by Barry Rachin
Nadia showered, washed her hair and was in bed with the lights out by ten o’clock. A short time later, her father shuffled into the room. Mr. Rasmussen stood mutely by the headboard, waiting patiently for her to acknowledge his presence.
“What?” Nadia murmured. She was dozing off.
“Why did you say what you did earlier?”
“About the chickens?”
“No, not that. You’re no movie star, but you’re plenty pretty enough to get a husband without groveling or settling for second best.” When there was no reply, he retreated from the room. A minute later Mr. Rasmussen was back again, thumping Nadia insistently between the shoulder blades.
“Jesus, I was sound asleep! You went off and I thought - ”
Her father lit the light and sat down on the side of the bed, cradling a textbook heavier than most doorstops in his lap. Nadia draped her forearm over her eyes to block the light. “Emergence theory,” her father spoke rather softly in a deliberate, unhurried manner, “describes how complex patterns arise from relatively simple interactions. The concept has been around since the time of Aristotle.”
Nadia let out a muffled groan. "First thing in the morning, Liam MacDonald's scheduled a staff meeting at the library after which I'm meeting with a group of prospective senior volunteers." Mr. Rasmussen positioned the book in front of his daughter who was now sitting up in bed. On the right-hand page was a picture of a rather elaborate termite mound – more like an orangey cathedral - somewhere in the grasslands of Africa. “Very impressive but I don’t understand why you’re showing me this.”
“The termites have no idea that an architectural masterpiece will emerge from their collective efforts. Generations of insects go to their mindless graves without even an appreciative glance at the end product of their labors.” Clearly, Mr. Rasmussen was just getting up a head of steam and had no intentions of condensing or abbreviating his remarks. Regardless of the late hour, there would be no CliffsNotes version.
“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
“The termites had no conscious knowledge of what they are creating when they start hauling debris years earlier.” He jabbed at the photo emphatically. “In Emergence Theory, systems can have qualities not directly traceable to the original components, but rather to how those components interact.” Nadia’s father lowered his eyes and began reading directly from the accompanying text:
Emergence theory is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible causal power arise, since by definition it can’t be due to the collection of things at a lesser level? It turns human reason and scientific methodology on its ear by giving you something for nothing. Nothing commands the system to form a pattern. Instead, the interaction of each part with its immediate surroundings causes a complex chain of processes leading to some order.
Flipping the page, Mr. Rasmussen pointed to several other examples: sand dunes in the Saharan Desert reconfigured and set in constant, undulating motion by a violent windstorm; a mosaic of kaleidoscopic crystals feathering across a pane of glass during a random ice storm.
Mr. Rasmussen shut the light but showed no inclination to leave. “Emergence Theory would suggest that there’s a reason – most probably beyond our limited comprehension - why you stumbled across that abandoned journal. It’s all part of the grand design.” Mr. Rasmussen suddenly reached out and stroked her face with the palm of his hand. “One last thing,” he added hoarsely as an afterthought, “Everything about you is an unimpeachable work of art.” Leaning forward, he kissed her once on the forehead and silently left the room.
May 5th
The Tarahumara are essentially a ‘stone age’ culture. Even today they want nothing to do with money. Material possessions are of no importance. They are a very shy, sensitive, bashful and isolated people, even within their households. Family members only speak to each other when absolutely necessary and woman are not allowed to be seen naked unless in the act of lovemaking.
These unusual – unusual by our Western standards – traits are reflected quite graphically in the way they handle conflict. The Tarahumara practice a Gandhi-like passive resistance characterized by physical withdrawal and avoidance. In recent years, when the Mexican government has been encroaching on their traditional homelands in search of minerals and logging interests, the Indians simply stand quietly and let it happen. Then they retreat even further into the Barranca del Cobra (i.e. the remote Copper Canyon) and even harsher environmental conditions.
Saturday morning Nadia Rasmussen drove to Hoxie’s Feed and Grange Store in Rehoboth. “I need some chickens.”
