by Steve Vernon
I grinned and stood there beside the large man’s decapitated body, putting my hands together and apart very quietly, again and again in the still moonless night.
The Last Few Curls of Gut Rope
I sat on a round restaurant stool, turning, turning.
Waiting.
I stared out the window at a dark nothing sky. Birds hung on the clouds like pairs of lonely scissors. They told me nothing.
What happened? Where did it begin?
I stared at the ring finger on my left hand. Something was missing. The pale white tattletale halo, once choked and hidden beneath a single band of gold. The ring was missing, like a silent telephone; missing, like a clapperless bell.
I’ve been up most of the night. Sleepless, chasing dreams. Another week of selling things I never believed in.
I sat and waited for breakfast. An egg. A beginning.
The restaurant was empty, save for myself and the waitress walking towards me. Was she married? Was she lonely? Who was I trying to kid?
My heart was an empty shell. It was broken.
I looked about the restaurant. What might it clear on a good week? A little place like this ought to be a gold mine. Why wasn’t anyone here? How did it survive without customers? Did they draw a business crowd? Were the cook’s burgers big with the construction crews? Truckers? Maybe the bums in the street scavenged empty beer bottles to trade in for a single slice of meatloaf.
If Macdonald’s requires the meaty devotion of a billion Big Macs bagged daily, how could a place called The Dirty Onion survive more than a half of an ill spent summer. Was it a hobby? Was the cook an incognito millionaire with a passion for the scent of burning grease? Was the restaurant a front for a Mafia money laundering scheme? Did those swinging yellow-white kitchen doors conceal a cache of terrorists?
It didn’t matter. It was a restaurant; a place to break, fast. A place to begin. The décor was Spartan at best. A crossword of dirty peeling tile. An out of date calendar, tacked to a grease stained wall. Cigarette smoke tattoos curled yellowly about faded pine moulding. The whole place reeked of Early American cheap.
It was eight in the morning. Somewhere people rose to sparrow song. Somewhere classes full of pregnant yogic women bent and stretched in perfect tantric pentameter, gonging their chi’s and filling their essence with a splendid tao of hot sugared morning tea.
That was some where else. Here, I sat and stared at a half empty cup of watery coffee. It tasted like the bitter piss of Juan Valdez’s oldest mule. Par for the course.
The waitress stood over me. I felt her shadow envelope me. I was aware of the gravity of her cheap starchy ass and the apron of her aged boobs. She leaned closer. Her back and shoulders stooped into a tired question mark. She clutched her hen-scratched order pad before her like a holy paper shield, a weary interrogative awaiting an answer.
“What do you want?”
Always the hard questions first. What did I want? Another life? A marriage that isn’t in the dirtiest phase of a death-by-attrition divorce? A day job that didn’t involve selling my time and lack of interest? Maybe just a shot at immortality.
“Eggs,” I said. “Give me eggs, fried in sunny sided optimism. Bacon, charred like St. Joan’s pelvis bone. Toast as bland as a generic greeting card.”
I gave her my best smile. She ignored it. I didn’t blame her.
“Eggs,” she said with a nod of her chaos-haystack blonde sprayed hair. She was right. Why waste words?
She walked to the kitchen.
I sat. I waited. The coffee got colder. Godot didn’t arrive.
I looked at the ceiling. I tried to remember the last time I was truly happy. It didn’t come to me. Memory never happened the way it happened in stories. Memory was a confused back-alley steel who twisted and mumbled in acrostic jumbles. Memory was a refrigerator that rarely got cleaned. Once a decade you rearranged and reprioritized. You checked the expiration date on the milk. You sniffed the eggs suspiciously. You threw out what could not be preserved. You made compost offerings out of rotted fruits and forgotten jars of sauerkraut. Ask the autumn - there was strength in divesture. Sacrifice must be made. I was dying from caution. It all happened far too slowly to care.
“Here you go.”
