Ripped from the archives: Hot town, chicken in the city
Back of my neck getting birdy and gritty.
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Dear readers! Here’s another older post of mine which people once enjoyed, and you might, now, too. Ha ha, I thought, reading it again right now. Ha.
… heh.
OK actually, reading it again, I thought, This isn’t long enough, I need to give them more, they hunger for more! “They” being you. You’re insatiable. And then I looked through the rest of the archives, and I was like, damn it, none of these posts are all that substantial, what have I been doing with my time? And now I am questioning everything. Just everything! So I thought I’d give you an update from the current day before launching into this August 2021 semi-classic.
We had a blackout Saturday night during a thunderstorm that was being a real drama queen, lightning and a-thundering at the same moment, RUMBLE-FLASH RUMBLE-FLASH like that, and I thought Hazel was going to drop dead from panic. We have medications and of course a ThunderShirt™ for her but nothing seems to work when she is in the grips of unalloyed terror; this plus her congestive heart failure can bring out the panic in all of us! Anyway the lightning and thunder hit at the precise moment the lights went out, which was awfully theatrical, and then we were like, “Oh huh probably we should have bought real candles and not these scented and/or votive numbers.” The place smelled like fig and vetiver and tobacco with base notes of sandalwood and juniper and Hazel ran from one closet to the next, panting and trembling.
Once the storm ended we attempted to sleep, but then some absolute genius in our neighborhood was like, “I can’t sit here with my feelings in the dark!” and so they set off fireworks for the next two hours. Which was fantastic, because if there’s anything Hazel hates as much as thunderstorms it’s fireworks. So we had to deal with her PTSD for a while. Eventually they ran out of fireworks or died, I guess, because that stopped, and then there was a cicada the size of my mom outside our window, or a human-size toad, or something, chirruping so goddamn loud I was like “I will never sleep again.” The country!
At 1am, the lights came back on. At 2am, another thunderstorm began, and I swear I saw Hazel’s brain break. I mean, sure, she survived it, but will her mind ever be the same?
Okay enough about the today-times, here is the past:
The end of August in NYC means the air is thick and redolent of warmed garbage. Everyone is surly, including myself. I have to go to midtown in two days and I’m pre-grouchy about it. There is nothing good in midtown, unless you’re going to fashion school shortly and need to pick up sewing supplies and want your mom to come help you. In that case I suppose there’s some good stuff. And if my baby needs my help, damn it, off I go. Even though it’s absurdly hot and humid and smells like someone’s been sneaking out at night and drizzling sour milk into the gutters.
This morning Hazel found a chicken carcass on the sidewalk. Actually I saw it first but she was so thrilled about it I wanted to give her the credit. I’d say this is unusual but in fact it’s about once a week that we almost step on a chicken carcass. Enough that Scott or I have to exclaim “street chicken!” when we see one. Just the picked-over ribcage of a chicken, hanging out on the pavement. Like someone thought, this chicken is too delicious for me to keep it indoors! And then halfway down the block they were like, oof, I never thought it would happen but I tire of this chicken, and dropped the carcass right where they stood, wiping their greasy hands on their t-shirt.
Once, a few years ago, I saw my neighbor’s basset hound ambling down the sidewalk all by himself, holding what looked like an entire roast chicken in his mouth. And what do you do when that happens? I sure as hell did not have an idea what to do. The neighbor wasn’t someone I knew, particularly, but I did know that he lived in the garden level of a house on my block, so I walked over there, and the door was wide open and no one answered when I called out. I assumed, as you do, that they had all been murdered. The dog was just pacing the sidewalk with this chicken, like “What have I done to deserve this gift?” I made a halfhearted attempt to get the chicken away from him—who knows how long that street chicken had been outside—but there was a lot of snarling in response, and, well, I wanted to keep my fingers. So I watched the dog walk right into the wide-open apartment with the chicken, and then I closed the door behind him.
I called the police to tell them about the murders, but they were not convinced. “It’s possible they left the door open?” they said, and I insisted that no one does that, but if they were comfortable not checking, I at least had done my civic duty. Then later that day I ran into the neighbor and told him and he said “my kids must have left the door open,” all casual, like we don’t live in a city where there are DAILY CRIMES. Maybe HE was the murderer! He also swore there wasn’t any hint of a roast chicken in his apartment, so clearly he’s a liar (murderer) or that basset hound ate all the bones, and that basset hound was not going to be okay. My neighbor happened to be walking the basset hound, who seemed fine but was eyeing me like, “You shut your filthy mouth about that chicken, you hear?”
I took a break from writing this to walk Hazel and thought I saw an entire loaf of challah out there. I was excited. More content! I thought. When I got closer it turned out to be a hunk of wood. I guess it’s good that no one lost an entire loaf of challah. This is a very good ending to my story, and I definitely will not lose any more subscribers.
Mm, street meat.
My homeland of Atlanta is notorious for its sidewalks being strewn with chicken bones. Also my dog once pulled a turkey carcass out of a dumpster, consumed most of it, and was then wildly ill all over my apartment. I am opposed to street poultry.