Processing

The scene is dusk, Friday night. Richard and I are meandering our way down the green rise of meadow behind our house, empty beer bottles in our hands. There’s a glorious light in the sky, the last bit of sunlight cutting a shaft across to a far hill and the amber glow makes it look as if the leaves have started their autumn color change (Perish the thought!) We’re mid-conversation:

Richard: “You’ve noticed Ron and Tabitha’s white chickens?”
Me: ‘Yes.’
Richard: “Those are meat birds.”
Me: ‘Oh, right.’

A few weeks before we’d spoken about “meat birds” being especially bred to mature quickly.

Me: ‘So do you want to go in with them when the processor comes?’
Richard: “Mm.” (Yes.)
Me: ‘I see.’
Richard: “Their chickens’ll be ready in 8 weeks.”
Me: ‘8 weeks?!’
Richard: “We could get rid of a bunch of our roosters. Napoleon’s going to go, that’s for sure.”

Napoleon’s a big bully. He’s taken to clamping down hard on the necks of Buff Orpington hens – and anyone else not to his liking - until they wrench free, squawking, leaving him standing there with a few of their feathers hanging out of his beak. I’ve begun noticing a special glee that warms Richard’s voice whenever he speaks of Napoleon’s upcoming Waterloo. No exile for this warmonger, more like a guillotine and a plate.

Me: ‘Okay, who else goes?’
Richard: “Well … the laying hens.”

Our Rhode Island Red and Barred Rock sex links, all of whom I’ve grown quite fond.

Richard: “They’re a year and a half old, they’re reaching the end of their prime egg laying time, and we’ll have others to take their place.”
Me: ‘It’s sad thinking of them going.’

No response from Richard. We take a few silent steps.

Me: ‘Don’t you think?’
Richard: “Not really.”

Figures. I turn into ole softy while Richard can’t wait for the beheadings to begin.

Richard: “We’ve given them a good life, they’ve run free AND they’re nice and plump.”
Dan: ‘What about Nanna?’

One of our favorite routines now is to shout out with a shrill Appalachian dialect: “Nanna’s gone broody!” Broody hens are hens that will sit and hatch eggs, anyone’s eggs. They’ll sit for hours upon hours without food or water without leaving the nest. It’s been said they won’t even leave the nest were a predator to invade the coop and start attacking them. Amazing. After Nanna’s been sitting for a spell she gets this meditative glaze to her eyes like some sort of feathered swami. Maybe she’s an oracle. Maybe people and poultry will come from miles around for advice and guidance. That would save her butt for years to come.

Richard: “No, we’ll keep Nanna. A broody hen’s worth its weight in gold.”

With Nanna safe from the block, we continue going over the others, deciding who will get the axe and who’ll make the pick. I feel like we’re hovering somewhere between “A Chorus Line” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” I wonder if that was set in a New England town?

NOTE: I just checked out wikipedia and Shirley Jackson was living in BENNINGTON, VERMONT when she wrote “The Lottery” and she modeled the small American town in the short story on Bennington! Whataya know? There’s an order to the universe.

Richard: “I’m still on the fence about Laura; I don’t know whether we should keep her or let her go. She’s so sweet.”

Laura IS sweet, and slightly lame and thus her name inspired by “The Glass Menagerie.”

Richard: “Royce (our next door neighbor, a chicken raiser from way back) recommended she be the first to get processed BECAUSE she’s lame. That made me want to keep her. When I told Royce this he sighed and said “Well, maybe a hawk will get her.””
Me: (A gasp!)
Richard: (Laughing) He was joking!

Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. All this talk about “Processing” – which I’m sure you’ve picked up is the euphemism for butchering and slaughtering around here – makes me think of concentration camps. Let’s all concentrate on “Processing”, shall we?

