by Charles D. Herold
The first step of the procedure, like the first step of making Gypsy chicken soup, was to steal a chicken. There was an old Spanish guy who lived in a run down shack on the edge of town and he now had one less chicken than he had had the day before. Chris and Doug had one more chicken, and she was noisily proclaiming her innocence from within the stolen U.S. mail sack that had been thoughtfully provided for her comfort. The chicken's name, unbeknownst to her kidnappers, was Flora.
"Can't you shut that fucking chicken up?" asked Doug.
Chris was carrying the sack, and in Doug's mind this meant that Chris was in charge of the chicken. Chris also had chicken scratches all up and down his arms and in his mind felt he was doing all the hard shit.
"What do you want me to do, dude," demanded Chris, "sing it a fucking lullaby?"
"I don't give a shit what you do," said Doug, "just tell it to shut the fuck up."
"Shut the fuck up chicken dude," said Chris.
"Ha ha," said Doug.
They were walking through a patch of forest in a large park on the opposite side of town from that of the chicken shack. Parts of the park were pretty much never visited except by young couples in search of the height of seclusion. Neither Doug nor Chris had ever had cause to be here in search of that particular sort of seclusion, which was one reason they thought it might be a good idea to make friends with Satan.
When they had hiked about two miles they reached a clearing and Doug said "Here" and they stopped. Chris dropped the bag with a thump, much to Flora's annoyance.
"Okay," said Chris.
Doug had also been carrying a sack. He set it down and opened it. He pulled out a notebook on the cover of which he had painstakingly drawn a pentagram, and also a memorandum threatening death to anyone who touched the notebook. He pulled out a record album by the rock band Diseased Flesh. On the front of this album a young woman three months behind on her rent had posed in a very compromising position. Chris and Doug both wanted to meet this young model, and imagined that she always dressed pretty much like she did for the cover. Oddly enough they were right about this, although wrong about how friendly she would act toward them were they to meet. Doug pulled out an axe and handed it to Chris. Chris held it as though it were a very large scorpion egg ready to hatch.
Doug consulted his notebook. He and Chris had diligently played Diseased Flesh's record backwards over and over and transcribed what they had heard. These mystical words had been transferred to the notebook by Doug, who actually could more or less read and write. He read some words from the book out loud believing them to be in Latin, not knowing that Diseased Flesh was fronted by a young man with a Masters in Historical Middle Eastern Studies and that the words were actually Aramaic for "My tonsils rise up to smother you with heron." Doug spoke the words very solemnly. The next phrase meant "Cut out my tongue before I set the oxen on fire." Doug said that with the same dignity and respect. Then, having had this little chat with the devil, he spoke to Chris.
"Kill the chicken," said Doug.
"What do you mean kill the chicken, dude?" asked Chris.
"I mean kill the fucking chicken," explained Doug.
"Well what the fuck are you gonna do?" demanded Chris.
"I've gotta say all this shit, man. It doesn't work if we don't say all the fucking shit on the record."
"Well why can't I say it?"
Doug handed Chris the notebook. "Okay Chris, read it."
Chris stared at the mysterious markings on the page. His teachers had told him he'd need to know how to read someday, now he wished he'd listened.
Chris really didn't want to kill Flora. Chris wanted money and power and cute girls or even ugly girls if necessary, but he just didn't want to kill the chicken. But Doug didn't want to kill the chicken either, and Doug was somewhat smarter than Chris.
"I don't know if this is such a good idea, Doug," Chris said.
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean, how do we know that Satan's going to do any of this shit for us?"
"What the fuck are you talking about, dude?"
"I mean, I always hear about guys getting something from like, you know, like praying to God and shit, but I don't know anyone who's gotten anything from killing chickens except maybe a chicken sandwich."
"So what do you want to do?" asked Doug, "Pray to God? Pray to fucking God we can fuck girls in the back seat of a fucking limousine? What do you think, God's gonna say 'Yeah, they're cool guys, I'm gonna give it all to good ol' Chris and Doug?'"
"We could try," Chris said defensively.
"Man, I tried," said Doug with disgust. "I asked God for a red wagon when I was five, and I still don't have a fucking red wagon."
"But like, Satan might not give you a red wagon either, dude."
"I don't want a fucking red wagon," shouted Doug. Sometimes Chris was too stupid to be believed. "Anyway, Satan gave Jennifer Webber tits."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember last year, she didn't have any tits at all and then she comes to school this year and they're all over the place?"
"So?"
"So I heard Jennifer made a pact with the devil to get big tits."
"No way, dude. Who says?"
"Susan Fischer."
"How does she know?"
"I don't know, she knows things, ya know?"
Susan did know a lot of incredible things, thought Chris. Susan was one of the smartest girls in the school and was always telling Doug and Chris really amazing things that they might not have believed if the source weren't so impeccable.
Chris, overcome by logic, opened the clasp on the mail sack and pulled the bag open.
Flora, startled by the sudden light, stared at Chris quizzically. Then, collecting her wits she flapped her wings, hoping to soar out of the bag. Had Chris held the sides of the bag up this probably wouldn't have worked even had Flora's wings not been clipped, but he jumped back in surprise and Flora began to run.
"Whoa dude," Chris shouted to no one in particular. He stood in a half crouch watching Flora's bewildered race through the trees.
"Kill it, dude," screamed Doug. Chris failed to respond.
"Fuck," said Doug grabbing the axe out of Chris's hand.
Doug ran after Flora, swinging the axe wildly. A couple of times he nicked her, but she just kept on running and squawking, the blood dribbling between her feathers.
"Hit her with the back, dude," said Chris, his mind working more clearly now that it wasn't weighed down with weaponry.
Doug turned the axe in his hand and swung the blunt end at Flora's head. Flora felt a violent concussion and fell. Doug turned the axe again and cut her head off.
Doug was just in the act of victoriously saying "Alright" when he realized the chicken was standing up, flapping it's wings angrily. Doug jumped up while screaming "Fuck!" The headless chicken, blood squirting out of its neck, ran shakily in Doug's direction. Doug and Chris, startled by this turn of events, took flight.
The clearing they were in had trees on two sides and a sharp incline at the back. Chris and Doug found themselves backed against a mountain wall while a headless chicken zig-zagged toward them.
"Oh God," screamed Chris. "Oh God oh God please please oh Jesus Christ help me."
The chicken fell at Chris's feet, twitched a little bit more and then lay silent. Chris and Doug edged away from it and sat back against two trees, panting heavily.
After somewhat recovering his composure, Chris spoke.
"What now, dude?"
"Well nothing now," said Doug, irritation lining his voice, "you fucked it up. You called to God, dude. Now the chicken's worthless. It's like a fucking holy chicken now. Satan doesn't want a fucking holy chicken."
"Oh," said Chris.
"You really fucked up dude," said Doug.
"You don't know, dude, that chicken was really going for us. Maybe you didn't do the spell right. Maybe that chicken was fucking going to kill us. Maybe I fucking saved our lives!"
"You're so fucking stupid," said Doug.
Things were never really the same between Chris and Doug after that day. Chris became increasingly convinced that God had saved the two of them from Satan's chicken and he turned to religion. He started carrying a bible to school and preaching during lunch, and later became a TV evangelist.
Doug continued to believe in Satan's powers for some time, but was disillusioned when he learned that Jennifer Webber's tits were actually Kleenix. Having lost faith in both God and Susan Fischer he turned to drugs and wound up working for the CIA.
Flora's body was eaten by the various little bugs that thrive on dead flesh. And if there is a God, then Flora is most certainly in heaven. For Flora was a holy chicken.