She reached over my shoulder, a back-handed reveille from a reverie of despair. She set a plate before me. I felt the weight of one of her heavy breasts, soft against my shoulder blade. It was a good feeling, like being born again. Something moved deep inside me, a warmth I haven’t felt for a long time.
“Enjoy,” she said.
I looked down and saw what was on my plate. It sat there, like a coil of shit wound upon a china cake platter. A large brown chicken pecked listlessly at a handful of undetermined grain.
A chicken?
I looked up at the waitress. I attempted another smile. This had to be some sort of a joke. I went along with the joke and tried to make a pun out of it.
“Are you trying to pullet my leg?” I asked.
It had to be some kind of gag. Maybe I had won something. The one millionth customer to order chicken at the Dirty Onion.
She looked at me. “I’m sorry?”
I hated that. People who said they’re sorry, when they meant they hadn’t heard or understood. It was sloppy English. Wasted words.
“What’s this?” I pointed at the pecking bird. The waitress greeted me with a frost of instant Ice Age, just that fast. She had to have practiced in front of her bathroom mirror it happened so smoothly. Her face petrified into a slow blank slate.
“Eggs,” she answered in a flat monotone.
“Yes. I asked for eggs.”
“Correct.”
I pointed at the chicken. It snapped at my finger like it was a large pink worm.
“That’s a chicken. Where are my eggs?”
“They’re coming.”
“They’re coming?”
She pointed at the chicken. I gave her a grin to show her that her humor was appreciated.
I swear the chicken grinned right back at me.
“The chicken comes first,” The waitress said.
I refused to believe what was happening. It was a joke. It had to be some kind of joke.
“Who’s on first?” I asked.
She stared at me. Maybe she isn’t an Abbot and Costello fan.
“Hey Moe?” I ventured.
“You asked for eggs,” she said, speaking patiently as if she were talking to a very small child. “But the chicken comes first.”
This was too much to take. I was hungry and pissed off. I hammered the table with the side of my fist to make my point. The chicken emitted an indignant squawk. Apparently I had broken some point of parliamentary poultry procedure.
“Where are my eggs?”
“There’s a problem?”
A voice spoke flatly from behind me. The voice sounded big and dangerously close.
I cautiously turned around.
There was a large man in kitchen whites standing over me. A beak of a nose. A head, as bald as an ostrich egg. It was the cook, I assumed. He scuffed his feet in front of me, like he was scraping off dirt.
“Is there a problem?” He repeated.
He bobbed his head forward and tucked his fists beneath his armpits, a run-to-seed Mr. Clean attempting a sorry-assed funky chicken. I ignored what I figured to be one more pitiful attempt at physical wit. I was too busy trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.
“Of course there’s a problem.” I pointed at the chicken. The bird pluckily snapped again. “Where are my eggs?”
“They’re coming,” The cook said.
I couldn’t believe my ears. I racked my memory. Was this April the first? Maybe some national chicken holiday had been declared that I was blissfully unaware of? The chicken clucked testily, as if I’d tried to pluck it raw. It poofed its feathers up in an apparent attempt to emulate the waitress’s amok bouffant. The bird stood and looked at its feet in surprise. We all looked. T
here, upon the metal dinner platter, was a freshly laid egg.
The cook and waitress pointed at what was supposed to be the answer to my problem.
“There’s your egg,” she said.
“I’m not eating that,” I said.
“Why not?” The cook asked reasonably. “It’s an egg.”
“It came out of that chicken’s ass.”
“Well where did you think eggs came from?”
“Not on my plate. Not at my table.”
The chicken sat down.
“That’s an egg. Fresh, too,” The cook said. “I don’t see what your problem is.”
The chicken squawked. It puffed itself up and repeated the process.
This time when it stood there were three eggs upon my plate. It had laid the last two, both at once.
“Two in one,” The cook said. “That’s rarer than double yolks. That’s a good luck sign for sure.”
