Nebula Awards Showcase 2009 (46 page)

Mrs. O’Connor’s voice, when it finally came, was flat and bored.

“No disrespect meant, Father Leggett, but Edward and I did turn to the Scriptures well upstream of our turning to you, and by now everyone in this household is intimately acquainted with Matthew 23:37, its histories, contexts and commentaries. And yet our daughter seems to worship a frizzled chicken. Have you thought of anything that could explain it?”

“Well, Mrs. O’Connor—”

“Regina.”

“Regina. Could it be that this chicken is just a sort of imaginary playmate for the girl? Well, not the chicken, that’s real enough, but I mean the identity she has created for it. Many children have imaginary friends, especially children with no siblings, like Mary.”

“Oh, I had one of those,” she said. “A little boy named Bar-Lock, who lived in my father’s Royal Bar-Lock typewriter.”

“There, you see. You know just what I’m talking about.”

“But I never thought Bar-Lock was my lord and savior!”

“No, but ‘lord and savior’ is a difficult idea even for an adult to grasp, isn’t it? By projecting it onto a chicken, Mary makes the idea more manageable, something she can hold and understand. She seems happy, doesn’t she? Content? No nightmares about her chicken being nailed to a cross? And as she matures, in her body and in her faith, she’ll grow out if it, won’t need it anymore.”

“Well, perhaps,” she said, sounding miffed. “Thank you for calling, Father. When Mary wakes up, I’ll tell her you were thinking about her, and about her imaginary Jesus.”

She broke the connection, leaving Father Leggett with his mouth open. The operator’s voice squawked through the earpiece.

“Next connection, please. Hello? Hello?”

That night, Father Leggett dreamed about a frizzled chicken nailed to a cross. He woke with the screech in his ears.

 

The never-ending crush of church business enabled Father Leggett to keep putting off a return visit to the O’Connors, as the days passed into weeks and into months, but avoiding chickens, and talk of chickens, was not so easy. He began to wince whenever he heard of them coming home to roost, or being counted before they were hatched, of politicians providing them in every pot.

The dreams continued. One night the human Jesus stood on the mount and said, “Blessed are the feedmakers,” then squatted and pecked the ground. The mob squatted and pecked the ground, too. Jesus and His followers flapped their elbows and clucked.

Worst of all was the gradual realization that for every clergy-man in Georgia, chicken was an occupational hazard. Most families ate chicken only on Sundays, but any day Father Leggett came to visit was de facto Sunday, so he got served chicken all the time—breasts, legs, livers and dumplings, fried, baked, boiled, in salads, soups, broths and stews, sautéed, fricasseed, marengoed, a la kinged, cacciatored, casseroled. Of all this chicken, Father Leggett ate ever smaller portions. He doubled up on mustard greens and applesauce. He lost weight.

“Doubtless you’ve heard the Baptist minister’s blessing,” the bishop told him one day:

Since the bishop had broached the subject, in a way, Father Leggett took the opportunity to tell him about his visit with the O’Connor child, and the strange theological musings it had inspired in him. The bishop, a keen administrator, got right to the heart of the matter.

“What do you mean, frizzled?”

Father Leggett tried as best he could to explain the concept of frizzled to the bishop, finally raking both hands through his own hair until it stood on end.

“Ah, I see. Sounds like some kind of freak. Best to wring its neck while the child’s napping. She might catch the mites.”

“Oh, but sir, the girl views this chicken as a manifestation of our Lord.”

“Our Lord was no freak,” the bishop replied. “He was martyred for our sins, not pecked to death like a runty chicken.”

“They seem to have a real bond,” Father Leggett said. “Where you and I might see only a walking feather duster, this child sees the face of Jesus.”

“People see the face of Jesus all over,” the bishop said, “in clouds and stains on the ceiling and the headlamps of Fords. Herbert Hoover and Father Divine show up in the same places, if you look hard enough. It’s human nature to see order where there is none.”

“She trained it to walk backward on command. That’s order from chaos, surely. Like the hand of God on the face of the waters.”

“You admire this child,” the bishop said.

