The blood was then carefully placed in a tube, which was tucked into a ziplock bag, which was placed into a padded overnight envelope, which was shipped to a laboratory in Canada that would determine whether the sample came from a male or a female. I’m betting some poor bespectacled guy in a white lab coat would be as baffled about receiving a tube of chicken blood for a sexing test as I was in having a chicken sitting near me on a couch while I watched preteen television shows with two tired girls.
For weeks after that, Pam waited. She would check her computer numerous times each day to see if IDEXX Laboratories in Canada had reported back. It was the first thing she did in the morning and the last thing she did before going to bed at night. In between, she constantly gave Buddy the once-over, looking for any new signs of gender: soft crowing, mild aggression, or the slight desire to, say, lay an egg. But Buddy held her cards close to her chest, and the nice people at IDEXX were taking their sweet time. Nothing short of Buddy’s future was riding on the results. If Buddy was a hen, it meant she was good to go as a lovable lifelong pet, pecking around the yard, squawking at the door, and being fussed over by two adoring kids. The girls wouldn’t bid it farewell until they were turning to leave for college, where they would smile constantly as their roommates and friends repeatedly asked, “You have a what for a pet?”
A rooster? That was an entirely different story—perhaps a better story, depending on your perspective. Roosters were loud. Roosters could be aggressive. Roosters might hurt children and bug the living hell out of neighbors. Roosters didn’t quite fit into a regular house in a standard suburban neighborhood, all of which meant that Buddy might find himself living a more—how shall I say it—traditional rooster life. Think of a distant, rural town, a farm populated by many other creatures that looked and acted just like him. I’m not so sure he’d like that, which somehow made me like it even more.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks became a month. I was wondering what business IDEXX was actually in when Pam’s cell phone rang. The young woman from Pam’s office had no idea how much anticipation had been built up, the hope and fears riding on this one piece of information, and simply announced, “You’ve got yourself a rooster.” And there you have it. Brazilians know their birds.
When Pam called me at work, I could vaguely make out the word “rooster” through the sniffles and tears. “The results came back?” I asked, seeking clarity.
“Yes,” she said, slightly annoyed now. “Buddy’s a rooster.”
Do not smile. Do not laugh. Do not attempt a rooster joke.
Do not shout. Do not sing. Do not weep with joy.
I told her calmly that things would work out. Everything would be all right. That night, Pam sat the girls down at the kitchen table and informed them of the news. Abigail was the one who’d brought Buddy into this world. She was the one who’d had the idea for the science fair project. She was the one who watched Buddy more closely than anyone else, who drew Buddy pictures at school, who could cluck like Buddy, walk like Buddy, capture Buddy when she ran and hid under a table or chair because she realized somebody was going to make her go back outside. She was also the one, on that night, who promptly burst into tears, opening the way for her mother and sister to cry as well. That was the scene I walked in on as I arrived at their house after work.
“Guys, I’m so sorry,” I said, doing my absolute best to act it. “But you’ve got to know, Buddy’s going to be really happy for many, many years to come, happy with all his chicken friends.”
“Tests can be wrong!” Abigail kept repeating through her tears, her words a mix of anger and sadness. “It happens all the time. They get the test wrong.”
For a while, it was dead chicken walking—though the chicken didn’t actually know it. No, the chicken was getting even more of the royal treatment than he was used to, and I don’t think either of us thought that was possible.
The kids were constantly summoning him inside, positioning him between them as they watched television, stroking him as he clucked around the floor, allowing him to peck at a bowl of corn in the kitchen as they ate their own macaroni-and-cheese dinners. “We love you so much, Boo-Boo” became the refrain of the day, often said in chorus. I just kept waiting, never saying anything, knowing this was headed—perhaps not as fast as I’d expected—toward an inevitable departure.
One morning I woke up in suburbia at what seemed like first light. The kids were at their father’s house for the weekend. There was an odd sound floating into the bedroom window from the garage, something between a moan and a bark, like a space alien missing his home planet a thousand galaxies away.
