donna raised these chickens up from when they was little, she use’ta put the little chicks in the pockets of her dress and run around in the backyard. sounds cute but then mama’d be washing her dress and her pockets’d be full’a chicken shit and down feathers. ain’t much fun cleaning up. but now they’re all big and glorious looking. you watch that rooster strut his stuff around the pen and sometimes i wonder to myself, i wonder, “how’d a little dumb bird like that get to be so god danged confident? how’m i gonna be confident like that?” well one day i’s getting ready to head to town to pick up some groceries for mama and i figure, well, i oughtta spruce myself up real nice like, maybe strut my own stuff down the sidewalk. so i slick my hair back with some’a daddy’s pomade, and i wear my finest clothes, not my church clothes, mind’y, but some real nice clean overalls and a button up shirt underneath. a straw hat from my daddy’s closet. i didn’t ask if i could wear it but he’d let me wear it before so i figgered it was okay. well anyways i also maybe dabbled in some’a daddy’s cologne, he had a stock back then that would knock yer socks off. cologne from here to westchester. anyway i put a little bit of that on my neck so the ladies, if they couldn’t see me, could at least smell me coming.
well, long story short, i walked into town looking all dapper and this real pretty lady caught my eye, and i caught hers, and i kept staring at her even when i tripped and fell into a horse water trough. i bobbed my head outta the water just in time to see her laughing and pointing me out to her beau before they walked off together. i walked into the grocers and mr. tinney told me to shoo until i was dried off. so i sat outside the store and watched another rooster walk by in the street, just strutting like he was cock of the walk. ain’t never seen no rooster fall into a water trough. have’ta push one in someday, see what it’s like.
