The Rooster

[Worm of Despite]

What do you get when you cross a Hitler addict, an infirm grandmother and the post-apocalypse together? The Rooster, of course!

The Rooster
David Williams

To the West lay a savoury sweat of meat, and through the taste of burning leaves I walked down the driveway and laid the cats in the bag. I called:

‘Hello ya fuckers! Ya yahoos! Can’t ya wash ya dishes without causing any problems! I’ll call the cops!’

I walked in: Grandmother was by the Christmas tree and shining quite predominantly, to the left a washer packed with dishes, a washing machine foaming nasty black coagulate and water running up a crack in the sealing by the fireplace; outside somewhere I could a espy a dog or beast stalking the woods; I sat grandma by the chair, shoved her covers to her neck and read to her of Hitler. I spoke all about Hitler’s life.

‘Son,’ she said, waking me on the couch.

‘Yeah?’

‘Please turn that book over.’

She was speaking of the Hitler book.

‘But mom, it’s Hitler.’

‘I know it is. Son of a bitch won’t look up at me while I sleep.’

‘Mom. He wanted to clean up Europe.’

‘You shut up. Your dad didn’t go to war to hear that talk.’

‘I’m sorry mom.’

I picked up the book and put it on the mantelpiece above the fireplace.

I smelled my sleeves. Greasy. In morning I turned on the TV.

‘What’s wrong son!’ mom exclaimed. No signal--TV’s all quiet, I said, turning the knob, the alarm clock’s numbers gone. I looked outside at clouds, walked across to the neighbors’ refrigerators, cupboards bare except for lime plate and coloured glass; I ran my hands over sickly film, pushed past cobwebs to see a black slate, perhaps chocolate or mold, a smell of iodine emitting from rooms of the dead, old men, slack jaws, rats running everywhere. Three cats crossed a road and I ran, cornered a white one at a door. I ran water through a shirt, sipped the brown stuff, put cat bits in and told grandma it was chicken soup. Near midnight chickens were murdered—incensed, furious yapping; coyote calling bitter, chilling; I stood and looked, turned the porch light but no power, peering at nothing, on morning walking with shotgun pointed like a prow slowly up to a mess of feathers but no bones or blood. I heard them later except closer, screaming—coyotes, fighting and clawing each other and grandmother snoring. Later turkeys and deer crossed the road, drank from a dead man’s ditch. I approached and they flapped up a hill to a maze of woods, turkeys leaning from low branches on the home as I navigated the house, a stale smell of shit in the bathroom where a litter of cats slept; I strung them on a clothesline and cleaned them, and when I had enough of that I threw them in a pile, and when the pile looked rather crazy I put them in bags—

A ditch full of cat bags.

Sometimes I considered making a coat or something fancy and purposeful with the cats but I decided we had enough in terms of wardrobe. One night, or perhaps day I walked and saw the grass regrow in cracks of the road, looked through vans, smelled gas, never took it; looked at my legs and saw a rooster had scrapped lines but couldn’t remember the time or place; the last one screamed exquisitely as I chopped it, then it kept screaming even in the pot and I had to walk out. When I ate the chicken my grandmother smiled but the fucking thing still screamed. I walked around and tried to look at trees but kept worrying about the tones, just as I did, through one long slope of leaves, above a white house, a man in gray jacket with binoculars locking in on me, consulting with a man in black.

It was the worst thing I had ever seen in my life.

That night I closed every curtain, dragged the bucket of water between myself and grandma and sat my legs between the gun. Night was silent. I heard nothing, not the water dripping or animal screams or the old stench of death. I tried not to wake grandmother as I got water. Is that fucking Hitler book down, she asked. Yes. I turned the knob in the light. Then the radio. The garbage truck never came. The cat bags became sweet and stinking, wind pressing uphill. Grandma, I said, what happened. Obama fucked up she said.

Down the road a new pack of hens claimed the neighbor’s yard, loitering around blackened cars; a rooster towing some hens over a ditch. I walked up with a broom; it flapped its wing, puffed its neck and clucked; I ran up the road, turned to look back; it was advancing fast.

That night I lay sleeping on the quilt by the floor.

Wind came in, through a hole in the screen door.

A rooster popped its head in the hole.

‘What the fuck,’ I whispered, trying to wake. Two hens followed through the hole, looking with beaded eyes; I shifted; a rooster launched over couch cushions on my face and clawed—hands, arms; yelped, grandmother’s laughter braying as if this were a variety show; I shoved and kicked and pushed the fucker down a hall, to a room. As I walked down the hall it let a cock-a-doodle-do. Next morning I woke to cock-a-doodle-de. The hens had shit everywhere in front of the washer.
I killed one and cooked it for breakfast.

Grandmother downed the meat and was looking well as I rubbed her head, tried the radio, TV, walked out and looked on the sky, seeing a streak like a jet by a cloud; I waved my arms, hoping it would see; it was very hot, collecting wood, and I sat down to the second hen. The rooster in the room was silent or dead. That night rained, leaves whisked in dying light in wind, water playing in cracks and porous parts of the wall a beauteous sound, along the pipes or the oven like hail. The patter lulled me to sleep on the floor, and I woke curled up, hungry, coughing and cold and nothing in the pantry or kitchen.

A shot rang—I saw it smack the lamp above grandmother, burst the glass into one million lights then pitch-black; I ran to the sound, peered out a window to see a man aiming from the hills, covered in leaves. Pop—another shot; I heard it plunk in wood, a voice as if reading said: Yeah! We got you mother fucker! THINK WE’RE YAHOOS?! I ground my teeth, strode up the wall, to the den, grandmother jabbering and in fury I entered the rooster room, killed it without much fight; looked for objects to block windows, doors, darned not reach for curtains; we ate and I tried to forget. I wobbled at the garage at some dank hour:

‘We’re skinny! We don’t have anything!’