“The hell is that?” I said, mostly to myself, but Pam, wide awake beside me, answered.
“Buddy’s finding his voice,” she said. She said it without seeming particularly upset about it, not sad, not frantic, not anything. Actually, she was kind of clinical in the way she can sometimes be when she gets into Dr. Bendock mode.
Come to think of it, the gloom that had engulfed the Buddy situation in the first hours and days after the results came back seemed to have lifted, until it suddenly disappeared. The renewed urgency in finding Buddy a home had drifted toward complacency. Shortly after the news, Pam began burning up the phone lines again. In desperation, she reached out to the local author of a book titled Tillie Lays an Egg, Terry Golson. Terry trained her hens like dogs, set up an elaborate backyard system of protected pens, and fired up what she calls a HenCam, allowing visitors to her website to watch her chickens frolic in their home. For Buddy, though, she had foreboding news. She told Pam she couldn’t take an outside rooster into her flock and it would be very unlikely that anyone else would, either. There were too many disease risks and too high a chance that a sexually jacked-up newcomer could change the dynamics of any situation. It sounded like college.
Terry was right. Drumlin Farm, the Massachusetts Audubon sanctuary located about ten minutes from Pam’s house, said no dice, as did Codman Community Farms, a perfectly wonderful place located nearby. Somebody at one of the farms went so far as to say, “You should probably just put the rooster down.” That person, quite obviously, didn’t know Pam.
But as I said, the sadness, the hand-wringing angst, it all just kind of dissipated, and in its place was Buddy doing what he always had: frolicking in the yard, moseying through the bushes in search of ticks and other bugs, pecking at the door when he thought there might be something better going on inside, which was quite often. And as always, at the end of the day, he headed to the safety of the high shelf in the garage for a good night of sleep. The kids didn’t seem so mournful. Pam wasn’t bringing up the topic with me nearly as much. It got to the point that when the actual sex certificate—I wish I could get one of those someday, by the way—arrived in the mail, declaring Buddy to be a full-fledged, hen-loving rooster, they posted it on the refrigerator door. Their worst fear was now a proud proclamation.
As I headed out with the dogs that morning, I hit the button on Pam’s truck for the garage door, then stepped inside. The first thing I noticed that I hadn’t seen before were the dark, heavy beach towels covering the three windows, undoubtedly to block out sunlight that would cause him to crow even earlier. I took a closer look at them and saw that Pam had actually nailed them to the walls. She meant business.
Buddy jumped from the shelf to the table, from the table to the chair, from the chair to the floor, in his well-practiced morning ritual. As he walked by me in his self-important way, he made a feint at a bobbing sidestep, then decided I wasn’t worth it and marched out the door into the light. As I gazed at him waddling toward the dogs, an odd emotion washed over me, something that I imagine wouldn’t be dissimilar to how a workaholic father must feel when he one day looks at his son and realizes he’s not a boy but a young man, with stubble on his face and a deep voice, and he has no idea how or when that must have happened.
Buddy all of a sudden looked a lot like a rooster, and I don’t believe I had ever seen a live, up-close roo
ster before. An agrarian I am not. But gone was the demure, henlike creature with the soft, rounded head and tentative gait. In its place was a minimonster with a broad chest, a cherry red comb sprouting atop its snow-white face, and a walk that oozed the kind of confidence a star lineman would have on his way across the field before the big game. Holy shit, I thought to myself, I may really and truly be stuck with this creature for life.
On more than a couple of occasions, I had come across Pam in the dim light of her computer screen at the end of a long day, staring at stories and journal articles about roosters. The life of a working single mother is nothing short of physically and emotionally exhausting. The children want her undivided attention. They are constantly scrambling and seeking more and more of their mother—more of her touch, more of her emotions, more of her time, her help, her words of praise and encouragement. Work, as in her veterinary clinic, is constantly in need of her, with veterinarians looking for input, the manager looking for insight, vet techs looking for guidance or time off, clients looking for her support and advice. Then there’s me—let’s go to a Red Sox game, let’s have dinner, let’s head to Maine. Of course, there’s also herself and the need everyone has to spend some time in her own mind, sorting out the often frantic events of the moment and contemplating where it all goes from there.
