This is one of the stories I read on Sunday afternoon, at The History Center, as part of the Spring Writes Literary Festival. A little background: a few years ago I set out to write a story about something I knew absolutely nothing about, and to fill it with 100% nonsense. I don't know a thing about chickens, but I had a lot of fun imagining what might happen if a certain woman came into contact with a bunch of chickens.
Sophie hated chickens. Which was a problem, since her husband, my Cousin Jasper, was a chicken man, born and bred.
When he invited Sophie into his life she was prepared for all sorts of bachelor shenanigans: a mess of toenail clippings scattered willy-nilly on the bathroom floor, and more than a little belching and farting. But she was not prepared for chickens.
Had she been from around here, she would have known that Cousin Jasper and his chickens were as close as an owl and its hoot. But poor Sophie, coming from Pretty Marsh, she was as innocent as a minute. No good ever came from marrying the first man who asks you. Especially if you meet him at a Friday Night Barn Dance in the middle of August.
That very first morning when Sophie arrived in her new home, she saw it, she heard it, she smelled it: she was living on a chicken farm.
Not being one to waste time, she headed straight for the yard to show those chickens who was boss. The way I heard it, she just hunkered down on the cracked earth and followed them around, staring right into their beady little eyes.
If you know anything at all about chickens you know they don’t go for no eyeball to eyeball contact — not from each other and not from a pointy-chinned woman like Sophie. The little chicks didn’t know what to make of her, but they didn’t like it one bit.
The chickens took off for their roosts lickety-split, squawking to beat Christmas, trying to get away from Sophie’s eyes.
Now, wouldn’t you think, in their churned up condition, they’d suffer from a stoppage of their functions? When I’m all jiggered my internal plumbing just shuts right down on me. But not those chickens. They started popping out eggs like there was no tomorrow. Ten, fifteen, twenty eggs a piece they were laying. Started in like that on the first day and it never did let up. Yes indeed, that’s gospel.
I know it sounds impossible, but that’s just because you never met Sophie. That woman was so single-minded in her detestation of all things fowl that she terrified those chickens into laying more eggs than was natural.
Cousin Jasper, first thing he figured was — witchy stuff. He was scared he’d gone and married him a genuine handmaiden of Satan. Well, that’s the kind of man he is, a tad simple, though he plays a real sweet harmonica.
But then the Agriculture Inspector came down to see what was what — tiny little government man all the way from Beaker Flats, had a mustache weighed more than he did. And he says he read somewhere, in one of those chicken magazines, that it could happen just like it did: chickens take it into their pea-sized brains to lay more eggs than the sky’s got stars and they just go ahead and do it.
He told Cousin Jasper that Sophie was no witch. She was a phenomenon. That’s what he said. And the chickens, they were a phenomenon too. That Agriculture Inspector, he said people were going to love this story: human interest, he called it. To my way of thinking it’s more like chicken interest.
The folks from the chicken magazine came to see what was up. And the people from Time Magazine, they came too. And of course there were TV cameras. A whole bunch of hoopla. And everybody who showed up, they had to pay cold hard cash money if they wanted a picture of those chickens. Sophie made the rule, and it was a good one.
She kept the dollars in old flour bags under the kitchen sink. Pretty soon she had more than twenty bags full of money. To say nothing of what she and Cousin Jasper got from selling those eggs. We’re talking a lot of money.
Close your eyes and picture as much money as you have ever seen in one place at one time. Now multiply that by about a thousand. And then go ahead and multiply it again by . . . I don’t know by what, you can just take my word for it, it was a lot of money.
Sophie and Jasper, they were rich. They were so rich they would have been fools to stay put on that tired little chicken farm, and let me tell you, that Sophie was no fool.
So she took Jasper by one of his bony wrists and she yanked him off to Savannah. Savannah, I tell you. And they had such a nice time there they never did come back home. Not even for a visit.
