Dirt Chickens

I was eleven when my friend Isaac looked up from his comic book and asked if I wanted to see a bear.

We had spent the day in our tree house, lounging in the warm summer sun, telling jokes and reading comic books. I had nabbed a single cigarette from my mom’s closet, so for a moment we were on top of the world. Below our fort a small stream trickled through the underbrush. Our fort was built in a swamp, on top of the corpse of an old uprooted tree, and all manner of frogs and bugs scurried in the underbrush below us. It was the kind of place a young boy dreamed about.

On this day in particular, we were hiding. I from my parents, and Isaac from his older brother. Jimmy was there too, of course, but we never quite knew what Jimmy was hiding from.

Isaac looked at us expectantly, his quick blue eyes darting back and forth. He was wearing a tattered dress shirt, unbuttoned over his Led Zeppelin T-shirt. He thought he looked cool, I thought he looked too much like the old men who hung around the local bar.

“Well?” he prompted, “I overheard Tommy Atkins at school, I guess a big black bear has been sneaking onto his uncle’s property and eating his chickens.”

A quick glance at Jimmy told me he was thinking the same thing, I turned back toward Isaac, his fingers were quickly tapping the side of the comic book. He had a strange look in his eye.

“So?” I asked.

“So?!” His voice echoed in the confines of our fort, “What do you mean ‘So’? A real bear. I’ve never seen one.” Isaac, along with his brother and single mother, had moved to Montana from Oregon two years ago.

Jimmy piped up, “I saw a bear last month.”

“I don’t care that you saw a bear last month Jimmy,” Isaac said. He had transitioned into a crouch now, with a sudden energy I hadn’t noticed before, “This one will be up close, we can sneak right up to it!”

“Frank Atkin’s place is like four miles down the road, and everyone knows he’s a little weird,” I said, calmly flipping through my comic book, pretending to still be reading it.

“Listen you knuckleheads it’s almost September, school starts soon, we’re doing something fun for damn once.” Isaac was standing now, casting a baleful eye upon us. The curse word is what sealed our fates, a forbidden word with power and authority behind it.

And like that the argument was over. Jimmy was a pushover, always had been, and I didn’t quite have it in me to tell Isaac no. This meant a lot to him, I could tell.

We snuck inside my house and grabbed some snacks, being sure to be as quiet as possible. My father worked in shifts at a mine, two weeks on and four days off. He would come home covered in dust and exhausted. Anything and everything we did would piss him off. By the end of the four days it almost seemed like he wanted to leave. During this time my mother endured him. She maintained the facade of a happy family, but only as long as someone was watching. The only thing she truly maintained was her constant smoking, whether my father was present or not. We didn’t need to avoid her because she simply didn’t care what I did, or where I was. A young boys dream, right?

This all worked in our favor, since nobody would miss us if we were gone all day. We took the south road first, biking until it became a dirt road. Jimmy didn’t own his own bike so he stood on the back of my peg’s, clutching my shoulders with white knuckles and yelling into my ear about aliens. Every bump I hit his nails dug in tighter and his voice raised half an octave.

“My pa said his friend Eustice was abducted by them!” he screamed, “Swear to God, he came back all funny.”

Jimmy was one of those guys who just hung around for so long you forgot he was weird. We never really knew where he came from, or how long we had known him, but he had become as integral to our lives as anything else. He was a good natured kid, a little daft but funny. His only real drawback were his enormous ears. Which he never really did grow out of. And his fondness for aliens.

“That’s what we should be hunting right now, aliens!” It really was his passion.

“So what’s your plan once we find this bear?” I yelled at Isaac, doing the best I could to keep up.

“We’ll figure that out when we find it!” He said, standing up on his pedals and weaving back and forth, “Maybe we’ll chase it off, maybe we’ll take a picture with your kodak, maybe we’ll just feed Jimmy to it!”

“Screw you!” Jimmy yelled.

“Easy Jim, my ears.” I said.

Isaac laughed, “You guys worry like a bunch of sissies, this is all about adventure!”

Jimmy gave a whoop in my ear followed by an immediate and half hearted “Sorry.”

“What time do you need to be home Isaac?” I asked after the ringing in my ear had cleared.

He gave a shrug, “Don’t think it matters. My ma has been staying out a lot. I think she’s been working more, sometimes I don’t see her for days. As long as I stay outa my brother’s hair nobody cares where I am.” His laugh was hollow.

My mother had a lot of opinions about Isaac’s family. She’d sit on the porch, cigarette in hand, gaze off in the distance, and tell me all about them.

“She really ought to find herself a man. A woman like that, single, at her age? Can’t be done.” She’d wave her cigarette around, as if showing off how un-single she was, even if Dad hadn’t been home in two weeks. “She works too much, you can see the way the stress wears on her. One day, she’ll snap, you’ll see.” This was a trademark of hers, always telling me that’d I’d ‘see’. Like the smoke exhaled from her lips her words always seemed to dissipate into nothingness, and yet they’d cling to me, like an itching memory.