“Dual purpose or layers?” the owner, a portly man in farmer jeans asked.
The question caught her off guard. “All I want are the eggs.”
‘Would that be for a commercial venture or just recreational, family farming?”
“Family. All I want are a few birds.”
With a wave of the wrist he indicated a door at the far end of the building. “Go out back and see Jonathan. He’ll take care of you.” Just as abruptly, the man turned away to the next customer.
As she walked through the barnlike structure, Nadia saw bags of grain and feed for every manner of animal, four-legged and otherwise. There were gerbils and hamsters in metal cages with water bottles and circular tread mills. A pastel yellow cockatoo with a bunching of feathers sticking straight up from the crown of its delicate head was pecking away at a tray of seeds. Nadia generally didn't do well with animals, domestic or otherwise. They needed to be fed and groomed on a regular basis; they peed, defecated and infused every permeable object with a musky, unhygienic odor. Visiting the Hoxie Feed and Grange was, in a manner of speaking, like facing down her demons, like learning how to swim by pinching one's nose and belly flopping into the deep end of the pool. Just outside the rear door on the loading platform was a short, stocky man in his mid-thirties dressed in farmer jeans and a plaid shirt. “I need a few chickens.”
Dual purpose or layers?”
It was the same question the older man had put to her. “All I want is a handful of chicken so my family can have fresh eggs.”
The fellow pushed a pair of dark-framed glasses up on the bridge of his nose and massaged a scraggily beard with the palm of his hand. “We don’t keep mature fowl here on premises, but I can get whatever you want in a day or two.”
“Well that’s the problem,” Nadia confided. “I don’t know the first thing about raising chickens.”
Jonathan blinked several times and cleared his throat. “My father sent you back here?”
“Yes, he said you could get me situated.”
He continued to stare at her with a disconcertingly blank expression. “Food, water, space…”
. “Excuse me?” Jonathan Hoxie was proving to be about as much help as his tight-lipped father
“A moment ago, you said you didn’t know the first thing about raising chickens. You just learned pretty much everything there is to know about the topic.” His laconic features dissolved in a whimsical smile. “Unlike most domestic animals, chickens don’t really need us for much of anything. As long as you set clean drinking water aside, a little nourishment and don’t crowd them together, they’ll look after their own needs.” Jonathan Hoxie led the way back into the building to a small office next to a hutch full of short-hair, Holland lop rabbits.
"Now this is what I would suggest…”
As Jonathan explained things, all Nadia needed were five or six chickens to produce a couple dozen eggs weekly – more than enough to feed the entire family with a few left over for breads and pastries. He sold her a fifty-pound bag of calcium for ten dollar and when she asked how long the bag would last, Jonathan replied, “You and all your feathered progeny will be dead and buried before the calcium runs out.” He sold her two each of Rhode Island Reds, Barred Plymouth Rocks and White Leghorns. “You’ll find the Plymouth Rocks are a bit more docile than the others.”
“I thought chickens were pretty much the same when it came to temperament.”
The bearded man’s eyebrows rose a good quarter inch before settling back down. “Each bird – even in the same breed – will display a different personality and temperament. And they're infinitely entertaining.” The Jonathan looked down pensively at his heavy work boots. “What do you do for a living, Miss Rasmussen?”
“I’m the reference librarian over at the Brandenburg Public Library.”
“If you traffic in poetry and prose, then you must know where the term ‘pecking order’ came from.” Nadia thought a moment. When no reply was forthcoming, he continued, “A social caste system always emerges among the dull-witted critters in chicken coops. Some birds are more aggressive and dominant while others, like the rock hens, tend to be more laid back, curious and easygoing.” He stroked his whiskers thoughtfully. “Do you remember back to high school with all the silly cliques - the geeks, valedictorians, mean girls, jocks, highfalutin homecoming queens and fashionistas?”
“Chickens move in their own social circles?”
“After a fashion, yes.”