Cousin Jasper passed the farm on to me, seeing as how I am his only living relative. And I moved right in. Sophie was a fine housekeeper. I didn’t find a single toenail clipping anywhere. And believe me, I looked.
And in case you’re wondering if those chickens are still popping out eggs like so many marbles, the answer is no, they are not. The chickens I’ve got now, they’re as normal as can be. Which suits me just fine. Give me a brood of one-a-day chickens and I’m happy as a ghost on Halloween. I don’t need to be rich ‘cause I’m not planning on going anywhere. I’m staying right here with my chickens and my dog, Wyatt Earp, and I’m just as pleased I could hope to be.
This is one of the stories I read on Sunday, May 7, as part of the Spring Writes Literary Festival. I was reading at The History Center, photo included at the bottom.
That summer we were going to share a cabin with the Rubins at Bobkin’s Bungalow Colony in the Catskills. For months Mom and her best friend, Gloria Rubin, had been planning all the details, staying up late in one kitchen or the other with their laughter and schemes.
By the end of June we crammed into Gloria’s green Dodge Dart, Mom sitting up front and my sister Laura and I scrunched into the back with Cookie Rubin, the snottiest girl you’d ever hope not to meet.
It was a rocky trip, because neither Mom nor Gloria knew how to drive, and by the time we arrived in the mountains they were no longer friends. Before we could even unpack, we were thrown out.
"The bathroom's too small for all your toothbrushes," Gloria Rubin said, and since she’d been the one to pay the deposit, we had to go.
Mom dragged Laura and me to a shed called the Main Office. Buddy Bobkin, who ran the place, shook his head and said “Sorry, young ladies, we are all booked up,” and Mom said “Kids, prepare yourselves to schvitz to death in the city this summer,” and Laura began to cry.
So then Buddy said “Well, maybe I have something, but you won’t like it,” and Mom said “We’ll take it,” and it turned out to be a chicken coop.
“Converted chicken coop,” Buddy Bobkin said. I wondered what religion had to do with it.
We moved right in. Laura and I put our clothes in wooden crates because there weren’t any dressers.
Mom unpacked the pots and pans and put them on the shelves where chickens used to sit and lay their eggs.
Over the next few days everyone from the bungalow colony (except Gloria, who we now called Mrs. Rubin, and her awful daughter, Cookie) came to see us and they said “You’ve done wonders with this place, Eve,” and Mom said “Stay for breakfast, I’m making omelets,” but no one ever did.
I think they were afraid they’d find chicken feathers in their eggs, and they would have, too.
There were chicken feathers everywhere. They fell on our eyelids when we slept, and they found their way into our bathing suits, where we hung them out to dry on nails.
We didn’t mind. We were the only family in the history of Bobkin’s Bungalow Colony to spend the entire summer in a chicken coop. And that made us special.
On the weekends, when Dad came up to visit, he’d go “cluck, cluck, cluck” until Mom said “Stop it Morty, it’s converted.”
Yesterday, as part of the Spring Writes Literary Festival, organized by the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County, I gave a reading at the History Center. I had planned to read this story but at the last minute I decided there wasn't enough time. So I'm sharing it here on my blog, for the second time, and I hope you enjoy reading it.
The story was inspired by the photograph "Bread Store, 259 Bleeker Street, New York, 1937," by Berenice Abbott.
My great-aunt Helen was also an inspiration. None of the details are true but the fighting essence of Helen, who always wanted to see justice done, is woven into this story.
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I don’t have a thing against the Zito family personally. The wife is a woman I would even call sociable. Which is not to say friendly. Friendly I don’t even look for anymore. The husband, too, Mr. Zito himself, I’ve got no complaints with him. He’s not a big talker, but in a baker you don’t need talking.
It’s not personal, like some people are trying to make out. It’s not like I have an axe needs grinding. All it is, is a matter of truth in advertising. The sign on the window says sanitary. Look, you see where I’m pointing? Look, why don’t you, it’s bigger than life. If a sign says sanitary then the shop should be sanitary. This I think is not so complex a concept. If you’re not going to be sanitary don’t call in the men with the gold paint and the brushes to paint you a sign on the window that spells out sanitary.
