Shepherd Avenue

by Charlie Carillo

  "Step one, you kill the bird," Rosiello said. "Okay. Now the hot water."

  Rosiello dunked the bird into the kettle as if he were making a jelly apple. Bloody odors rose with the steam. Even Rosiello turned his head to avoid them.

  Out of the water, the bird seemed swollen. Rosiello held it upside down and shook it, and the wings, loosened and dropped like helicopter blades.

  He gave it a final shake. "Always hated that part, the smell. Guess I shoulda gone to college, right? Okay. So now I turn this thing on to get the arms rollin'."

  He was talking about spinning rubber arms inside the boxlike machine. In went the bird, head and shoulders first. With thudding sounds the feathers were stripped, her head whipping around like a rubber ball on a child's paddle toy. He cleaned the wings separately, then the legs, holding each limb the way a man holds a knife to grind it. Feathers disappeared in a white blur down a chute. Rosiello clinked off the machine.

  "And that's that. 'Cept for a coupla feathers where the arms don't reach." He lifted a wing to show me the hairy little feathers under the wing pit. "Lady'll hold it over the stove and burn 'em off."

  He laid the bird on his chopping block. Its head had only been partially defeathered, like a man going bald — like Ro­siello, in fact.

  "Hey, he looks like you," I couldn't help saying.

  "Very funny, kid." The bird's dead eyes had been yanked open by the rollers. With two swings of his cleaver Rosiello chopped off the feet at the end of each drumstick.

  "Damn shame. This lady don't want to be bothered with the feet, she don't know what good soup they make." He knocked the feet onto the floor. "I leave the head on. Let the lady cut it off herself. That way she feels like she's doin' something."

  A trickle of jellyish blood oozed from the drumstick ends, but that was all. The really gory part, the removal of the internal organs, would happen while I wasn't around. Rosiello picked up the bird with real respect, as if it were a stillborn child or something.

  "I gotta clean it later. Otherwise the stupid lady smashes the gall bladder and you gotta throw the whole thing out."

  He took it away. I picked up the discarded feet. They were bony and yellow; except for their scaliness I might have been holding pencils. I dropped them, shuddering.

  Rosiello returned. "Okay, now, pullets for youse guys." He opened a crate in the corner, slid his arm around inside it. There was a flurry of dust and feathers, and after a few moments he withdrew a flopping, squawking bird by the feet and held it upside down.

  It seemed cruel to hold a live bird upside down, but I didn't want to bug Rosiello with more questions. He let the creature exhaust itself, until it was clucking softly, like an idling car. Then he curved his free hand around its back, pinching its wings to its sides. His touch seemed as gentle as his voice was gruff.

  He swung the bird around into a sitting position in his hands. It was smaller than the one he'd just killed.

  "Only a few months old. They sneak a few of these babies in every delivery, the sons of bitches."

  "Hen or rooster?" Angie asked.

  "Hen."

  "How can you tell?" No mistrust in Angie's voice, he was just curious. A young chicken is about as asexual in appearance as any animal can be.

  Rosiello rolled his eyes. "Twenty-seven years in chickens, I can tell a hen, buddy."

  "No offense . . . you got more like that?"

  "Hell, yeah. How many do you need?"

  "I'm not sure . . . Joey?"

  "How about ten?" I asked.

  Angie shook his head. "Not enough room. Maybe five, tops. You have to remember the tomatoes take up room by the fence."

  "You're growin' tomatoes?" Rosiello was incredulous.

  "Sure we are."

  "Tomatoes or chickens, pal. Make up your mind, you can't have both."

  "The plants'll be safe," Angie said. "I got 'em fenced in."

  "That's what you say now. Wait and see."

  "Just give us five of your pullets."

  The pullet in Rosiello's hands had been alternately struggling and relaxing, trying to catch him off guard. At last she succeeded, getting one wing free and slapping it against his arm.

  "Sit still, you pain in the ass." He caught the wing and folded it back into place as if it were the seal on an envelope. "You, you don't even know you're one of the lucky ones."

  "Make sure they're all hens," Angie said. "I don't want crow­ing at five in the morning."

  "You'll get hens. Bring anything to carry them in?"

  "Forgot."

