Chicken Girl

by Heather T. Smith

  He hopped to his feet. “Come on, Poppy. What’s the big deal?”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” I said. “I was being mocked. Because I’m not as skinny as a rail.”

  He put his hands on my hips. “And thank God for that.”

  I pushed him away. “Get your hands off me.”

  Thumper cleared his throat from across the platform. “You okay, Poppy?”

  I nodded. “I was just leaving.”

  Buck reached for my arm. “Don’t be like that, Poppy. I’m just saying. Being chunky is what makes you so hot.”

  I pulled away. “Really?” I said. “Chunky? Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

  He shrugged. “Why not? I mean, who doesn’t like a good chocolate chunk cookie? And chunky peanut butter is way better than smooth.”

  “Word of advice,” I said. “Comparing me to fattening foods is not helping.”

  “Come on, Pidge. You should embrace your body. It’s gorgeous.”

  “I do embrace my body,” I said. “I’m a brick shithouse, for God’s sake. You should see me playing roller derby.”

  He took a step back. “Wait now. What? You skate around in skimpy clothing, manhandling other women? When do you play? Can I come watch?”

  I ignored him.

  “The thing is,” I said, “my body is not the problem. The problem is that random people think they have the right to stick hamburgers in my hand and post it on the internet!”

  “Oh, please,” he said. “It was one hamburger and it was a joke.”

  I looked at him like he was dense, which he was. “Why am I still talking to you?” I said. “Obviously you don’t get it. And you never will.”

  I turned away and stormed up the embankment.

  “You know, Pidge,” he called, “sometimes in life you’ve just got to laugh at yourself.”

  I called back, loud enough for the whole world to hear. “Well, ha freakin’ ha.”

  * * *

  When I got home I went straight to the fridge. I took out a yogurt, a cheese string, a piece of salami, and an apple. If there was a fly on the wall, that fly might have thought I was comfort eating, but actually I was just hungry.

  There’s a general assumption that if you’re a bit on the heavier side you have food issues. Not me. My relationship with food was pretty healthy.

  Except for that one time at Swiss Chalet. Cam asked if he could have the rest of my Chalet sauce and I handed it over, like a crazy person. The rest of my fries too. It was because The Photo had been posted the day before and I was hearing the echoes. It was as if someone with a great, booming voice had yelled the comments into a cave—a twisted, sinister cave that holds echoes in its belly, releasing them when you least expect it.

  Later, at home, Cam lectured me in my bedroom. He paced back and forth in a black bodysuit and heels (he’d been dancing to Beyoncé in his room). He said I was letting them win, that he hadn’t actually expected me to hand over my Chalet sauce—it was the nectar of the gods, for Christ’s sake. He said, “What the hell, Pops, you’re going to start dieting now?”

  “God, no,” I said.

  He stopped strutting long enough to wave a pointed finger at my face. “Never, ever, give up your Chalet sauce again. Got it?”

  I nodded. “You’d have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.”

  “And don’t think I didn’t see you looking sideways in the mirror this morning with your gut sucked in,” he said.

  “I was just wondering what I’d look like if I was thin,” I said.

  “Well, get over it,” he said. “You weren’t meant to be thin. Just like I wasn’t meant to be straight.”

  “I had a lapse in judgment,” I said. “I’m fine, really. I’m happy with who I am.”

  He stuck out his pinkie. “Promise?”

  I wrapped mine tightly around his. “Promise.”

  It was true. I loved who I was. But the echoes were like hiccups. You never knew when you were going to get them. Maybe I would, in a moment of weakness, suck in my gut again. I hoped not but you never could tell.

  I finished my snack and cleaned away the garbage. On my way upstairs I grabbed a handful of cereal. I hoped the echoes would never stop me from eating Honeycombs. I liked them way too much.

  * * *

  I spent the afternoon watching videos that Thumper would disapprove of. The first one was called “Bum Bashing: Part One.” In it, a gang of teenagers set a homeless man on fire. I couldn’t find Part Two but I hoped he’d been put out.

