Never Use a Chicken and Other Stories

by Jim Newell

  Before the DM could reply, Fred continued to tell him the reason why he had arrived at the office. The Deputy Minister listened. He had little choice. He interrupted once to ask the name of the supervisor, but Fred would not reveal it.

  “I have no wish to get anyone into trouble. I just want a straight answer to a question. If you cannot answer it, I will go to your Minister, and failing him, I will speak with the Attorney General.”

  “No need. I can tell you. Your interpretation of the question concerning interest rates is correct.” The DM did not hesitate.

  “Good,” said Fred. “Now, while I am here, I want you to call in your secretary and dictate a letter to me, with a copy to the Judge saying what you just told me.”

  It was done. A minor skirmish. Fred won. Was there ever any doubt?

  * * *

  I’ll bet that Fred’s file at the Income Tax Department is not only red-flagged but has its own filing cabinet. One year he found out he was to be visited by an Income Tax auditor, so he emptied his safe and placed the contents elsewhere. Next afternoon, not one but two men came to see him, and in the course of their presentation of demands, asked him to open his safe.

  “No,” said Fred.” There is nothing in it. You have no business in my safe.”

  After repeating their demand and receiving essentially the same answer embellished with basic Anglo-Saxon adjectives, one of the men left Fred’s office and went to their car. He returned with a chain and padlock that he placed around the safe.

  “We will be back tomorrow morning with a warrant,” they said. They were. They also brought a police officer with them.

  “Either open the safe or we will force it,” one of the men told Fred.

  “Well, I don’t want my safe damaged,” answered Fred. He opened it.

  “There’s nothing in it!”

  “Well, what kind of fools are you? I told you that yesterday. Do you think I’m a (Anglo-Saxon adjective) liar?”

  They left. They never returned. There was no audit that time, although there have been at other times.

  Like the time he was told he was scheduled for an audit of his complete year’s income tax return. Fred refuses to pay quarterly because the act says that as long as a settlement is made once a year, there is no violation of the law for failing to pay quarterly. Each year his accountant figures Fred’s tax return and he pays what he owes with a cheque. At this particular time, Fred filled two briefcases with paper, and wearing his special suit and carrying his cane, he presented himself at the tax office.

  “Now before we begin,” he told the auditor, “none of these receipts goes anywhere without me. I will bring them each day you require them, and when I leave this office at the end of the day, they go with me. I must tell you that while I am here in the city and you work on my account, I will stay at the best hotel, eat the most expensive meals, drink the best booze and get receipts for every item for my next year’s tax return. If you want to save the government’s money, you can photocopy each receipt, but I will be here while you do it.”

  Fred’s reasoning for making those conditions was his feeling that if just one receipt should be lost, there might be a reason for a case against him. After some consultation the auditor decided on the photocopying. For three working days Fred handed the man the receipts, one at a time, to be photocopied, placing each one back in its proper place in a briefcase after it was photocopied. No irregularities were found.

  One of Fred’s better battles with the tax people was over the Provincial Income Tax. Fred received a phone call asking him why he had not registered as a collector of the tax.

  “I do not intend to collect Provincial Income Tax.”

  “Did you not get the forms to fill out so you could collect Provincial Income Tax and forward it to us?”

  “I got them, yes.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know. I tore them up and threw them in the wastebasket.”

  “Why did you do that, Mr. Smith?”

  “Listen to me this time while I tell you again that I do not intend to collect the Provincial Income Tax.”

  Three weeks later, Fred received a letter from the tax department. He is not required to collect the tax.

  There are more stories to tell you about Fred, stories about his court order against the taxation department, which netted him $1,000 when he had originally been going after only $500, stories about his bill from the regional taxation office for 40 cents. He didn’t pay that either and received a letter of apology. But you likely can imagine how those stories go.

  If Fred comes collecting a bill you owe, pay it. PAY IT! Or at least tell me about it so I can write the story.

  Never Use a Chicken!

