I’ve called the police!
What for? Chas shouts back.
Public disturbance, she says stepping onto their front lawn.
Henry says, How is this disturbing you?
This is unsightly. You and your mother —
You’re talking about my mother, he snaps. My mother who died nearly three years ago. Enough! Go inside your house and don’t look out your window.
By the time the police arrive, Henry has secured the head of the chicken to the chimney, so at least that much is clear about what he and Chas are doing. The male police officer is first out of the squad car. What in gawd’s name is that? he asks, pointing to the roof.
It’s kinda cute, the female officer says. My kids would love it.
Mrs. Krumpskey comes back over to stomp around and make allegations of public disturbance, nuisance, endangerment, and every other quasi-criminal term she can think of. Her grey hair is wild off the side of her head, and her support hose is balled at the ankles. The two police officers let her exhaust herself. The female officer finally says, Sorry, ma’am, there’s nothing criminal going on here. But we’ll write it up for the bylaw officer to look into.
This seems to be enough for Mrs. Krumpskey who turns to Henry and says, See.
Get off our knitting, Chas says to her.
She jumps off the panel she’s standing on, streaks over the lawn faster than a woman her age should be able to, across the street, and up her front steps. She slams the door.
The officers are taking down Henry’s address and phone number when Aristedes pulls up in his deli truck. Henry, fearing what might happen next, is relieved that Chas knows enough to keep Aristedes busy at the truck until the cops pull away. Good thing too, because Aristedes has brought his final box of knit products — a set of pendulous orange balls.
For the bum bag of the chicken, he says, holding them up triumphantly.
Don’t let Mrs. Krumpskey see that, Chas says.
Something for the kids to play with when their parents look at the cozy, Aristedes says.
I never saw a hen with nuts before, Henry says. Besides, nobody but Mrs. Krumpskey and us are gonna be looking.
Wait to see, Aristedes says confidently.
What are we going to call this trans chicken? Chas asks.
How about Angel for Chocolate Kiss, Henry says.
Ooh very artistic, Aristedes coos. And don’t forget, eighteen roasters and a baker’s dozen for next week.
He drives away leaving Henry and Chas to stitch up Angel for Chocolate Kiss. Three of the four sides are finished when they call it quits for the day. The unsecured west panel flaps gently in the breeze and they go into Chas’ room to see if they can anchor it from the inside. There, with each flap, light from the setting sun bounces off the vanity mirror.
I have an idea, Chas says.
What? Henry asks.
Chas starts to pull Day of the Dead characters from the knitting cupboard, the drawer in the coffee table, and the dining room hutch.
Before we close this chicken up, let’s celebrate your mother. This cozy is for her. She deserves a pageant.
The number surprises them. Nearly two hundred. An impressive collection — women with babies, men with brooms, trombones, and guitars.
But it’s the small boy with a plastic chick in his arms that stops Henry. The little fellow dressed the way he used to as a child. A shy smile on the boy’s white skull face. He is holding one of the chicks from the farm set. Henry picks it up and rubs the clay face. How delicately his mother painted the faces. He opens up the knit cardigan. There’s a little heart stitched onto the boy’s shirt and an embroidered xoxo Mom underneath it.
Henry puts on the Santana album and the two of them set up the Dead figures while “Black Magic Woman” plays. To the sound of a wailing guitar they make a procession of Dead figures beginning in the television room, following the wainscoting down the hall and into what was Alice’s room. They encircle her vanity with female characters.
Let’s stitch these figures onto the cozy, says Chas.
Really?
Sure. Let them hang out. Your mom had a great sense of humour, he says.
You think so?
God yes. That whole Cruella de Ville phase? Alice with the green fingernails? That was funny.