“Well here’s what I’m thinking,” Jimmy’s nails brought me back to the present, digging into my shoulder as he chattered excitedly behind me, “Maybe we’ll find this bear, and feed him lots of snack! We can make him like us, and maybe he'll even become our pet, like a dog. The Carvey twins did that with a racoon once, I swear I saw it. Then, once he's all friendly, we can train him to hunt aliens with us!” Isaac laughed. I rolled my eyes.

“Jeez Jim you gotta cut it out with the aliens,” I said, “You’ll wind up just as crazy as old Franky Atkins.”

We ditched our bikes once it became too difficult to ride them and continued forward on foot. The hot August air had become sticky and stifling, but we trudged on in high spirits. The dirt road had come to an end so we veered off to follow a powerline trail. Overgrown pines crowded in on each side, dried needles and dead branches leaning dangerously close to the poorly upkept lines, another sign that we were approaching Franks place. Government officials knew not to get to close to this place. Unfortunately for the rest of the street, a 'government official' was anyone with a job and a work uniform, which included the power company.

“So the plan is to come from behind Crazy Frankies property right?” I asked. None of us knew Frank Atkins, or even knew if he was really crazy, but it was hard not to create an image in our minds: wild eyed and dangerous.

Isaac nodded, “Right. We’ll get spotted a mile off coming down that road.”

“Do you think he’ll shoot us if he sees us?” asked Jimmy.

Isaac whipped around and gave him a crazy eyed stare, “Maybe. He wouldn’t be Crazy Franky if he didn’t, now would he?”

“Well shit guys. We ain’t got nothing to shoot back with!”

I laughed, “Whaddya think made Franky so crazy to begin with?”

“He’s probably escaped from some crazy government lab,” Isaac offered.

“Or maybe he got abducted by aliens!” Jimmy bounced on his heels excitedly.

“I’ll bet he got brainwashed by the military,” I said. “All those vets came back mucked up.” I wasn’t sure if that was true, it was something my dad always said.

“My mom told my brother that he’s gotta join the military after he graduates. She doesn’t want him laying about doing nothing” Isaac kicked a rock, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

I simply nodded, unsure of what to say. In a way, Isaac’s mother really cared about him and his brother, even if she was strict. In a way, I wished my mother would care that much.

Jimmy had no such reservations, “What are you guys going to do after high school?” he asked.

I shrugged and looked over at Isaac, “You gotta get there first, Jimbo. We still got four years to go.”

“Maybe I’ll be an astronaut,” Jimmy said, paying no attention to me.

Isaac scoffed, Jimmy whipped around at him, “What’s so funny? Don’t think I can do it?” His face began to redden.

“You gotta be smart to be an astronaut, Jim. You gotta go to college.” Isaac rolled his eyes and glanced at me. I felt bad for Jimmy, but Isaac was probably right.

“I can go to college!” Jimmy yelled, his voice beginning to raise into the squeak it became when he was angry or excited “I’ll show you, I can be the best astronaut ever.”

“Kids like us don’t go to college!” Isaac yelled back.

“What do you mean kids like us? Kids like you maybe” Jimmy turned back around and picked up his speed, stomping along the trail.

“I mean, Jim,” Isaac sped up to match his pace, “we’re dirt chickens, man, we’re nothing. We don’t go to college.”

Jimmy stopped, Isaac walked around him and faced him.

“We don’t get the big company jobs or the cool race cars or the hot girls. Kids like us wind up like Frank Atkins. You know this.” He laid a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.

I heard a sniffle and Jimmy shrugged the hand off. A mumbled “Whatever” and we resumed walking. The silence of the afternoon pressing down on our small shoulders.

Frank Atkins place was a graveyard. Rusted skeletons of broken down cars littered the lot. The air was still and quiet. Nothing but the occasional rustle as a plastic bag drifted by on the breeze. Across the lawn of broken down cars, piles of trash, and the occasional fallen-over tree, you could just make out his house upon the small hill above. It was a sight to behold. Boarded up windows, peeling paint, and a caved-in porch. On the other side of the house we could see a massive dumpster with trash strewn around it. If we were going to sneak up on a bear, that’s where it would be.

“Don’t look like nobody's home, whaddya think? Should we split up?” Jimmy whispered from behind me and Isaac. We had taken refuge behind a rusted out school bus, small spots of yellow still shining through.

“That’s a good plan there Jimbo,” Isaac said, turning to me, “You two sneak around to the right. Try to get into those bushes by that dumpster. We’ll wait for the bear to show himself.”

Jimmy nodded and began to scurry forward, I hesitated.

“Isaac? What if there is no bear.”

He gave me a look like I was daft, “What do you mean? Tommy Atkins said…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know what Tommy Atkins said, but that doesn't make it true. Or maybe the bear didn’t stick around, or ran off or…” I trailed off, the steely look in Isaac’s eyes stopping me.