That is my argument in a nutshell. And for this, people are treating me like a pariah.
What did I do was so terrible? I brought home a loaf of bread, excuse me, I thought I was entitled to assume it would be full of bread. When you buy bread, you don’t expect to find a mouse baked into the center of it, do you? Yes, a mouse, you heard me right, that’s what I’m telling you, the whole thing was about a mouse.
What kind of bread? What kind of a question is that? A loaf of bread. Round. That isn’t the point. Better you should ask me what kind of a mouse. Dead, that’s what kind, a dead mouse in the bread. Mice in the bread is not sanitary. Not in my book.
So I brought it back to Zito's. The whole thing, the bread and the mouse. Only the mouse by now it didn’t have its head attached to its body. When I cut in, I accidentally decapitated it. It wasn’t my fault. Believe me, I was more surprised than the mouse. The mouse was already dead by then. Oh sure, to be cooked you have to be dead.
Okay, so I arrived with my paper bag. Mr. was in the back by the ovens, Mrs. was helping another customer, so I was patient, I waited my turn, and then I opened my bag and showed her. The bread and the mouse, together in death as in life.
Mrs. took the whole shebang out of my hands, she didn’t even blink. Eyes like a carving knife, I’m telling you, and this I never noticed before. Always in the past she gave me a smile. That day, it was the cutting eyes.
She takes the bag, she throws it under the counter. Then she reaches into the money box, takes out a nickel, and hands it over to me. So far, so good. That’s the least I would expect. But it’s not the most I would expect.
I tell her I want they should take off the word sanitary from their window. What could be more reasonable than that? I say to her, “Mrs. Zito, you have to do what’s right. You have to change your sign.”
That’s when she tried to push me out the door.
Pushing I don’t like. I was never one for pushing. You could ask anyone. You could ask my sister, Bunny. If she were still alive she’d tell you, all my life if someone put their hands on me it brought out the worst. What can I say? That’s just the way I was made.
So then we had the little commotion. I’m sure you heard about it already. Mr. Zito comes in from the ovens, the other ladies in the shop get involved — although to be technical about it, it was none of their business. There were words passed. I won’t deny there were words. Okay already, so there were words. Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never harm you. You ever hear that?
You know the rest of the story. No one wants to take my side. No one. Over this, I even lost an old friend. Edith Bloom. You know Edith Bloom? We were friends 35 years. Yesterday, I passed her over by the bus stop, she didn’t see me. It was like I wasn’t even there. Only 2 feet away from her and she didn’t see me?
It seems my manner with the Zitos was not entirely acceptable. That’s what they tell me. My manner. Is this about manners? No! It’s about honesty.
That’s why I’m out here in the cold, in the rain, every day with my sign. “Unsanitary.” I printed it myself. You don’t have to go to any fancy print shop to make a point. A little crayon, a little cardboard — I learned this years ago from the garment district. Believe me, this isn’t my first picket line.
Can you tell me what’s the crime I’m committing? It’s a public service I’m giving to the neighborhood for free. That window, it still says sanitary. Which is a lie. I’m out here with the other side of the story. In every argument there are two sides. There’s the wrong side and there’s the right side. How could I live with myself if I wasn’t here to stand up for the right side?
You ask me what you should do? Who am I to tell you what you should do? You do what you have to do. I’m not concerned to keep people out of the store. The Zito family has to make a living just like everybody else. I don’t want to close down their bakery.
My interest is in two letters only. They can call in a new painter tonight. He can put a U and an N, in front of the “Sanitary,” and by tomorrow I’ll be gone. No one will ever know I was here. Two letters. That’s all I’m asking. The world, it could be an entirely different place, with two letters. Justice would be served, with just two little letters.
Thursday, April 27 was POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY, organized by the wonderfully creative people at the Tompkins County Public Library. Dozens of writers contributed poems. They were then printed up as postcards and distributed around town. WHAT FUN!!!
