By Jade Laffiette
The chickens made you cry. You didn’t like how they strutted around the yard dropping feathers and shit like they owned the place. There were about seven chickens total in the yard: six females and one male. The rooster spent most of his time perched on the electrical pole watching the hens below, crowing every few hours just to remind you all he was there.
When your mother dropped you off in the cool early morning, the hens would gather around the car to investigate. Leah would try her best to shoo them away, but these homegrown birds, used to defending themselves against coyotes, knew no fear. You would scream and holler, watching them over Leah’s shoulder as they stared back with glassy amber eyes.
As the three of you, shrouded in black, remember the days you spent together under Leah’s care, it is the chickens that are remembered most vividly. And the man who raised them.
In fact, that is why you are gathered here today. To pay respects to the man who made that summer just a little more bearable. He was never a church-going man, had never read scripture in his entire life—but a pine casket and a few words whispered by the Reverend was the best you could offer.
Demi has grown into her crater-like dimples which now appear like shallow pools in an expanse of glazed umber. And though she has physically matured, there is a sadness in her eyes that is inherently childlike.
Standing beside her is Austin, his head bowed to the earth. He is a quiet giant, so different from the small little white boy with something to prove. His hands are motionless at his sides, measurers of the cool air heavy with purpose.
It has been years since the last you’ve seen of each other, the act of coming together as painful as it is comforting.
Leah had a large room that she converted into a play-area, the open archway blocked off with a baby gate. It was filled with novelties of Fisher-Price—play kitchens, tea cups, plastic telephones, and LEGO sets.
In the mornings you would play in the room until noon when it was lunch and then an hour nap time. Afterwards, you’d go outside and explore the yard, an entire five acres at your disposal.
That is where you’d find him. The chickens would gather around him as he slung out feed, their beaks finding stray chunks of corn that had landed in the folds of his pants leg.
You called him Chickenman.
His trailer was next door to Leah’s property, a run-down prism of steel that had been well-loved by many suns and moons. A crown of ivy garnished the door, so woven into the metal siding that it may as well have been a part of the design.
Chickenman’s palms were as black as his face, ashy and calloused from years of hard work and no lotion. He was a smoker—it would eventually take him out—but he never smoked around kids. You only knew because of the stench on his clothes and the butts scattered in the yard.
He kept a pot of grease outside on the back porch that fried fish and chicken constantly. He would snatch a bird from the yard, slice off its head in one smooth motion, and remove the feathers with the tenderness of a surgeon dressing a wound. You would eat on the porch steps, your lips stained with red Kool-aid and chicken breading.
When Chickenman brought you all inside the trailer, you had to wear shoes lest you step on something and cut our feet. The sparse furniture inside was old and well-worn with use, and the wallpaper was yellowed and peeling from the edges. Despite the rudimentary interior design, the trailer was warm and inviting. He kept a small Christmas tree devoid of ornaments beside the front door.
When Chickenman was near, the chickens weren’t scary. They even had names. Rusty was the name of the rooster, his name a reflection of the vibrancy of his feathers. Sonny was the oldest hen, and she preferred staying in the shade. There was one hen who had no head, who’d survived after a coyote attack: Judith. Another named Eve.
You try to recall the names of the other hens, but fail to remember. Forgetting their names is like forgetting the name of your aunts. It reminds you how long it’s been, how far you’ve come.
Leah often left you all under the watch of Chickenman, sometimes leaving for hours. They had known each other all their lives, as Chickenman was twenty years her senior. They were also cousins; Chickenman and Leah’s mothers were half-sisters.
On those days, Chickenman would perform his magic. He could make ants march in a line or dissemble their mounds piece by piece. He could turn rats into cats and cats into rats. Crows would bring trinkets to his porch. One such crow brought Austin a crisp twenty-dollar bill on a hot day, and with his newfound wealth, you all bought orange dreamsicles from the ice-cream truck.
You always liked the crows better than the chickens.
He could make the ditch-grown tadpoles turn into frogs overnight. But Leah was deathly afraid of frogs so he only ever did that trick twice.
Her boyfriend Brian would pick her up in an old Cadillac Seville tricked out at the rims. You could hear him from miles away by the throbbing of the music disturbing the gravel rock driveway. Sometimes when they returned, they would have treats—Debbie Cakes, Polar Pops, and the little juices with the characters on top.
He took off his ball cap and stooped down to introduce himself. He tried to shake your hand and it swallowed your entire arm. “You’re so small, Maya,” he said in amazement.
“My name is Cupcake,” You said, scrubbing your sandals into the dirt.
He laughed, the sound fluttery. “Cupcake it is, then.”
He tugged Demi’s ponytail. “I like your hair, Demi. It is so pretty.”
She shook her head back and forth, the beads swishing at her ears. “Thank you, I love my hair. I just got it done yesterday.”
Austin took off his hat and proudly showed it. He was also a Braves fan. Brian put his cap on Austin’s head, rustling his hair. From that moment, Austin was attached at his hip.
Brian often let you all sit in his car and listen to music. Demi was in awe of the rims that never stopped spinning. You couldn’t stomach being in that hearse; it was too loud, too bright inside. You understood why Chickenman went inside every time Brian pulled up in the yard.
