The Chicken Dance Page 8

  “Did you get me five more dozen?” she asked.

  The truth was that I hadn’t gotten any more eggs for her because the chickens had watched me all afternoon instead of laying eggs. So I shook my head from side to side and my mother lifted her chin up and asked, “No? Well how many did you get?”

  I told her, “None. The chickens need to rest and get used to the new yard. But I made them all nests, so tomorrow we’ll probably have five dozen or more. Do you want to see the nests?”

  My mother shook her head and said, “No, Don. I don’t want to see the nests. I want to see five dozen eggs. I have people who want them. What am I supposed to tell them? That my son can’t make our chickens lay eggs?”

  I didn’t say anything, but my stomach growled because I hadn’t stopped building the nests to heat up a TV dinner for lunch.

  “Is there any way for people to tell that our eggs are our eggs?” my mother asked.

  I wasn’t sure what she meant so I asked her, “Ma’am?”

  “Well,” she said, “if I gave someone an egg I bought at the store, can they tell if it’s one of our eggs?”

  I shook my head and said, “No, ma’am. Except that our eggs are brown and sometimes the ones you buy at the store are white because their owners feed them different food than we do.”

  My mother asked, “Really? Is that the only difference?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Except for the carton.”

  “Why? What do we put our eggs in?” she asked.

  “I’ve been putting them in some old cartons I found in the shed, and Mr. Bufford gave me some to use,” I told her.

  My mother pointed toward the shed and said, “Go get me five of those cartons.”

  I went to the shed and got the cartons for my mother and handed them to her.

  “Now make sure those chickens start laying eggs by tomorrow,” she told me. “You’re lucky your mother is as smart as she is to get us out of this mess.”

  My mother drove off in her car again and I got a little worried that she was going to go to Horse Island Food and Furniture, or a store in Horse Island where everyone knew her, to buy the eggs. I was a little scared that she would get caught and I thought about what would happen if she did. Leon might not ride his bike to school with me anymore or Vickie Viceroy might chase me with a cigarette lighter and a can of hair spray while her brother tried to rope me. I started thinking about how I had won the contest, and how my mother didn’t even want me to be in it, and now that she saw how valuable eggs were, she was acting like it was my job to get her eggs, and now she was going to mess it up and get caught trying to trade eggs that she’d bought at the store, and then I wouldn’t have any friends anymore. I started breathing fast, and my head started hurting, and I got all this strength, and I felt like I wanted to hit someone, and it scared me because I didn’t know what was happening to me, and before I knew it, I was running as fast as I could, and chickens were running all over the yard, and I ran right up to the chicken coop and kicked it with all my might and yelled, “I hate my mother!”

  The chickens that were in the coop started running and flying out and danced and clucked around the yard. My head stopped hurting and my breathing slowed down, and I forgot about my mother, and all I could think about was that I had maybe hurt my friends.

  “I’m sorry,” I told them. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I tried to calm them down by petting them, but this only scared them more. Then I got an idea and went to the chicken shed and grabbed some feed for them and threw it on the ground. This calmed them down, and they ran over to the area where I’d thrown the feed and started pecking.

  When I saw that they’d forgotten about what had happened, I sat on the old tree stump and put my head between my legs and started crying. I cried like this for a couple of minutes and then I heard flapping and felt something on my head. I picked my head up and then I heard flapping again and I saw KC land on the ground.

  I started laughing because I’d never had a chicken fly and land on my head. I put my hand out toward KC and she walked right up to me and I grabbed her in my arms and petted her and laughed some more when I thought about what she’d done. It was like something that you’d see in a movie and I figured that it was a sign that something great was going to happen or that everything would turn out okay. This made me really happy because I thought it meant that my mother wouldn’t mess things up for me and that Leon and I would always be friends and that I’d be happy for the rest of my life. Later on, I realized that I was wrong.

