Feral Chickens

by C. McGee

  Ethan and I laughed.

  Our repartee at a good stopping point, I told Charlie that he could find some of those little creamer cups in one of my drawers. Coffee in hand, I headed back into the living room leaving Charlie alone to ruin his drink in peace.

  “So what’s the plan for the day?” I asked Ethan, as I settled in next to him on the couch.

  “I don’t know. Maybe, go to the beach, maybe go hiking, maybe get a dog.”

  He intentionally delivered the “get a dog” line in an offhanded fashion. He thought I would be opposed. I wasn’t. It was unlikely that Ethan had given proper thought to the decision but I like dogs so I let his impulsivity slide.

  “Sounds good.” I replied, as though he had suggested we go sit on the patio.

  “Yeah?” He responded, surprised and excited by the lack of opposition.

  “Yeah,” I said, with a grin.

  “Oh, this is going to be awesome. I’m going to teach him to ride on my paddleboard and my long board and bring me the paper …”

  Ethan continued talking about his future dog for the next five minutes. I just drank my coffee and listened, entertained by his exuberance. It was cute. Sometimes I think guys never leave adolescence. Usually, that’s a bad thing but not always.

  “Well, my Internet went down so I was forced to watch regular television.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” I said, snidely.

  “I know. It was pretty terrible.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “Yeah, I hope you never have to go through that.”

  Ethan, Charlie, and I were in my car, headed down to the Humane Society in Lihue. Curious about Ethan’s sudden K-9 fancy, I had asked him about its origin.

  “Anyway,” Ethan continued, “I was flipping through the channels and I stumbled upon this dog agility competition, and it was amazing. They were leaping off docks, weaving through polls, catching Frisbees. Ridiculous stuff.”

  “Ethan, you know that those people worked for years with those dogs, right?”

  “Of course I do, you sass monster. I don’t want one of those agility dogs. That would be exhausting. If you would’ve let me finish the story you would know that.”

  “All right,” I laughed. “Go on.”

  “So, during one of the commercial breaks there was an advertisement for a weight reduction pet food and there were a whole bunch of chunky dogs in it, and they were awesome. Humongous fatties just lying there like, ‘Yeah, I’m morbidly obese. What of it?’ And I said to myself, ‘I need one of those dogs in my life right now.’ So, that’s what made me want a dog.”

  “You know that you’re kind of a weird dude, right?” Charlie said, matter-of-fact.

  “Debatable,” Ethan replied.

  Charlie and I shook our heads in amusement.

  Twenty minutes later we arrived at the humane society. Thirty seconds after that Ethan had his dog picked out. A twenty-pound Yorkie that he immediately dubbed ‘Biggie Smalls.’ It was the most ridiculous animal I had ever seen. Tiny and huge all at once, it was a living paradox—a furry, round paradox. Biggie Smalls seemed an appropriate name.

  Before we left they gave us a bunch of information and advice regarding how to best take care of Biggie.

  “And try and get her to the vet sometime this week,” was the last of their recommendations.

  “No problem,” I said. Then, turning to Ethan, I added, “I’ll take her tomorrow.”

  “But I can’t come with you tomorrow. I have that thing.”

  “It’s not a problem, I can bring her on my own.”

  “Oh, okay,” he replied, slightly confused but pleased.

  I was pleased as well. I wanted to go by myself. I had suggested the following day for that very reason.

  Chapter 18

  A Bulimic, a Strongman, and a Thief

  It would be disingenuous of me to assert that I walked Biggie to the vet. The distance between the dog park and the animal hospital was less than a mile, but that was three quarters of a mile too far for her. Biggie splayed her limbs and dropped her stomach to the concrete less than four hundred yards into the trip. I dragged her for a little while thinking that she would be spurred into motion, but I was wrong. She didn’t give a shit. That lazy bitch would rather die from road rash than exert herself for more than thirty seconds. I ended up carrying her most of the way. It was a surprisingly tiring task. Twenty pounds of terrier weighs far more than twenty pounds of dumbbell. I know that’s factually incorrect, but it’s true.

