The Last Chicken

Once upon a time this was to be the title of my autobiography .. . The Last Chicken and other stories of a life gone wrong.

I've found a different title. A better title. You can check it out at Borders in a few years. Until then, it's the Last Chicken.

When I was 8, the summer I turned 9, my mother moved us out of the single-wide trailer where I shared a bedroom with my older brother, into a century old farm house with 5 bedrooms and 2 staircases. It was on a 750 acre farm, complete with livestock and no neighbors. It was a stretch for a couple of white-trash trailer park kids, but we adapted.

We adapted by pulling out a package of permanent markers and writing every swere word we had ever heard (and thought we could spell) on the interior walls of the tool shed. What we were thinking, I have no idea. What I do know is that the day it was discovered was also the day I learned my paternal grandmother had died. We weren't particularly close, she was bipolar and scared me, but still. I was 8.

My brother, 2 1/2 years older and a product of my mothers first marriage, did most of the sanding. I tried, but I wasn't very strong, and I was in shock. Shocked that the words were found. Shocked they "assumed" it had been us. Shocked at the first experience of human death. Normally my brother beat me up. That day he held me up.

There are many stories that came from the 1 1/2 years of living on the farm. Some of them are cherished childhood memories. It was the first time I had a family. A mom, a father-figure, and a home without wheels. (Not only did it not have wheels, it had a basement!) But to the title. Ahhh, the title.

I mentioned that there were no neighbors, but that is less than truthful. About 1/2 mile north was where Bruce lived. (I don't remember his name, but from the picture I have in my head, he looks like a Bruce.) Than 1/4 mile South was the family with the dog. There were four boys, all unruly, and their dog. A black lab that was also unruly. But I loved dogs. After we moved onto the farm we had to give away our cocker spaniel. Our new "dad" wouldn't let her in the house, and after an Illinois winter in a dog house, my mother finally decided she'd be better off elsewhere. I digress . . . the neighbors dog terrorized Jim, the farmer. She would chase the steer (muscle makes the meat tough), the ducks and chickens, and dug holes. He hated her. I loved her.

Jim decided to leave hog farming and try his hand at raising chickens. They started off in a small building with heat lamps and eventually moved into the large, open hog barn. It had a dirt floor and aluminum sides. Real basic.

In the evening I would feed the chicks. They had just started to feather and were leaving the "cute" stage. It was fowl puberty and not pretty... One particular evening, I made my way back to the newly renovated chicken barn; I opened the single door and stared. I stared at a carpet of chickens. All laying there. On the dirt. Lifeless. Broken necks. Every. Single. One.

And then I saw her. All wags and happy to see me. Immediately I could see how she got in; she had dug a hole in the dirt under the aluminum siding. As she ran toward me I saw, from the corner of my eye, the last chicken. It had survived. It was not a victim to the playful antics of an over-sized puppy. It was no squeak toy. It was a survivor.

I grab the dog by her collar and watched the chicken, the last chicken, dart across the barnyard. Running from the terror of the dog. Running. Running. Running right into Mulvy. The cat. No more chickens.

All dead.

I was in shock. I was 9 and not a farmer. I was a trailer-trash girl that, within the year, began a lifetime of vegetarianism.  I held the dog. I screamed. I cried. I didn't know what to do or what would be done. I started to stumble towards the house, holding the dog who didn't understand. She still wanted to play.

My mom came out first. Through my sobs, my pointing and the presence of the dog, she put it together. By then Jim had come out. I think I remember a look. A look between the two of them, and she told me to go inside to my room. She'd be there in a minute.

My other was never the "cuddly" type. I was. Still am. That night, shortly after I went to my room, my mother jumped on my bed and started piling the blankets and pillows, stuffed animals and anything else within reach on top of us. She held me. Tight.

Bang. No more dog. All dead.

It was a few days later that I overheard the discussion of the dog's head. Apparently she had bitten Jim. (He was 6'7" and I doubt he leaned much while leading her to the field where the deed was done.) The neighbors couldn't prove she was up to date on her rabies, and the only way to check was through the brain. So she had to be decapitated. It was a conversation I could have gone a lifetime without hearing.

And that was the last chicken. I can tell that story now, 25 years later, and almost laugh. More because it's seems so surreal. Did that really happen? Do those things really happen? The damn bird survived when hundreds of others didn't, and for what? To be eaten by a barn cat?

I think my brother had to clean up the carcasses.