I’d find her bleary-eyed, her blond hair mussed up, wearing her pale blue surgical scrubs just before bed, peering at a science journal discussing “rooster aggression” or on a website called My Pet Chicken reading a discussion about crowing roosters. I had assumed all of that would only further convince her that Buddy had to go, that it just wasn’t normal, or even possible, to keep a crowing, growing rooster in a suburban house. I mean, hens were weird enough. Now, playing the silence over in my mind, the beach towels on the windows, the lack of gloom over Buddy’s gender, it was becoming obvious that I was reading things all wrong. The tide had turned in Buddy’s favor, and nobody had told me to pick up my beach blanket before it got all wet.
But don’t panic. Never panic. That particular morning, I played fetch with the dogs. I got coffee. I had a few Dunkin’ Munchkins in the car on the way back to Pam’s house. It was a beautiful, summery day, one that carried endless possibilities, and I wasn’t going to let it be shrouded by the fear of a loud, obnoxious animal hijacking the last remnants of normalcy in my fading urban life. Still, I needed clarity. I needed to understand my new reality. Only facts would allow me to create and assess options, and I was good—by dint of my career—at uncovering facts. When we pulled into the driveway, the dogs and I, Pam was sitting on the front stoop reading the morning paper. Buddy was sitting right beside her. As we walked toward her, Pam smiled and Buddy stood protectively, letting out a long “Eeeeeeyowwwwwww.”
From a distance we talked about what we wanted to do that day, whether it was worth driving up to Maine, whether there were errands we should run, any open houses we should see on Sunday. That’s when I reached inside myself and pulled out the obvious and inevitable question that needed to be asked: “What’s the deal with the bird? I haven’t heard you talk anymore about where he’s going to end up.”
Pam petted his feathers for a moment, her eyes away from mine. She said, “Nobody’s going to take him, and I’m not going to put him down. And if you really think about it, why should we get rid of him in anticipation of a problem when those problems haven’t come up yet?”
“What if he goes after your kids?” I asked, leading with my best cards first.
She looked up at me and said, without hesitation, “If he does, he’s gone that day. You know I’m not going to mess around with that. But I’ve been researching roosters, and everywhere I look, it says that when you handle them a lot as chicks, they’re far less inclined to be aggressive when they grow up.”
Well, the three Bendock women certainly had the handling part pretty well covered. There are newborn babies that don’t get handled as much as that bird.
“His bird poop?”
“It washes off. And it’s great for the lawn.”
I went in for the final thrust. Pam, you see, may be the most considerate person on the planet, which is probably why we do so well together—they say opposites attract. Anyway, she would never, ever intentionally do even the slightest thing that might anger or annoy or frustrate anyone else. So I asked, “What about the neighbors?”
The neighbors, as in the people living next to the crowing rooster, the people who may not be Boo-Boo friendly, people who would logically ask what on God’s green earth we were doing keeping a screeching farm animal in the middle of a residential town. Couldn’t she picture, in the neighborhood she lived in now, and after we eventually moved into our new house, the inevitable knock on the door, the neighborhood petition, the furious demands that we keep the peace? I had read about such people in stories in my very own newspaper, angry neighbors who took exception to the burgeoning backyard chicken movement, and those people were upset over hens. A rooster? Seriously, imagine having a rooster next door? Those people, aka my salvation. All I needed one was old curmudgeon. Or a young one. I’m not picky.
Pam paused. She looked at Buddy, then at me, and said, “We’ll see.”
And did we ever see. We saw Wendy and Lisa, Pam’s across-the-street neighbors, come over constantly and play with Buddy. When they didn’t come over, Buddy would sometimes stand at the edge of Pam’s lawn and holler to them for attention. We saw one next-door neighbor constantly talking to Buddy along the fence. Pam arrived home early from work one day to find a young boy and his nanny in her backyard feeding Buddy bits of cheese, which, knowing this bird’s luck, was probably imported.