  Eleven

  The next few weeks were really cool because a lot of cool things happened. One thing was that my mother was in a good mood and didn’t yell at me because she was making a lot of money from selling the eggs and also getting a bunch of stuff by trading the eggs. She even gave me some of the money every week. The other thing that was cool was that Leon invited me to sleep over at his house. I had never been to another person’s house to sleep except for the few times I’d slept at a babysitter’s. So when Leon asked me, I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t know what my mother would say.

  When I was about eight years old, I asked her to go to the circus because I’d heard some kids talking about it and it sounded really cool. I didn’t ask her straight out if I could go because I was kind of scared, so I thought about trying something else. One morning I drew a picture of the circus and put it down next to me on the kitchen table during breakfast. My plan worked because my mother saw the picture and said, “Don, don’t waste your colors on doodling. At least try to draw something that people can recognize.”

  I smiled at my mother real big and said, “It’s the circus.”

  She looked at it again and said, “I hated going to the circus when I was little because of all those animals in that enclosed space. That dust used to make me sneeze and it would take a week for me to get the smell of elephant out of my hair.”

  “Can we go to the circus?” I asked.

  She looked at me and pushed her lips together so they kind of made an upside-down U. Then she said, “Didn’t you hear me? I just told you I hate that place. Do you want your mother to go around smelling like animal for a week?”

  After that, I didn’t really ask my mother for anything. I really wanted to go and sleep at Leon Leonard’s house, though, and since my mother wouldn’t have to sit in a tent with elephants, I thought maybe she’d let me go. So during dinner on the Thursday before the Friday that Leon had invited me for, I tried to come up with a way to ask my mother. I thought about drawing a picture like I had done for the circus, but since that hadn’t worked before, I thought about asking her straight out. I was thinking about how to word the question when she told me, “Lucy Leonard called me today and asked if you could sleep at her house tomorrow night.”

  I swished my fork around my mashed potatoes and my mother sneezed and then said, “I told her, of course you could go, because I think it’s time we make friends with the people in this town. I mean, the better friends we become with them, the more things we can get from them, right? Especially since they’re under the impression that our eggs are better than everyone else’s. Did you know that Mr. Nichols over at the bakery is selling cakes made with our eggs? I hear he can’t keep the angel food cake on the shelf.”

  I stopped listening to my mother after that because I was going to get to spend the night at Leon’s and have a pillow fight or stay up late watching television and learning the songs to the commercials. I thought about this all night and all the next day until that afternoon when Leon and I rode our bikes to his house after school.

  When we got there, we did a bunch of stuff like play with his dog and climb trees and collect the eggs from his chickens. When we were finished doing that, Leon’s mom stepped out into the yard and yelled at us to come in for dinner. I’d met her a few times before, and every time I had, she had a new hair color or style and sometimes even wore wigs. She had put on a wig between the time she
first told me and Leon hello that afternoon and the time she stepped out in the yard to get us for dinner. If Leon hadn’t said, “In a minute, Mom,” I don’t think I would have known who she was.

  When Leon’s dad stepped out in the yard, the same thing kind of happened. I had seen him before at Horse Island Food and Furniture but he looked different from before because this time he had curly hair instead of straight hair. I thought it might be him but I wasn’t sure until Leon said, “Hi, Dad,” and then Mr. Leonard said, “Hey, my boy. Go wash your hands and come in and chow.”

  After we washed our hands, we went to the screen porch and on it there was a table with chairs all facing the chicken yard. Mr. Leonard was sitting in one of the chairs and he reached up and put his hand on my shoulder and told me, “Have a seat, Mr. Schmidt.”

  I was confused because I didn’t know why he’d want me to sit at the table on the screen porch. So I asked him, “Why do you want me to sit here?”

  Mr. Leonard started laughing. He was really big and tall and when he laughed, he reminded me of the giant from the brand of canned vegetables called Green Giant. He slapped me on the back and said, “Because we’re going to eat here, my boy. This is the best place because we get to watch the chickens while we eat. I swear I can’t get enough of watching those crazy birds.”

