I feel like I need to apologize again for what I did. I was the one that took Gertrude, not my friend. I just couldn’t muster up the courage to admit to it in person.
Let me start by saying that I never intended to hurt Gertrude and that while she was with me I took very good care of her. As you can see she is in perfectly fine condition. Maybe a little confused, but I won’t pretend to know what she thinks about the whole thing.
I feel like I should explain myself a little better. Maybe this way you (and the entire neighborhood) can forgive me.
I moved to Brooklyn from Central Illinois about two years ago and have yet to make any friends. I go out on walks around the neighborhood every night and I always stop and pay Gertrude a visit. Your house - that old siding, the green chair on the porch, the flowers in the front yard - it all reminds me so much of home. I was so happy the first time I noticed it and it immediately became the culmination of my walks. But really it was Gertrude’s clucking that made me happier than I’d been in over a year. Something about her movements and her sounds is particularly soothing.
See, when I was five years old my mom gave me a baby chick. Why she did that I don’t know for sure. I was too young, she shouldn’t have trusted me with a baby chick. He was so fragile, his pale yellow fuzz a sorry excuse for protection. The sounds he made sounded like cries for help I don’t think I meant it any harm, I probably couldn’t see beyond the cuteness of it, couldn’t really understand it was alive like me and I guess that was the whole point of giving it to me in the first place. I ended up crucifying the baby chick with clothespins onto the clothesline that slung from the outside of my bedroom window. He swung helplessly by his little wings, peeping in agony, and I’m not sure if it didn’t register with me or if I actually took pleasure in its suffering. I don’t know what we’re made of, still.
All I know is that my mom caught me and that was the only time she hit me, that I can remember. She smacked me very hard in the face, I can feel the sting like it happened yesterday. Then she carefully took the little chick down and held it for a while, cusped in her hands, close to her chest. When she put it on the ground it stumbled around in a sad, drowsy state. I don’t remember what happened to it after that.
A few years passed and I forgot about the chick, but my mom sure didn’t. When we moved out further into the country she had a chicken coop installed in the backyard and I was put in charge of cleaning it and taking care of the chickens. We had three chickens and a rooster at first, but it didn’t take long for the rooster to disappear. My mom and I knew my brother had something to do with it, but he never confessed. He was becoming more distant every day. Eventually he didn’t bother coming home for days at a time.
In the beginning I dreaded cleaning the coop, the smell, the feathers. But the chickens grew on me, despite their mess. They are noble animals, I really believe that. Most people would chuckle at the thought, but then most people haven’t spent much time with chickens. I ended up spending most of my teenage years with those chickens, hiding from my brother in the back of the coop. At night I’d use my flashlight to read a book in the dark corner, waiting for him to fall asleep before heading to bed.
After dad died my brother took out all his anger on me. He couldn’t care less about the chickens, and he refused to do any chore my mother put in front of him. I haven’t spoken to him in ten years. Now we live in the same city. Well, he lives in Manhattan and I live in Brooklyn, and nobody’s going to tell me those are the same city, but you know what I mean.
Anyways, I’m getting sidetracked. I’m so sorry I stole your chicken, or I guess I should say borrowed your chicken. I didn’t think about how important Gertrude is to so many people in the neighborhood, as important as she is to me. Not to mention you and your family, of course. But it makes sense. She’s a special chicken.
