A Tiny Piece of Sky

by Shawn K. Stout

  “Good,” he said. “That’s good. I saw your father on the street the other day and welcomed him to the neighborhood. About time somebody breathed some life into that place.”

  Breathed. Yes, breathing is good.

  “You mind the smell?” he asked.

  She shrugged, but continued to pinch her nose. “A little.”

  “Funny,” he said, “you get used to it after a while.”

  “The chickens?” said Frankie. She didn’t want to be rude, but she needed to get going.

  “Right,” he said. “We’re rounding them up for you. It’s not often we get such large orders. A colored girl came in a while ago. She’s waiting out back for them.”

  “Amy?”

  The man shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do to speed things up.”

  Frankie headed for the back door of the shop. “You can wait in here, young lady,” he said. “It’s awful hot out there today.”

  Frankie shook her head and smiled. “That’s all right; I’ll wait with Amy outside.”

  Amy was leaning against the brick building, wiping her forehead with her dress sleeve. “What you doing here?” she asked.

  “Mr. Washington thought you might need some help,” said Frankie.

  “I been waiting out here so long, I coulda hatched my own chickens and raised ’em up,” Amy said.

  “The man inside said they’d be ready soon.”

  “That be Mr. Hoffman.” Amy shook her head. “Mr. Stannum be real mad as long as I been here.”

  “It’s no fault of yours,” said Frankie.

  “Don’t make no difference to Mr. Stannum.”

  Minutes later, Mr. Hoffman returned to the door with a crate full of chickens wrapped in parchment. “Here you are,” he said. “A dozen whole chickens.”

  “These fresh?” asked Amy.

  Mr. Hoffman looked at Frankie when he answered, “They don’t get any fresher. That’s a Hoffman guarantee.”

  Amy unwrapped a corner of the parchment to have a look. Her mouth fell open.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Frankie.

  “These birds ain’t been cleaned,” said Amy. “They got the feathers on and everything. Mr. Stannum wanted them cleaned.”

  “I don’t believe that’s so,” Mr. Hoffman said, rocking back on his heels.

  “I don’t mean no disrespect,” said Amy, “but I placed the order myself the day before yesterday.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Hoffman, “we seem to have a difference of opinion.” He adjusted his rolled-up shirtsleeves, exposing his thick forearms. Then he spoke directly to Frankie. “Look here, you want a dozen chickens, here they are. But if you want them cleaned, we can do that for you, for an additional cost. But it’s going to take another day.”

  “Another day?” said Amy. She looked at Frankie, too.

  Frankie didn’t know what to do. She’d only been working in the kitchen just over a week, which wasn’t long at all. And considering that fact, what difference would one day make to wait for clean chickens?

  “What’s it going to be?” said Mr. Hoffman.

  On the other hand, if Mr. Stannum wanted chickens today, he would not be pleased if they returned empty-handed. Amy would be in trouble, and Frankie didn’t want that. What difference did it make if they were cleaned or not?

  “I don’t know,” said Amy.

  Then Frankie thought of Elizabeth and that cash register and how sometimes you have to act like you know things even when you don’t. “We’ll take them,” she said.

  “We will?” said Amy.

  Frankie nodded and grabbed one side of the crate while Amy took the other.

  “I don’t know about this,” whispered Amy as they lugged the heavy box across the street.

  “Don’t you worry,” said Frankie, feeling more confident with each step. “It will be all right.”

  27

  AS PERHAPS YOU GUESSED, it wasn’t all right.

  Frankie and Amy dragged the box of birds into the kitchen. They heaved the crate onto the butcher-block counter, and just in time, too. Although the chickens were young and each weighed just under two pounds, two pounds multiplied by a dozen chickens equaled aching, tired arms that found it difficult to hold anything one second longer.

  “Thought you run off,” Seaweed said to Amy, “been gone so long.” He was on a ladder, looking at the fan mounted in the wall, which had stopped running.

  Amy wiped the sweat from her face with her apron and scowled at him.