Here are the two poems that I contributed:
once
in a restaurant
i saw a woman across the room
and walked toward her.
i was critical of her haircut
but other than that
she looked like someone i'd like.
i gave her a friendly smile.
i even waved.
as i got closer i realized
i was looking in a large mirror.
the woman was me.
luckily no one else noticed.
=== === ===
sitting on my front steps
waiting for a ride —
i must be careful
not to get into the wrong car.
strangers pull up in front of my house
all the time —
i jump up
and greet them like long-lost friends.
this scares them.
it scares me, too.
i'm always having to explain
about being nearsighted.
(This is one of the first stories I posted on my blog, years and years ago. Here it is again!)
There's a goldfish in the bed. And a blue velvet pouch with a broken zipper, some marbles, a penny, a fake ruby ring, a couple loose bobby pins, wads of used tissues, an overdue library book, a #2 pencil, half of a pink eraser, a candy lipstick, a spiral notebook, crumbs of buttered toast, a spoon, a cough, a sneeze, a hiccup, and one sick little girl known as Needle.
The goldfish, Maxie, isn’t supposed to be in the bed, she’s supposed to be in her bowl, keeping company with her ceramic castle and her mermaid and her colored rocks — green, yellow, orange, turquoise.
The bed business was a big mistake. What you might call a fatal error. Somebody got careless. Let’s be honest, and also specific: it was Needle.
We could blame it on the fever. But it wasn’t necessarily the fever’s fault alone. There is the fact, not to be ignored, that Needle is absent-minded, self-absorbed, selfish, unaware, forgetful, indifferent, uncaring, neglectful, irritating, bossy, noisy, and whiny. Even without the fever.
We might feel sympathy for Needle, but we don’t have to like her. In fact, we don’t like her. We hold her responsible for Maxie’s death, even if she considers herself blameless.
Well, of course she would.
Now what is to be done with the ceramic castle? What is to be done with the mermaid, poor thing?
The library book stinks. It smells of fish. Don’t hold that against Maxie. It was Needle, flinging things around the bed, willy nilly, who created that most unholy of combinations: goldfish flattened within the pages of Little Women.
Needle is hungry. Famished. Starving. It’s been fifteen minutes since her mother brought in the lime jello. Fifteen minutes since her mother said "I—am—not—your—servant." Fifteen minutes since her mother said, “I’ll be back in one hour with your sandwich, not a second sooner, do not call me again, Nadine Weinstock, I mean it.” Forty-five minutes to go.
Needle doesn’t think she can make it. She reaches for her cherry-burst candy lipstick. She smears it all over her mouth. It cheers her up. She licks her lips. And licks them some more. More. She sticks out her tongue and licks the lipstick that peeks up out of the gold cardboard tube. It is delicious. Like a cherry coke. Better, even, than a cherry coke.
Another lick, and then a nibble and then a bite. And another. More. Again. It's heavenly.
And then she throws up.
We could say that wasn’t her fault, either. She was sick. Hungry. Tired. Bored. Lonely. We can always find some excuse if we want to. But do we want to? Do we?
Her mother comes in even though the hour is not yet up. "Oh Nadine, Nadine, Nadine," she says.
She goes to get a cold washcloth and then she changes the sheets. That’s when dead Maxie is discovered. What a hullabaloo. Maxie down the toilet. Flush. Flush again, just to be safe.
Needle weeps. But not for Maxie. She weeps for herself and the cherry-burst candy lipstick, which she knows she'll never be allowed to have again. Probably not until she's old and in high school, whenever that will be. Who knows about the future, anyway?
Just ask Maxie. Maxie expected to live at least until tomorrow and look how wrong she was.
This was originally written a few years ago, in 18 parts. But yesterday I was invited to read a poem at tonight's meeting of the Tompkins County Legislature, as they celebrate the county's 200th birthday (which is officially on April 7). I said Yes, since I'm always looking for an excuse to share some happiness, but I figured 18 examples was just too much. So I did some quick revisions and read this version at the meeting.
