Fresh Writing: How to Dominate a Chicken (2nd Draft)
"Whose in charge?" Joy asks. "You or the chicken?"
"Definitely the chicken," I say. "Hands down, I'm scared to death of that bird."
Joy cocks her head to one side, not unlike a chicken and her pupils, ink stains within the jewel aquamarine of her eyes, retract to become dots.
The Buddha, on the eve of his enlightenment, is said to have had a view back, back, back to all of the lives he lived before that one under the Bohdi Tree. A cosmic flashback. The Buddha saw himself as an ox and witnessed another ox being beaten. He felt a wave of pity for the beast. It was called his first moment of compassion which then flowered over the course of many lifetimes.
As Joy looks at me, her wide hipped solid body that screams "farm girl," her faded jeans covered in stains of chicken shit, her oversized gray cable knit cardigan that drags down her sloped shoulders, her curly blond hair whispered gray which is all tucked and pinched and twisted under her sun visor cap and I have a flash back too. I bet a million bucks Joy was a chicken in a past life and I was a slug she ate without thinking twice. I don't think my compassion was born that life, not at all. I'm no Buddha but I do have a damn good memory.
"No," Joy explains. "You are in charge of your coop." She nods as if I am supposed to nod along and so I do it.
"I am in charge," I repeat.
"That's right," she says. "You are in charge."
Joy leans over a crate that holds at least seven chickens and hauls one up by its chicken feet.
"Let me show you how it's done."
Joy and I have been chatting it up for a while now, about ten minutes and I have explained how my girl, a black hen named Shadow, up and died a few days ago. "I came down to clean the coop and she was in a hole…" I lamented.
Before she could get a word in, I said the same thing happened to our other hen, a white Brahma called Diamond, a few months earlier.
"What am I doing wrong?" I asked, tears in my eyes. "I keep the coop clean, I feed them in a special feeder, I change the water…"
Across the graveled grounds of the nursery--where it is Buy Your Pullet Day, meaning farmers are in town from all over the rural countryside to sell grown up hens to city folks like me--my children, Jo and Spencer, hold grown chickens in their arms. I have not agreed to get new chickens today. I am not sure I can handle more death but the kids--they are hopeful.
Under a wide blue sky filled with puffy white clouds, the place is packed with crates of clucky birds and chatty farmers and urbanites like me who don't-have-a-clue. Everything smells bitter.
Joy explained that chickens, when they are in a hole and looking peaked, have been sick for a while. "Parasites or bacteria," she said. "It happens." She suggested a sulfur remedy to add to the water which will keep the other birds healthy and this how we arrived at the conversation about the one survivor in our coop: Sunny, a white Brahma also known as The-Angry-Chicken-From-Hell.
Joy palms a white and black hen she calls a Sex-Link and snugs it under her abundant boobs.
"So what you do is get the bird against you like this and if she struggles, you put your hand over her head."
My heart races with fear. Sunny would take my hand off without question. I'll have to use gloves. And a rain coat, because I am sure she'll crap and pee all over me too.
Joy lifts her hand off the hand of the chicken and then does the maneuver again.
"See?" she asks.
I nod like it all makes sense but the truth of the matter is that I am not much for domination. I'm an Alpha dog until another Alpha dog arrives and then I go all Beta. I don't know why or how. It's just the way it is.
I remember being at an "Express Your Rage" workshop with a small but power packed woman named Ruth King. She had us do this exercise where we picked sides as perpetrator or victim—meaning which side were we usually on in life. I stood in the line with the other victims and felt right at home. Ruth had us switch sides and pretend to be the one doing harm instead. She had us pick up pretend swords and chase people around the room in a mock battle. I couldn't even pick up the sword without breaking down in tears. The idea of hurting another person, even in fun, was against everything I could imagine. Or was it that I had been so well conditioned to defeat and domination? I don't know but I learned something about my character that day. I identified with helplessness.
"I'll try," I tell Joy.
"Try?" she says and laughs with a snort out her nose. "Honey, it's a chicken. You gotta take charge."
I nod like yes, okay, I'll get in there and take charge not even seeing that Joy dominates me at this very moment. And the kids are dominating me too. They are urging me towards taking on more chickens--taking on more responsibility--that I don't really want. I don't want to be in charge of more life that is going to die for no reason and with no warning. I don't want to put sulfur in the water and guess if my hens have a parasite or come out to see one in the hole and watch her die in front of me again! Dang, I can barely handle being in charge of myself and my kids and now it's chickens and gerbils and if they wear me down--perhaps a dog.
How much can one woman handle anyway? And when, when, when will I finally learn how to say "NO"?
Joy shoves her demo chicken back into the bin and she's got that look on her face, expectant, as if it's time to close the deal.
"Do you have any Buff Orpington's?" I ask.
(Leave your comment! And watch this story change this week in the redraft!)
