The Horsey Set

Messages from Chicken Land

Somebody gets on somebody's nerves -
somebody gets pecked.
The squawk reaches the house.
You learn to tell them apart,
the ouch from the warning
that the hawk
is hanging around again
or the announcement,
“I have just laid an egg.”
And then there's the Anvil Chorus,
a joint effort so disturbing
I am moved to go out there
to that patch of earth
they have laid bare
and silence them
for their own good.
They usually comply
for a small bribe.

As with all my pets
I wonder,
who has trained whom.

What train is this, anyway?

Harry Kresge had started to rise as the subway train was pulling into the Canal Street station, when he was jerked sharply back into his seat by the belt on his greasy trench coat. He was trapped. The buckle had become lodged between the edge of the seat and the chrome handrail. As he struggled frantically to free himself, his mind was racing; what train was he on; what was the next stop? When he finally remembered that he was on the number six and that City Hall was up next, he relaxed a bit. He could walk from City Hall. He was able to dislodge the buckle, but only after the doors had closed.

Harry looked sheepishly around the car to see if any of the dozen-or-so other passengers had been watching this little bit of morning rush hour slap-stick. They all seemed to be looking off in different directions. Now he was sure they had. An uncharacteristic anger started to build within him. He muttered several curse words, almost audible to the other riders, slammed his briefcase around a bit as he made his way from the very front of the first car to the rear door in time for the City Hall stop. He would now have to walk several extra blocks, including the entire length of the train, to get to his office.

Kresge decided that this must be some kind of omen. It either meant that he was embarking on what would be a very bad day, or that he was being taken out of his way so that some unbelievably good luck would befall him. He decided to look for signs along his detour. He mustn't miss the signs.

Before he had descended into the subway in Queens, it seemed as if the day had been photographed in technicolor. Now, as he climbed the stairs to the street in Manhattan, he noticed that the sky was an abstract of threatening clouds, all sketched in charcoal. Was this a sign? If it was, then his first inclination, that this would be a bad day, was surely the correct one.

As he started up Lafayette Street past the Federal Building, Harry noticed that they were erecting some kind of sculpture in the park across the street, in front of the famous courthouse where they had filmed Somebody Up There Likes Me and numerous other movies. There was a crane lifting a big piece into place. A man, the sculptor, perhaps, was waiving his arms, directing the movement like an orchestra conductor. "What can this mean?" Harry wondered. Surely he had been routed past this scene for a reason.

***
Kresge was settling in behind his desk when the phone rang. It was a woman who claimed to be an old client. Harry didn't recognize her right away. After a few questions, he remembered that many years before he had gotten her son off on a gun charge in the Bronx. It was a dead case, but the jury had acquitted him anyway. They didn't like the cops. They never like the cops in the Bronx.

The son was a huge good-natured man, whom Harry had trusted enough to let the case go to trial with him still owing him a grand in attorney's fees. When the jury rendered its verdict, the man turned and hugged Harry and told him, "Don't worry about your money, I'll give it to you as soon as I get my tax refund." That was twenty years ago. About nineteen years ago, Kresge tired of chasing his money and wrote it off. Maybe this was payoff time. Maybe that's what all this omen stuff was about. Harry reminded the woman that her son still owed him the money.

She replied, "Oh Shawn...? He don't pay none of his bills. Why, he been in jail a few times since you was his lawyer. He even done four years in state prison. I ain't calling about him, I'm calling about my grandson. He just got arrested for drugs and then a parole violation was dropped on him. You think you can help me?"

"Come down to my office with five hundred cash as soon as you can," Harry told her, hopefully.

"Okay. How about tomorrow? You open on Saturday?" she asked.

"Tell me what time you're coming, I'll be here," Harry responded. He had two bucks in his pocket. He had been wondering how he was going to get through the weekend. He set it up for 1:30 the next afternoon. It was all set. He was giving her directions.

"You know what..., I'm changing my mind," she said. "The weekend is just too much for me. I'll come down to your office on Monday, after work."

There was nothing he could do. He had to maintain some pretense of dignity. "Okay, Monday, 4:00 p.m. Tell Shawn to give me a call! Maybe he'd like to get that old debt off his mind," Harry suggested without any real hope.

***
Kresge was alone in the office. The rent was two months past due. Nothing would settle. His clients were dropping like flies or else they were in the wind. Even a wisp of a promise of money ended up getting postponed.

He started working on a will for a client who was in the hospital with cancer. He wasn't expected to make it through the weekend. Harry had been trying to settle the guy's car accident case, had actually gotten pretty close, when he got this bad news late the night before. If he died, the case would be worth a lot less and it would end up mired down in the Surrogate Court even after it was finally settled.