===
happiness is when you're moping around your apartment on a cold wet Sunday afternoon, bemoaning the fact that the only time the phone rings these days is when someone — usually just a recorded voice — is trying to get you to buy something you don't want, and so you're startled when the phone actually rings in the middle of these morose thoughts, and it turns out to be a dear friend who used to live here, but now she lives there, and she wants to hear all the local gossip, which you want to share, and you both laugh and talk, for more than an hour, and when you get off the phone you are in such a great mood
happiness is when you are out for an early morning walk around the neighborhood, and the sun is so bright in your eyes that you can't see a thing, and it's a surprise when a person passes you, and all you know about that other human being is that he, or she, smells very good
happiness is when you call Time Warner Cable customer service first thing in the morning, and in less than 2 minutes you are connected with a real person named Eric, and you explain your problem, and he understands immediately, and tells you to press one button, and then another button, and you do these things and your problem is solved, so you say Hurrah and Eric (a very young man) says "excuse me?" and you say it again — Hurrah — and then you thank him over and over because now you can watch the Inspector Morse DVD you rented from Netflix
happiness is when you bring 8 books to Autumn Leaves Used Books to trade for store credit, and after a quick look around you find something you want — "The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds," by Diane Ackerman — and even though you think it is possible that you already read this book when it was first published, you gladly take it home because you remember nothing about the short-tailed albatross or the golden lion tamarin — and you still have lots more store credit you can use on a future visit
happiness is when you go outside to sweep away the first gentle snowfall of the season, and when you say hello to a stranger walking by he tells you this is his first snow in 26 years, because right after graduating from Ithaca High School he moved to Atlanta, and today is his first day back in Ithaca
happiness is taking yourself out for lunch at New Delhi Diamond's Restaurant, for their amazing Saturday buffet that includes Bhindi Masala — okra and peppers and onions — and you are very proud of yourself: you avoid the white rice, and potato puffs, and even those golden pillows of fried dough, and when you leave you're feeling both full and healthy
happiness is walking into Bramble, that collective of local herbalists, in Press Bay Alley, right around the corner from Diamond's — the warm welcoming atmosphere enveloping you the second you open the door, and you come home with a jar of coconut/lavender cream called "Cloud Butter," and also with a small bottle of Dandelion Flower Essence to aid in your efforts to Be More, and Do Less (it says that, right on the label)
happiness is when you wonder if a small poem will find you on this day, so you open a haiku book for inspiration, and your eyes land on the words "peace of mind," and right away you feel calmer, and you take a deep breath, and then another, and realize you are no longer anxious about a poem — it will come or it won't come — so you lace up your sturdy shoes and head out the front door, walking toward the sun
{All winter I wanted to re-post this, written a couple years ago, but I couldn't find it in my computer files because I didn't remember what I had titled it! And today — a very spring-like day — I came across it, so I am sharing it here again. Just because.}
Finally, the refrigerator motor shuts off and the loudest sound is one I make myself by circling my thumbs around each other. I don’t realize I’m doing this until I try to identify the sound and, by the process of elimination — since there are no hummingbirds in the apartment, no rustling leaves — I figure it out.
It’s been snowing all day. The last car went by hours ago and the tire tracks are filled in. Only two people pass, a man and a woman, walking down the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk. I watch from the window: the woman, in a pale trench coat and high leather boots, holds a black umbrella over her head; the man wears a hooded jacket and lumbers beside her. They pass my house, then the fire station’s parking lot, the pretty house with the stained glass windows, the health club, and the abandoned storefront. They don’t appear to be talking to each other but I can’t be sure.
I go back to my chair, and the novel I don’t yet care about, and realize too late that I should have changed into warmer socks. I am too lazy to get up again. The refrigerator has started to hum again and the fire department’s generator just kicked in.
hour after hour
at the window —
yes . . . it is still snowing