  Lemme tell ya somethin’. If ya ever plan on doin’ a robbery, don’ never, ever plan on usin’ a chicken as the weapon. Ain’t worth the trouble, and that’s fer damn sure.

  A month or so ago, I was sitting on the bench outside of my house and my friend Arky was there. His real name’s Arthur, but we always call him Arky. He somehow doesn’t fit “Arthur,” but he fits “Arky” just fine. Arky was drinking a beer, and I was sittin’ thinking. All of a sudden I got an idea. I jumped up and called back over my shoulder to Arky (He wasn’t the fastest man in the world to move, you know.) “C’mon, Arky, we’re going to town.”

  On the way to get my old ’72 pick-up, I stopped by the chicken house and grabbed the first chicken I came to. When I got to the truck I stuffed the chicken into an old burlap sack lying on the floor, one I keep to wipe grease off my hands after I been working on the truck. The chicken din’t like being in the sack, but that was just too bad.

  I handed the sack and the chicken to Arky. “Hang on to this,” I said, and we roared off down the road.

  “Where’n hell are we goin’ to?” Arky yelled over the motor noise. “I hope whatever the greasy stuff is on this bag, it’s comin’ from the outside.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’ worry about it. Town,” answerin’ his questions in reverse order and meaning that town was where we was heading. “To help that fancy pants Mr. Marshall spend some a his money.”

  “Huh?”

  “Marshall. That little guy with the dry goods store, or whatever they call it. Little guy always all dressed up with a jacket and a tie. Got white hair and real small hands and feet. Saw him the other day driving a brand new Caddie. Figure he must have a bunch of money if he can afford one of them. He could share some of it with us.”

  “Can’t have much left if he spent it on a new Caddie.” Arky laughs like he just told a good one. Well, Arky. You know him. Not too swift.

  “Never mind, Arky,” I says to him. “I got it all figured out. You’re going to be the get-away driver. You can drive this truck. I’m going to use the chicken in that sack there for a weapon.”

  “Your gonna do what?”

  “Just never mind. I got it figured. Imagine what kind of damage a scared chicken can do in a store like that! They’ll be glad to give me the money and they aren’t going to be looking at me much. They’ll be too damn busy looking out for the chicken when I let her loose.” I started to laugh just thinking about it. Fact is, I laughed all the way into town and clear up to where I parallel-parked the truck in front of the store. Someone had been kind enough to leave me a place by an empty parking meter with time on it. Had to be my lucky day.

  “Shove over here, Arky,” I said, grabbing the chicken sack, and putting the gear shift in neutral. “Keep the motor running. I don’t plan on being long.”

  When I walked through the door, I only saw a couple of old lady customers on the far side looking at stuff. Behind the counter alongside the cash register, a hefty woman—I mean really big and mean-looking—was standing. Reminded me of that ol’ Tennessee Ernie song, the one about “Sixteen Tons At the Company Store” or something. Anyway, she asked, “Can I help you?” but looking like she wanted to help me out the door.

  I said, “Yeh. Ya can gimmie yer money,” and when
I held the bag up high and started to bring out the chicken—now, you aren’t going to believe this, but I swear it’s all true. She reached down behind the counter and she came up with a shotgun, a big old double-barrel pump action, twelve-gauge, by the look of it. Well, when I saw her pump that shotgun, I started to yell at her to be careful, cause somebody could get hurt. That’s when the chicken screeched and surprised me so I let go of it and it started to fly up. The big woman wasn’t aiming that shotgun. It was sort of resting against her hip with her holding it by her finger on the trigger. When the chicken jumped, she got excited and her finger must’ve tightened so the first barrel went off with a hell of a bang. That chicken was right in the short-range shot pattern and it sort of dissolved in guts and feathers and bits and pieces that flew everywhere, includin’ all over me. Mostly all over me.

  Not only that, but the blast knocked her right on her butt, legs flyin’ in the air. All I could see as I tried to get out of the way was one humungus pair of purple bikini panties.