Off to one corner in the cramped office, a stack of cardboard boxes labeled 'Merrick Gourmet Dog Food' teetered five feet off the rough-sawn floorboards. Burger Pie and Sweet Fries. Campfire Trout Feast, Harvest Moon. Love Potion #9. Did they really put succulent trout in the dog food, Nadia mused, or some dirt-cheap facsimile? And Love Potion #9 - what a goofy name for over-priced mush served in a stainless steel dog bowl!
"Wingaling," He whisked an orphaned can off the desk and held it just under Nadia's chin. "It's one of our biggest sellers. Features pressure-cooked chicken bones, sweet potatoes, carrots and peas."
Jonathan, who lived close by, agreed to deliver the hens directly to Nadia’s house later in the week along with a chicken tractor, a moveable screened pen that would protect the fowl from predators at night and when no one was around. Nadia, the reference librarian who had never even owned a cat much less a half dozen chickens, drove home with a profound sense of awe and trepidation.
May11th
The Tarahumara are best known as the “running Indians”. Running a twenty-six mile marathon is no great deal for these amazing people who have been known to cover distances of fifty to eighty miles on a regular basis and at a consistently fast pace. Endurance takes precedence over speed, and, in their hunting practices, the Indians have literally chased after deer, wild turkey and rabbits until the animals collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Their unusual hunting practices are common knowledge throughout the Southwest where ranchers have hired Indians to chase down wild horses.
A medical doctor, Dale Groom, who has studied the Tarahumara, writes: “Probably not since the days of the ancient Spartans have a people achieved such a high state of physical conditioning.”
From what I’ve observed in the relatively short period that I have boarded with the Indians, conditioning seems to explain their amazing endurance, rather than heredity or genetics. In one competitive race called the ‘rarajipari’ two teams must kick a baseball-shaped wooden ball as they run. Each man takes turns dribbling the ball, soccer-style, along a course that extends over very rocky, rugged terrain. Racers drink an alcoholic drink called tesguino, which is made from fermented corn, right up until the start of the race. Contestants often smoke a combination of tobacco mixed with dried bat’s blood to help them run faster and fend off the other team’s malicious spirits. It is not uncommon for runners to drop out of the race due to superstitious fear but never from exhaustion.
*****
Driving a battered Chevy pickup with a blown muffler, Jonathan Hoxie rumbled into the Rasmussen’s back yard Thursday late in the afternoon. The six birds were packed away for safekeeping in the chicken trailer, which he deposited in the back yard next to a clump of silver birch trees. Nadia’s father, who had purposely come home early from work to welcome the new arrivals, stood off to one side wearing distracted expression.
Almost as soon as the chicken trailer arrived, one by one, the birds climbed down the slatted ramp to terra firma to inspect their new digs. Jonathan unlatched the door, reached in and grabbed a white leghorn, which he cradled against his barrel chest. “Meet the welcoming committee!” Without forewarning he handed the plump fowl to Nadia. The bird clucked and craned its neck but settled back down fairly quickly. “You can keep them in the wire coop or let them roam about the yard during the day. The choice is yours.” Jonathan pointed to the fifty pound bag in the rear of the truck. “Where do you want the calcium?”
Mr. Rasmussen was already waiting with a two-wheel hand truck to cart the dietary supplement off to the shed. “I threw in a bag of pine shavings. The carbon emitted from the wood chips will absorb any odor from the bird waste. Also, you can shift the chicken tractor about from one location to another to give the birds a new collection of weeds and insects to feast on.” All six birds were out of the coop now, foraging about the yard. “They’re nothing like dogs or cats,” Jonathan noted, anticipating her train of thought. “You don’t need to do much of anything except put out fresh water and collect the eggs each day.”
Mrs. Rasmussen came out on the back stoop and gawked at the new arrivals with a look of apocalyptic despair before retreating to the domestic safe haven of her kitchen. Meanwhile, Mr. Rasmussen had cornered Jonathan Hoxie down by the shed where he was haranguing the feed and grange man with an endless barrage of questions. Ten minutes later the man jumped back in the cab of his truck and sped away.
