Crow Like a Rooster
I’m fixing to crow like rooster.
I hated that chicken. Every morning he would jump up on the fence at the crack of dawn and start crowing his head off, like he was the king of Siam or something.
He was especially exasperating on the weekend mornings when a person could sleep in and get a little extra rest. But no, he would be up on that fence stretching his neck to high heaven and proclaim to the world he was king of his domain, while I lay tossing fitfully attempting to think of a way to silence him without a lot of effort.
I wanted to pop him in the head with a rock, but that required getting out of bed, getting dressed, finding a rock, and I just didn’t want to risk doing all that just to find he had merged back into the flock. I had tried that before.
Every morning as he signaled the world that he was king and somebody should get up and feed him, I vowed to kill him and eat him, but he was too clever for me.
When I complained, my father would use an old cliche saying, “The early bird gets the worm, son. If you would get out of bed that crowing wouldn’t bother you.” I didn’t want a worm, I just wanted to sleep.
Another thing he used to say was, “You need to plow deep while others sleep.” I knew he raised those roosters, one after another, to wake people up in the morning so they could go to work while normal people were just stretching underneath the covers and thinking about the taste of that first sip of coffee and some fresh fried eggs.
One morning I woke up to silence and realized it was late in the day. As I kicked the covers back and slipped into my jeans, the aroma of fried chicken came wafting my way.
When I arrived in the kitchen there was a big crispy platter of it right between the bowl of gravy and the platter of biscuits.
My Aunt Cleo was sitting at the breakfast table cleaning the last morsels off a drumstick.
Aunt Cleo had the reputation of a person who didn’t play around. Some folks even said she had quit school just because they had recesses.
It seemed she had arrived to spend the night late in the evening last night, and this morning when Mister Crowing Cock had awakened her she had marched out to the chicken house, grabbed him by the neck and prepared him for the skillet.
Right on top of that plate of fried chicken was the pulley bone, my favorite piece. I knew they were saving it for me, but before I sat down I walked around the table because I was fixing to kiss Aunt Cleo.