  I had to stop doing this.

  I got up and looked out my window. Frank was watering his lawn. Ralph was leaning on the fence. They were probably talking about “aigs” or the price of gas or what their wives were making for supper. It must be nice to have nothing to think about.

  I sat back on my bed and wondered what it felt like to be burned alive.

  I forced myself to watch happy things. I started with a clip of the Andrews Sisters singing “Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me).” A song about sweethearts separated by war really lifted my spirits.

  Then I watched “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” I played the air bugle, complete with sound effects.

  I didn’t watch roller derby. It’d only make me sad. It was the same as hanging out with Eve. Being with the best would make things the worst. Why highlight the things I no longer had, even if it was by choice?

  A sparrow landed on my windowsill. I wondered how old it was. It was hard to tell. When it flew away I googled “lifespan of a sparrow.” Three years. A few clicks later I was reading about the plight of endangered animals. We humans are terrible people.

  I went to Cam’s room.

  “Say something funny.”

  He looked up from his magazine. “Don’t you hate it when people answer their own questions? I do.”

  I smiled. “Good one.”

  His dress shirt and tie were draped across the bottom of his bed.

  “So,” I said. “Did you get it?”

  He nodded. “I start tomorrow.”

  I tried to sound enthusiastic. “Awesome.”

  He wasn’t buying it.

  I said, “You know, they might have a summer job at the boxing club.”

  He snapped his magazine open and started reading again. “They might have had a summer job at the roller rink too.”

  I smiled. “Touché.”

  He didn’t smile back.

  I walked over to him, bent down to hug him. “I love you, Cam.”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry, Pops. I know you do.”

  * * *

  I put on my chicken costume. It smelled like the inside of an old gym sock. Especially the head. I googled “stinky mascot costume” and clicked on the first result—Amazing Mascot Cleaning Trick—WOW! I decided to give it a try. I filled an old Lysol bottle with half water and half whiskey (it was supposed to be vodka but the pickings were slim in my parents’ liquor cabinet, and I figured alcohol was alcohol). I liberally sprayed the inside of the chicken head and let it sit for a few minutes, then wiped out the excess with a cloth. The fumes made my eyes water and I wondered if alcohol wasn’t alcohol and vodka was meant to be used because it has a less offensive smell than whiskey. I googled “how to reduce strong whiskey smells” but the results were about getting the stench off your breath, not the inside of your head, so I walked to work stinking like an intoxicated chicken.

  Miracle was on the steps of Chen Chicken, pouting.

  I sat beside her and took my head off. “What’s up?”

  She sniffed the air. “You smell like Mama’s friends.”

  “I washed my head with a special cleaner,” I said, hoping that would satisfy her. It did.

  “Mr. Chen is mad at me.”

  “Why?”

  “He said I was ripping people off, but I was trying to help them.”

  “Help who?” I asked.

  “The poor people on James Street.”

  “You were on Jame
s Street?”

  “This morning. I told them if they rubbed it every day they’d have good luck.”

  “Rubbed what?”

  “The chicken feet I took from the kitchen. I sold them for a dollar a piece!”

  “Miracle!”

  “Mama’s friend wears one around his neck. He said it brings him good juju.”

  Mr. Chen appeared behind us. I stood up and pulled him aside.

  “I’ll take her to James Street,” I whispered. “After my shift. We’ll return the money.”

  He sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

  I sniffed the air too. “What smell?”

  He sighed. “Just take her now,” he said. “I’m too tired to deal with this.”

  I followed his gaze. “Why would she do such a thing?”

  “She’s a monkey,” he said. “That’s why.”

  I sat back down beside her.

  “If you want to talk about me behind my back,” she said, “you should speak Mandarin. That’s what Lewis does when he talks about me to Mr. Chen.”

  I laughed. “Do I look like I know Mandarin?”

