Cluck

by Lenore Rowntree

  He starts to clean himself up in the bathroom, but when he checks his reflection — his blue eyes are paler than usual, and his whiskers have grown in a multitude of colours ranging from red to almost white blonde — he can’t stand to look long enough to shave. Besides, it might be good to see if the beard gets better with time, it’s already half covered up the mole on his left cheek. He changes his clothes, then checks to be sure there is no cheque from Chas and Jim poking out the mail slot. When he finds none, he flies around to the basement suite. He’s annoyed to see a stack of sodden newspapers and magazines sitting out on the walk, and is doubly annoyed they are mostly porn, the image on the top one a hairy, bare-chested man on the cover of Bear Growls.

  He knocks. A few seconds pass before Chas answers.

  What brings you here so bright and early?

  You know, Henry says. He glimpses inside and can see the walls and ceiling of the living room have been painted black.

  Jim appears behind Chas. He is bleary-eyed, as if he’s just dragged himself out of bed.

  What the fuck?

  What the fuh to you, Henry responds. He is super angry now. You’re two months behind on the rent and you’ve painted the suite without permission.

  He couldn’t quite get the fuck out, even in front of a jerk like Jim, but the intention was there and it felt good.

  Neither Jim nor Chas say anything.

  Have the cheque to me by this evening or you’re out, he says. No more hooey about late paycheques.

  He walks down the sidewalk alley and points to the heap of wet papers, And get this garbage out of here.

  Hooey? Jim shouts down the alley after him. You’re such a loser!

  He doesn’t look back, keeps walking toward his Subaru. He tucks his shirt in, feels his stomach all the way down to the end of the tails. He’s pretty sure he’s lost weight over the weekend, but still, he’s a bit thick in the middle, and he wonders if he might look a little like the man on Bear Growls, especially with his beard grown in. He hopes not. He straightens up as his hand glances off his penis and wonders why he’s tucking in his shirt anyway. It’s only going to come untucked while he drives to work.

  He arrives a half-hour earlier than usual to find Chief in his customary morning pose, hunched over a coffee in the lunchroom, rubbing a hand on his bald head while he does the crossword.

  What happened to you the last couple of days?

  Took sick, Chief. Sorry I didn’t call yesterday.

  Yeah. Kind of unusual for you not to phone. Bit disappointing really. The inspection in Langley is eleven-thirty. You’ll drive out with Elaine.

  He doesn’t know what inspection Chief is talking about and doesn’t care, except he doesn’t like the tone of Chief’s voice or that he has to assist Elaine. She’ll go all snooty on him with her university education. And whatever he thinks, she’ll override.

  When Elaine waltzes into the lunchroom, she’s wearing spiked heels and her dress, slinky red and low-cut, is a little odd for going on inspection. He lets himself fantasize for a moment that she chose the outfit for him. He imagines her standing in front of her wardrobe mirror practising how the dress looks when she bends over.

  Hey, Henry, can you take your own car today? she says. I’m going straight from the site to meet Bob afterward.

  She keeps chirping on about something, but he isn’t listening. He’s stuck on the fact that it’s Bob she’s chosen the dress for. She puts her face right in front of his.

  Hello, are you in there? Here’s a map to Lightstone’s poultry farm. Don’t forget your test kit.

  How stupid do you think I am? he mutters under his breath.

  Rough few days, Henry? she asks.

  He looks at her. She’s trying to be nice but he isn’t in the mood, knows they’re not going to get along; she’ll finger the avian flu again, won’t wait for test results, will sentence an entire flock to death based solely on a couple of soft-shelled eggs and a few ruffled feathers. For months now she’s been predicting it’s only a matter of time before the virus jumps to humans, and she wants to be the one-woman army to stop it and save the world.

