. She says it first? Yeah.
Like before he even did anything. Oh yes, he knows. She, she can sense that. How do you suppose that was happening?
I mean, she, I don't know. I mean, Jim thinks maybe she can like feel a change in the way he's moving. You know, I have like body tremors when I'm starting to really get furious. Maybe Sadie can pick up on those tremors.
And Jim says this just kept happening. She does it all the time. And you know, it makes you stop to think. If I would go off on a person or something like that, you know, I wouldn't have any remorse or anything.
But I mean, it's just a little innocent animal that seemed to know him in this really intimate way. Which kind of blew my mind. Yeah. But Sadie didn't do it while I was there.
So I left Jim this tape recorder and asked him to try to get something like this on tape, just so I could prove it to people. Hello, my name is James Eggers and I'm standing here with my parents, Sadie. She's standing here right next to me on her little perch. See something?
You can see something to the microphone? A week or so later, I got the tape back. Sadie was on there saying all kinds of things like hello. Hello.
She said her name. Sadie. She said good girl. Things that I could imagine Jim saying to her.
Did you ever get a sense from anything she said that there was a kind of weird intuitive exchange happening or something? Not really. But I thought if it happens as often as Jim says it happens that someone in his neighborhood must have seen it. So I called this woman who runs a coffee shop around the corner from his house, asked her if she'd seen it.
She hadn't. No. Then I figured I could call the company that runs the buses and the trains that Jim rides every day thinking that maybe one of their drivers would have seen him get upset about something. And nothing.
And then I called Jim's best friend Larry and I figured if anyone had seen this, it would be Larry because he's around him like all the time. He hadn't either. So I called Jim to ask if I was like missing anybody. He didn't answer.
So I left the message. Left another message. Then finally. Hello.
Hi Jim. I got him on the phone. It's Pat again. Oh yeah.
Go ahead. It seems like nobody else has ever seen her or heard her say those kinds of things to you. Well, I mean she's not going to say the same thing every time she talks to me. Right.
But has anyone ever seen her talk you down from being mad? No, because most of the time people aren't around me when I'm having a move swing. They started to wonder like is this the kind of thing a parrot is even capable of? I decided to check.
Hello. I called a scientist. I'm Dr. Irene Pepperberg.
I'm a adjunct associate professor at Brandeis University. She's basically the world's expert on African gray parrots. So Esther, have you ever heard of anything like this before? Not exactly, but it doesn't surprise me.
In fact, Irene told me that something kind of similar happened to her once. Yes, I mean there's this. With this parrot named Alex that she worked with for like decades. I mean told me that whenever Alex would get out of line.
And that preening and instead of working or budding in with the other birds when he should be quiet. So we can train them. We'd say to him calm down. And one time I come storming into the laboratory because I just come from a horrible faculty meeting when I was in Tucson.
And Alex takes one look at me and he says calm down. Really? Yeah. And I actually stormed off and I said something to the effect of don't you tell me to calm down.
And I went to my office and slammed the door. And Irene says that a parrot like Alex or Sadie probably doesn't know. What calm down means or you'll be okay Jim. She may not know what each of those little phrases mean.
But she knows that when she says calm down, Jim calms down. So she has learned from association that that will bring her flock mate back to normal. Which is a big deal for parrots, Irene says, because they're prey. They're constantly looking out for each other trying to keep from getting eaten.
And it's Sadie's case. She's in a flock of two at this point. So if she wants to feel comfortable while preening or eating, she needs to know that he's going to be watching out for her. Remember she doesn't have a big flock.
She just has him. Wow. So in the end, what do you make of all this? Well, I mean, I can't prove that she does the things Jim says she does.
On the other hand, everyone I talk to around Jim says that whatever is happening between them is keeping him from threatening people on the street, from punching dents in people's cars. It's just keeping him a better guy. Yeah. So maybe it doesn't matter.
I don't care if anybody believes me or not. You know, I'm not here to prove anything to anybody. That's not the point. The point is I know what she does.
And bad is bad. No, if you can. Say hello. Nub-erp.
No. Don't eat. No eat. Thanks to Pat Walters.
Come on. Bye home. And to Sadie? Good girl.
And to Jim. Sadie, what are you looking at, huh? And to you for listening. I'm Chad.
I'm Robert.