  “Better get four of those birds chopped up and into the pots for stock,” said Mr. Washington, filling a stockpot with water from the tap. “Two into the oven for roasting. And the rest in the freezer to keep. Mr. Stannum be wanting us to make some things on the menu for him to taste. To make sure we doin’ right. Then I got a list as long as my arm of other things he want done today.” He turned to Julie, who was twisting dough into loaves of bread and laying them on the counter near Frankie and Amy. “How you coming on the bread?”

  Julie, whose nose and cheeks were dusted with white flour, said, “I’ve got four loaves ready to go into the oven and enough dough for about a dozen dinner rolls rising over here.” She nodded in the direction of the tall metal shelves alongside the butcher-block counter. “Plus half a dozen fruit pies for the freezer.”

  “That good.” Mr. Washington nodded. “That real good.”

  Amy twisted the string of her apron around her fingers, causing her nail beds to lose some of their color. “Sorry to say I can’t do none of that yet, Mr. Washington.”

  He shut off the spigot. “What you mean?”

  Amy pulled off the top layer of parchment and held up a chicken by its limp neck. Its head was gone, but everything else seemed to be in place, including the feathers and feet.

  “Oh no, no, no. That ain’t no good, girl. That won’t do, I say.” Mr. Washington left the stockpot in the bottom of the sink and gripped the edge of counter.

  “The order got all messed up. Mr. Hoffman said we have to wait one more day if we want ’em clean,” Amy explained. She looked at Frankie and then took the rest of the chickens out of the crate and laid them on the counter. “Look. They all like that. All of ’em.”

  “Can’t you just clean them here?” offered Frankie.

  “Clean ’em here?” said Seaweed, climbing down the ladder to have a closer look at the birds. “Do you know what kind of stink and mess cleanin’ chickens is? Especially when we got the rest of the menu to get ready for in this place? You ever cleaned a chicken?”

  Frankie gave it a moment’s thought. “Sure have,” she said, trying to sound as confident as Elizabeth. “All the time.”

  This was, of course, a pure lie.

  Seaweed picked up a chicken and swung it gently toward Frankie. The bird looked like a headless marionette suspended onstage, ready to do a tap-dancing number.

  Now, wouldn’t that be something to see?

  “You took off the feathers before?” he said.

  Frankie swallowed. “Yep. That’s right.”

  “Then you know that ain’t no easy job,” said Seaweed. “And you pulled off the skin and took out the windpipe?”

  Frankie winced. No matter how much you pretended to know about these kinds of things, hearing a person say “pulled off the skin and took out the windpipe” did something to you.

  “Then,” continued Seaweed, “you sliced the thing open and pulled out the gizzards and everything else inside?”

  Frankie nodded. At least, she thought she nodded. Her mind was still stuck on gizzards. What a word.

  “That enough, Seaweed,” said Mr. Washington. “Since you know so much about it, you can help Amy get going on ’em.” He grabbed some pinning knives and handed one to Amy and one to Seaweed. “I’ll mess with the fan awhile.”

  “Aw, man,” said Seawee
d, shaking his head. He laid the knife on the table. “Shoot.”

  Julie moved her bowls of rising dough down the countertop away from the chickens. “There isn’t enough room in this kitchen to be cleaning birds, Leon. Not when I got all this baking to do.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her floured arm. “Just be sure to keep those birds away from my dough, you hear?”

  Mr. Washington looked at the list. “Frankie, how about you peel potatoes?”

  Amy and Seaweed started pulling out the feathers while Frankie sat on a stool by a bag of potatoes as big as a laundry bin.

  Mr. Washington flicked the switch for the fan back and forth, listening for the motor to start turning, but the fan blades gave a halfhearted rotation every now and again and then stopped.

  “We gonna be needing that fan right soon,” said Seaweed, turning his head away from the chickens.

  The smell had just reached the other side of the kitchen, where Frankie was peeling. She didn’t know how Mr. Hoffman could get used to it.

  Have you ever smelled the insides of a dead chicken? How about twelve? Not for the faint of heart.