  As Henry drives toward Lightstone’s farm in Langley, he barely thinks about the fragile electrical. Instead he obsesses about the smell of fried chicken in his hair — why didn’t he take a shower? — and how he might mask the smell and whether Elaine has ever had a hangover. He hopes so. But then he has to will himself to stop thinking hangovers for fear he’ll throw up again, so he switches to money, tries to calculate whether he has enough in the bank to pay for the transmission tower if Jim and Chas never pay their rent again. Then he thinks about those stuffed manila envelopes from the lawyer, how he really does need to open them because he’s having trouble keeping the mortgage payments going without his mother’s disability pension, and he knows he still has some death taxes to pay, and perhaps she had other assets he doesn’t know about. But he doesn’t want to think about her either, not even her money. So he begins to worry about the weight he’s put on in the last year and wonders how much a new scale might cost. Once during the drive he even reaches out to turn on the radio, but stops before hitting the knob, then smacks himself in the forehead to try to stop all thoughts of Jamie Lee, except he does manage to wonder if she’s ever been to Jeffrey’s Fry Shack and whether she had a champagne hangover after her wedding reception.

  When he arrives at the Lightstone farm, Elaine has changed out of her spiked heels and is wearing a lab coat over her raincoat. They walk toward the diminutive woman who waits for them outside the barn.

  The chickens are in here, the woman says. My husband drew up a schedule before he passed away and this is my first season on my own. I don’t think anything is wrong, but the guy from Swift Farms must have thought otherwise. I guess he called you in, eh?

  We’ll let you know ma’am, Elaine says.

  Henry is upset by the response. Elaine’s all business when the situation calls for a delicate touch. He isn’t always intuitive about things, but perhaps he’s more attuned than usual having just swept the bereavement cards from his own home. This woman is grieving. This is a widow they’re dealing with. She isn’t much older than he is, maybe only ten years, young to be a widow. He likes her manner, the soft yellow angora scarf she wears around her neck, the almond-shaped eyes that open and close with quiet determination. Still, he suspects by the way she hangs back from the barn door that things have gotten out of hand in there.

  Let’s look, shall we? Elaine says.

  He braces himself for the strong get-you-in-the-throat smell of chicken manure that will pour from the barn if he’s right. In part to distract himself from the moment, he asks the widow another question before she pulls open the door.

  What’s your name?

  Wendy, she says.

  The smell is worse than baby diaper. He knows Elaine is ticking the unsanitary condition box on her mental checklist. He asks, How long since your husband passed?

  Some months now. I’m trying my best.

  I’m sorry for your loss.

  Elaine shoots him a look that says what the hell? When was the last top to bottom clean in here? she asks.

  A while back, before Dennis passed, but he was weak, so we probably didn’t do as good a job as we should have.

  Wendy’s eyelids slide down, bringing a calmness to her answer. Henry wants to reach out and touch the small angora hairs quivering at the edge of her scarf. They’re so delicate in the late fall air. But as soon as he thinks this, his hands start to shake. The three of them walk into the barn.

  Once his eyes adjust to the dark, he can see the barn is well-built, even has a mesh wall for good ventilation, if anyone bothered to open it, but the floor and the roosting beds are littered with feathers. Many of the chickens are motley, especially around the head and neck. Some have been pecking at each other and look like battered hens, but he doesn’t think they are. He decides the widow’s husband, Dennis, must have been a decent man. He built a good bar
n, he tried until the end. A good hosing together with a vigorous pitchfork would make a big difference.

  What kind of chickens are these, ma’am? Elaine asks.

  He can’t believe it — whole lot of good her university education did — clearly most of the motley lot are hybrids with some bantam standard in them. Elaine should know hybrids moult more than purebreds, that these chickens are simply reacting to the boredom of not being fed properly or stimulated enough after their breeder died.

  Dennis said they’re mostly bantams, the widow answers.

  Purebreds then, are they? Elaine is being her best professional stupid.

  Suppose so, the widow says.

  Excuse me, but a lot of your birds are hybrids, Henry says. It doesn’t mean they aren’t good chickens. They just moult more and for longer into the season. You’ve had a lot on your plate. I’m thinking maybe these chickens haven’t been getting the exercise they normally do.

  Wendy seems to lean into him, almost as if she is a small chick taking shelter.

  Henry’s chest plumps in an effort to provide her some comfort and for an instant he feels an urge to kiss the sad blinking eyes nested in yellow angora; but then the nervousness and usual flush to the face occur because a woman has come near. He keeps talking to occupy himself.