  It smelled funny on the porch and it reminded me of the odor from my mother’s hair after she’d gotten a perm. Only this smell was a lot stronger and I had to turn my head to my shoulder and hold my nose a little. I guess Mr. Leonard saw me because he asked, “What’s the matter, boy?”

  I knew it would be rude to tell him that his house smelled, so I said, “Nothing. I just had to sneeze.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Leonard said. “I hope the smell from my new perm isn’t bothering you. Lucy just put it in, and the smell can be a little strong.”

  “No, sir,” I said, and then looked out at the chicken yard.

  Although the smell from Mr. Leonard’s hair was still pretty strong, I was so interested in the dinner that I forgot about it. It was strange for me to hear the sound of my fork hitting a real plate and not an aluminum tray, and I tapped it a couple of times because I liked it. Nobody told me to be quiet when I did it, so I did it again, and then Mrs. Leonard said, “Look at that rooster the way he rules the yard. All the other chickens are scared of him.”

  Mr. Leonard laughed and said, “Except that one white hen with the reddish streak down her back. She’s not scared of him. He’s scared of her.”

  Then Mrs. Leonard smiled and said, “That’s because she knows she has what every man wants.”

  Both she and Mr. Leonard started laughing. I asked Leon what it was that the hen had that the rooster wanted, and he told me he didn’t know but that he was sure it was funny.

  Mr. Leonard stopped laughing and asked me, “What do you think about that, Don?” and Mrs. Leonard slapped him and said, “Lionel, he’s only a boy.”

  Mr. Leonard lifted his arm up to block her from slapping him again and said, “Oh, come on, Lucy. I’m sure he knows about the birds and the bees.”

  I didn’t know about the birds and the bees although I’d heard people talk about them a lot on television. I didn’t know what to say, so I smiled and told Mr. Leonard that I liked his shirt.

  “Oh, Leon,” Mr. Leonard said. “You have to bring this one over more often. He cracks me up.”

  Then Mr. Leonard slapped me on the back and said, “You’re good people. You know that, Don?”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about or why he was laughing, so I just smiled and shoved a fork full of yams in my mouth and took a sip of juice. Then Leon said, “Look at that little chicken trying to fly over the fence. It’s so funny when they think they’re going to make it and smash right into it.”

  The chicken hit the top of the fence and fell to the ground, and Leon and his parents started laughing. Even though it wasn’t the way the Brady Bunch ate, I thought that the Leonards were a normal American family, and that I was having a normal American dinner.

  I kind of liked it, until Mr. Leonard asked me, “So, Don, how do you do in school? Do you bring home F’s like Leon here?”

  I looked at Leon, and he looked like he was a little mad, and it was the same face he made when our teacher asked him a question he didn’t know the answer to or yelled at him for making a bad grade. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t have to because Mr. Leonard started talking again. He said, “Yeah, Leon isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He’s lucky that when he gets old enough he’ll be able to work on the oil rigs with his old man here because he ain’t ever gonna be able to get a job using his smarts.”

  Leon’s face got real red, and he looked down at the ground. I didn’t know what to say but I wanted to say something so that Mr. Leonard would stop talking.

  “Mr. Leonard,” I said.

  He smiled at me and said, “Yeah, my boy?”

  I was stuck, but then something happened and I thought of something to say.

  “Your face is getting really red.”

  Mrs. Leonard looked at him and screamed, “Oh my god! The chemical must have been too strong. Come on, Lionel, we need to wash that right away.”

  Mr. Leonard dropped his fork and started rubbing his head and hollering, “My scalp’s starting to burn. Ow. Crap!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Leonard ran from the table, and I heard Mr. Leonard screaming and cursing in the house. Leon’s mad face changed, and he started laughing, and then he ate the rest of the potato salad that was on his dad’s plate.

  That night, we all watched television. Mr. Leonard sat in a leather recliner like my father did. He had white lotion on his ears and parts of his forehead for the burns from the hair chemicals. Mrs. Leonard sat in an armchair and filed her nails and didn’t speak that much. Leon and I sat on pillows two feet in front of the television.