  Julie untied her apron and laid it on top of a stool by her work area. “I need to get some air,” she said. “Nobody touch these sheets of dough. They’re scored and ready to go into the oven just as soon as the other batch comes out.” She fanned her face with a dish towel as she pushed open the kitchen door.

  Mr. Washington peered into the fan. “It got a short in the wiring.” He flipped the switch again, and the blades turned slowly, but only for a few seconds before coming to a stop. “I be needing some other tools for this job.” Then he left.

  Seaweed, Amy, and Frankie kept working, but no one got very far, and certainly not far enough, by the time Mr. Stannum appeared. “What in the blazes is going on in here?” Only, he didn’t say blazes.

  Frankie dropped the potato she was peeling onto the floor. She didn’t want to make a move to retrieve it and call attention to herself, as Mr. Stannum’s gaze was fixed on the pile of feathers and carcasses covering most of the butcher-block counter. So she stayed as still as—well, you could say, one of those chickens.

  Amy tried to explain. She only got as far as the part about there being a mistake with the order before Mr. Stannum cut her off. His fingers started tap-tapping, trying to find the beat of that drum once again. “Where’s Leon?”

  “He went for his tools to fix that fan,” said Seaweed. “It quit workin’ again.”

  Mr. Stannum brought his lower jaw forward and scraped at his mustache with his bottom teeth.

  “We done got through three birds already,” said Amy. “Me and Seaweed. We only have . . .” She counted the chickens in the pile. “Nine left to do.”

  “Nine left,” Mr. Stannum said. “Only nine left.” His fingers were really going now. “Well, that’s nine more things we have to add to a very long list. And let me tell you how lists work, Amy. Because you must not know.” He pulled a piece of folded paper from his trouser pocket and waved it in her face. “Once you make the list, you want to cross things off the list, not put more on. That’s the only way things get done!”

  Amy cleared her throat. “But Mr. Hoffman woulda took one more day to have ’em done,” she said.

  “And you decided all by yourself, with that pea brain of yours, to just bring them here and clean them yourself. Didn’t you?” he said.

  Amy kept her head down, picking at a feather with the point of her knife.

  “Didn’t you?” said Mr. Stannum again.

  “Not exactly,” whispered Amy.

  “Then who did?” shouted Mr. Stannum.

  Amy stole a glance at Frankie across the room just as Frankie hopped off the stool and said, “I did, Mr. Stannum.” And before she could say anything more, wouldn’t you know that shorted-out fan wire caught a spark.

  What a spark it must’ve been, because the blades of that fan started turning at high speed, blowing such a breeze as a hurricane toward the center of the kitchen, right at the pile of feathers. It only took a second for the wind to reach them and they lifted into the air, swirling and floating until the room was so thick with feathers, Frankie could hardly see anything else. Like a million dizzying hummingbirds in flight.

  Seaweed covered his eyes and then Amy did the same, neither one having been inside a feather pillow before and not knowing what else to do. Also, there was screaming, to be sure, but the muffled kind, because no one wanted to open their mouth for fear of letting in chicken feathers. Mr. Stannum just stood as if his body were rusted stiff, watching in disbelief. Then Frankie spotted Julie’s bread dough, all six beautiful loaves lying on baking sheets out in the open. She ran at them, grabbing a dish towel on the way and waving it in the air to knock away feathers, but when she got to the counter, she saw that those loaves were already tucked under a cozy down blanket.

  In all the commotion, no one could think to turn off the switch. At least not until Mr. Washington returned with his tools, alongside Daddy. They both yelled when they saw what was happening, then Mr. Washington ran toward the fan. He flipped off the switch and slowly, gracefully, the wind died and the feathers started to fall.

  Everyone stood quiet and still until the last of the feathers settled, afraid to move and stir up a breeze that would cause another feather storm. Frankie spit out two feathers that had gotten in her mouth and looked from Daddy to Mr. Stannum, who both had enough feathers in their hair to look like they were wearing ladies’ hats. She waited for someone to say something, and she didn’t have to wait too long. Mr. Stannum brushed the feathers off his head, then his shoulders, pulled out one feather that was stuck in his mustache, and finally clasped his hands together at his waist. Then he yelled with a good bit of satisfaction, “You are all fired!”