  I was still filling out paperwork when the veterinary assistant called for us. The speed with which we were summoned left me flustered. I was planning on having fifteen or twenty minutes in the waiting room, time to run through things in my head. Biggie’s lard ass threw a wrench in that plan.

  “Biggie, you indolent heffer,” I swore under my breath as we made our way to the exam room.

  “What’s that,” the vet tech inquired.

  “Oh nothing, just thinking out loud.”

  Biggie looked up at me, amused. Her face said, “Serves you right you exercise Nazi, making me walk, calling me names. Now this girl thinks you’re a schizo.”

  At least that’s what I took her face to mean. She was probably thinking, Where’s the food?

  After we arrived in the exam room, the vet tech began asking me questions while poking and prodding Biggie with a variety of devices. Biggie was unfazed, she just lay there on the metal table panting. She didn’t even react to the cotton swab up the butthole. “Oh, you want some of my shit?” I imagined her saying. “Well, go in there and get some then.”

  While the veterinary assistant had her eyes focused on Biggie’s anus, I looked around the room. There were some bottles on the shelf by the door that looked promising, but I couldn’t make out the labels. Leaning forward in my chair and squinting my eyes did little to help the clarity. Blurry lines on bottles, that’s all I could discern.

  “Okay,” the vet tech said as she stood up and walked over to the sink. “So Biggie’s vitals look good. Her blood pressure is a little high, but that’s to be expected for a dog of her size.”

  “It’s okay, you can call her a fatty. I’m not offended.”

  The tech smiled. “Well, yes, she is a bit of a fatty, but she’s young, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”

  “Good to hear,” I replied, trying to sound interested, my mind actually elsewhere.

  “A leaner diet and some exercise, and she’ll be fit in no time.”

  “Excellent.”

  “All right then, I’m going to go bring this stool sample to the back, and then I’ll let the doctor know that we’re ready for her.”

  “Perfect,” I said. It was perfect. With the vet tech out of the room, I would be free to inspect the bottles up close.

  As soon as she left, I stood up out of my seat and walked over to the shelves by the door. Beginning on the left side of the top shelf, I started reading labels, making my way across, carefully looking at each box and bottle. I cross-referenced the names of the drugs before me with the list in my head.

  • Atropine

  • Acetylpromazine

  • Carfentanil

  • Etorphine

  • Ketamine

  • Medetomidine

  • Midazolam

  • Xylazine

  These were the names of the drugs I was looking for. Sedatives. Tranquilizers. Shit that would put an animal down and keep it down.

  The idea to search the veterinarian’s for drugs had struck me the previous day while we were picking up Biggie. It was a simple solution to my transportation problem, one that I was ashamed I hadn’t thought of earlier. It would be difficult if not impossible to move conscious mongooses in a kayak. Sedated mongooses, however, would be a different story.

  Once I decided to raid the animal hospital for drugs, I spent the remainder of the day researching cat sedatives. Felines, I had decided, were more comparable to mongooses than canines. Ethan and Charlie did
n’t notice my absence. The new dog distracted them. My research efforts ended up yielding a list, which I committed to memory and then flushed down the toilet; a list that I was recalling as I searched through the drugs on the shelf.

  Meloxicam, no. Etodolac, no. Phenylbutazone, no. Doxycycline, no. Tylosin, no. Bismuth Subsalicylate, no. Aspirin, definitely not.

  Aspirin! Jesus Christ, I thought. I want to knock the fucking mongooses out, not ease their pain while reducing their risk for heart disease.

  The drugs before me, I concluded, were useless—low-level pain relievers and antibiotics, nothing more.

  “They must keep the real stuff in the back,” I said to myself, as I scanned through the last of the bottles. This fact wasn’t surprising; I figured that the serious medicine would be kept in a more secure location. Still, I was slightly disappointed.

  Having pilfered nothing, I walked across the room, sat back down in the chair next to Biggie, and began running through Plan B in my head. There wasn’t much to think about, it was a crudely drawn scheme that required as much luck as precision. Nevertheless, I went through it three times. When the vet and her assistant entered the room, I felt ready.