The nanny told Pam that the boy barely communicated with anyone but every afternoon would say to her, “Buddy. Go see Buddy.” When they met, Buddy would gently take the cheese as the boy talked up a storm to him, telling the bird about his day, his life, his dreams, Buddy clucking along in response.
Traffic gradually increased on Pam’s street, which was bizarre, given that it was a dead end—or a cul-de-sac, as they call it in towns like hers. Drivers would slow to a near halt outside her house, searching for the snow-white bird with the red accessories. Sometimes he’d be sitting on the stoop. Other times he’d be pecking through the bushes. Still other times he might be napping on the lawn. Regardless, he was becoming a mini–tourist attraction, a local destination, a neighborhood mascot. Word of his presence filtered all through town, and not in a negative way.
Who was it who told me chickens were supposed to be stupid? Look at the size of their head, never mind the marble-sized brain within it. But as I was watching him, I had to say to myself, Here is one evil genius. He pecked at the door when we were inside, knowing full well that if he was annoying enough, he would inevitably be let in. When nobody was home, he’d just sit and wait on the front steps for someone, anyone, to get back. Whatever room we were in, he would stand outside the window and squawk. He would come when called, typically sprinting across the yard in his dinosaur run if it was Pam, whom he worshipped. He followed her around like a dog. He would eat out of a bowl, careful not to knock it over. And, most disturbing, he was always a total hamball for the right people, meaning the female people, and put on this calculated, goofy, adorable show. Of course, it only became more apparent how he felt about me. By midsummer, I had abandoned all hope of a valiant curmudgeon coming to the rescue. And despite how my script read, Buddy wasn’t acting aggressive, at least toward Pam and the kids, and nobody in the house was losing any interest in him in the way that sometimes happens with pets.
“You know,” Pam said, “Buddy has allowed us to get to know the neighbors. Without him, we just wave back and forth over long distances. With him around, we all talk. It’s just another thing I love about him.”
Oh, you little feathery doll. One day, when Pam was out doing errands and the kids were in the basement playing horses, I went online and Googled: average life span of a rooster.
Peck, peck, pe
ck, peck.
All sorts of chicken websites spewed forth—chicken this and chicken that, farm journals, discussion groups, chicks-for-sale sites. My eyes were wide open at this whole new world that, like it or not, I was now part of.
Peck, peck, peck, peck, peck, peck, peck.
Buddy was knocking on the front door to get inside. It was growing louder as he grew impatient, longing for some more time with the kids.
He wasn’t going to get me, though. I continued my search, smiling to myself, clicking open a site, scrolling to the part about roosters and longevity. That’s when I almost keeled over: “A healthy, well-cared-for rooster can live to be 15 years or more.”
PECK, PECK, PECK, PECK.
No, this can’t possibly be right. Please, someone, somewhere, tell me this isn’t right. Fifteen years? A chicken? What about the food chain? What about all those hawks that fly in the suburban sky? What about the coyotes that are supposedly taking over the state?
Please? Please!
PECK PECK PECK PECK PECK.
I had my head in my hands. I heard the girls’ voices emerging from the basement, one of them exclaiming, “Poor Boo-Boo, c’mon inside.” Then I heard the satisfied squawk of an entitled chicken in the front hallway.
This was not going as planned.
13
I’ll never forget the only thought that rattled through my shocked brain the first time I walked down the rough-hewn path that snaked between a couple of weathered cottages and through the sand dunes, then stood on the white sands of Goose Rocks Beach looking out at the calm, crystal blue waters of the Maine coast.
Holy shit.
I’d never seen anything like it. There were no stones, no trash, no crowds, no blaring boom boxes, no Skee-Ball machines, no amusement park, no hot dog carts, no nothing except for powdery sand that squeaked underfoot, acre upon acre of firm, khaki-colored ocean floor revealed by the retreating tide, and a long sandbar that took people out to the wooded environs of Timber Island.
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