  She looked me up and down. “Anything’s possible with practice,” she said. “That’s what Mama says.”

  I glanced back at Mr. Chen. “I didn’t know you knew Lewis.”

  “His father is a good friend,” said Mr. Chen.

  “He might die soon,” said Miracle. “Mama said that too.”

  Mr. Chen cleared his throat. “I should get back to the kitchen.”

  Miracle looked at her shoes. “Lewis’s birthday is soon. Everyone’s chipping in. I wanted to chip in too.”

  Mr. Chen paused. “If you wanted money, Merry-girl, all you had to do was ask.”

  I picked up my head and followed him into the shop.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Chen? You look like hell.”

  He twitched his nose like a hound on the scent of a rabbit.

  “Have you been drinking, Poppy Flower?”

  I glanced down at the head tucked under my arm. “No.”

  He looked at me suspiciously and held out his hands. “Can I see that a minute?”

  He brought the head toward his face.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  He took a big whiff.

  “Holy moly!”

  His eyes watered like Niagara Falls.

  “The internet said vodka would do the trick,” I said. “But I only had whiskey.”

  He was fuming, like the head. “What trick?”

  “The cleaning trick,” I said.

  He sniffed the head again, lightly this time. “Did you wear this on the way here?”

  I nodded. Anonymity was a must, no matter how bad the conditions.

  He shook his head. “It’s a wonder you’re not as drunk as a skunk.”

  I tried to lighten the mood.

  “That’s a bit prejudiced, don’t you think?” I said. “Not all skunks are alcoholics. Just the ones that live on James Street.”

  Mr. Chen shot me a look and said something about people in glass houses. He was making no sense. It must have been the fumes.

  I took off my chicken suit and hung it next to the empty hook that rarely held Mr. Chen’s apron.

  “Well,” I said, “I should go.”

  I was looking forward to a couple of hours off. Even if it did mean going to James Street to right the wrong of a six-year-old girl selling chicken feet.

  * * *

  The feel of her little hands in mine…

  The way she looked up every now and then and smiled…

  The flashing lights of the rubber soles of her Mary Jane shoes.

  I wanted a ray gun—one that could not only freeze time but loop it. I’d live my life on a thirty-second repeat—me and Miracle walking down James Street, her looking up at me, me looking down at her—clip-clop, flash, flash, repeat. The loop would begin just after we stepped over a pile of vomit and end just as I hid her eyes from a flasher. We’d never need know that happiness was temporary.

  James Street was full of characters that Miracle was way too friendly with.

  “That’s where Dodgy Dick lives,” she said, pointing to a window above a tattoo parlor. “He put baby powder in cocaine and the people who bought it from him got mad and beat him up.”

  I was pretty sure the only coke consumed in the forties came in a bottle with a red-and-white label. I pictured Miracle in a soda shop wearing saddle shoes and bobby socks and wished that time machines were real.

  “And that’s where MaJonna lives,” she said. She pointed to a window above Massage and More.

  I dreaded to think what the More was.

  “He’s a Madonna impersonal-ater,” she said. “He went on tour but then he got hit by a car and now he doesn’t think right. He wears bare feet, even on the pavement, but when he’s Madonna he wears heels.”

  I sighed and nodded toward the baggie of loose change in her hand. “Can we just get this done?”

  Miracle tried to give out refunds, but most people were happy with the promise of good juju and declined the offer.

  She jingled her coins. “Do I have to give this money to Mr. Chen? Because they were his chicken feet? Or can I keep it?”

  “I think Mr. Chen would want you to have it.”

  “Even though he’s mad at me?”

  “He won’t be mad anymore. Not now that you’ve righted a wrong.”

  She looked up at me. “I righted a wrong?”

  “You sure did.”

  She looked at her baggie. “Do you think it would be okay if I saved half of these coins for Lewis’s birthday and gave the other half to the next homeless person I see?”