  “Hello, Ms. Kristiansen,” the vet said, as she walked in. “And hello, Biggie,” she added in a higher pitched tone.

  After shaking my hand, the doctor turned her attention toward the twenty-pound blob of brown and black fur occupying her examination table. She talked to me as she looked over Biggie Smalls, normal vet-type stuff: “Have you had any problems with her?” “What food are you giving her?” “How often does she poop?” That sort of thing. I paid enough attention to answer her questions but no more. The bulk of my focus was devoted toward psyching myself up for the task at hand.

  It took a few minutes for an opportunity to present itself, long enough that I was beginning to get antsy, long enough that I could have lost my focus, but I didn’t. The moment that the chance appeared I jumped on it.

  The doctor pressed on a lump near Biggie’s armpit, which resulted in Biggie letting out a yelp, which resulted in both the doctor and the tech focusing their attention intently onto the lump. With all eyes on the dog, I wound up and slapped myself in the face.

  It wasn’t an extremely hard slap, but it wasn’t a soft one either; light enough to keep the sound to a minimum, firm enough to inflict some damage. More specifically, firm enough to bloody my nose. As expected, the slap was a success. Ever since that incident with the chicken and the rich kid my nose has been prone to bleeds. The instant that my palm came into contact with the bridge of my nose the blood came gushing.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, holding cupped hands up to my face.

  “What is it?” the doctor replied casually, her attention still on Biggie. Then, as she moved her gaze upward and caught sight of my bloody appearance, she spoke again. This time more urgently, “Oh my god, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I just need a bathroom.”

  “Of course, come right this way.”

  The vet steered me toward the employee lavatory in the back. I knew she would. There was no way she was going to let her public restroom get spattered with blood.

  “Right in here,” she said, ushering me through the door.

  “Thank you so much,” I replied. “I’m really sorry. This is so embarrassing.”

  “No need to be embarrassed. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Oh, I am, I promise, this happens all the time, it’s nothing serious. You go ahead and get back to work, I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure? I can stay with you. I can—”

  “No,” I politely cut her off. “Really, this is not a big deal. A few minutes in the bathroom, and I’ll be as good as new.”

  “Okay,” she replied, a small amount of hesitancy in her voice. “Well, I’ll be back to check on you, all right?”

  “Sounds good,” I said, smiling through blood-covered hands.

  The doctor closed the bathroom door and headed back to the examination room. I listened to a few of her fading footfalls and then got to work.

  First things first, I grabbed a couple of tissues, rolled them up tight, and shoved them up my nose. It made me look ridiculous but it was efficient. Next, I wet a paper towel and scrubbed the blood off my face. I missed a few spots but removed enough of it to appear presentable. My face looking less like a horror show, I moved onto my hands, washing them quickly but thoroughly. Once all the traces of red were gone, I dried them using some paper towels that I had yanked haphazardly from the dispenser. In total, this clean up took around a minute. Had I not hurried it would have taken at least five. Simple subtraction told me that I had bought myself four minutes. When the doctor returned my appearance would not raise suspicion. I would look like a woman that had been cleaning herself up not like a woman that had been searching for drugs.

  It won’t be a total lie, I thought offhandedly. If everything goes as planned, I’ll have done both.

  I cracked the door and peaked out into the hall just in time to see the hem of the doctor’s white coat disappear into another examination room. As the door closed, I heard the sound of the tech’s voice,

  “Megan and Trixie,” she said, “this is Dr. Kealoha. Dr. Kealoha, Megan and Trixie.”

  “Nice to meet you Mega …” The veterinarian’s voice faded out as the door snapped shut.

  Both the doctor and the vet tech had just gone in to see a new patient. I figured that gave me at least six or seven minutes, a couple more than I had anticipated. Serendipitous.

