Chickens

Poop got Shannon a chicken that day.  A big mean-ass one with orange shoulders and a white belly.  They called him Poop because he was a Mexican.  He only knew Taco Bell spanish, and thought it was funny to screw with the black ladies at the drive through.  On Thursday, a one-toothed sharecropper named Slim who worked for Shannon’s daddy (and Shannon’s daddy’s daddy) on the rice farm had mentioned something about a cock fight at Otto’s in Beulah coming up Saturday afternoon.  So Shannon told Poop to get him a chicken.  A money maker.  Poop’s stepdad had a coop out at his house south of Shaw, so Poop, Moody, and Shannon headed over there in Moody’s white Ford Taurus, windows rolled down and Duff Durrough on the radio.

            The road from Cleveland to Shaw is flat and straight.  Four lane built with stimulus money.  You turn past the McDonalds at South Street and 61, and head south.  You got Lee Street Liquor and the Country Platter on your right, pass the Sky King Lounge and the old auto garage that they turned into Mt. Bethel Temple of Praise Missionary Baptist Church, and once you pass the Wishy Washy where some years back they found the mayor’s daughter ass up in a Caprice Classic with two members of the East Side football team, well it’s about 7 miles on from there.

            Shaw, Mississippi – “A Small Town With a Big Future”, or so the sign read.  The stimulus money also encouraged the Board of Supervisors to put in a stop light at the one intersection where Highway 61 runs through the eastern edge, and after about three car wrecks and minor injuries sustained, folks started remembering it was there.  Take a right at the old Leadway Grocery Store where the Quongs were shot in the back of the head trying to fill a prescription, go down the bayou a piece, and Poop’s dad’s trailer is to the right.

I had never met Poop’s dad.  He wasn’t an illegal from what I understood.  Just Mexican.  But he loved some damn chickens.  Loved them so much he raised his own.  Couldn’t just stop and buy them in the store like the rest of us.  Just country folk.  Shannon heard them squawking as the car bounced up in the dirt drive, the dust settled, and the chickens were a little less pissed off.

“Right around back here,” said Poop.

“Alright.  Yeah man, that’s it there.  Hop your ass in there and get one.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“You climb your big ass up in there and get one.”

“Man, I’m not going in there with all that shit.  Got my good boots on.  Go on.”

“You’re a real sonabitch, you know that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Listen Poopaloop, you still owe me.”

“For what?”

“You know what.”

“Ooooh tell me again.”

“That DUI we almost got on the riding lawnmower going down Memorial Drive.”

“I didn’t think it qualified as a ‘motor vehicle’.”

“Well, it does.”

“Did you?”

“Not at the time.  Now hop your ass over that fence.”

“Damn gate is locked.”

“Well, find you a feed bucket and hop in there.  Yeah, that one in the corner.  See that?”  He slapped Poop on the back.

“Pick me out a winner Bobby.”

So Poop pulled up a cinder block near the edge of the coop, sat it up on its side, and walked back to Shannon.  He took his shirt off.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

“You ever tried to catch a chicken?”

“No.”

“Tough.”

“You only catch chickens shirtless?”

“You know what a redneck’s famous last words are?”

“What?”

“Hey ya’ll, watch this.”

And Poop flexed his muscles and got a running start.

Hopped up the cinder block, swung his front leg over the top, and got his shorts caught on a nail.  Ripped them clean off.

“Shit!”

“What?!”

“My good drawers.”

“You wear underwear?”

“Aw hell with it.”

 Feathers were flying everywhere.  Poop jumped out a minute later grinning from ear to ear, in his boxers and his belt, with the rooster by one hind leg.

 They all got in Moody’s car to drive back to town. Shannon turned about to say something to Poop in the back seat and stopped mid-sentence.  Poop had the rooster hanging upside down by its two hind legs, and was softly blowing in its ass.

            “Goddamn man! What in the hell are you doing that for?”

            “It calms them down.”

            “What?!”

            “For real man, I ain’t shitting you.”  Blood was running from a scratch down the side of his face.  “See, you ain’t never caught no chicken.  You don’t know.  Look how calm he’s getting.  There you go little buddy.  There you go….”

            And Poop sat back there quietly blowing up the chicken’s ass all the way back to Cleveland.  When they got to the Pike dorm, Dan Short was in his room, trying to sleep off the night before.  As usual.  Poop ran down the hall, slung the chicken in his room, and slammed it shut.  The chicken was mad as hell, and it just started going ape shit.  You could hear Short hollarin all the way down the hall.  Things crashing in the room.  After it calmed down a bit and they couldn’t hear no more, Poop creeped up to the door and opened it up.  The chicken had a wild-eyed Short cornered up on his top bunk, frantically dialing the Delta State police department trying to explain that he had a deranged chicken in his room that wanted to whoop his ass and could someone please tell his professor that he was gonna be late for Western Civ.