Chicken

We always took something home after visiting the farm. It might be a bushel basket of greens: swiss chard, green onions, and the long leafy greens going purple before they hit the sweet rounds of beets on the ends. Sometimes it might be a basket of eggs, still warm and with bits of straw stuck to them. Grandma’s eggs tasted better than store-bought, although they often had spots of blood. Because they’d been fertilized, said Maybe, and I wondered if chicken shit would turn anything bloody. It could be frozen chunks wrapped in yellow paper, pieces of the bull calves Uncle Roy butchered. In winter it was often a box or two of bottles rattling gently against the cardboard placed between them: quarts of peaches, pears with a slice or two of orange, cherries (my favorite), tomatoes; pints of green beans, corn, beets. Smaller jars for the vegetables, said Grandma, and longer cooking to get the botulism out, which could kill you flat dead.

One night, it was a live chicken tossed into a burlap bag. Kody and I were quiet on the drive home, our ears stuck flat to the back seat, listening for the thumps and bumps, the quiet clucks that occasionally lifted into loud squawks. We had a real live chicken. “Can we name it?” whispered Kody. Maybe’s sharp ears caught that. She turned in the front seat to whisper back: “Its name is Dinner.”

When we got home, Daddy transferred the chicken, bag and all, from the trunk to the back porch. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Off to bed now, you two.”

The next day our back yard was filled with kids: our friends, and some we’d never seen before. There were even some grownups hanging around to watch the execution. Daddy brought the bag out, Maybe grabbed the chicken’s legs through the burlap, and Daddy untied the knot. There was a lot of squawking and flapping of white wings as the bird tried to get loose, but Maybe had done this before and she kept her grip tight. She swung the chicken onto the stump Daddy used to chop kindling, and Daddy’s axe came whomp! right down on its neck.

We thought that would be the end of it, but Maybe let go and the headless chicken went flapping and running, tripping and spraying blood. Maybe laughed at our astonished faces. “I’ve even seen one fly up into a tree without its head.”

When the chicken finally quieted down, Maybe scooped it up and headed for the house. My best friend Lily’s brother Jess, who was almost ten and the smartest kid we knew, shook his head in wonder. “When I grow up,” he said softly, “I’m going to write a book about this.” That could only mean this was a bona fide amazement, and I pledged to remember it forever.

I ran after Maybe, who was on the back porch, chopping off its feet. She skinned and gutted it, tossing feathers and offal into a bucket. “It doesn’t look like a chicken,” I said. She laughed. “The ones you get in the stores still have their skins on, but I can’t see bothering with plucking.” She hauled what was left of the carcass into the kitchen and plopped it into the sink. “You’ll see, Baby. It will taste just fine. Oh, look!” I ran to the sink and stood on my tiptoes to see. She pointed to a round white something inside and leaned to whisper in my ear. “It’s an egg, Baby. If we’d waited another day, she’d have laid it for us.”

I found it strangely disturbing, that unlaid egg, and I fought back tears as I watched Maybe chop the chicken into pieces and drop them into a pan. She was right, though. The chicken tasted just fine, even better than store-bought. While the most of it was cooking, she dropped a pat of butter into a pan and fried up the giblets. Kody burst into the kitchen about then, knocking over a chair in his haste to tell us everything everyone in the backyard had said and done. He stopped short as Maybe lifted the liver from the pan and put it on a small plate. “Ick. You’re gonna eat that gizzard, ain’t you.”

“Don’t say ain’t,” said Maybe.

Kody threw out his arms and helicoptered around the room. “Gizzard, lizard, buzzard guts; Maybe eats them ‘cause she’s nuts.”

Maybe adroitly waved the plate under his nose as he turned. “Like some liver, Kody? Daddy won’t mind sharing.”

Kody screamed and ran.

Maybe winked at me. “Liver is good for so many things. Would you like the heart, Baby?”

I nodded, my concern about the unlaid egg disappearing. She skewered the small cone with a fork and handed it to me. “Hot, Baby.”

I blew on it, thinking about the time I’d asked Daddy how big my heart was. “Hold up your fist,” he’d said, and then tapped my curled fingers. “Your heart is as big as your fist.” Here I was with the chicken’s heart on a fork, and the chicken hadn’t even had a fist. When it was cool enough, I pulled it off with my teeth, rolled it on my tongue, crunched it so the meaty juices flowed out. The only thing better was the oysters on the back of the bird, but I couldn’t count on getting one of those.

Daddy always ate the neck, not at the table, but sitting afterward in the big rocking chair as we watched TV. He’d pull it apart, sucking carefully on each small vertebra, until there was nothing but a pile of tiny clean bones.

Kody and I usually got the drumsticks or thighs, and Daddy watched carefully to see that we ate every last bit of meat. One night I asked for a wing. He squinted at me. “Sure you’re ready for a wing, Baby?” I nodded, kicking my heels against the rung of the chair. He didn’t even yell at me for that, but just dropped a wing on my plate. “Let’s see, shall we?”

Kody tried to get me off my chair as soon as he was finished, but I ignored him, knowing that the wing was my ticket to better things. It took forever, but I stayed put, sucking every morsel off those little bones. Daddy stayed at the table too, resting his chin on his hand and watching me. He only smiled when I finally pushed my plate of cleaned bones toward him, but my heart skipped a beat.

The next week I asked for the underside of the breast, and Daddy passed me one immediately, complete with its row of tiny rib bones. It was harder than the wing, but I stayed put again, carefully pulling the bones apart and sucking. Now and then I choked a little, having swallowed a bit of bone as well as meat. Again, Daddy only smiled.

The following week I didn’t even have to ask. Daddy simply dropped a piece of meat on my plate. Kody was instantly on the floor, kicking and screaming about how everything was unfair. I couldn’t take my eyes off the prize that was suddenly mine: the wishbone, jutting out of the white breast like a little sail.

I’d pulled one before, of course, getting a turn now and then just like everyone else. This one was mine, and I’d get to choose which side to pull, and who to pull it with. Why, I could even take it outside and pull it with Lily, which meant one of us was sure to get our wish.

After dinner, Maybe hung my wishbone on the cupboard door handle to dry. Later that night she caught Kody climbing up to steal it. After shooing him off, she winked at me and hid it in a cup on the top shelf.

The glory of it all hung about me, better than Kody’s Superman cape he’d let me wear once. Kody pestered me night and day, naturally, alternately threatening and offering me anything he could think of. After a couple of days, I knew I’d have to choose him instead of Lily, whether he came through on his promises or not. Still, it was nice having the power, and I dangled the wish before him for another whole day.

Maybe fetched it down when I asked. I studied the bone carefully to see if some tiny flaw favored the head to go one way or another. When at last I sighed, chose my side, and held out the bone to Kody, he grinned, snatched his side and pulled. Alas, the bone was too dry and the head popped toward the ceiling, free of us both. Maybe laughed. “Looks like the cat got the wish,” she said, and leaned to whisper in my ear. “You should have pulled it yesterday, Baby.”

If only I hadn’t waited that extra day, either Kody or I would have had the wish, instead of it going spoiled. On the other hand, if we’d only waited one extra day, we’d have had a nice egg from that chicken. When I asked Daddy about it, he shrugged and turned the page of his newspaper. “Two general principles, Baby. ‘Look before you leap,’ and ‘He who hesitates is lost.’ You just have to decide which one you want on any given day.”

So that was that. I had a funny idea that those principle things were going to keep tripping me up no matter what I did.