  After hours of television, Leon and I went to his room and all I could think about was the pillow fight we were going to have. When we got into his room, though, he jumped into his bed and fell asleep. I had thought that he would start the pillow fight, but when he didn’t, I thought that maybe he was waiting for me, but then I thought he might get mad at me and tell his mom to call my mother, who would be embarrassed by her son who went around hitting people with pillows while they slept. I lay awake on the side of Leon most of the night and waited for him to hit me with a pillow or ask me to sneak into the living room and watch television. I eventually fell asleep from being so tired and bored and thought that maybe in the morning we’d have a pillow fight.

  The next morning a rooster crowed and woke me up. When I heard it, I got up real fast and ran to Leon’s window to watch it. His window didn’t overlook the chicken coop, though, and so I had to go out on the screen porch to watch the rooster. By the time I got there, he’d stopped crowing, so I went into the living room and looked around. There was a brown sofa facing a wall with a television, and there were pictures hanging on the walls and sitting on top of end tables and bookshelves. One of the pictures was of Leon and his parents dancing. They were doing weird things with their hands and Leon was wearing a tie. Also in the picture was a woman in a wedding dress and a guy playing an accordion.

  While I was looking at the picture, Mr. Leonard walked into the living room and said, “Good morning, Mr. Schmidt.”

  I smiled at him and said, “Good morning, sir.”

  He walked up to the window and said, “I couldn’t sleep at all last night, my boy, because my head was burning. I get those perms all the time so I don’t know why it burned so bad this time. What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” I told him. “I’ve never gotten a perm.”

  He laughed and said, “You’re good people, Don.”

  I smiled because I liked it when he told me I was good people. I’d never had anyone tell me that, and I guessed it meant that he liked me, and I liked him too, except when he’d made fun of Leon because he w
asn’t too smart, but other than that, I liked him a lot. So I told him, “Thank you. I like your T-shirt and shorts.”

  He smiled and said, “Thank you back, my boy.”

  I felt really comfortable with Mr. Leonard and wasn’t afraid to ask him questions. So I asked him, “Mr. Leonard, what are you guys doing in this picture with the guy with the accordion?”

  He grabbed the picture from me and said, “We’re dancing, my boy. It’s called the Duck Dance or something like that. It was at a wedding for a partner of mine who I work offshore with. He came to Louisiana from some country in Europe and they used to do that dance there. It’s a crazy dance, boy, and to tell you the truth if I wouldn’t have been so chock ayed then, I don’t think I’d have done it.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant by chock ayed, and I think he could tell from my face because he said, “You mean to tell me that you don’t know what chock ayed means?”

  I told him no, and then he asked me, “Don’t your parents teach you anything, boy? It means drunk.”

  Mrs. Leonard walked into the living room and Mr. Leonard looked at her and said, “Hey, Lucy, Don here was asking about that Duck Dance we did at my buddy Alex’s wedding. You remember him. He’s from some country where we get that chocolate from. What’s it called? ‘Swiss Miss’? Yeah, yeah. ‘Swiss Miss.’ Where’s that again?”

  “Switzerland.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Leonard said, “that’s it. Switzerland. You remember that?”

  And then Mrs. Leonard said, “Oh god, yes. That was such a fun dance. How did it go again?”

  Leon walked into the living room in a T-shirt and his underwear and asked, “How did what go?”

  “The Duck Dance,” Mrs. Leonard asked.

  “It went like this,” and then Leon started humming a song and moving his hands all kinds of ways. First he put his hands up in the air like they were two birds’ beaks and flapped them back and forth. Then he put his hands underneath his armpits and flapped his arms like he had wings. Then he shook his butt from side to side and then clapped his hands. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard did the same thing, and then all three of them were humming and turning one another around like they were square dancing. Each one tried to outdo the other one by either singing louder or moving their butt all over the place. Leon got on the sofa, and then jumped off, and flapped his arms in the air like he was trying to fly, and when he couldn’t, he landed on the ground and danced.