Norbert and the Chickens

By Richard Davidson

Norbert awakened suddenly, the cackling and cawing disturbing him like a fiddle piercing a wool suit. Something was in the chicken coop once again, and Norbert reached for his shotgun, and swam out the door as if through honey. Thickly, the world closed around him and the humitidy shot up to 83%, but the fox or coon, or whatever animal had escaped once more, and still the dog, Max, knew nothing of Norwegian politics.

It was late, and Norbert had trouble falling back asleep, although morning milkings would begin in only a few hours, so he lay back upon the scratchy pillow of the worn corduroy couch and lit his pipe. It stunk of burnt corn and old mildew, but soon the air was filled with some medium grade tobacco smoke and rancid beer. Norbert had bought a fifty pound bag of Purina Chicken Chow, and in the morning, he would feed the birds, after milking Clarissa and the seven cows he'd never thought to name.

But something was troubling him, and the ham tried to sneak out of the fridge one last time before Norbert slammed the door on that tattered dream forever. His sandwich grew as high as the Eiffel tower, he sort of thought for almost a moment, and then was gone, disappearing behind a now moist and somewhat puckered smile. There was a snake on the back porch, and it rejected the Chicken Chow with the dignity of a Supreme Court Justice, and Norbert made a mental note to ask some questions at the Davenport Feed Store.

"Snakes like something with a bit of rodent or amphibian in it," said Tired Agnes, the clerk who never once had been out on a date with Norbert, who had no inclination to ask her. Tired Agnes had worked behind the desk for seventeen years, after her dream of dancing the Prairie Stomp in St. Horrible had died in the broken windows of the Potter's Cove fire. Now hollow and ready for existential poets with big feet, Tired Agnes yearned for a life of tea and urban treachery; a moment that would, in all likelihood, never come.

Norbert wallowed his way towards a bag of Purina Snake Chow, and read the ingredients carefully. He could see nothing to indicate any type of rodent or amphibian content whatsoever, but then again, neither could he spell the name of any of the neighboring towns without the aid of twelve or thirteen ounces of whiskey, and a rubber helmet. He would buy the largest bag anyway, he reasoned, as that was all the money he had for the next six months.

That night, the snake on the back porch seemed less ill at ease, and more philosophical than usual, and Norbert slept like a baby in the backseat of a '52 Packard, with the radio set to "stun," and the dashboard lightly sanded. He would name the snake Sandy, as he didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, and the name seamed somewhat androgenous, although it hadn't to his cousin's first love, who lived in Feeble.

Two nights later, Norbert awakened from a terrible nightmare, in which he was a New Jersey bus driver, with no left arm and a hunger for buckwheat pancakes. He was covered in sweat and just a hint of vomit, which didn't surprise him in the least, since he couldn't stand any kind of flapjacks at all. He heard what sounded like a restless ocelot growing impatient near the tool shed out back, and decided to see for himself, and offer it some Snake or Chicken Chow. Once again he had no luck, and thought best to consider himself fortunate, for only that morning he'd earned seventy five dollars selling his used coffee grounds to the easily confused tenants of Gulcher's General Store and Flophouse. He would warble harmlessly back to the Davenport Feed Store, and have a long and meaningful discussion with Tired Agnes about what ocelots like to eat.

"I imagine they gravitate towards bugs, grubs and moldy carrots," she said with apprehension, wondering if Norbert would decipher the easily discovered truth that she didn't even know what an ocelot was. Norbert approached 2 1/2 mph as he coasted on his knees down the long, polished hallway, towards the exotic feed room, where he soon made his acquaintance with a 450 lb bag of Purina Ocelot Chow, which he couldn't afford in a million years. He read the ingredients carefully, and ws first mildly disappointed to learn there were no bugs or grubs listed, but then whistled off key in delight when he came across the moldy carrots, which were listed between Photomalgahide Sulfite and Pregnoboxynoxyl Chloride, all of which preceded Red Dye #7. He started to wonder if ocelots preferred that their food have a reddish tint, and then thought better of it, instead consoling himself with ancient Tibetan nursery rhymes, almost all of which involved happy goats and the oneness of all beings.

"That'll be two hundred and fifty dollars and eight cents," declared Tired Agnes, as if she had the whole thing memorized, and Norbert had to admit fluently that he didn't have anywhere near that kind of money. He considered offering her his services as a French tailor, but reconsidered after noticing she was wearing the same plaid shirt and nylon hoop skirt she had been wearing since 1973. Norbert was in a quandary all right, but he'd never let that stop him before, although he had let nearly anything else.

Confusion was a way of life in Elk's Hollow, a town fifty miles to the North, but Norbert had never been there, and he didn't like it one bit, not one bit. He asked Tired Agnes to put a hold on the large bag of Purina Ocelot Chow, and headed across to Dentist's for a three pound cheeseburger with enough onions to choke a cat.

"How'd you like to earn an extra two hundred and fifty dollars and eight cents?" asked Dentist, citing a dollar figure that seemed strangely familiar to Norbert, even after drinking some of the worst coffee ever made, largely due to the turpentine the new kid had inadvertantly poured into the urn upon brewing the morning's first batch.

"Sure," mumbled Norbert, each of his lips a bit thicker than the other, "when do I start?"

"Start?" asked the surprised Dentist, "I don't need you to start, I need you to finish."

"Point well taken, old bean," gargled Norbert, as the coffee hit him like an iron rail flung by an extinct breed of monkey, "when do I finish?"

"Tomorrow at half past Thursday," calculated Dentist, wondering what had prompted him to respond in such a strange manner, as he finished his fifteenth cup of turpentine-based coffee.

"I'll be here with bells on, starting now," said Norbert, and he was, as he had tied several bells to his pants with a tattered hemp sash, and he immediately got to work hauling shingles up out of the old basement, and loaded them onto retired railway cars, for no apparent purpose.

Tired Agnes was happy to see him go, as he disappeared into the pungent afternoon with the bag of Purina Ocelot Chow, and when he arrived at home, he was very pleased to discover that the ocelot had not passed away from hunger, although it did look a bit pekish. Norbert set to work immediately, creating a large silver bowl from old coffee cans, and non-toxic paint, and he filled the bowl with Purina Ocelot Chow, and placed it before the wary animal, who ate like there was no tomorrow, and soon there would be, for the entire town was in danger from a devious strip miner who had left his hat a good piece down the pike on a severed steel cable, whose purpose was never discovered.

Norbert had fed all the animals, and milked two more cows than he had, and settled in for a long sleepless night underneath the front porch. It was good to live on the farm, after all, where the night sky comes alive and sells overpriced insurance.

Talkback: Post Reply | View replies (5)