  Not wasting a moment, I moved quickly over to a cabinet that rested on the far wall of the hallway. It looked promising, but its looks were deceiving—nothing but Q-tips and bandages and gauze inside. The adjacent cabinet was more of the same. I continued on rifling through drawers and closets, but save a handful of syringes, I found nothing of value. Knowing that my time was running short, I decided to return to the bathroom empty handed. It was a wise choice. The tranquilizers wouldn’t be of any use to me if I got caught with them. You can’t smuggle mongooses when you’re in prison.

  A moment after closing the bathroom door, I heard its exam room counterpart open. The sound of approaching footsteps followed. Acting on impulse, I opened my mouth and shoved my finger down my throat. As expected, vomiting commenced. Dr. Kealoha’s concerned voice came from the other side of the door.

  “Are you okay in there,” she inquired.

  I barfed one more time into the toilet and then walked over to the door, unlocked it, and stuck my head out to reply.

  “I am, I promise. It’s just the sight of all the blood made me a little sick.”

  “Okay, well, do you need anything? Do you want me to drive you to the hospital or something?”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine. I’ve always had a weak stomach. If you could just give me a few more minutes in here to clean up that would be great, then I’ll get out of your hair, I swear.”

  “Of course,” the doctor replied. “Well, if you need anything please just come and find me, I’ll be in one of the exam rooms seeing patients.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “No problem. And if you do start to feel better you can go back into the room with Biggie and wait there. As soon as we get a chance we will come in and brief you on how she’s doing.”

  “Sounds great, doctor.”

  The self-induced throw-up was an unorthodox maneuver. To be honest, I’m not even sure where the idea came from. I have never been one of those girls that felt the need to puke their way thin, nor have I ever been one to purge out the excess alcohol when I partied too hard. In fact, prior to that moment, I had never made myself vomit. It was an odd time to try it out, but, fuck it, it worked.

  Before exiting the bathroom for the second time, I looked at myself in the mirror. Noticing that the tissues hanging from my nose were stained with a trace amount of vomit, I pulled them out, threw them in the garbage, and replaced them with two new ones. Having removed the only vi
sible trace of sick, I washed my hands, rinsed my mouth, and then headed back out in search of drugs.

  My second effort was more successful than my first, at least initially. Through a crack between the bathroom door and the frame, I watched as the veterinarian and her assistant disappeared into another exam room. The coast clear, I slid out of the ladies’ room and into the first closet on the left. It was a random choice, but it was a good one. The shelves contained nothing but pharmaceuticals. Floor to ceiling it was packed with boxes, bottles, vials, and spray cans—a myriad of medicines in an assortment of containers.

  “Fuck,” I said involuntarily, taken aback by the amount of drugs before me.

  Taking a second to calm myself, I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly. Then I did it again, and then one more time. It was an attempt to impose composure on my body and it worked; my heartbeat reduced, and my mind centered as I let out the third slow breath. Equanimity achieved, I ran through the list in my head and then began methodically searching the closet. The first shelf yielded nothing, nor the second, nor the third. As I reached the end of the fourth, I felt a few beads of sweat make their way out of my armpits and down my sides. It wasn’t the exercise sort of sweat; it was the sitting on stage under lights kind of sweat. It was uncomfortable and a little disconcerting. The calm that I had achieved less than two minutes prior was quickly evaporating.

  Focus, Ingrid, I thought. Then I thought, I should change my deodorant to an antiperspirant. Then I thought, Seriously, Ingrid? You tell yourself to focus and then you start thinking about your pits. Get it together, lady.

  I shook my head in an attempt to gather myself and then recommenced the search. The fifth shelf proved to be as fruitless as its predecessors, the same with the sixth. Halfway through the seventh I noticed that my shirt was developing sizeable sweat patches in the underarm region. My anxiety was mounting. Short on time yet determined to succeed, I ignored my nerves and my pit stains and plowed on. The doggedness paid off. Midway through the eighth and final shelf, I came across a label that read “Acetylpromazine,” then another that read “Etorphine,” another that read “Ketamine,” and another that read “Xylazine.” It wasn’t my complete list, but it was a significant chunk. Quickly, I grabbed the drugs and threw them in my purse. Not all of them, just enough to do the job. Enough that the animal hospital would notice but not so much that they would notice right away.