The Prodigal Hen August 12, 2010

Posted by EDW in chickens.
Tags: eggs, farming, free-range, gypsies, hens, lifestyle, livestock, prodigal chicken, raising chickens, runaways, urban chickens
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In spite of myself, ever since she disappeared I’ve thought maybe Goldie was dead. I tried to be vigilantly positive; whenever this thought surfaced, I crushed it like a ripe tomato and flung the pulp back into the dense foliage of my subconscious. She isn’t dead, I told myself. She isn’t dead, she’s simply gone away. But from a distance, Goldie looks so much like two other gyspy hens  camped in the woods around our house, that I worried I was kidding myself about whether or not my chicken, the one I raised from a chick, and who used to drink wine with me from an acorn-cap chalice, was still alive.

Until yesterday morning.

The gypsy chickens were gathered around the chicken coop, waiting for me to fill Petunia’s food pan. The usual characters were all there—the three Rogues, the snooty blonde, the two shy, ghostly silvers, and the reds. But this time, instead of two reds there were three.

“Look, honey,” I said to my husband, hope lifting the edges of my voice. “I wonder if one of them is our Goldie?” I crouched and peered at her through the chicken wire. It was hard to tell.

“Goldie?” I asked. She turned her head and pretended not to know me. But later, she climbed the gangplank to the Chateau’s interior and pecked around inside, seemingly at ease within the structure. I watched her through the Chateau’s open window.

“Goldie,” I said, “I know that’s you.”

She looked me straight in the eye and lit a cigarette.

“That’s not my name anymore,” she said. “They call me Mystère now.”

“I see.” I tried not to feel offended by the name change. I named her after Goldie Hawn, for the fluffy blonde feathers she had as a chick, and her general adorableness.

Questions were dog-piling inside my throat. Why did you leave? I wanted to ask. Do they treat you well? Do you get enough to eat? Where do you lay your eggs? How long will you stay? Where do you sleep at night? But there was a hardness in her orange eyes, a sharp edge like a knife blade that I wasn’t used to seeing there. Too many questions might send her back into the forest for God knows how long when I was just happy to see her again.

“Got anything to eat around here?” she asked, kicking her feet casually though the pine shavings.

“The ususal. Layena crumbles.” I set the pan of chicken feed inside the door of the Chateau. She didn’t say thank you, but she tucked into the crumbles with gusto. I watched her eat and examined her with my eyes. She still looked strong and healthy, fatter than the other gypsies and without their bald patches and frayed tails. Petunia lurked at the edges of the enclosure, eavesdropping, but otherwise ignored her prodigal sister. When she’d finished eating, Goldie walked around the inside of the Chateau listlessly, poking her head into the nest boxes and watching a wasp buzz against the wall. At last I broke the silence.

“I called the milk carton people last week,” I said. “You know. To see if I could get your picture on the side. I guess I can call them back and tell them nevermind.”

She snorted and scratched the back of her head with her foot.

“I tried to give you a nice life, Goldie. I really did. All those tomatoes? Cornbread? And the wine? I mean, how many hens do you know that have tasted wine? And look at this house!” I gestured to the Chateau. “You lived better than a lot of people in this world!”

She cocked her head and looked at me with one eye. I stared back. She crushed out her cigarette on the windowsill and flicked the butt behind her into Petunia’s favorite nest box.

“Look,” she said. “I appreciate all that. I really do. Growing up with you was mostly idyllic.”

“Mostly? Mostly? Your life was a dream,” I spat.

“Well, there was that one time you left us out while you were at school and dogs killed four of my siblings.”

“That’s not fair,” I said, fighting back tears. “That accident devastated me. I’d never raised chickens before. I wanted you to be able to free-range. If you remember, I was beyond attentive after that.”

“I remember. All too well I remember.”

“What are you saying? That I was over-protective? Sheltering?”

“Look, I know you meant well. It’s just that I never knew the facts of life. I never knew what it was to sleep in a tree or have my neck-feathers gripped in a rooster’s beak. I never had to take care of myself because you were always there, doing it for me.”

“I see.”

“It’s all fine and good for Petunia, but I want something more. I want to feel the rain on my wattles and the wind in my comb.”

“Well, you’re a grown hen,” I said quietly. “I can’t tell you what to do. But I just want you to know you always have a roost here.”

“I know,” she said. “Thanks.”

I turned to leave the enclosure but when I reached the door I turned back around and faced her.

“Just one more question,” I said. “Are you happy?”

“Sure, I guess.” She shrugged her wings. “I’m an animal. I’m out there doing all those animal things, fulfilling those vague, instinctual yearnings that most hens only dream about. It’s not about happiness, really. It’s about survival. It’s a real rush, survival.”

I reached out and placed my palm against her back, feeling the sleek feathers and gentle, boat-like curve of her body for what might have been the last time. She was never much for petting, but she let me do it.

“Good luck, Goldie.”

“See you around,” she said.

And because I understood what she meant when she’d said all that about survival and the roosters and the rain, I turned and left the chicken coop, and didn’t close the door behind me. For the rest of the morning I could see her when I peeked through the living room window. She was still inside the Chateau, smoking cigarettes and eating crumbles and looking bored. Our conversation hadn’t given me much hope but still I thought, Maybe she’ll stay.

Hours later, on my way back from the library, my deflated hope began to gather helium and lift into the sky. I envisioned her solid brown eggs in the nest box again, nestled against Petunia’s pearly blue ones. I imagined sitting on the stoop with a glass of wine, tipping it towards her beak. I took a mental inventory of my refrigerator and catalogued all the things inside that I knew she liked to eat: tomatoes, bread, garbanzo beans, mushrooms. Not exactly a fatted calf, but a feast nonetheless. One fit for a vegetarian hen. I parked the car in our driveway and got out.

“Goldie?” I called hopefully in the direction of the coop. The yard was silent and chickenless; the gypsies had returned to the woods to escape the midday heat.

I lifted the wire latch that holds the Chateau door closed.

“Goldie, are you in there?” I asked, hoping wildly. I tugged the handle and opened the door, but I didn’t have to. Because somehow I already knew: the Chateau was empty, and she was gone.