FIRST PLACE SHORT
STORY
Don't Count Your Chickens
By Sharon Helberg
Surrey, British Columbia
As always, Russell awoke before
the alarm rang. He got up at the same time
each morning, long before it was light, and
tugged on the rumpled blue sweater and grey
twill
pants that had become his uniform. Then
he walked back to the little henhouse to feed
his chickens.
If his timing was right, she would be dressed
and almost finished breakfast by the time he
came in from the yard. He would slide wordlessly
into his chair, and stare at the stack of cold
toast in front of him for a few seconds before
slowly and methodically beginning to chew.
He gave his full attention to the food. There
was no need to raise his eyes. He knew exactly
what he would see.
Lila was a large woman, tall and heavy hipped.
Her pallid face was framed by a small but determined
halo of permanent curls, and its blandness
was punctuated only by an improbable slash
of tangerine lipstick. Her teeth were widely
spaced and stained brown by nicotine.
Her eyes, once her best feature, were large
and brown. They were filmed with a skin of
disappointment, and surrounded by a roadmap
of deep lines. The lashes were like his own.
Tan coloured filaments, as fragile as the brittle
spines of tiny animals.
She spoke to Russell that Tuesday morning as
she did every morning. As usual, his concentration
was centred on chewing. He carefully counted
the rotations of his jaw, thirty-three times
for each bite.
He watched his hand lift the toast to his lips,
then felt the spongy texture of the bread as
it adhered to the roof of his mouth. By focusing
on the food, Russell was almost able to shut
out the sound of her voice. Almost, but not
quite.
“What took you so long feeding them hens?” Lila
muttered irritably, taking a long swallow of
cold coffee from her cracked mug, “What
the hell do you do in there anyways? You could
bloody well be doing something useful around
here for a change.”
The orange lips drew up in a smirk, “But
that’s the point, ain’t it hotshot?
A big genius like you don’t want to be
dirtying his hands doing no chores. Not when
he could be shovelling nice clean chicken muck,
eh?”
Lila fixed him with a dull brown stare, as
if awaiting his response. Seeing none, she
picked up a cigarette. She lit up, and inhaled
moistly. The clock ticked loudly in the quiet
kichen. Russell continued to eat.
Of course she couldn’t be expected to
appreciate what he was doing. He had never
expected that she would, never even bothered
to explain it to her.
It had started about six months before, with
an article he’d read in one of the psychology
journals at the library. Industrial psychology,
it was. Something about the effects of varying
colours in the work environment on the productivity
of auto assembly line workers. Nothing to do
with him really, but something about it caught
his attention.
As for why he had decided to use chickens,
well, why not? The family had always kept a
few hens. When his father left, it seemed only
natural that Russell would take over their
care. And equally natural to him, that they
should do something to earn their keep.
It was quite simple really. He found that he
was able to control the hens’ level of
production by manipulating variables in their
environment. Light levels, temperature, that
sort of thing. As time went on, he became more
and more inventive. Sometimes he played music
for them. Vivaldi seemed to be a particular
favourite. And once he even tried aromatherapy,
by using some of Lila’s lily of the valley
bubble bath.
What intrigued Russell the most, though, was
not just that he could control the number of
eggs they laid. no, it was that he could control
them. Control their behaviour.
Suddenly, he became aware of the voice, still
droning on. “And now that old bitch at
the school is phoning me up every two days,
telling me you ain’t got no social development
or some damn thing. So what am I supposed to
say to that, eh, bright boy?”
There was a brief, half-expectant pause, then, “Oh,
hell, I give up. For such a genius you sure
as hell don’t have much to say for yourself,
do you? I got to get them to the restaurant.” Abruptly
Lila set down her mug and scraped her chair
away from the table.
Russell sat there for awhile after she left.
So, old lady Pitman had been calling again.
He decided not to go to school that day. He
would spend some more time with the hens and
get his production charts up to date.
He smiled to himself as he worked, thinking
of his earlier experiments. They had been so
primitive. Little more than child’s play,
really. This was different though. They’d
see. All of them, with their teasing and laughing.
Social development, eh? His smile widened,
but no teeth showed.
It was time to feed his charges again. Crouching
low, he held the grain out to them in his cupped
hand. He had to admit, at moments like these,
he felt a certain detached fondness for the
birds.
“Ouch!” Pain cut into his thoughts.
Looking down, Russell saw blood spurt from
his outstretched
hand. One of the hens, greedy for the proffered
food, had pierced his palm with her sharp beak.
He felt a sudden wave of anger at the sheer
impudence of the bird. How dare she treat him
like this? He raised his hand to strike her,
but then stepped back. There had been trouble
with this one before, little things mostly,
but nothing like this. There was simply no
place for this kind of defiance in his study.
The hen would have to be disposed of.
Russell spent the evening planning his course
of action.
He got up even earlier than usual the following
morning. Entering the bathroom, he walked purposefully
to the medicine cabinet and took out a half
empty bottle of aspirin. Spilling the contents
into the toilet and flushing them away took
only a moment.