  28

  HOW LONG DOES IT take to clean up a million chicken feathers? Just about as long, in fact, as it took Daddy and Mr. Stannum to come to some sort of understanding in one of the restaurant’s back offices. Daddy, alone, finally emerged as the last dustpan of feathers was swept up and thrown away. “Mr. Stannum and I have talked,” he said, with a few feathers still stuck in the lapel of his suit jacket, “and there was a misunderstanding of sorts. None of you will be let go of your jobs. I’d like you to stay.” He glanced behind him. “We’d like you to stay.”

  Amy, who had been crying the whole time, threw her arms around Daddy. “Thank you, Mr. Baum. Bless you now, oh, bless you. And I was thinking that even though there’s a big ole mess here, these birds are fresh as a crocus. I bet delicious, too. And I know that Mr. Hoffman don’t want to be losin’ your business, so if you the one that doin’ some talkin’ with him I bet he knock down the price a good bit.”

  Daddy patted her on the back and nodded.

  “All that bread,” said Julie, leaning over the counter with her head in her hands, “and those pies.” She wrung her hands. “They’re as good as garbage now.”

  Mr. Washington kept his head down but shook Daddy’s hand. Seaweed did not move, but instead folded his arms across his chest. “No reason we shoulda been let go in the first place,” he said under his breath. He looked at Frankie. “Wasn’t our fault about them birds being brought here like that. We done nothin’ we shouldn’t’ve.”

  Frankie’s cheeks burned. Seaweed was right; that she knew. Daddy seemed to know it, too, because he looked at her then and his face was heavy with disappointment. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’m the one who said we’d take the chickens that way.”

  Daddy pinched her chin and sighed. “What’s done is done. Like I said, a misunderstanding. Now, let’s get back to work. We’ve got a restaurant to open in a few days.”

  Seaweed and Amy got back to the chickens without speaking a word, while Mr. Washington set down his tools by the broken fan. Frankie looked at the bushel of potatoes, which were still waiting to be peeled, when Daddy said, “Your
mother and Elizabeth are out looking at material for curtains, and I have a meeting with Yancy Biggs across town. He’s agreed to have his orchestra play here for our July Fourth party and on weekends and we need to go over a few details. Do you want to come along?”

  “Really?” said Frankie. “Me, come along with you? To a meeting?”

  “If you’d like,” he said. “Let’s see, now, the car’s parked around back.” He patted the pockets of his trousers. “Oh dear, I must’ve left my keys upstairs. Give me a minute.”

  “I’ll get them for you, Daddy,” she said. “You wait right here.” Frankie took the stairs two at a time and slid her hand over the dark wooden railing that ran along the second-floor balcony, overlooking the dining room. She leaned over the railing and waved down to Daddy, who was standing by the cash stand and talking to a pair of men putting the finishing touches on the plaster walls.

  Frankie followed the railing past the banquet room to Daddy’s office. She opened the door and went inside. Daddy’s desk took up most of the room, and piles of papers took up most of his desk. Frankie looked around for the keys to the Studebaker, but she didn’t see them. She opened his desk drawers and lifted up the piles, accidentally knocking a few folders to the floor. As she bent down to pick them up, she noticed Mr. Price’s election poster, the one he had hung in the front window, sticking out of the waste can.

  So that’s what happened to it, she thought.

  Frankie finally found the keys on the seat of Daddy’s chair. Just as she grabbed for them, she heard a voice. She turned around, startled, but there was no one.

  A ghost, that was her first thought. It had to be. A building that old and standing empty for so long was bound to be haunted with lost, restless spirits, she figured. But just as she was starting to get excited about the possibility, she heard the voice again and determined that it was coming from the heat register in the floor. She got closer and put her ear up to the metal grate.