“Truthfully, I can’t even remember,” You say, blowing out a stream of air. You look at the others, expecting similar sentiments. But you know by the long expressions on their faces that they never forgot.
You never forgot either.
Austin smiles. “Do you remember my birthday? The kool-aid ice cubes and the purple cow floats? Damn, I felt like royalty.”
His shoulder is touching that of Demi’s, and you wonder if they’ve been keeping in touch without you. They deserve that much, you think. Perhaps that summer would finally come to an end.
As a birthday gift, Brian rented a giant bouncy castle that was almost as large as Chickenman’s entire trailer. The wind threatened to carry it into the clouds, but the straps tethered to metal stakes in the ground prevailed. The three of you played Freeze-Tag, Dead Man Dead Man, Popcorn, and Poison Ball. Only one person got hurt and had to be carried inside: you.
Leah boiled hotdogs and sliced up potatoes for fries. Chickenman sent a pan filled with fried fish. You wished he would come play with you, but he was busy, he said. You would have to play without him.
The chickens were gone. They had run off for the trees. Even the rooster with his all-seeing beady eyes had flown away. You thought that perhaps Chickenman had sent them away so you could enjoy the party without constantly looking over your shoulder. You hoped they would never come back.
Happy birthday was sung, cake was eaten, and then it was time to play with the hose. Leah took you and Demi to her bedroom while Brian helped Austin into his trunks. Of course, it took longer for the two of you to change than it did for Austin. Girls take longer, she explained.
You raced outside, going crazy for tap water. Little rainbows appeared in the jet of water; it washed over your faces as you sprayed each other. The purple cows felt good in your bellies and you were full. You never wanted the day to end.
But summer went on. The chickens returned, and Chickenman showed you more tricks. He turned a squirrel into a roach, transforming its fluffy ears into long antennas. He showed you how to catch fireflies in mason jars, never forgetting to make you release them before your mothers came.
Towards the middle of summer, you found yourself in and out of stores more than you were in the house. Leah would throw away the fish Chickenman brought and buy McDonald’s or Burger King instead. The toy that came in your Happy Meal was enough to make you forget.
Brian took turns playing with Austin in secret, and then Demi, and then eventually he set his eyes on you. And you knew it was wrong, but you didn’t know why.
Demi is in tears. The act of remembering everything she had gotten so good at forgetting was too much. You hold her shoulders, not for her sake but for your own.
Austin faces the grave; there is solemn deliberation in his expression. You can’t tell if he is about to laugh or cry, and you don’t know which would be better.
“I thought I was protecting you,” he whispers, his voice like static. “I thought I was the only one.”
Your chest tightens at this revelation. He was the first. He bears the most scars.
You reach for his hand, feeling how cold it is. “So did I.”
But summer went on. You remembered the acacias as long forgotten remnants of spring. It rained so much that the puddles became permanent features of the landscape. You blew bubbles through the fibers of rags with dish soap and watched in jealousy as the chickens plucked worms out of the wet earth. The tadpoles that Chickenman turned into frogs ruled the porch, meaning no outside time even when it wasn’t raining.
When your mother dropped you off in the cool mornings, you screamed and hollered. You knew that the moment she left, you would have to play again.
Demi lost her voice. She kept to herself in the corner of the playroom playing Barbie with tired eyes. You wanted to play with her but if anyone even got near her, she cried. The purple cows seemed so far away.
Chickenman found you outside one day—on the porch where you weren’t supposed to be. He rubbed his hands on his jumpsuit and took off his hat.
“You aight, Cupcake?”
You scratched your face, expecting to find a mosquito on your cheek. Your hand came back wet.
“Where’s Leah and the other kids?”
You shrugged your shoulders. A ladybug sat on your toe, its shell an iridescent blue.
“He hurt you?”
The ladybug was preparing to fly. Its wings fluttered for a moment before it finally took off. It landed in the palm of his hand.
“You told Leah?”
You nodded, the tears falling faster now.
“And what she say?”
You told him. He was angry, but he assured you it wasn’t your fault. He too had been hurt and knew how it felt—the confusion and pain, words crying to come from your soul that you had not yet learned. He will fix this, he said. He will perform another trick, one that will make the tadpoles dull in comparison.
That day and many after, details faded in and out of memory. Your foot remembered the crushing of cicada shells, the whimsical chatter of their long-winded conversations shrilling into the night, you remembered Brian taking you out into the field alone, showing you how to pull up crawfish from their clay towers using nothing but a stick, and you remember the glass bottle tree in the yard and the many rainbows it cast over a rain-weary carpet of grass.
But while you remembered things, you forgot others. You forgot the rage that burned in Chickenman’s eyes. You forgot the lavish gifts Leah bestowed upon you—the dresses and dolls, kiddie makeup sets and Play-Doh. You forgot the tiredness that blanketed the house the moment you and your mother arrived home, the weight of two jobs like laudanum for motherly instinct.
You never forgot the way he treated you as if he understood the entirety of your soul.
“No one lives down that gravel road anymore,” Demi says. “What hasn’t been condemned is at the mercy of the weeds.”