The phone rang. It was Donald, calling in on Harry's 800 number from Bellevue. "Harry, did you ever call that guy I asked you to call?" came the manic voice.

"No, I didn't. In fact, I've never called anyone you've ever asked me to call. Haven't you noticed?"

"Hmmm... I guess you're right. Why's that, Harry?"

"I never call anyone. I never even call my clients."

"What about your friends? Don't you ever call your friends."

"I don't have any friends. Well, except for you... You're my only friend, and I can't call you at the bug house. You have to call me - on my 800 number."

Donald laughed, "Why don't you have any friends?"

"Because I never call anyone," he said. Then the obvious occurred to Harry. "I should give this number to more people."

Donald laughed again. "I better let you go, Harry. I'm running up your phone bill."

***
Harry put his feet up on his desk and began to dream. In the dream he had fallen asleep on the subway. He awoke to the sound of the subway doors opening. He was about to miss his stop. Startled awake, Harry jumped up. He wasn't sure where he was. The dream had seemed so real, he could almost feel the breeze from the doors slamming shut in his face.

(6/9/2000)

The Grande Dame of Chicken Land

This is Rocky, one of my two oldest girls. She is about four years old and still lays every other day.

Rocky may seem like an odd name for a chicken. It's short for Rocket Girl. She was the first in her run of six to learn how to fly - weeks before the others. She would fly in and out of the chicken run and sometimes just sit on top of the fence as the other chicks marveled at her accomplishment. She is a Barred Plymouth Rock, so the name also fits her in another way.

She is my favorite girl. I often carry her about under one arm and bring her out front or over to Bob and Virda Womacks' house to eat the bugs out of the garden. When I put her out in the front yard, people walking and driving by stop and tell me how beautiful she is. She is a classic Barred Rock and if I ever took her to a fair, I'm sure she'd win a prize.

Carrying her around is a job, though. She must weigh about ten pounds!


Here she is with her best friend Pee Wee. They are the same age. Pee Wee, a Rhode Island Red, got her name because she was the runt of the run. Look at her now - another classic beauty. Pee Wee lays the most beautiful light brown eggs.

Toronto

July, 2005

Getting the check

We don’t travel
like other folks.
We tour the world,
from one Chinatown
to the next.

Today, we’re upstairs
in a dim sum joint in Toronto,
eating the parts of animals
no one else will eat.
Trolleys rumble
in the street below.

The corner of Dundas and Spadina,
once the Glasgow of the New World,
is a Hong Kong so crowded,
sometimes you are forced to stop
and let life stream around you.

From the restaurant window,
I can see the world’s tallest
freestanding structure,
eighteen hundred fifteen feet
of poured concrete
rising above the squalor.

We ask for our check.
There is nothing left
on the table before us,
but empty plates
and piles of bones.

Remember this

April, 2007

On the closing of Antioch College

Snow is general
over the old campus.
It is a cruel dusk
to have come so soon.
Nothing glistens
on the frozen paths.
Save for what the deer have left,
there are no footprints
in the snow.
A soot-colored squirrel
climbs a dead tree.
An owl shudders
on its high perch
then falls back to sleep.
Ghostly voices drift
up from the glen,
past the darkened buildings,
and into the town.
Horace Mann walked here,
they whisper,
then fade
into silent awe.

Boxes

I kept an 18-year-old
from going to jail today.
The judge and DA couldn't understand
why I put up such a fight.

"It's only thirty days"
they told me. "He can do that
standing on his head."

But this was a good kid
who had never been in trouble
who had a lapse in judgment
and left the scene of an accident
but returned, within minutes.

"That's easy
for you to say,"
I told them.
"But things can happen
to you in jail, bad things
whether you are there for a year
or a day."

I prevailed.

In the lobby of my building
I held the elevator
for a man carrying
a heavy box.
He thanked me
then gave me the once over
him in flannel and jeans
me in suit and tie.

In Dreams

She was dressing for work.
I was laying there
watching, listening
to her early morning
bird song.

"I dreamed again
last night," she said.

"Another bad dream?"
I asked.

"No. You were in it
again. So many times
you've been in my dreams.
Do you dream about me?"

"Sometimes," I lied,
since I never dream.

"How do I look?"
she was curious.

"I can't remember,"
I lied some more.
"How do I look
in your dreams?"
I asked.

"Younger," she said.

Under construction

Pardon our dust!

Working hard to give the old place a new look...