“Rarer than hen’s teeth,” The waitress agreed.
I shook my head.
“I’m not eating those eggs.”
“But they’re your eggs. You asked for them. She laid them for you.”
A brittle sound spoke from the plate. I looked and listened. The first egg cracked.
“Is it hatching all ready?” The waitress asked.
A piss yellow chick poked its wet sticky head from beneath its mother’s feathered ass. It looked a little like a soggy lemon snake.
I could’t believe my eyes.
“Oh my god,” I said.
“From whom all blessings flow,” the waitress crowed.
I hear the sound of more cracking coming through like static on an untuned radio.
“Praise him, egg and yolk.” The cook called out, with another furtive funky chicken step.
I stood up, nearly overturning my chair. Two more chicks peeked out from the plate. The chicken squawked and laid a fourth egg. It was going for the Guinness Book of Records.
I stepped right back.
The chicken hopped from the plate to the floor.
“You can’t go.” The cook said.
“You can’t leave your eggs behind,” the waitress added.
I moved for the door, brandishing a butter knife. A salesman was trained in all forms of martial defense. “You can’t stop me.”
“You have to pay for your eggs.” The cook repeated.
I shook my head and backed away.
“I’m not paying for those eggs,” I said. “They’re raw.”
“Correct,” the waitress said.
“You have to pay,” the cook said. “They’re your eggs.”
I reached behind my back to open the door. The chicken bustled past me, chicks in tow. I ignored the chicken rush. I had more important things to worry about than a flock of freshly laid chickens.
I turned to run. Feet, beat the street. The last thing I saw of the restaurant was the cook standing in the doorway.
“Sooner or later you have to pay for your eggs.” He called after me.
It struck me strange, how calmly he said that.
There was no time for that now. I ran. My car was back there but so were the chickens. I wasn’t taking any chances. I could return for my vehicle later that day. I kept on running. It was hard to run down a busy city street. I felt like a salmon, bucking the stream. People pushed past me like I’m wasn’t even there. A mailman stared as I ran past.
“You ought to pay for your eggs,” He said or maybe I just imagined it.
I ran as hard as I could. My heart felt like it might break open but I didn’t dare stop until I had reached the bus stop. Home free, free for all, all the all the outs are free. I leaned against the signpost and panted like a winded hound.
I was free. I had escaped. What had been going on?
“Are these your chickens?”
I looked up. A policeman stood there, his arms loaded with half a dozen fully grown chickens and another armload and three pocketfuls of baby chicks.
“Are these your chickens?” The policeman repeated.
I tried to explain but the policeman wasn’t listening any more than the cook or the waitress. He pushed the chickens at me.
“I ought to take you in. You can’t be running around with chickens. There are laws against the unlicensed exercising of barnyard fowl. Haven’t you heard of the poultry flu?”
I shook my head, too tired to think.
“Chicken flew?” I asked. “I didn’t know chickens could fly.” .
“You’re darned tooting they can’t. And that’s why you’re responsible for these eggs.”
He handed me a hatful of eggs. I cradled them in the pockets of my suit jacket, my briefcase and where ever else I could fit them. The bus hissed to a halt in front of me. I jumped back, startled. The door levers opened. I climbed on board, holding my fare out with one egg filled hand. The chickens clambered up the stairs behind me.
“Hey,” the driver said. “You have to pay for your chickens.”
I was tired of arguing. I opened my wallet and dropped a twenty dollar bill into the driver’s hand.
“Keep the change,” I said.
I stumbled to my seat. The chickens heaped in around me. They were soft and warm and somehow comforting. The bus moved forward. Someone sat down in front of me. I knew who it is before he even turned around.
“Are those your chickens?”
I looked at the cook. He sat there calmly like we’d just met. In a way, I suppose we had.
