They pulled out of a parking lot, satisfied by their purchase, anticipating a reparative task ahead. Ahead in a literal sense was a young woman crossing the street, her back to them us as they turned right. The unclothed legs of the woman disappeared up a sweat-top, which brought a comment from the passenger seat. “Oh my God, are you serious?” Leslie asked. David sped into the turn muttering “hmm”, pretending to have not seen the eye candy. Scratch gravel white wind, he thought, pulling away. “Girl, put some shorts on!” she added. David smirked, in part because he finds humor in almost anything, and asked a stupid question: “How d’you know she’s not”.
“Too short, if she is”. The commentary was on. “I mean, I’m just saying you’re taking a risk, wearing them like that”.
“Are you victim blaming?”
“No, but she’s asking for men to make comments. Why do girls do that?” Leslie knew why girls do that, so did David, though neither would entertain the matter further.
“So, we’re gonna get to this tonight?” He was referring to the chicken wire they’d just bought from a hardware store that was meant to reinforce the apparently porous fence that had been in place previously. Myrtle, poor Myrtle, their blessed, caramel-colored pet chicken, had not flown the coup, but had left it and wandered away far enough to have been victimized by an intrepid fox that lurked on the far side of the creek beyond Leslie and David’s property. Heartbroken as she inspected the debris of Myrtle’s scattered feathers, Leslie caught a glance of the presumed culprit as it peered through a bush, still stalking the area. No doubt it was coming back for Myrtle’s partner, Martin, who by now was locked tight into its coup, clucking and stomping about, surely wondering where his partner had gone. “He’s traumatized, poor thing”, Leslie lamented. When she saw the fox, she called out to David, who often had a firearm nearby, but needed some minutes to find something more appropriate—in this instance, a bb gun. Soon, he burst into the garden, carrying his weapon, determined to exact revenge, though neither of the shots he fired seemed to hit his target.
Staggering back from the creek, he shook his head at Leslie, frustrated, and then climbed back over the six-foot high fence that was meant to prevent things like this happening. “Mangy, greedy fucker”, he snarled. Leslie lay near the coup, stroking the head of Myrtle’s disemboweled corpse. She was crying. Martin was behind her clucking, its beak agape while it flicked its head about, bemused. “How the fuck did it get in?” David asked, performing a quick scan of the area, but seeing no obvious sign of intrusion. Leslie pointed to a spot flanking his right: an invisible division where a sheet of wire met with another but was not tied together. She explained that the unbound, not-heavy-enough sheets would allow an intruder to protrude the fence and then enter. “It’s obvious what happened”, she concluded bitterly, a hint of reproach in her voice.
“You blaming me for this?” David replied. “I told you we needed a bigger coup and thicker wire”.
“No, you didn’t! You bitched about the cost, said we should wait before getting a second chicken. Well, now you got your way”.
“But I was right about the coup. It isn’t…wasn’t big enough for the two of them. Why did we get a second one anyway?”
“I told you why. It isn’t natural to just have one. Martin needs another chicken. We should buy several”.
“Okay fine. Let’s go…”
“Go where?”
“Back to the store. Let’s get more stuff—more wire, more wood. We’ll—I’ll stay out here as long as it takes, and build the fucking coup! Then we can get more chickens, get ‘em tonight if necessary”
Leslie sighed heavily, got up from Myrtle’s body and looked around herself, searching for a spade. “Don’t be stupid. We need to bury Myrtle, get her body away from Martin. We can get more stuff later. You’re just looking to bury your guilt, anyway”.
“My guilt? Listen—”
“Okay, fine. Our guilt. That doesn’t even matter now. I’ll take care of it”.
But she didn’t take care. After a further hour of pouting and crying within their two-bedroom house, she barked aloud for her partner to appear from a backroom lair he’d chosen for a sullen withdrawal.
“David!” she called again, now with a distinctive whine. Moments later he appeared at the door to their living room, sporting a cowboy hat above a black mask.
“What the fuck?” she said, nonplussed. He stifled a quip about Martin thinking something similar in his chicken mind when he either saw or heard the horror of Myrtle’s death. “What are you doing?” Leslie followed up.
“Nothing”, he answered. “Found this hat earlier, plus the mask, in a closet. It was my grandfather’s. It’s…never mind. It’s a joke. A bad joke, I guess”.
“I guess”. Leslie sniffled, affected a conciliatory tone as she asked, “are you still up for going back to the store, to get more stuff”.
“Sure”, he said briskly. Relieved, and with no-nonsense attitude, he was ready in a minute, good to go. “I’ll go start the car”. It was parked at the end of the driveway underneath a stretch of small white pebbles, some of which had been transferred away to embroider the area beyond the coup. As Leslie entered the passenger side, he glanced at the gravely stretch, thinking the association might stir another burst of tears in Leslie. She’s so sensitive, he thought, observing how difficult it was to make life easy-going and fun in his free time. She’ll get over this, he hoped. A bloody death, no doubt, but shit happens. He’d seen worse, known worse. As a police officer by trade, he saw worse stuff almost everyday. You gotta…chill, he wanted to say. Gotta see the bright side, learn to cheer up after shit like this. “Scratch gravel white wind”, he said as he launched their car forward. It was his catch phrase when heading out, a reflexive gesture usually. Only this time he thought it a slip.
An hour later they were back in the car, heading home. With an hour or two of daylight left, they’d immediately set to work on reinforcing the fence and the coup in their back yard. Martin, their one surviving white-feathered chicken, would be relieved to see them. Back in the passenger seat, Leslie was quiet, though just re-emerging from her protracted, distraction-seeking sulk. The woman with the shorts was still on her mind, perhaps. Meanwhile, she was integrating loss, realizing she will get over Myrtle, and focus on protecting Martin and repairing something else—she didn’t know what—her issue with David, maybe. Then, as they approached their neighborhood, she conjured their gravel driveway herself, and a further link came to her. “Oh, I get it. Scratch gravel white wind—the Lone Ranger thing—your grandfather’s favorite show. So, the hat—the white hat and that weird mask. I’ve never seen you wear that before. Were you making fun of me, or what?”
As she turned to face him and attempt eye contact for the first time over an hour, she saw that he was chuckling. “I don’t know”, he said, shrugging. “I don’t know what I was thinking”. Ahead, there was a cross-walk before the last turn towards their house. Sauntering along was a young man wearing a tank-top that hung low over a pair of tight shorts. With measured drollness, David observed, “That guy needs to wear longer, not-so-revealing shorts. I swear, does he understand that he’s just asking for women to make comments? Why do men do that?”
Leslie clucked half-disgust, unamused if unsurprised by her partner’s black humor. David thought, I can’t help myself.
Graeme Daniels Psychewriter 