This is news to Austin who has been living across the country for the past decade. He has come back to a town that is a ghost of its former self—abandoned farmer’s markets, overgrown parking lots, and stadiums that echo the forgotten cheers of people who’ve moved on.
The light in his eyes is terribly beautiful. “I didn’t sleep very well those days. Every time I closed my eyes, I remembered it all and how awful it was. I remember my mother’s bruised arms, skin covered in little ant hills. He knew I was suffering, and he always knew how to make it better. One day he slipped a daddy’s long legs in my hand and told me to protect it, to sleep with it under my pillow. Somehow I kept up with it, and I did what he said. I never had another nightmare again. In fact, I don’t dream at all anymore.”
You close your eyes. “Neither do I.”
It was the last Saturday before you were to start kindergarten, and the last time you would ever stay with Leah. Over the summer, you had outgrown the length of your jeans, the grass stains in the denim proof of the long hot days exploring the yard.
Promise was in the air, and it came in the form of cooler days and shorter evenings. Having never experienced preschool, your mother worried how you would get along with the other kids. As of recently, your introversion was of concern. Was it simple shyness or was the silence and fleeting eyes signs of something more?
She chalked it up to me being near Chickenman. He was corrupting you with his habits and weirdness. With the extra money coming in the house, she’d be able to afford after school care and get you away from him. . .
That morning when she dropped you off, it was Chickenman who greeted you at the car door and not Leah. Your mother stared at his oil-stained jumpsuit, asking where she was.
You don’t remember his answer, and even if you did, it was more than likely a lie. Your mother, running late for work, had no time for arguing. She took you off of her hip and kissed your forehead.
And then she was off.
The two of you juggled roly-polies in the yard as you both waited for Austin and Demi to arrive, the blushing sky giving way to cerulean. The chickens avoided you, opting to stay gathered underneath the cover of trees like deflated cotton balls.
As soon as they had come, Chickenman returned to the trailer. The three of you collected seashells from the gravel driveway and imagined what sea existed there long before the trees.
“Why are you bald?” Austin loudly whispered to Demi, his eyes the size of marbles.
Demi touched the bald spot on the back of her head where she’d gone to town with a pair of kitchen scissors. “Mama said it’ll grow back. It was an accident.”
He squinted in her direction and then looked up at the sun. You noticed he wasn’t wearing his hat. “Cupcake, do you ever get scared?”
You sniffed. “Like of the dark?”
“I mean. . .are you ever scared for no reason? Like just because. . .you’re scared just because?”
The chickens loomed in the distance. There came a shout.
“Chickenman’s calling us!”
You three ran up the trailer steps, appreciating the smell of food in the air. It was a little early for lunch, but there’d been no snack since Leah wasn’t around. Food was welcome.
At the kitchen table was a plate of fried chicken, a small pan of cornbread slightly burnt at the edges, and three cups of Kool-aid.
“It’s the last weekend ‘fore school,” Chickenman explained, urging you all to sit. “I wanted to cook for y’all, so here it is.”
It was a meager spread to be sure, but your mouth watered at the smell. He divided the food on our plates, giving you the biggest portion as was his custom and watched you eat.
That meal you would remember for the rest of your life—the crispiness of the chicken, the way the grease fell into your lap, how fresh the meat tasted. It was so good that you were crying, but whether from grief or delight it was impossible to tell.
“Where’s Brian?” Demi asked, her voice strained. She ran her fingers over the smooth spot of her scalp.
“They gone,” he said, staring out the window. “You ain’t got to worry no more.”
That evening when your mother came to pick you up, she was even more annoyed that Chickenman was there and not the girl she was paying.
“Where’s Leah?” she demanded, taking you by the hand.
“She on vacation, Miss Morgan.
“Well when she is back, I need to talk to her. The hell am I paying her for?” She bent down and dusted off your shirt. “Say bye to your lil’ friends and let’s go.”
How could you have known that it would be years before you’d see either one of them again? You couldn’t have. You didn’t. You said your goodbyes and followed her to the car.
“I told you I had one last trick,” said Chickenman as she strapped you into your booster seat. “It was in the chicken.”
Demi squeezes your hand. “Do you think Chickenman suffered?”
“It happened in his sleep. He wouldn’t have felt a thing,” you say.
“No, not that. I mean after that summer.”
She is right. He had suffered quietly while you moved on with your lives. The ivy has swallowed the cinder blocks where his trailer once stood, and the coop has disintegrated into a shower of rust. And Leah’s house, overrun with frogs, sits abandoned.
You bite the inside of your cheek, the flesh there fragile. Perhaps he has finally found quiet in the cool green earth.
Austin’s disbelief is audible. “You don’t believe he actually. . .?”
The wind blows, knocking the overgrown y-shaped weeds into the granite tombstone. It is the only thing you could offer, and yet it seems not enough.
In the distance, a rooster cries.
About the Author:
Jade Laffiette is a senior majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing. Her work has been published in We Did It First: Poets from Mobile, AL, River and South Review, Hoxie Gorge Review, and Résonance Journal. She currently serves as a prose editor for Oracle Fine Arts Review 2025-2026 edition.