“I asked for them,” I nodded with a big friendly smile. I was learning
The cook reached into his pocket. He pulled out a handful of grain. Of course he did. Doesn’t everyone carry grain in their pockets? He probably wore beef jerky braided into his hatband and a dog chew stick tucked like a cigar in his vest pocket.
The cook kept talking. “I like chickens. They’re a holy animal in some parts of the world. A sign of wealth and security. If you own chickens you’ve got eggs and meat whenever you want them. Autonomy. Emerson would have approved.”
“I don’t want them.”
“You asked for them, didn’t you?”
He kept feeding the chickens. One of them squatted in the seat beside the cook and laid another handful of eggs. The eggs began cracking. The cook kept on talking.
“Fecund little bastards, aren’t they? The Persians believed that chickens were a form of immortality. New life every day. The sun trapped inside an egg. I needn’t tell you about the giant who kept his heart inside an egg.”
“Needn’t you?”
I look at the eggs. There were so many. How many? I had to know. I began poking them off, one-two-three.
“Don’t do that.” The cook warned.
“What?”
“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” He smiled. It was almost a friendly smile. Almost friendly enough to make me want to smile back. “Life is full of surprises.”
Great. I was traveling with a flock of chickens and Forrest Gump. I stared gloomily at the chickens.
“You’re not just whistling ‘Chicken Train’,” I tell him.
The cook smiled and winked like I’ve cracked a very funny joke. He kept on talking.
“They’ve been used for prognostication throughout the years. Priests would read the future in the windings of their entrails. A gypsy woman in Tirgu Mures used to lay a box of sand and pebbles and brightly colored rocks for the chicken to scratch in. She would read the future according to where the chicken scratched its tracks.”
I listened glumly.
“They had a chicken at the World’s Fair who could play tic-tac-toe and win, if you let it play first. It knew the secrets of life and death. It could guess your weight and age and peck out the numbers on an Underhill typewriter.”
“Is that so?”
More chickens sprouted and grew. It happened at a geometric rate. I wondered if this is some sort of alien invasion. Was I destined to spend the rest of my life cooped up with a flock of unidentified frying object
s?
The cook kept on talking. “It’s a shame what finally happened. Someone kidnapped the chicken. They held it for ransom. It died from a broken heart.”
He shook his great bald head sadly.
“He should have paid for that chicken.”
The bus pulled to a stop.
“Is this your stop?” I asked.
“No,” the cook said. “I’ve paid for further on.”
Then he bowed to me like it was an honor for him to meet me.
I pushed my way to the front of the bus.
“There’s more chickens here then you paid for,” the driver noted.
“Put it on their bill,” I numbly mumbled.
I walked off the bus and down the sidewalk, a pied piper followed by a thousand feathered rats. I was no longer even trying to run away. These were my chickens. I asked for them.
I walked into the lobby. It was a tough trick to fit all of the chickens into the elevator but I managed. We rode up four floors together. The chickens clucked softly to themselves, as if wondering about their destination. Their clucking was restful. Or maybe I was just that tired.
I allowed myself to be gently herded towards my apartment door. Apartment 505. I stared a long time at the zero. It’s funny but I had never noticed just how egg-like nothing can be.
I opened the door. I stepped aside to allow the chickens into my apartment.
“Make yourself at home.”
They clambered over the furniture. They perched atop my stereo and bookshelves and cluttered about the carpet and the laundry hamper.
I was tired. I slumped upon the couch. The chickens watched closely, their heads flicking like restless snakes. Who was it who defined a play as the moment when the chickens came home to roost. Was it Tennessee Williams or Tennessee Ernie Ford?
I couldn’t remember. It was too hard to think of anything. The chickens kept watching. They clucked softly, like a flock of conspiracy whisperers.
I watched them right back. At least they had stopped laying eggs.
That was funny. I cackled, startling one hen into a nervous short winged hop.
That was funny too. I decided to taunt them.
“A watched chicken never boils.” I called out.
They kept watching.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