It pours rain the next day so Chas and Henry don’t get around to attaching any of the Dead. Instead they place a strangely shaped cow on the grass to be sure the clay face doesn’t dissolve in the wet. On the Monday, when Henry stops at home for a quick lunch between deliveries, he’s happy to see the cow looks pretty much unchanged despite the sopping rain. He’s at the counter bolting down a plate of leftover ratatouille and dolmathes, when he looks out through the flap he and Chas created at the kitchen door to see Elaine and Bob in the backyard. They’re circling the house, trying to figure out a way in.
What do you want? Henry calls through the flap.
Hi Henry, Elaine says, as if they are friends.
Bob and I wanted to talk to you, she says. What are you doing anyway?
Not your business, Henry answers.
Can we come in?
Nope.
Okay, can we leave an affidavit here for you to sign?
About what?
About me being unfairly fired from Agriculture.
No. In fact, I’m going to testify against you.
Fuck you then, Bob says.
Bob! Elaine exclaims. That’s not helping.
Just then the phone rings and Henry says, Gotta go. He lets the flap fall.
The man on the line says his name is John and he is calling from the city. He wants to know when it would be convenient for him to drop over. It’s odd. The fellow sounds upbeat. Mrs. Krumpskey’s complaint is anything but exciting, but best just to get it over with. He agrees to meet with John the next day after he’s finished delivering chickens.
Could I come at 4:30? John asks.
Okay. I guess I can speed my day up a bit.
Good. We want to get a look at your structure in the daylight.
On the Tuesday at two minutes past 4:30, Henry hears laughter in the backyard. Two men and a woman are poking at the giant balls on Angel for Chocolate Kiss.
Hi, he says. You from the city?
He’s surprised the city has put three people on the case. He knows it’s like any other government, not always that efficient, but really, three bylaw inspectors seems over the top.
I’m Kate and this is Alex. We’re here from the Outsider Art Fair.
And I’m John, the other fellow says. From the city.
This is fantastic, Kate says.
Can you tell us what inspired it? Alex asks.
Well, he says, I was lying in a mud puddle outside a bar in Idaho and I saw a blueprint for it in the sky.
Incredible, Alex says.
Wow, Kate says. That’s wonderful for the biography.
What biography? What’s this about? he asks.
A ringing sounds starts to come from inside Kate’s handbag. They all watch while she pulls out a device that looks like a TV remote and pushes a button and begins to talk. It’s the first time Henry’s been up close to a mobile phone. For some reason he doesn’t trust it.
Sorry, she says, stashing the phone. Alex and I are from the International Outsider Art Fair. We’re based in Chicago, but we’ve chosen Vancouver as the next host city, and —
Alex interrupts. We’re just so excited to see your piece. We’d like to feature it on the posters and invitations. Did you build it for the fair?
No, I built it for my mother.
She must be thrilled, Kate says.
She’s dead, Henry answers.
Oh. Nice. A memorial! Kate says.
The fair runs for the month of August, Alex says, through Labour Day weekend. This can be a centrepiece.
Well, you have a problem then, Henry says. The house is under foreclosure, due to be put on the market at the end of August.
Can you do
something about that? Kate asks John.
I’ll look into it, John answers.
Good, so you will sign on? Agree to be part of the fair? She looks at Henry.
Well, I’m an outsider, I agree with that much.
Fabulous. There is possibility in everything, she says. Her purse bleeps again.
When Henry tells Chas about the fair, his only advice is to shave the beard. Bit of a cliché to be a bearded artist, don’t you think? Chas says.
Henry agrees and since summer is coming it might be good to have the winter growth off. He snips with scissors at the longer pieces; the mostly blond tendrils fall into the sink and cover the pink porcelain. After he’s removed as much as he can with scissors, he picks up the razor. He tackles the left cheek first. Once it’s clear of whiskers, a trickle of blood flows from the bottom of his mole. He dabs it with a piece of toilet paper before he starts scraping the right cheek. When he’s clean-shaven he stands back to have a look. Thinner in the face than he remembers — but okay. And who is it that he looks like? Someone. Tom’s father. He had a mole at just about the same place. Maybe a mole suits a grown-up better than a child. Like a distinguishing feature. He stands back even farther and is struck by how much he looks like Tom’s father. Could it really be that simple? Had the answer been living next door for so many years? He stands straight before the mirror, new strength in his spine.