It’s later. I’m upstairs on our bed processing this whole thing. A THOUGHT processing, mind you; our bedroom is not dripping with chicken blood. I’m looking over at a smiling picture of Richard and me taken a few years back and, as I’ve mentioned before, Richard gives off an air of being this sweet softie; handsome, a good guy, kind heart. And me? I’m nice looking, very mid-western, maybe a little tough. The point is appearances can be deceiving. I can be a big pushover, a cream puff while Richard can be surprisingly tough, coldly practical, even bloodthirsty. Okay, that’s a big character judgment, a huge leap, but these birds he cooed over when they were babies he’s ready to chop into without blinking an eye. (With the exception of lame Laura and broody Nanna, of course. But, knowing what I know, if I were they I wouldn’t turn my back on Richard for any long period of time, especially if he were carrying a sharp object. And most especially around dinner time.)

Me: ‘Will you have trouble eating birds you’ve raised?’
Richard: “Not really.”
Me: ‘Hmm.’

Me? I don’t know. Will I be able to eat something that I’ve helped name, that I’ve held and petted, that I’ve peered at and that’s peered peripherally back at me? I’m going to kill this living thing, so it can feed me? I’m flashing on that Bill Moyers series where he interviews Joseph Campbell in which one of the episodes deals with Sacrifice and Bliss. They’re focusing on the nature religions and there’s a hunter killing a giraffe and he’s singing, chanting, and praising the animal that he’s killing, thanking it for the life its giving to the hunter and his family so that they may sustain themselves. Granted, Richard and I are not on a plain in Africa eking out our survival, but there’s something so right about that hunter’s ritual, so honoring of life, of its natural cycles, of coming full circle, being part of a larger process, all intertwined and connected. So maybe Richard’s not cold-blooded afterall, maybe he sees this cycle naturally without help from African hunters and Bill Moyers and Joseph ‘follow your bliss” Campbell. Maybe Richard is raising his chickens with his eyes open wide, knowing why they’re being raised and where they’re going. And along the way - and at the time of their killing - we will treat them with honor and respect and kindness; we will thank them daily for what they give us – now eggs and later meat -- not to mention the gifts of their clucking company, the curiosity and delight they awaken within us, and the opportunity of seeing things from a bird’s perspective. Hmmm?

Okay, Laura and Nanna, I take back my parenthetical about Richard.

But Napoleon, you’ve got a death wish that is about to come true.

BIKE RIDE CHECK IN: 30 years ago today, June 8, 1979, my fuji cross-country bike was parked at my Aunt Sis and Uncle Prentis’s deep in gravel dusty southern Indiana farm country, close to the nearly non-existent town of Epsom. It was hot and humid – I can hear the cicadas droning buzzsaws in the trees right now – and there had been a terrific series of thunderstorms cascading through, darkening the skies and putting on quite a show. It was a good visit filled with fantastic food – strawberries were ripe and full and tasty. Aunt Sis had made up some homemade shortcake. Yum.

The next day I set off despite threatening rain and my cousin Howard came and picked me up to give me a lift in his truck for a few miles because he had heard a big banger was on its way. The rain never arrived, but when we got to the main road we came upon a section of low lying highway where a torrent of water was washing across from one farm field to another, as if a river had been newly carved out. Traffic was backed up on either side of the flow. We waited for awhile, some vehicles turned around and went off in search of an alternate route. Finally, Howard decided to take a chance for though the current looked swift, the depth seemed a foot at the most, no problem at all. We were sadly mistaken. We began creeping across and soon realized that it was much deeper than we had anticipated. And the flow was fearsome. Suddenly we lost control and the back of the truck began swerving away with the current, headed down the ditch into the muddy flowing field to our right. Howard and I looked at one another, helplessly. In desperation, Howard gunned the motor and slowly, in whirring jerks, the tires began gaining purchase and finally sucked us back onto dry pavement and away from the swirling waters. We parked and breathed heavily, going back over all the details of “can you believe what just happened?” That incident would become fodder for a great story for years to come.

Within a mile, the sky broke and the sun came out, acting as if nothing had happened, no threatening rain, no flood. We decided to drive down to Lincoln’s Indiana home which was very close and we got out there and walked around the grounds, relaxed, saw Nancy Hanks, Lincoln’s mother’s, gravesite. And then we hugged each other goodbye, laughed once more about our close shave and wondered when we’d see each other again. Then he took off back home and I pedaled south to my next destination - Owensboro, Kentucky, and my cousins, Sonny and Linda.