I envy her, Father Leggett thought, but what he said was,“I do. And I fear for her faith, if something were to happen to this chicken. They don’t live long, you know, even if they make it past Sunday dinner. They aren’t parrots or turtles, and frizzles are especially susceptible to cold weather. I looked it up.”

“Best thing for her,” the bishop said. “Get her over this morbid fascination. You, too. Not healthy for a man of the cloth to be combing Scripture for chickens. Got to see the broader picture, you know. Otherwise, you’re no better than the snake handlers, fixated on Mark 16:17-18. ‘And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’ ”

“Perhaps this child has taken up a chicken,” Father Leggett said, “as another believer would take up a snake.”

“Not to worry, son,” the bishop said. “Little Mary’s belief will outlive this chicken, I reckon. Probably outlive you and me, too. Come in, Ingrid!”

A cloud of cigarette smoke entered the office, followed by Ingrid’s head around the door. “Lunch is ready,” she said.

“Oh, good. What’s today’s bill of fare?”

“Roast chicken.”

“I’m not hungry,” Father Leggett quickly said.

The bishop laughed. “To paraphrase: ‘If they eat any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.’ ”

“Mark 16:18 wasn’t in the original gospel,” Ingrid said. “The whole twelve-verse ending of the book was added later, by a scribe.”

The bishop looked wounded. “An
inspired
scribe,” he said.

“Wash your hands, both of you,” Ingrid said, and vanished in a puff.

“She’s been raiding the bookcase again,” the bishop growled. “It’ll only confuse her.”

As he picked at his plate, Father Leggett kept trying to think of other things, but couldn’t. “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Mary O’Connor had placed her hands upon a frizzled chicken and . . . hadn’t healed it, exactly, for it was still a ridiculous, doomed creature, but had given it a sort of mission. A backward purpose, but a purpose nonetheless.

That day Father Leggett had a rare afternoon off, so he went to the movies. The cartoon was ending as he entered the auditorium, and he fumbled to a seat in the glare of the giant crowing rooster that announced the Pathe Sound News. Still out of sorts, he slumped in his seat and stared blankly at the day’s doings, reduced to a shrilly narrated comic strip: a ship tossing in a gale, two football teams piling onto one another, Clarence Darrow defending a lynch mob in Hawaii, a glider soaring over the Alps—but the next title took his breath.

 

 

“In Savannah, Georgia, little Mary O’Connor, age five, trains her pet chicken to walk backward!”

And there on screen, stripped of sound and color and all human shading, like Father Leggett’s very thoughts made huge and public, were Mary and her frizzled chicken. As he gaped at the capering giants, he was astonished by the familiarity of the O’Connor backyard, how easily he could fill in the details past the square edges of the frame. One would think he had lived there, as a child. He thought he might weep. The audience had begun cheering so at “Savannah, Georgia,” that much of the rest was inaudible, but Father Leggett was pretty sure that Jesus wasn’t mentioned. The cameraman had captured only a few seconds of the chicken actually walking backward; the rest was clearly the film cranked in reverse, and the segment ended with more “backward” footage of waddling ducks, trotting horses, grazing cattle. The delighted audience howled and roared. Feeling sick, Father Leggett lurched to his feet, stumbled across his neighbors to the aisle, and fled the theater.

He went straight to the upright house on Lafayette Square, leaned on the bell until Mrs. O’Connor appeared, index finger to her lips.

“Shh! Please, Father, not so loud,” she whispered, stepping onto the porch and closing the door behind. “Mr. O’Connor has to rest, afternoons.”

“Beg pardon,” he whispered. “I didn’t realize, when I bought my ticket, that your Mary has become a film star now.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, with an unexpected laugh, perching herself on the banister. “She’s the next Miriam Hopkins, I’m sure. It was the chicken they were here for. Edward called them. Such a bother. Do you know, they were here an hour trying to coax it to walk two steps? Stage fright, I suppose. I could have strangled the wretched thing.”

“I’ve been remiss in not calling sooner. And how is Mary doing?”