  "For three bucks I'll give ya a crate."

  Rosiello went to get one, and Angie said out of the side of his mouth, "Wouldn't you think this guy'd throw in a lousy crate?"

  Rosiello continued poking around in the crates for small chickens. When his hands groped the one he wanted he pulled it out, and a chorus of riotous squawking filled the room, like a classroom of grade-schoolers when the teacher's chalk snaps against the blackboard. It took him just a few minutes to hunt up four more birds, and when he found the last one he mur­mured, "Well I'll be goddamned."

  To heighten the suspense Rosiello kept his back to us as he held the last chicken, waiting for her to calm down. When he turned to face us he bore the thing at waist level, in both hands, the way a priest holds a chalice.

  It was salt-and-pepper-colored, smaller than the other white pullets.

  "Wow," I said. "She's beautiful."

  Even Rosiello was beaming. "In my business this is like findin' a four-leaf clover."

  Angie inspected the bird. "Her eye's bleedin'."

  There was a scab I hadn't noticed, completely sealing one of the creature's eyes.

  "She got attacked by the other birds," Rosiello explained. "They hate it when a special one gets in the crate, so they try to kill it."

  Angie and I looked at him fishily. "Come on," Angie said.

  "I ain't kiddin'. Birds of a feather and all that jazz." Rosiello's tone had grown philosophical. "It's just like people. Somebody has somethin' you don't got, you feel like killin' him."

  Angie said, "If they tried to kill her here, why shouldn't they do it in my yard? I got no use for a dead chicken."

  "Never happen. Not in the open. Just make sure you got room for 'em all to move around. Listen, I'll take a half a buck off on account of the eye."

  "Will it get better?" I asked.

  "Hell, no, kid, it's gone. Pecked right out. It'll stay shut, just like it is now. Scab'll fall off but the eye'll stay shut." He rubbed his knuckles against the bird's crop.

  Angie still seemed doubtful. "Sure it's a hen?"

  Rosiello laughed. "You know, jeez, I forgot to check this one." He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and reached around the bird's underside. It clucked indignantly, violated.

  "Hen," Rosiello announced. "You'll give eggs even with one eye, won't you?"

  But Angie said, "I still ain't sure I want a half-blind chicken."

  "She don't know she's half blind," Rosiello said. "Hey, you want her to lay eggs or read books to you?"

  "I like her," I said, casting my vote.

  "Okay," Angie said. "Twelve-fifty for the works."

  "Lemme get a pencil and make sure." Rosiello put the bird into our crate, then found a pencil and paper. He took off the boater in the midst of the calculations to scratch his scalp with one grimy finger.

  "Right," he finally said. "Anything else?"

  Angie cleared his throat. "I need a duck," he said casually. "You got ducks?"

  "Sure I got ducks. Wait here."

  I was excited over the prospect of another bird for the yard until I remembered that Deacon Sullivan was coming for dinner on Saturday, and that his favorite meal was fresh-killed duck.

  But before I could say a word Rosiello was back with a huge cotton-white duck, which he carried as if he were a halfback cradling a football.

  "Three bucks. And hell, I'll throw in her crate for nothing."

  "Thanks," Angie said lamely, looking
at me, knowing I knew. "For Saturday," he said. "Your grandmother wants to make that deacon his favorite meal."

  "I figured it out, Anj." The duck's feet pedaled the air. Ro­siello put her in a small, one-bird crate.

  They each took an end of the big crate to carry it out, while I carried the doomed duck. Everything fit on the backseat. "Remember me Thanksgiving," Rosiello said when we were in the car. "My motto is, 'I'll kill it in front of you.' "

  "We'll remember."

  "You got some good deal, especially on that black one."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see." Angie started the car and put it in reverse. Rosiello waddled back to his store.

  "What a bull artist he is, Joey. These birds woulda sat in the store three months, eating his corn. He was happy to get rid of 'em." He laughed. "Everybody's a dealer."

  Rosiello reappeared at his doorway. "Hey!" he shouted. "Wait!" Angie braked suddenly. The crates jolted amid much clucking and quacking.

  "Still gonna grow them tomatoes?" Rosiello yelled.

  "I already got 'em in the ground!" Angie shouted back.