  Sure wish that would have been a time to laugh, but about that time, while she was falling the second barrel went off. That one broke about a dozen ceiling lights and knocked some tiles off the ceiling so there was more than just chicken feathers raining down. The old ladies on the far side of the store had hit the floor figuring it was some kind of bomb, I guess.

  They was just starting to get up ’n peek over the counter when Mr. Marshall came out of his office at the back of the store and tripped on a couple of steps back there. He was yelling and when he hit the floor with another big crash, he slid right into some shelves of stuff and knocked everything on them onto the floor. The two old women hit the floor again. I heard later he broke his leg. He yelled even louder and for what he yelled he should have had his mouth washed with soap! If I’d a had to testify in court what he really yelled, all I could say was, “Who set off the damn bomb!” If I said anything close to the truth they’d charge me with blasphemy and profanity in a public place or something. Don’t know what the customers heard. If they remember, they’ll never set foot in such a heathen place again.

  Never did find out why the big woman wearing the purple bikini panties had that shotgun, but she was just getting to her feet, still holding onto it, when the door flew open and a cop rushed in. He took one look at all the dust and chicken guts and broken ceiling tiles floating around and when he spotted the shotgun, he started yelling at her to put that gun down. He grabbed her arms and yanked them behind her back and had cuffs on her before you can say stop! He was starting to tell me he’d have me in the hospital in a few minutes. I guess he was looking at all the chicken blood and guts on my face, when she give him a couple of hard kicks in the shins and they both went down on the floor with another tremendous crash. The old ladies hit the floor again I reckon, and the cop must have got an eyeful of those purple bikini panties.

  Right then I made a quick run for the door. A small crowd of people standing there looking in, they saw me coming out, and they moved aside like the River Jordan when God stopped it for the children of Israel to pass through. I jumped into the truck and yelled at Arky to floor it. He did, before I even had the door shut, and he pulled a uey right there in the middle of the main street so that I damn near fell out. He was headin’ back for home.

  “What’d ya get?” he asks, meaning how much money.

  “Chicken feathers,” I answered, and I meant exactly what I said.

  I never laughed on the way home, and I haven’t been back to town since. But like I told you, if you ever plan a robbery, don’t use a chicken for a weapon. It isn’t worth the trouble.

  Somebody of Some Importance

  John Hamilton Rogers had not noticed anything strange about the man sitting on the park bench, so as he frequently did, he decided to sit down and rest a while also, and sat down beside him. Mr. Rogers had been following his regular morning route to nowhere when he came to the bench where the man sat, apparently resting.

  To give him his full name, he was John Hamilton Rogers IV. The impressive name was the only legacy he had received from John Hamilton Rogers III, deceased. If life had been difficult for JHR III, it had been even more difficult for IV. He was a citizen with no job, no income, no wife, no children, no known relatives. He was, as he liked to think of himself, “completely independent.”

  The fact that his park bench companion neither stirred nor seemed to take any notice of his arrival did not surprise John Hamilton Rogers IV. The man was no better dressed than he himself was, and that particular bench in that particular park frequently served as a resting place for other independent citizens of that city, citizens who for whatever reasons of their own, chose not to take notice of others. But after a few minutes when a park pigeon suddenly fluttered up onto the man’s knee, Mr. Rogers was surprised to see no reaction from his bench mate. He watched, waited, then shooed the bird away.

  “Pesky things, those pigeons,” he remarked casually, watching his companion. There was no reply. John Hamilton Rogers IV leaned toward the man and peered at him from beneath bushy eyebrows furled in some puzzlement. He stretched out his hand and touched the man’s shoulder. There was no reaction. He rose and stood in front of the man, bending down to examine him more closely. Realization of the truth arrived at John Hamilton Rogers’ brain. The man was dead, no doubt about it. He sat there on the bench in the park facing straight ahead, apparently thinking, but the eyes were not focused on anything and there was no movement of the chest to indicate breathing. The fact that he did not fall over was due to the way he had balanced himself when he sat down. Now the man was dead, totally, completely and unexplainably dead.

