CHICKENS I HAVE KNOWN

“Run,” I screamed. “Go! Go! Go!” I turned the van key in the ignition. The engine rumbled to life.

In the distance, the glare of eyes like cold, hard glass swung toward us.

Aric and Heather were the first to stumble their way from the house to our family van. Heather tripped and staggered halfway to the open door of the van, and Aric, without thought for his own welfare, turned back, grabbed her by her shirt, and began to pull her through the driveway dust to safety. (He grew up to be a soldier. Heather grew up to be a ballerina.)

Maren hustled across the yard next, diving headfirst into the van. (She grew up to be a political science major.)

In the distance a small, white juggernaut of rage fixated on our van, and began its headlong pursuit of us. I thought I caught a glimpse of a few white feathers exploding up from the racing, pumping body to waft away in the afternoon breeze.

“Move it!” I revved the gas.

Adam, dragging his own diaper bag, toddled to the car to be hauled headfirst into the vehicle by his siblings. (Adam grew up to be an exceptional daddy.)

I heard the van door bang shut. The children strapped each other in for the getaway. I slammed the gas pedal down and gunned the van—gravel spewing from the rear tires.

The small white body covered in feathers gained momentum, hunkered down close to the ground, clawed feet tearing at the turf, beak and burning eye pointed at our now retreating van. We cleared the driveway.

Once we fishtailed onto the paved road, I said, “We made it.”

The children cheered.

In the rearview mirror, I observed the little, white rooster raise its head in frustration and crow a challenge at the back of our van. Light glinted off of its razor-like spurs.

“Psycho chicken,” I muttered to no one at all.

 I headed to the library with my four children and tried to ignore the feeling of dread that sat like a lump in my stomach, knowing that it (that miserable, filthy rooster) would probably be hiding in the bushes when we got back—waiting, watching—plotting.

“Psycho chicken,” I repeated in disgust.

It was too.  I saw that chicken attack a boy on a bicycle—more than once. Maybe the meanest rooster I have ever been acquainted with, that rooster would stop doing whatever it was doing when it saw us in the yard and run, full out, to get a chance to rake us with its spurs. Sometimes it would run two, three, or four football fields to get at us. We started having to go outside armed with brooms and swords. It was chicken terrorism at its worst.

Not all chickens are created equal, though. We once had another rooster that got his butt beat in the barnyard so badly he ran away. He ran away to our mailbox, where he sat in the wind and rain—alone—for the longest time, waiting for the mail-person everyday, bedraggled and pitiful (the chicken not the mail-person) until some dark unknown forces carried him away—never to be heard of again. I suspect the mail-person.

Then there was Edger the Chicken. We got Edger as a chick, and chicks imprint on the first thing that they see when they hatch, and in this case, Edger imprinted on our son, Adam. Edger turned out to be a little brown hen that would follow Adam around like a dog, waiting for Adam to feed her juicy crickets because Edger thought that Adam was its mother. Adam still speaks fondly of Edger.

Once, when our chickens got into the horse worm medicine and poisoned themselves, it fell to my husband to “put them out of their blind-staggering-around chicken misery.” There is a little known clause in the Man Manual (Section B, Paragraph 6, Sub-Heading 12-A, titled - Duties of the Executioner) that reads, “All distasteful and potentially icky tasks fall to the man or man surrogate in any casual relationship—‘cause if you don’t kill that sick critter you’re going to wish that you had.”

The problem is that chicken killing has gone somewhat out of fashion, and so my husband was at something of a loss as to how best to put the chickens out of their worm poisoned misery. He's a suburban boy.

Watching the staggering chickens stagger about, he said, “What do I do? How do I kill them? Do I smother them with a pillow?”

“Not my pillow,” I replied.

My husband is no chicken. He used his own pillow.

This has been a discussion of chickens—real live pecking chicken animals. This should in no way be seen as a symbolic discussion of some of the two-legged human chickens I have know throughout my life. Like the psycho chicken person who cannot stand to see anyone, anywhere enjoying this life more than they do themselves, so they want to peck you to death if they can. Or the cowardly chicken type, who refuses to return to the war once he or she has lost a battle or two, or the Edger chickens who somewhere along the line learned to wait around for everyone else to catch their crickets for them—good for pets, not so good for folks. This has been a discussion about chickens and nothing but the chickens.

Linda (Chicken Master) Zern