“What was that all about?”
Her father waved a hand distractedly in the air. “A private matter.” Mr. Rasmussen went off to inspect the chickens.
*****
Two weeks had passed since the hens arrived. They started laying eggs almost immediately and truly required next to nothing from their human hosts. “Your father’s making me nervous,” Mrs. Rasmussen sputtered morosely.
Nadia, who had just returned home from work, was replenishing the plastic water tray. The birds seemed to be managing nicely on a steady diet of table scraps, grubs, worms, spiders, commercial chicken feed – twenty percent protein layer pellets mix with whole grain - and the oyster shell calcium Jonathan recommended. “And why is dad making you nervous?”
“When he comes home from the college in the late afternoon, he sits on the back porch staring at the chickens.”
“That’s a problem?”
“Your father’s up to something,” Mrs. Rasmussen fretted. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Watching the birds is therapeutic.”
“Your father’s a physic teacher at the community college not some gentleman farmer.”
“I didn’t know the two were mutually exclusive.”
Her mother lumbered back to the house. As much as Mrs. Rasmussen bellyached about the hens, she, too, had grown attached. On more than one occasion, Nadia had caught her mother observing them with a transfixed expression as the birds, like an impromptu vaudeville act, went about their daily routine. The heavyset woman regularly brought baskets of surplus eggs over to the neighbors who reported how fresh and noticeably tastier they were.
Nadia’s father had begun studying each bird, identifying certain anomalies and predilections. “That feisty Rhode Island red hates one of the rock hens,” he observed earlier that morning. Mr. Rasmussen pointed out the troublesome bird in question. Sure enough, no sooner had he spoke when the Rhode Island Red could be seen chasing the terrified rock hen out from behind a clump of tulips past the gutter spout at the far end of the house. “Strange, though, how he leaves the other rock hen alone. It’s only that smaller one she torments.” Sure enough the second rock hen was pecking away in the dirt not three feet away, oblivious to the donnybrook.
The third week in June, Jonathan Hoxie visited the library. “I drove by your house but nobody was home. I’ve got a message for your father, but he’ll have to hurry or the opportunity could slip away.”
Nadia stare
d at the short, compact man. When they first met, Nadia originally thought Jonathan slightly dull-witted, but realized that she had misjudged the man. As comfortable and self-assured as he was around gerbils, hamsters and Holland lop rabbits, Jonathan was horribly hamstrung and socially inept – totally out of his element in social situations. In a word, the man was excruciatingly shy. “What opportunity are we talking about?”
“A dairy farmer just up the road in Seekonk is culling his herd. The owner's got a Jersey that’s only producing thirty pounds a day and is willing to let her go for a fraction -”
“My father approached you about a cow?”
Jonathan blinked and gawked at her queerly. “He’s been calling me at least twice a week since I dropped off the hens.” The man leaned forward and lowered his voice, assuming a confidential tone. “The Jersey’s a good deal because it’s on the small side – a tad under eight hundred pounds – and, even taking butter, cheeses, cream and yoghurt into account, what’s a family gonna do with more than thirty pounds of high-fat milk each week?”
Nadia sat for a full minute staring blankly toward the stacks at the far end of the room. Her pudgy hands were folded on the top of the reference desk in a prayerful attitude, as she recalled a peculiar incident from earlier in the week. Wednesday evening after bathing and combing out her hair, she decided to check her email on the internet. When the darkened computer screen came to life, she was staring at a website from Holly Lake Ranch in Hawkins Texas, featuring old-fashion, wooden butter churns. The tapered buckets were held tight by metal bands with the slender pole attached to the butter paddle sticking straight up from a hole in the center of the lid. Navigating out of the website so she could retrieve her mail, Nadia thought nothing of the queer incident. “Could I see this animal … this eight hundred pound Jersey cow?”
“Now?”