  Carefully, John Hamilton Rogers resumed his seat on the bench, but closer to the dead man. He looked around to see who was in the area and whether anyone might be looking. Nobody. The park was, at least that part of it, deserted. He could hear the voices of children from the distant playground and traffic noises from the city streets on the other side of the trees and hedges bordering the park, but nobody seemed to be within eyesight at that particular moment.

  “Might as well have a look,” he muttered to himself, reaching with some care into the dead man’s jacket pocket. The jacket was an old windbreaker with a slash pocket on either side. The near pocket proved to be bottomless, the entire lining torn away. Mr. Rogers stood up again and facing the man, reached into the other pocket. “Easy now,” he muttered, again to himself. “You don’t want to knock him over.”

  This pocket had a reward of some sort. His fingers touched a small rectangle of printed paper. John Hamilton Rogers drew it slowly out of the pocket with the practiced touch of the master scrounger, a man who had provided for his needs for many years by “finding things.” He straightened up, palming the ticket, or whatever it might turn out to be, and slipping his hand into his own pocket, turned slowly and strolled away. His gait quickened ever so slightly as he moved farther and farther from the bench. He carefully did not look back, just kept walking until the sidewalk turned a corner and the dead man on the park bench was completely hidden from his view.

  At that point Mr. Rogers began to walk quite briskly until he came to the park’s public lavatory. He entered one of the stalls and locked the door. Then, and only then, did he look at the small piece of heavy paper. The lottery ticket, for that is what he had found, a lottery ticket, was one of those with six separate numbers generated by a computer and printed on one side. The date of the drawing was there also. Yesterday’s date.

  “Whoo-eee,” breathed John Hamilton Rogers IV very softly. “Wouldn’t it be something now to be a winner.”

  Slipping the lottery ticket back into his pocket, he left the building and walked slightly faster than his usual morning pace, out of the park and along the street to a group of small stores clustered in a plaza beside a busy intersection. One of them was a neighborhood convenience store, the kind in which lottery tickets form a good share of each day’s sales. John Hamilton Rogers IV stepped inside, nodded casually to
the young woman slouched behind the counter reading at a magazine. Her eyes followed him indifferently as he looked around before moving toward the poster promoting the lottery. He could see the poster held a notation of the winning numbers from the latest draw. She turned back to her reading as he casually produced his ticket and began to compare the numbers. She couldn’t have noticed that his heart skipped a beat. The first two numbers were the same. His heart skipped two more beats when he compared the third and fourth numbers. They were also the same on both ticket and poster. Then, for a moment, his heart seemed to stop beating totally. He began to perspire heavily. He shook his head. All six numbers were the same. He had the winning number.

  John Hamilton Rogers IV forced himself to remain calm for the next ten seconds. He compared the numbers once again. Then he looked at the date of the draw as printed on the ticket that he held in his hand and the date on the poster in front of him on the counter of the store. The numbers and the date were identical on both ticket and poster. Clearly, he did have a winner.

  His eyes turned back to the poster, looking to see where one would take a winning ticket if in the great odds of the lottery one should discover that one did indeed have a winning ticket. The address was there. The office was located in that very city, several blocks from where he presently stood. As casually as he could make himself do so, John Hamilton Rogers IV turned toward the door of the store.

  “No luck, huh?” asked the clerk, barely raising her eyes. “Too bad. Want to try again?”

  John Hamilton Rogers IV, who rarely had sufficient funds to buy a lottery ticket and who at the moment had only twenty-five cents in cash to his impressive name, although he had assets worth three million dollars, merely shook his head, tripped over the doorsill and, catching his balance, stepped out onto the sidewalk. He stood absolutely still for nearly a minute. Then he turned and at his usual pace for that time in the morning, headed for the office of the lottery corporation.