The fan was totally still. The room was spinning. Or he was. Didn’t matter so much the trifling details, Kevin knew the bed was sweaty, sticky and moving as if an earthquake had opened up half of Los Angeles. The half he currently set his body down in definitely had the earth move.
The chicken squawked. He knew the bird would chirp. Can’t trust a chicken with a comb. Why he wasn’t called a rooster was beyond his realm. From a marketing perspective, chicken seemed such an innocuous title. Sure a rooster was a chicken. A hen is a chicken. However, hens do not exhibit behavior possessed in this rooster.
The chicken called it clucking. Anything else would be obscene, but those from the age of 12 on knew clucking was merely a fortunate rhyme. The chicken clucked women from 18 to 85. The eighteen year-olds would run, the eighty-five year olds would hit him on the beak with a purse, bag of nuts or the occasional full domestic beer. No female ever donated a craft beer or import to the beak.
Hit the umpires, the chicken’s best shtick. Most of them would send it off the field, whereupon the chicken would sit next to one of the girls who enjoyed a good cluck. Over the years, run-ins with umpires who enjoyed the bump and grind a bit more than to the chicken’s preference had occurred. One in particular followed the bird back to the coop. A couple haymakers from the chicken’s date that night, a two-time all-american softball catcher, straightened everything out.