  Rosiello wagged a finger. "They'll get to 'em," he said. "Sooner or later, stupid as they are." His shoulders shook with laughter as he went back inside.

  During the slow ride home I turned around every few seconds to watch the birds. When Angie made turns, their feet slid out from under them but their heads somehow remained steady as balloons. They were fascinating to watch, especially the salt­and-pepper one. She sat in a corner and seemed quieter than the others. She tried to sleep and didn't seem maimed when her good eye was closed.

  The duck was the loudest bird of all, as if she considered the presence of mere chickens beside her an insult.

  "It was a deal, Joey," Angie said softly. "Your grandmother's lettin' us have the birds 'cause we're lettin' her make the duck for the deacon. Otherwise she'd be breaking our balls every day over the mess the chickens'll be makin'. Excuse my mouth."

  "I gotta name the birds," I said. "That way they'll know who I'm calling. They can learn names, can't they, Angie?"

  He shrugged. "I guess so." He took one hand from the steering wheel and held a finger in the air.

  "Whatever you do, don't name that damn duck," he warned. I'd never heard his voice so sharp.

  I defied Angie's command and secretly named the duck. Odd, how she was the only bird I would end up naming, except for "Salt and Pepper," which wasn't really a name, just a descrip­tion. The others were survivors with time to go nameless.

  I christened the duck Roslyn, after my old town. The name came to me halfway home from Rosiello's.

  We bought the birds on a Thursday. When we let them loose in the backyard they dispersed like grammar-school children leaving a classroom for recess. I wondered if Roslyn suspected she was doomed to die in two days, or if the chickens knew how lucky they were simply because an old man had an impulse to raise birds.

  The first thing Connie said when she saw them was, "How long before they start layin'?"

  "Soon," Angie assured her. "I got all hens."

  That night the chickens pecked at a pile of food in the middle of the yard. They may have been the only birds ever to eat pasta fagioli, macaroni with beans, leftovers Connie was going to throw out anyway because they had begun to grow mold. Mean­while, Roslyn ate bread crumbs right from my hand.

  "Don't," Angie said. He was behind me, watching.

  "She's allowed to eat, isn't she?"

  "Yeah, but it doesn't change nothin'."

  "I know," I lied.

  I went to bed that night and the next certain that Roslyn would live a long life in the backyard, lay eggs, even hatch ducklings there, if Angie could be convinced that she needed a drake for company.

  Naturally the birds were the first thing on my mind on Sat­urday morning. I raced outside at daybreak to see how they were doing. Angie appeared soon after me, a mug of coffee in hand.

  "They're all still here," I said after counting. I had made the same announcement the previous morning.

  Angie chuckled. "Where were they gonna go, to church?" He sipped his coffee, then yawned theatrically. "Hey. Let's go to the movies, Joey."

  The suggestion stunned me. Sit in a dark movie theater on a brilliant Saturday? No Italian in his right mind would dream of such a thing. It took an instant for everything to become clear.

  "When we come back Roslyn won't be here, will she?" I asked.

  Angie's eyes clouded with fury. "What did I tell you about naming that duck? Damn it!" He dashed the rest of the coffee onto the ground. The birds raced over to investigate the puddle, which sank instantly into the loamy ground.

  "I hadda call her something, Angie, she ate out of my hands!"

  He pushed his wiry hair back. His hands came away wet with the water he had used for morning grooming. "I knew it, I knew it," he moaned. "I should have let the guy do it there."

  "It ain't fresh that way," Connie said, ascending the outside cellar steps. Sunlight glinted off a long white-handled knife in her hand. It was the sharpest knife in the house, the one Angie used to cut fresh Italian bread because its blade never crushed the crust.

  "You're gonna kill her here?" I shrieked. "In front of the other birds?"

  Connie looked at Angie, who instantly turned to me, as if his wife's murderous face had been too much to bear. "It's a lotta mess for inside the house."

  My eyes wettened. "Can't you just buy one from the A & P?"

  "No." Connie's voice was icy. "It ain't the same. Didn't you tell him about that duck?"

  "He knew, he knew all along," Angie boomed.

  Pleading was useless. Roslyn had joined the chickens in the middle of the yard, head down, ass in the air as she pecked at her last supper.

