“How did it, he, make it to the doorbell?” I thought chickens didn’t fly. Wasn’t that the whole point of them? Food that can’t fly away?
“Charlie was owned by some shrink at a college or something,” he said, his normal morning mad-scientist hair almost matching the bird’s.
As if to demonstrate, Charlie flapped his wings, getting enough lift to hop onto the planter with some drooping lavender in it. He stretched out his neck to poke his beak at the doorbell. It took a few tries but then he got it, tilting his head as though he was listening to the “Yankee Doodle” tune that made me grind my teeth every time I heard it, and then hopped down, looking up at me expectantly.
Maybe this one was some kind of X-Games chicken.
“Does he want a treat?” I asked my dad.
Then my cat, Trouble, gave a low warning snarl that Charlie seemed to recognize because he turned around and fluttered down the steps in half-flight-half-run. I grabbed Trouble just as she was about to chase after the poor bird, and handed her to my dad. “Take her,” I said. “I’ll make sure Charlie gets home.”
Trouble had been an apartment cat and hadn’t been very curious about the outside world until we moved out of the city to my dad’s house. Now we had to make sure she didn’t escape every time we opened a door.
My dad held Trouble with his hands outstretched, looking unsure. Which was probably because she was still in full battle mode and swatted at me as soon as she could twist around in his arms, screeching, “Let me at ’em.”
Not really, but I knew what she meant.
“She’ll calm down in a minute,” I told my dad as I dashed after the chicken.
Charlie was sticking to the sidewalk, but headed in the opposite direction from his home. After the doorbell stunt, I imagined he knew his way around town. But it wasn’t up to me to keep him safe on an adventure. I just wanted to get him back to his pen.
Within seconds, I was dripping with sweat and regretting not grabbing my sunglasses. The glare of the mid-morning sun irritated my eyes that already felt scratchy from lack of sleep.
I ran in front of Charlie and attempted to sheep-dog him back the other way. He scooted around me.
“Damnit,” I said, and hustled to get past him. He must have decided it was a race because he started running, determined to reach his goal, whatever that was.
I got in front of him, my huffing and puffing making me realize I should get back to the gym, and yelled, “Shoo!” while waving my arms like a…like a chicken.
He came to a stop in the most theatrical, wings flapping, squawking protest the world had ever seen, and reversed course.
“Drama queen,” I said, hoping he didn’t keep up the complaining all the way back. I hadn’t yet met our neighbor, Joss Hayden, but something made me think that a certified organic farmer might not like me upsetting his chicken. Of course, I’d heard all about him from my dad, who said he was the best neighbor ever, occasional chicken coop odor notwithstanding.
Joss had bought the farm a year before, kept to himself, didn’t have any parties, and didn’t borrow any tools. I’d only seen a glimpse of him from a distance and imagined him to be some eccentric hippy, or even worse, a hipster dude getting back to nature. He grew organic vegetables in addition to his free-range chicken business.
Elliott had become a fan of Joss too, although that was probably more about visiting the baby chicks than the farmer himself.
It didn’t take long for the traumatized chicken to scurry home, probably to blab to all his chicken friends about the torture he’d endured on his jaunt. The metal gates to the various pens were all locked. How did he get out? I was about to put him back in the closest one but realized he might belong somewhere else, so I went to the front door. Charlie followed along, hopping up the two steps to join me. Then the smart aleck ran across my foot, making me jump a bit, to ring the doorbell before I could. Joss the farmer was lucky enough to have a normal ding-dong doorbell. We both stood and waited.
A man wearing a black T-shirt answered the door with an annoyed expression. Even with the frown, he was attractive, in a non-hippy, non-hipster way. More like a muscular-guy-who-puts-out-a-fire-and-then-drives-off-on-a-motorcycle way. He looked from Charlie to me and his expression became confused. “You’re not Charlie.”
Ah, he must be a constant victim of the button-pushing. “Nope. Charlie rang my doorbell, and I brought him back.” I held out my hand and then remembered that they’d been wrist deep in chicken livers. Even though I’d worn gloves to my elbows, it felt inappropriate. I pulled my hand back. “Colbie Summers. I’m, uh, helping out my dad a bit.”
He’d reached out to shake my hand and it hung out there, shake-less.
“I’ve been handling…meat,” I explained.
He smiled, as if figuring out I’d been holding chicken parts. “For your cat food business,” he said. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened, and I noticed how blue they were.
Whoa. That was a nice smile. “Um, yes,” I said, practically stuttering. “This batch is just for taste-testing. Not by me. By Trouble. You know. My cat.” Although I had been known to try a few of the recipes. “The food I sell is actually made in a commercial kitchen.” Stop talking, I told myself.
Charlie seemed to lose interest and jumped back down the steps.
“Your dad told me about Trouble,” he said, keeping an eye on the chicken. “Sorry about the whole doorbell thing. Charlie was used for some kind of psychology experiments by his previous owner and will poke at anything button-like.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
He shook his head as he came out and closed the door. “I don’t know how he gets out all the time. He’s the best escape artist I ever had.” He walked to the edge of the porch. “It must be the trough. It’s too close to the fence but I’d need a crane to move it.”
From that viewpoint the farm was picture perfect—its large red barn painted with white trim, a green tractor parked beside old-fashioned gas tanks, and the chickens scratching in the pens. “Sorry,” I said. “Don’t have one of those with me.” I turned to go. “Nice meeting you. Good luck with Charlie.” I wasn’t going to tell him that I couldn’t leave my chicken livers marinating in green curry very long or the flavor would be too intense for my feline customers.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “You want to see the chicks before you rush back?”
“Um…” Was that how a chicken farmer made his move? I did a quick inventory of what I looked like. Cut off shorts to deal with the heat, a Padres Tshirt stained with meat juice, flip-flops, and a rolled-up bandana around my light brown hair with the copper stripe I needed to revive. And, oh yeah, red-rimmed eyes and no makeup. I was definitely safe from any moves by the farmer. And who could resist chicks? “Sure.”
He jogged down the porch steps and walked back to the pen, scooping up Charlie as he opened the gate, and setting him down inside a pen by himself. Some chickens in the next section moved closer as if to check out the action. “In here,” Joss said.
I walked carefully through the pen, watching where I put my feet. The door to the chicken coop was open and a few birds sat in nests. Then he opened a door inside and we were in some kind of incubator room. An orchestra of chick peeps reached a crescendo and an overwhelming chicken poop scent whooshed by.
“Whoa,” I said, plugging my nose and then looking over apologetically.
“Sorry,” he said cheerfully. “It takes a little getting used to.”
When Joss moved closer, the chirping became even louder.
“So, the chicks love you,” I said, not being able to resist the pun.