  I tweaked her nose. “I think that would be more than okay.”

  She put half the coins in her pocket, then took my hand. I wished she had a hand to hold all day long.

  “Miracle?”

  “Yes?”

  “You probably shouldn’t hang out down here on your own.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re only little.”

  “Little? I told you, I’m six!”

  “Still, maybe you should stick to Elgin Street.”

  As we crossed James and York she said, “Look! It’s Buck!”

  He was taking pictures of a homeless man and the man’s dog in the doorway of an abandoned building.

  Miracle tugged on my arm. “Come on.”

  Up ahead, Buck and the man traded places.

  “Look,” said Miracle, “he’s sharing his camera.”

  She ran ahead and gave the man her baggie of remaining coins. Buck looked proud. When he saw me he smiled. “Hello, love.”

  “Don’t love me,” I said.

  He looked at me with puppy-dog eyes. “You still mad about this morning? I said I was sorry.”

  I let out a laugh. “Pfssh. No you didn’t.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll say it now.”

  He closed his eyes and held his hands as if in prayer.

  “I’m not God,” I said. “A simple sorry will do.”

  “I’m trying to find the right words,” he said. “I want to express my regret in the sincerest way possible.”

  I folded my arms and leaned against the doorway of the abandoned building. “Can’t wait.”

  Miracle copied my pose. “Me neither.”

  We watched as Buck’s forehead furrowed in concentration. His lips were moving as if he were rehearsing a line for a school play. I rolled my eyes at Miracle. She rolled hers back at me.

  When Buck opened his eyes, his face was apologetic and earnest. I actually got a bit of a lump in my throat.

  He looked me in the eye. “You ready for this?”

  I nodded. Miracle did too.

  He cleared his throat. I waited for what I assumed would be a somewhat long and heartfelt apology. What I got was a single word:

  “Soz.”

  Miracle burst out laughing.

  I took her hand. “Let’s go.
I’ve got to get to work.”

  Buck walked alongside us, tucking his camera into his messenger bag. “It’s how we say sorry in the U.K.”

  He was an idiot.

  He ran his fingers through his hair.

  A cute idiot.

  He pointed at a coffee shop. “Who wants a donut?”

  Miracle’s eyes lit up.

  A sneaky idiot.

  “Ten minutes,” I said. “Tops.”

  He reached for my hand. “Come on, Chicken Girl.”

  I swatted his hand away.

  Miracle tugged on my hand. “I think he’s trying to right a wrong.”

  I smiled. That kid was too smart for her own good.

  The table we picked was etched with graffiti. Miracle sounded out the words, then turned them into a song.

  Eat balls, eat balls, everybody eat balls!

  She made up a dance to go with it. It was full of pelvic thrusts.

  The lady behind the counter said that if I couldn’t control my kid I’d have to leave.

  “She’s not my kid,” I said. “I’m, like, sixteen.”

  She set our places roughly. “You’re like sixteen? Or you are sixteen?”

  I looked at Buck as if to say, Is she for real? He smiled at her and said, “Your glasses are smashing,” but he should have said smashed because one of the lenses was missing. She was so taken by the compliment she blushed. He placed our order and called her by the name that was on her nametag. Doug. She laughed and said, “Oh, that’s my coworker. I must’ve picked up the wrong one.” They laughed like old friends. “Listen, Doug,” he said. “You wouldn’t mind if I borrowed your pen, would you?” She handed it over. “You’re a doll.” She walked away with a spring in her step.

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever that was,” I said, “it won’t work on me.”

  He flipped over a placemat. “It’s called charm,” he said. “Apparently I have oodles of it.”

  He called to Miracle, who was shaking her bootie in the front window. “Hey, Shakira. Come here, I’ve got a game for you.”

  He settled her in front of the upside-down placemat and gave her the pen. “Why don’t you list all the types of balls you can eat? See if you can get to ten.”

  Miraculously, Miracle sat quietly.