CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories by J. Posthumus (read after txt) 📕

coffee. They had decent coffee. Not as good as Buc-ee’s or Love’s but decent. I got us two large cups then loaded his with sugar and cream. Mine stayed black.

We clambered back into the truck and followed the road past the Western Wear joint and into the small town. A small, kinda old-school place where high school football was still king, church on Sunday required, and well, we don’t ask about family trees. Good people in general. I’ve been to Lodge there and, really, you couldn’t ask for finer people.

We drove through the square and enjoyed seeing folks about. Ben ogled a few of the girls. They did raise pretty ones around there. I think he was planning on heading back with the dogs and take them for a walk. Both boys claimed walking the standard poodles is a great way to get phone numbers.

Phil’s place was just outside the boundary limits of the little town. We headed down the tree-lined road toward his home. Lovely day to be out. Sunny but not yet hot, blue skies with white fluffy clouds and enough breeze to bring the scent of honeysuckle to the truck.

We pulled off the county-maintained road onto the gravel road. It was pretty open out there. There were trees along the fence lines, by houses, and in the bottoms or by tanks, but the rest was flat. Green native grasses covered most of the fields. Cattle, with the white herons called cowbirds on their backs, grazed peacefully in the fields. Calves were frolicking.

We turned into the short circular drive in front of a white four-by-four house. Phil’s kids were grown and out on their own. That led Phil and his missus to move out to the country. The neat little wood-frame structure sat on four acres that were mostly let go wild, as a nature preserve, which Phil told me got him a tax break. He was a line man, but senior enough he did mostly supervision. Heck of a woodworker and that was his retirement plan.

I wasn’t sure how that would go with Elza’s love of cosplay. We’d see.

Ben hopped out of the car and stretched. Even in his teens, he towered over me. A big boy, well filled out for his 16 years, who insisted on breaking the high school football coach’s heart by refusing to play. He told that coach that any sport where guys slapped each other on the butt wasn’t for him. Powerlifting and martial arts kept him busy and also made sure the football team left him alone after the wisecrack.

I got the cooler out, with ice and trash bags in it. Ben had already taken the ax and headed around to the back of the house. Phil would have the roosters separated out: the little monsters were starting to attack the hens and tried to fight with everything. The older rooster had apparently already killed one. People thought cock fights were wrong, and I didn’t argue that, but the damned things liked to fight. There was a reason why knights had roosters as part of their arms and the flag of Walloon has a cock on it. They were as aggressive as hell and almost didn’t know what fear was.

And they were also a bit dumb. I’d seen them try to fight with their reflections. It was a hoot.

The chickens lived in small enclosure on the side of the massive free-range coop Phil built. A monster of PVC pipe and chicken wire, it must have been 50 yards square. He linked together PVC pipe sections and bent them into this huge arc. Then he covered the whole thing with chicken wire and anchored it to cement. Added a door on one end. Took up most of the yard area. Probably made the local coyotes and foxes cry.

Inside the cage was a chicken coop as well as lots of room for the hens to wander. It was a masterpiece of redneck engineering. A necessary compromise to let the land go wild and let the chickens sort of free-range. Clever guy, Phil.

We didn’t waste a lot of time beheading the roosters. Sixteen this time. The little monsters tried to fight or run but Ben and I had a system. I moved in front and he grabbed them from behind. He held the feet and wings and stretched the neck onto the stump. Before long, we had a trash bag full of heads, a cooler full of birds we’d dress as soon as we got home, and a mess to tidy up. I swear the old rooster from the coop was watching and grinning.

As I cleaned up by hosing off the stump and washing the blood away so it wouldn’t attract beasties, Ben changed out food and water for the birds. He also collected eggs. Normally, they would keep and hatch some of the fertile ones, but, while they were cosplaying, we were told to take them all. A lot would end at the soup kitchen in town. No way only five of us could eat as many as we got in two weeks of chicken sitting.

I got a whiff of chicken shit and looked over. Ben was shoveling the manure into a barrel. We’d leave that for Phil. Our garden had more than enough.

I was just finishing hosing down the stump when I heard a weird noise. I looked in the coop to see the old rooster squaring off with Ben. Then, for some reason, Ben started doing the chicken form from his martial arts style at the rooster. It’s this fast, light footed thing and as he did it, the rooster started moving like they do when they fight. Apparently, the bird took it as Ben was a six-foot three rooster after his hens.

I sat there and watched as my boy squared off with an angry pot pie. Ben would go through the motions of the form: fast quick hopping steps backwards and forwards, hands and arms moving like wings,