The media team from Chicago seems to know how to rev up an event. Arts reporters from everywhere begin phoning Henry for interviews. He barely has time to get his chicken and egg deliveries done. After he tells one reporter from the New York Times he’s not an artist, he’s just a chicken farmer, the myth of the farmer with the Artistic Oeufre — a not-so-clever phrase coined by the wretched reporter — grows. Fair organizers appoint a publicist to help him take calls, and it’s a good thing because soon he is the poster boy for several special interest groups. The chicken farmers of British Columbia ask for his endorsement, as do various performance artist groups, the feminist crafters and — after Aristedes points out to one art critic visiting the house that this is a hen with balls — a transgender support group.
Crowds arrive to visit the giant chicken cozy covered in Day of the Dead figures well before the fair officially opens. Charity and Peter come up from Idaho to help with a satellite display to be run out of a tent in the backyard to which other knit reactor artists have contributed, including a display of Charity’s muffwarmers with new designs in flamingo pink, mink brown, and a special one with knitted flames called Dirty Annie.
It isn’t until Henry sees Charity emerging from the tent, her breasts perky in a peach-coloured bustier, he’s reminded he’s hardly had time to think about sex. That’s a good thing, he thinks. Or is it?
By the time the fair is ready to open on the August long weekend, the lawn at Henry’s house has been trashed and the foreclosure bank, which has attempted to bring an injunction to prohibit further wasting of the property, has been temporarily shut down by the city throwing money at it.
On the Saturday of opening day, media crews, reporters and crowds of onlookers choke off the street.
Henry can’t believe it. He’s to be interviewed by TV personality Terry David Mulligan, the Boss Jock at CKLG back in the day. It’s a good thing Mulligan has a lot to say, mostly an artspeak treatise on craft as performance, because Henry is tongue-tied in his presence. He’s just about to attempt an answer to Mulligan’s question, How much time do you spend knitting? when Mrs. Krumpskey — who’s been beside herself with the noise and the confusion and locked inside for most of the month of July — bursts from her house.
I’m calling the cops, she screams.
Henry, awkward and hyperaware that there’s a live mike in his face begging for a response, is adrift in a mixture of humiliation, intimidation, and anger. He leans forward and shouts, Craft off, Mrs. Krumpskey.
The crowd roars in appreciation and Mulligan can’t help himself but start to dance, mike in hand, singing a breathy rendition of “Super Freak”. A reporter from the Vancouver Sun uses his mobile phone to call in Henry’s response as a headline for an article that is syndicated around North America that afternoon.
Henry’s interviewed by the Vancouver Sun, the Seattle Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Coeur d’Alene Press and a bunch of art magazines he never even knew existed. Invitations come in asking him to participate in arts festivals across the Pacific Northwest. Kate and Alex counsel him to hold out for the big ones, especially for an invitation from the Venice Biennale — which never comes — but Aristedes, now Henry’s self-proclaimed manager, gets in touch with the Athens News and tells them Henry’s next project will be the construction of a giant knitted womb that spews Greek incantations. The National Gallery in Athens responds with an invitation to create a special exhibit with the womb as its centrepiece . . .
On the last night of the fair, after a month of too much activity, Henry and Chas are quietly watching a news special featuring some of the highlights, including the Mulligan interview, the crowd roaring at Henry’s craft off comment, and a shot of the devastated Mrs. Krumpskey.
Oh that’s not right, Henry says. I have to make it up to her. Maybe I should invite her to take the inaugural snip at the closing gala tomorrow.
Are you sure that’s a good idea? Chas asks.
I’m not sure of anything, but I’m going to ask her.
When the special is over, Henry gets up from the television, goes out the back flap and across the street to knock on Mrs. Krumpskey’s door.