“Oh, she’s fine.” Her voice was approaching its normal volume. “Do you know, from the day the cameramen visited, she seemed to lose interest in Jesus? Jesus the chicken, I mean. It’s as if the camera made her feel foolish, somehow.”

“May I see her?”

“She’s out back, as usual.” She glanced at the door, then whispered again. “Best to go around the house, I think.”

She led the way down the steps and along a narrow side yard—a glorified alleyway, really, with brick walls at each elbow—to the backyard, where Mary lay in the dirt, having a fit.

“Child!” Father Leggett cried, and rushed to her.

She thrashed and kicked, her face purple, her frown savage. Father Leggett knelt beside her, seized and—with effort—held her flailing arms. Her hands were balled into fists. “Child, calm yourself. What’s wrong?”

Suddenly still, she opened her eyes. “Hullo,” she said. “I’m fighting.”

“Fighting what?”

“My angel,” she said.

He caught himself glancing around, as if Saint Michael might be behind him. “Oh, child.”

“Sister Consolata says I have an invisible guardian angel that never leaves my side, not even when I’m sleeping, not even when I’m in the
potty
.” This last word was whispered. “He’s always watching me, and following me, and being a pain, and one day I’m going to turn around and catch him and
knock
his block off.” She swung her fists again and pealed with laughter.

Mary’s mother stood over them, her thin mouth set, her dark brows lowered, looking suddenly middle-aged and beautiful. Her default expression was severity, but on her, severity looked good. How difficult it must be, Father Leggett thought, to have an only child, a precocious child, any child.

“Mary, I’ve got cookies in the oven.”

She sat up. “Oatmeal?”

“Oatmeal.”

“With raisins and grease?”

“With raisins and grease.” She leaned down, cupped her hands around her mouth, and whispered, “And we won’t let that old angel have a one.”

Mary giggled.

“You’re welcome to join us, Father. Father?”

“Of course, thank you,” said Father Leggett, with an abstracted air, not turning around, as he walked slowly toward the chicken yard. The frizzled one was easy to spot; it stood in its own space, seemingly avoided by the others. It walked a few steps toward the gate as the priest approached.

Father Leggett felt the gaze of mother and child upon him as he lifted the fishhook latch and creaked open the gate. The chickens nearest him fluttered, then stilled, but their flutter was contagious. It passed to the next circle of chickens, then the next, a bit more violent each time. The outermost circle of chickens returned it to the body of the flock, and by the time the ripple of unease had reached Father Leggett, he had begun to realize why so many otherwise brave people were (to use a word he had learned only in his recent weeks of study) alektorophobes. Only the frizzled Jesus seemed calm. Father Leggett stepped inside, his Oxfords crunching corn hulls and pebbles. He had the full attention of the chickens now. Without looking, he closed the gate behind. He walked forward, and the milling chickens made a little space for him, an ever-shifting, downy clearing in which he stood, arms at his sides, holding his breath. The frizzle stepped to the edge of this clearing, clucked at him. The hot air was rich with the smells of grain, bad eggs and droppings. A crumpled washtub held brackish water. Feathers floated across his smudged reflection. He closed his eyes, slowly lifted his arms. The chickens roiled. Wings beat at his shins. He reached as far aloft as he could and prayed a wordless prayer as the chicken yard erupted around him, a smothering cloud that buffeted his face and chest and legs. He was the center of a tornado of chickens, their cackles rising and falling like speech, a message that he almost felt he understood, and with closed eyes he wept in gratitude, until Jesus pecked him in the balls.

 

One afternoon years later, during her final semester at the women’s college in Milledgeville, Mary O’Connor sat at her desk in the
Corinthian
office, leafing through the Atlanta paper, wondering whether the new copy of the McMurray Hatchery catalog (“All Flocks Blood Tested”) would be waiting in the mailbox when she got home. Then an article deep inside the paper arrested her attention.

Datelined Colorado, it was about a headless chicken named Mike. Mike had survived a Sunday-morning beheading two months previous. Each evening Mike’s owners plopped pellets of feed down his stumpy neck with an eyedropper and went to bed with few illusions, and each morning Mike once again gurgled up the dawn.