  I’m wondering what kind of food you’ve been feeding these chickens?

  Wendy points to a sack of pellets in the corner.

  People at the Co-op told me this stuff was okay. Cheaper than what we used to feed them, but I have to start saving a little now that . . . things have changed.

  He reads the contents on the side of the sack.

  You know, there isn’t enough protein in this meal to maintain laying, he says, or to help the chickens through the moulting season.

  They said I could buy low protein so long as I let the chickens out to feed on insects, she says.

  And have you been doing that?

  Wendy averts her eyes, chagrined.

  Elaine scoops up one of the hens, holding it inexpertly, its back leg awkwardly splayed across her belly. She inspects its eyes, picks at some crust at the side of the head. From where Henry stands he can see no evidence of edema. He watches while she begins to tick off the avian flu indicators on her clipboard: edema, ruffled feathers, drop in egg production, depression, loss of appetite. He knows where this is headed.

  There’s nothing wrong with these chickens that better food and exercise won’t fix, he blurts.

  Oh come on, Henry, Elaine says. This flock has avian flu and you know it.

  No, it does not. These chickens are hybrids. They’re moulters. And their diet’s not been good.

  He knows he is offending Policy Number 4: workers do not contradict one another in the field. He also knows there is a big kill order on in the Department, but the order is largely at Elaine’s instigation and he can’t stand by while she sentences another flock without proper testing. Especially not this one. He does not wait to hear Elaine’s response. He grabs a transport case sitting by the feed sack and shoves six hens into it. They could do testing on-site if they really wanted to, but he’s desperate, although not sure why. Is it desperation to save the flock or to prove to himself that he’s right about something?

  I’m going to take these back for proper testing, he says.

  You do that and you’re fired, Henry, Elaine says.

  You can’t fire me, Henry answers.

  Oh, yes, I can. Maybe if you’d come to work more often, you’d know I was promoted on Friday to deputy chief inspector. You report directly to me now.

  Henry thinks briefly about phoning in to confirm, but knows it’s true. When he looks at the six blinking hens in the case, they seem to be saying Do it. Take us. He picks up the crate, walks to the Subaru, opens up the back, puts the chickens in and slams the trunk down. The words you report directly to me ring in his ears, but the quiet calm of Wendy’s face, eyelids opening and closing, keeps him steadfast. Out the open car window he calls to her.

  I’ll be back with your chickens. You’ll see, they’ll be healthy and recovered.

  He drives as fast as he can down the concession road, dust billowing behind him. He blows by a Swift Farms truck parked at the corner. He wonders why the truck is there, but forgets about it as he merges onto Highway 1 and a strange grating noise starts up behind the right front wheel. The noise worsens as he drives and when he’s in the middle lane trapped between a transport truck and a Greyhound bus, the car definitely veers to the right and he feels stuck in the cocoon of the car, believing everything broken down is his fault. The loop of self-loathing makes him think he doesn’t deserve help and somewhere in the loop he abandons the idea of taking the chickens in for testing in favour of taking them home with him. Back in Kitsilano, at the corner of Fourth and Vine, he has to pull over for fear the car will hop right up onto the curb by itself. He takes the crate with the chickens out of the back and begins to walk the remaining blocks home.

  He’s sweating profusely. The chickens are heavy despite their scrawny bodies. As he nears the end of his street, he has to set the crate down. He needs to think how he might sneak the chickens into the house before old Mrs. Krumpskey sees them and reports to City Hall that he’s brought livestock into the neighbourhood. When he turns the corner onto 7th Avenue, he’s distracted from thoughts of Mrs. Krumpskey by what he sees stacked on the curb. Chas and Jim must have begun their clean-up. He sets the crate down to look at the mound of garbage. None of it is the old newspapers and magazines, instead there’s chipped dishes, a scratched bedside table, and a broken lamp — as if random items have been pulled from the suite in haste. Maybe, he decides, they’re planning to redecorate and have begun by cleaning out old housewares.