“You’re either with me, or you’re out,” he hissed.

I nodded. The realization slowly dawned on me that Isaac might be as crazy as Frank Atkins.

It felt like an eternity sneaking up to that house.

Every crunch beneath my sneakers made me jump. Every breath of wind raised the hairs along my neck. This was a bad idea. We snaked our way between dilapidated cars with bullet holes and piles of old parts covered in rust and mud. This place was rotting from the inside out, you could smell it.

I was worried. The more I thought about it the less sense it made for us to be here. Isaac had always been this way, compulsive and dangerous. Usually I had a way of talking him down, convincing him to be reasonable. But not today. He had lured us here, lured us into this lion's den and we were going to die. I was sure of it. Yet I couldn't back out, not now. We were a team, and I owed it to them to keep going, toward whatever strange goal it was we were striving for. It was just the way things were. Looking back, I wonder if things would have gone much differently for all of us if I had backed out.

About halfway around the front of the house, around a hundred feet from the dumpster, we heard a yell. Jimmy froze, looked at me with wild eyes and mouth agape. I punched him in the arm and ran toward the noise.

“What the FUCK are you doing on my property?!” screamed one voice. Some of the words were slurred and broken,

“What are you doing to her?!” screamed the other. Isaac’s voice.

We rounded the front of the house. Isaac was standing on the porch, hands balled in little fists, tears streaming down his face. A large man with a red face came barging out of the screen door. Behind him, inside the house on the couch, was a woman. A cold ball settled in my stomach as I recognized her, it was Isaac’s mother. Something didn’t seem right, something told me not to look too close.

The large man shoved Isaac off the porch, sending him flying.

“There ain’t nothing wrong with her, now get the fuck off my property!” He was staggering slightly and his eyes were almost as red as his face. “This is trespassing, I got rights!”

I rushed to Isaac’s side and grabbed his arm, pulling him toward the tree line.

He struggled against me, “I’ll kill you! Let her go! Mom! Don’t let him hurt you!”

Something scratched in the back of my mind. In the millisecond of a fleeting thought it was all I wanted — all I needed — for her to be alright. For her to tell Isaac that everything was going to be alright. For my mother’s words to get out of my head.

I made a mistake and I actually believed, and I looked.

She was splayed out on the couch, her face was pale white and her eyes bulged slightly, a loose smile hung on her wrinkled features. In her right hand she held a needle. Her left arm was bandaged. She giggled slightly and her head lolled. Isaac’s screaming fell on deaf ears.

The image is burned into my mind to this day.

The man reappeared from inside the house with a shotgun. Spurned into action I yanked Isaac toward the safety of the treeline. Tears streamed down his face.

“Mom, no.” His voice was small.

“That’s right.” The man yelled, “Run on home little boy!”

Me and Jimmy pulled Isaac with us, through the trees, past the old cars, and back to the powerline trail. He fought us at first, but eventually the will to fight died, and we dragged him along.

We sat for hours. Isaac had his back to us, as if he was hiding the fact that he was crying. We tried our best to console him, but there wasn’t much we understood about the situation, let alone could offer any help with. It was getting dark by the time Isaac’s sobbing had quieted, and I softly mentioned that we should begin our walk home. We trudged silently, the shock and adrenaline had faded to be replaced by a cold numbness.

We had walked for half an hour when Jimmy suddenly stopped us.

“Guys…” His voice was higher pitched than usual. He was pointing straight ahead of us, at a dark shape that had emerged from the trees.

A black bear was standing thirty feet away.

It was small, probably an adolescent. Its glossy black fur shone in the last light of dusk, inquisitive black eyes peering us up and down. For several heartbeats we regarded each other, young bear and young men. The bear sniffed the air, gave a powerful snort, and then turned on its haunches and lumbered away.

“No way,” I whispered.

Isaac sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand, smiling through tears and red puffy eyes. “Told yah,” he said quietly.

We remained there for a while, watching as the sun dipped below the horizon and disappeared. Sending the world into darkness. For that brief moment, removed from all events before and after, we were on top of it all.

We all eventually grew up. We never talked much about that day in the woods.

Isaac and his brother got taken in months later by his religious cousins. He moved to South Dakota and I never saw much of him again. I heard that in high school he became a football star, smoked too much pot, and eventually went to college. He dropped out after the first semester. He now owns an appliance store somewhere in the midwest. Has a wife and three kids too.

I lost Jimmy immediately after high school graduation. Rumors traveled of him joining the navy, or the army, or the Peace Corps. Someone once said they saw him down in Nevada, ranting about aliens again. But the truth is, nobody knows where the hell he is.

Myself? I went to college, met a girl, and did the best I could. I never could quite get over who I was though. It was a long time before I came to terms with that dirt chicken in the woods.