‘We’re going to fucking eat you!’

‘We have a shotgun!’ I yelled.

‘You can’t leave,’ said another.

I closed the door and a shot rang. Laughter.

I did not sleep that night.

‘Son,’ said Grandma.

‘Yes?’

‘Get that banty rooster out the house.’

‘Mom, there’s people outside.’

‘I don’t care. We don’t keep dead animals.’

I threw the rooster out on the garage, only to see its form start to bustle again as if a crushed fly; a shot popped, thing exploding without a cluck; I rushed in, snatched the shotgun from the corner, a man running over the yard, leaping; I fired, he slumped into the ditch, bleeding; I fired again. I watched him bleed out on the road. I cursed them loudly. Their voices skirted down the hill, ‘We’re just like you. We have exactly the same experiences. God tells us the same things.’

That night I was at the bottom of the stairs, grandmother telling me to come up: I entered the hall, lost control of my body, my left side leaning against it, a white-gowned shade, small and voiceless clutched my shoulder, ran through me and I began walking like a puppet back downstairs; a voice that was not mine: “I don’t want to come upstairs,” but I screamed soundlessly I’m possessed; later friends followed me to the woods and all grew dark as if an ambush; I saw eyes, tried to run, only to find I couldn’t move, was hopping with feet locked together. I woke with the gun under my arm, palms and chest slick; painful, the rooster’s feathers clotted all over the car, smudges on the earth and pavement where its remains congealed, the moon so huge and yellow it might grin and come down and crush the earth and Bible.

I saw steam fanning from my mouth.

A shot rang.

Morning was clear.

“Cold Turkey” played on the radio.

‘Grandma!

‘The radio works!!’

The song entered the room, 17-inch wheels bursting over the rotten door pane and molding, backing out; COLD TURKEY; I ran like a chicken, hoisted grandma up to her room down the hall; Lennon warbling; shotgun in the other room.

COLD TURKEY. I ran to a room full of bird shirt and dead animals.

COLD TURKEY! Clothes, blood on a windowsill, father lying with his mouth agape like a corpse. COLD TURKEY. I screamed, pulling around shoes, furniture.

The two men came up the hall.

Clucking like hens. COLD TURKEY!

I heard them enter grandma’s room.

‘This is all?’ they asked.

A shot erupted.

I slapped my back beside the door.

I heard them leave her door, come to mine.

COLD TURKEY.

I lunged, wrapped my arms around one, bit his shoulder; a shotgun blast ripped the ceiling then I snatched the gun, smacked him in the jaw with the butt; aimed at the other man, CHRIST, he said and I fired; just then the other man locked my neck, pushing me over the man on the floor, into grandma’s room, I slung him over my neck—COLD TURKEY—both of us wrestling and pushing around grandma’s corpse, blood sprouting in lines from a mouth in her neck—COLD TURKEY!

UH JESUS GOD, yelled the man on the floor.

We stumbled on him. ‘MY FUCKING CHEST!’

He punched; I grabbed his shirt and jerked to the bed, clawing, holding each others’ throats.

The man on the floor shouted:

‘Get the gun!’ COLD TURKEY.

I grabbed his neck, yanked; blood. He ripped my Adam’s apple but not completely out; I kicked, rolled off the bed, yanked the gun and shot him in the face. The man on the floor looked up at me.

‘Please,’ he said.

‘EIN REICH!’ I yelled.

‘No wait!’

‘EIN VOLK!’

Aimed the shotgun.

‘NO WAIT.’

‘EIN MOTHER FUCKING FUHRER!’

I shot his crotch.

‘HEIL HITLER!’

I shot again.

‘SIEG HEIL!’ I shot again.

The screaming stopped.

I danced and hopped over his body.

‘THAT’S HOW YA FUCK A PAPER HANGER!’

I dragged the bodies past their car and mine, past the rooster and rolled them down the driveway. I buried grandma under the clothesline.

I still hang cats over her corpse.

[Kaydene]

Whew What a ride. I like, but don't really understand, the whole bird theme.

Some of the lines I really enjoyed:

" 'I don’t care. We don’t keep dead animals.’ "

"...perhaps chocolate or mold, a smell of iodine emitting from rooms of the dead, old men, slack jaws, rats running everywhere." --actually, that whole paragraph was really quote-worthy.

This probably isn't the best critique I'm capable of, I'm sorry. I remember seeing somewhere that you said you were a writer, but this is the first thing I think I've read by you. I enjoyed it.

[Worm of Despite]

Thanks! Check out The Transient. Short, lovely number. I could also email you what's probably my best short story (and Part V of my sci-fi novel), Heaven's Center. My poetry's very nice, too.

And yeah. I love making big, juicy paragraphs that just slide and curve like a snake until you get to the breathless end. I think it's definitely in my top 5 paragraphs, and the fact it ends on an em dash (--) and the drama continues to the completely independent, horrifying sentence, "A ditch full of cat bags," really rams the message home.

The Rooster's title just gives it some humor and heightens the appearance of the rooster and Cold Turkey as well, the Lennon song. In the end the motif of chickens (the presence of a rooster scratch on his leg he can't remember from when, the fact a rooster won't stop clucking after he killed it), just works to highlight his insanity (or at least very addled, stir-crazy mind), which puts into question the entire reliability of the narrative. Plus it's just kitschy and postmodern, to dare think the rooster's appearance is of prime importance.