In the basement, he quickly found what he was
looking for. The shells were still there, where
his father had left them, and it wasn’t
hard to pry off the tops. Carefully, he poured
the grainy black powder into the bottle.
Out in the yard, he set the bottle on the ground
and attached the soft roll of paper that would
serve as a fuse. Then he propped a small square
of cardboard over the opening. It was time
to get the hens.
She was one of the last to leave the henhouse,
and Russell watched her as she circled the
yard. She seemed almost wary, as if she suspected
something.
He waited patiently, until he saw her zero
in on a small pile of feed. Laying down a trail
of grain, he moved slowly toward the bottle.
Thinking herself the aggressor, the hen pushed
the others out of the way as she gobbled up
the bait. He sprinkled a few kernels on the
square of cardboard, then stepped away. As
he had hoped, she continued toward the bottle.
When she began pecking at the cardboard, he
lit the fuse.
The explosion was not loud, but it was sufficient.
He allowed himself a few moments to feel pleased
with how it had gone. His timing had been perfect.
A second of hesitation before lighting the
fuse and the result might have been simply
to deface rather than to destroy.
Noiselessly, Russell went into the kichen and
placed the chicken, neatly cleaned and plucked,
in the grimy arborite counter.
“Here’s a hen for supper, Ma,” he
said. Then he took his customary seat and began
to eat.
Lila looked up in surprise at the sound of
his voice. “Well, well, well. What’s
all this in aid of?”
“I just thought you might like a chicken
dinner is all,” Russell answered, not
raising his eyes from his plate.
“Oh, did you now? Well, ain’t that
swell? Hey, since you’re feeling so chatty
this morning, how’s about you tell me
why you didn’t make it to school again
yesterday?” Lila
picked up a cigarette and continued, “See,
it’s kind of hard to explain why my brilliant
son, you know the one who passes all them genius
tests, why he never sees fit to show his face
at school anymore. What’s the matter,
Russell, do you think you’re too good
for all them lowly normal kids or what?” She
narrowed her eyes and leaned in close, “You
know, if you aren’t careful, nobody’s
going to believe all them test results no more.
They’re gonna think you’re kinda
dumb. Or maybe just plain chicken. What do
you think about that?”
Suddenly, a dim light ignited Lila’s
eyes with something resembling amusement, “Yeah,
just a big dumb chicken. So I guess we know
what that makes you, eh? A dumb cluck. Do you
get it, Chicken scientist? You’re just
a big, dumb cluck!” She dissolved into
helpless laughter, tears of mirth splashing
down her pale cheeks, her blunt, beefy hands
slapping down in glee on the table in front
of her.
Finally, she recovered herself. The lecture
continued, but Russell didn’t hear the
rest. None of it mattered now anyway.
Later, on the bus, he thought again about the
events of the morning. It occurred to him then
that perhaps he had accomplished something
even more profound than he had originally intended.
He had killed cleanly, and without mutilation.
In a fraction of a second the head was gone,
and with it went the essence of the creature.
He decided to reward himself with a day at
the library.
It was after five when he got home. He had
forgotten to eat, and suddenly realized that
he was starving, so he walked into the kitchen
and swung open the refrigerator door. He took
out a green plastic bowl from the bottom shelf
and began to devour the contents, gulping the
food down reflexively, too hungry even to chew.
Russell sat slumped over the bowl, replaying
the details of the explosion over in his mind.
Then, in an uncharacteristically playful moment,
he started visualizing the scene again, first
with a pig as its central character, then with
a big old Jersey cow. And then he imagined
something else, something that made him grin.
“Dumb cluck, eh?” he snickered.
Russell began to laugh then, that kind of hiccoughing
giggle that feeds on itself, twisting and turning
through the respiratory system, choking itself
into seemingly endless spasms.
* * * * *
It was very late when Lila got home. She was
going to have to tell Ed that she couldn’t
work these split shifts anymore, she thought.
Her feet were killing her, and she needed a
drink.
When she got into the kitchen, she saw that
Russell had fallen asleep at the kitchen table.
That was something he used to do when he was
a little boy. Little Rusty.
She looked down at him. He seemed smaller somehow,
bent over like that. More like the 11-year-old
he really was. A reluctant twinge of something
passed through her. Guilt, maybe. She chose
to ignore it.
The boy slept on, silent and motionless. She
made a move toward the cupboard, and reached
for the whiskey bottle. Then, for some reason,
she turned back. She moved closer to brush
back a lock of caramel coloured hair that had
strayed onto Russell’s forehead.
That was when she noticed it. First the coldness,
then the tiny rivulet of dried blood that traced
a delicate line from his nostril onto his upper
lip. Lila drew back, inhaling a scream.
Outside in the yard, the low sound of brooding
hens filled the soft, dark night.
Copyright
(c) 2004 for the author, all rights reserved.