  "All right, get her," Connie said wearily. "It's a waste that she's eating."

  Angie stepped over the low fence and snared Roslyn from behind by her feet, then curled his arm over her back to contain her beating wings.

  "Take him to the movies now, I'll call Grace to help," Connie said.

  "He don't wanna go."

  Time, time - I had to stall for timel "Wait!" I said. "Can't you take her inside to do it?"

  Connie wiped the edge of the knife on her dress, as if it were already bloody. "Your grandfather already told you what a mess it is."

  "But I don't want the chickens to see it."

  I was surprised to hear Connie laugh. "You think they care? Watch, they won't even stop eatin'."

  "All right, all right," Angie said, gripping Roslyn's throat as she went for his eye, "we'll do it over the sink for Joey. Come on, we can do that much."

  Connie sighed. "Let's get it over with, already." She clumped down the cellar steps. Angie followed her, embracing Roslyn.

  "Wait here," he said to me, and then the screen door slammed behind him.

  I ran around to the front door and entered the house like a burglar. As I crept down the creaky cellar steps I pushed my hands against the narrow walls to take weight off my noisy feet. In the basement Connie and Angie hunched over the sink like surgeons.

  Was it all over? No - I heard Roslyn cluck.

  "Come on, hold her still," Connie said. "Pull that neck back. I said back! More . . . good. Now don't let go."

  "Will you do it already?"

  "Get that wing outa my face - "

  Angie wrestled with Roslyn. I caught a glimpse of white wing tip as I crept up on them.

  "Wait!" I screamed. Angie whipped his head around to look at me, and in that instant Connie made her fatal slash.

  Roslyn squawked, a sound that turned into the gurgle of a clogged drain. Connie spun around and looked at me as if she meant to use the knife on my throat next. Roslyn flew away from all of us in an explosion of red and white.

  "Damn!" Connie hissed. A line of blood streaked her cheek. The rest of the streak Connie's face had only partially interrupted reached all the way to the ceiling.

  Roslyn flapped around the basement, bumping the walls a
nd spraying them with blood. Connie remained at the sink while Angie went after the duck, who gradually lost energy. She seemed to be flapping in slow motion, like a kid's toy on weak batteries.

  Angie caught Roslyn and, a cupped palm under her throat, brought her to the sink, where the rest of her lifeblood would drip into the Brooklyn sewer system.

  My throat felt dry and I was too stunned to be nauseous, even when Connie brought the point of the knife to within an inch of my nose.

  "See the mess you made? You know how bad blood stains?"

  "I'm sorry," I said, though I felt anything but sorry. It was an automatic response. Roslyn shuddered at the sink. Angie squeezed her, coaxing blood from her white body as he would have juice from a halved orange.

  "Get a wet rag, Joey," he said. "Wipe the walls fast, before the blood dries up."

  I didn't budge.

  "Come on, buddy, we made a deal with Connie."

  She wet a rag and gave it to me. My brain felt as if it had become insulated within a jacket of fluid that wouldn't permit rage or disgust to penetrate. I wiped Roslyn's blood from the walls as if it were chalk off a blackboard.

  "The floor, too. Rinse the rag first, buddy. Gimme it."

  He held out a hand to take it. It was safe to do because Roslyn was just about dead. Her nearly severed head lay next to the drain. Blood leaked sluggishly from the neck, and her feathers, once beautifully aligned, seemed to be pointed in random di­rections. Maybe I imagined it, but she now seemed to be a shade of gray instead of brilliant white.

  I cleaned the floor, then Angie took the rag from me to clean the streak on the ceiling. A toilet flushed — Connie had gone to the bathroom, and now she returned to us smelling of Ivory Soap.

  "I'm warning you," she said, leaning into my face, "you ever do anything like that again . . ."

  She jabbed a finger at me, an action that seemed to burst the protective jacket around my brain.

  "What?" I spat. "What are you gonna do? You can't throw me out of here, you don't even know where my father is!"

  Connie's finger froze in midair. I might have accused her of being a whore, judging from the expression on her face.

  "Don't talk to your grandmother like that," Angie said. I felt my knees bang something hard. I looked down; I'd collapsed to the floor and knelt like an altar boy.