  He looks at the chickens. He can tell by the way they cower in one corner that the walk home was stressful. He should get started building a coop, it’s nearing 3:00 in the afternoon and in two hours it will be dark. He picks up the chickens and heads down the side alley past the sodden mass of newspapers and magazines. When he gets to the suite, he’s startled to see the door is wide open.

  He sticks his head into the dark room and calls out, Hello.

  No one answers.

  He flips the light switch. It doesn’t work, but he can see there are more magazines in the middle of the living room and an old coffee table in the corner, and that’s about it. He sets the crate down in the room and walks to the kitchen. The sink is full of dirty dishes and the fridge has nothing in it but two dried-out lemons, a head of lettuce in the crisper that has turned to soup, and a carton of milk that he refuses to smell after the morning’s episode. They’d worked quickly to get out.

  The idea of them taking off without warning, not even a note, hurts. Especially Chas. He thought Chas was his friend. He wonders if Jim bullied him into leaving. But no time to get sunk into that now, he has live responsibilities needing his attention.

  TEN

  Cry Fowl

  HE STANDS IN THE BASEMENT suite living room for a moment to strategize. With the black paint and the curtains pulled, he has to blink like he would if he were inside a roosting coop. He hauls the crate into the middle of the room, closes the front door, and lets the hens out. They run for the corner near the baseboard heater. He turns up the thermostat but when he doesn’t hear the usual click, he remembers — there’s no hydro in the suite. He decides he needs to get the portable fan heater from upstairs and run an extension cord out his window.

  Once the fan’s set up, purring out heat, he cleans one of the dishes in the sink and fills it with water for the chickens, then goes to the backyard to search for insects. After ten minutes, he’s found only a couple of dead millipedes and one half-dead spider. He knows he has to organize something better, and since he can’t get to the nearest Co-op without his car, he walks up to the Chinese grocery store on Broadway where the grocer fancies himself a bit of a medicinal herbalist.

  Henry looks over the bins of food out front of the store. Mos
t of it is conventional, apples, peppers, and melons, but there are some dried fish in a sack that he can wash the salt off and mash together with soybeans, bran, and sunflower oil. He scoops several hundred tiny dead fish into a brown paper bag then walks to the back of the store to survey the few jars of herbal medicines the grocer keeps behind the counter. He’s looking for some sort of insect, but he can only see dried mushrooms, dried sea horses, and something that looks like tiny elk horns with tufts of monkey fur on them. He asks the grocer if he has any crickets or grasshoppers.

  Maybe grasshopper next week. Only ant, the grocer says.

  Henry orders a half-pound of ants and is shocked to see the scale price go over thirty dollars.

  How much for a half-pound of sea horses? he asks.

  Twenty-nine, the grocer says.

  It makes no sense that ants are more expensive than sea horses, but he’s in no position to dicker. He needs insects, not sea horses. He is almost out of the store when the grocer asks, You have bad blood? Maybe I have better product.

  Henry shakes his head no. I need these ants for my chickens, he says.

  You chicken? the grocer asks.

  No, I’m not chicken, I have chickens.

  The grocer looks confused, but Henry doesn’t feel like explaining that his car is abandoned at the side of the road, so he can’t drive to the Co-op to buy feed for the illegal chickens in his basement, nor does he feel like explaining that he’s lost his job because of the chickens, and that there’s a warrant out for his arrest in Idaho for a toppled transmission tower, so because of all of that, he can’t afford to pay for a cab to the feed store, and he has to buy expensive black ants.

  Thanks for the ants, he says as he walks out the door. He blinks in the milky winter light.

  It’s dark when Henry carries the bowl of mash down his front steps and follows the flashlight beam along the sidewalk toward the suite. He pushes open the door. The living room is already starting to get smelly and a trail of feathers leads from the door to the abandoned coffee table where the chickens have made their roost. They’ve pulled apart some of the magazines and mixed the paper with the dried grass he had brought in from the lawn. He turns off the flashlight. A few small moulted feathers have stuck to the black walls and ceiling. He’s dizzy a moment, like he’s space walking in a night sky.