She opens it a crack. What do you want?
Would you like to come over tomorrow to help dismantle the chicken?
No. She closes the door firmly.
Henry sleeps badly. It’s not so much her closing the door, it’s the karma that bothers him. Karma is a concept he’s been introduced to by some of the people he’s met in the art world and he’s concerned his unskillful treatment of Mrs. Krumpskey will lead to bad events in the future.
By next afternoon, cars are parked down side streets halfway to Jericho Beach and people have driven from as far away as Seattle and Portland. Wendy and her guitar-playing boyfriend from Idaho arrive, Joey and Lucy drive in from Langley with Norman, who brings macadamia nut pie. Chief from Agriculture is there, giving his usual thumbs up.
The one who takes him aback though is Orville Johnson. He’s there with his hat in hand, the same hat he wore to Alice’s funeral.
I saw you on the telly, Henry, he says, Thought I’d come around and congratulate you. I’m proud of you.
Thank you, Mr. Johnson, Henry mumbles.
Call me Orville.
Okay. Thank you, Orville.
I don’t think you know as many people care about you as what they do, Orville says, as he surprises him with a hug.
Thank you again, Orville. Come by when all this is over.
Orville nods and scoots out of the way of an over-serious young journalist trying hard to look arty in a black turtleneck and leggings, who’s with the TV crew arriving to film the snip that will mark the end of the fair.
As the various city officials line up to get their faces on camera, Henry gives up on the idea of Jamie Lee showing up. But he won’t let go of the good karma of inviting Mrs. Krumpskey. He takes the official scissors across the street and mounts her porch steps.
You’re sure you won’t come and do this for me? he shouts through the window.
The curtains part. She shakes her head no.
The mayor is coming, he says. You’ll be on TV.
Oh, she mouths.
The curtain falls, and it’s several minutes before she pops her overly rouged face out to ask, Do I look all right?
You look lovely, he says.
She follows him across the street and around to the side of his house where the crew is set up with lights under umbrellas. The mayor is there, getting a touch of makeup.
Mrs. Krumpskey blushes and holds out her hand. Pleasure to meet you, Your Worship.
>
Can we get this rolling, barks one of the crew.
Henry passes her the scissors and points to a spot on the stitching up the west panel and Mrs. Krumpskey cuts.
A small cheer goes up.
Then Henry snips off a Day of the Dead man holding a bouquet of flowers and hands it to Mrs. Krumpskey.
A louder cheer goes up.
May blessings come to you, Mrs. Krumpskey says.
By the time the gala is finally over and the orange city barricades are removed from the ends of the street, the chicken cozy looks ragged. It won’t be properly dismantled until the following day when the local cable station’s cherry-picker is available. Henry is exhausted. He, Chas and Aristedes have retreated to the backyard where Aristedes has moved his grill in from the street. Rain threatens. It is the last supper before Angel for Chocolate Kiss comes down and the house is properly listed for sale.
Henry’s reclining lawn chair is wedged under one of the giant knit tail feathers. His eyes are closed and he’s not thinking much. A musical aahhh-eehhh is coming from around the corner and, just like the first time, when he was driving across the Lions Gate Bridge, he is listening to Jamie Lee’s voice.
There you all are, Jamie Lee says. Aahhh-eehhh.
Wow, you came. He can’t say anything more just yet. He’s busy filling his memory with the sight of her coming around the corner of his cozied house.
Dora, I mean Charity, said I had to get up here before the chicken comes down. It’s spectacular. Aahhh-eehhh.
It is. It is stupendes! Aristedes splashes the grill with ouzo.
Chicken fat mixed with alcohol flares, and one of the orange balls catches on fire.
Opa! Aristedes shouts.
The yarn flames up the back of the chicken. Chas rushes for the garden hose, and Aristedes throws on a bucket of water, but to no avail. In a matter of minutes, the flames are out of control.
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