Fresh Eggs (17 page)

The head studies his rearview mirror, frowns at the cars snaking toward them. “I'm going to call a meeting of the homeowners' association. We know our rights.” He pulls a business card from his coat pocket and thrusts it into Calvin's hand, the way in an earlier time a man of honor might drop a gauntlet.

Calvin reads the card. The man is the financial vice president of a company called AdvenTec. “Well, Mr. F. Douglas Remora, it's always good to know the name of a man who knows his rights. I'm Calvin Cassowary.”

“Totally unacceptable,” the head says, as the window zips shut and the Mercedes coupe breezes away.

Calvin shouts after him, “Eat more eggs! I'm dying here!”

Only now does Calvin unroll the newspaper and read the top headline:

C
OUNTY
T
AX
H
IKE
W
ILL
B
E
S
HOCKER

As he walks up the driveway, Calvin wonders how long it will be before it reads:

H
OMEOWNERS
S
UE
O
VER
F
OWL
S
MELL

And so he is not surprised three weeks later when two registered letters arrive on the same day. One is from the melon-shaped head in the Mercedes coupe, Mr. F. Douglas Remora, advising him that the Maple Creek Homeowners' Association has indeed met and has retained the services of attorney D. William Aitchbone. The second letter is from D. William Aitchbone himself, advising him that a lawsuit will be filed unless “proactive steps are taken immediately to abate the offensive odors emanating from your place of business.”

The letters arrive on the same day Norman Marek calls to inform Calvin that things are less than copacetic at Gallinipper Foods. “Bob wants producers to cull another ten percent,” he says.

That night when Calvin is lying in bed watching
The Tonight Show
, Donna walks naked from the bathroom and straddles his hips. She runs her hands up under his tee shirt. She Groucho-Marxes her eyebrows.

He starts to work her nipples, then drops his hands. “We're in big trouble, aren't we?” he asks.

Donna rolls off and burrows under the sheet. She reaches for her box of Kleenex. “Basically, we're broke.”

“Broke?” The word explodes from his lips like the belch of a bullfrog.

“I've been putting our groceries on VISA for three months.”

“We've got 900,000 chickens and we're borrowing money at eighteen percent to eat?”

Two weeks later Phil Bunyip and his catchers arrive and haul away another 90,000 Leghorns. Now Calvin Cassowary has 810,000 chickens. A week after that a letter arrives from Dewlap & Snood announcing a regrettable six percent hike in feed prices. That letter is followed by a phone call from Delia Osprey, midwestern sales manager for Myco-Med, advising him of the regrettable eight percent increase in the vaccines and antibiotics he uses to prevent his egg machines from contracting unproductive diseases. One day a story in the
Gazette
reports that Ohio Edison Company is seeking state approval for an increase in electricity rates. Another day the
Gazette
reports that growing tensions in the Persian Gulf will result in a doubling of heating oil prices in the fall. Donna comes home from shopping in tears. “What's wrong, babe?” asks Calvin.

“Look at the price on these bananas,” she answers.

This is how Calvin Cassowary's spring goes. On a sunny day in May he calls Paul Bilderback. “How about meeting me for coffee at the Pile Inn this afternoon,” he says. “Just you and me.”

Calvin and Paul haven't talked since the day Jimmy Faldstool pushed him off his stool and pelted him with donuts and slices of pie. At first Calvin and Paul cannot talk about anything but the weather and the lousy start the Cleveland Indians are off to. Then Paul stretches his arms along the back of the booth and says, “Cal, I'm really sorry about all that other garbage.”

“Paul,” Calvin confesses, “I think I'll have to drive school bus again in the fall.”

Paul leans over his coffee cup. “Drive bus? You've got a million chickens.”

Calvin tells him it's now only 810,000. Tells him about the skyrocketing feed and medicine prices. The taxes he has to pay. The unreasonable insurance policies he has to carry.

“Holy Toledo,” Paul moans. “I figured you were the richest sonofabitch in the county.”

“So you think they'll need drivers in the fall?”

Paul Bilderback scratches his eyebrows. “The school board always needs drivers but—I'll just say it, Cal—you're sitting on a goldmine out there.”

Calvin's head starts shaking from side to side. “Sell the farm to developers? Like Rick Van Varken? I'll never do that.”

Paul's head starts shaking, too. “I'm not talking about selling your farm. That's chicken feed. I'm talking about your daughter.”

“My daughter?”

“You've got the only human being in the world covered with feathers—and you hide her away like she's a freak.”

Calvin's hisses like the fuse on a lighted stick of dynamite. “She is not a freak.”

“Of course she's not a freak. Not a bad freak, anyway.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Lots of people are freaks of nature. Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Elvis. Albert Einstein. Dolly Parton. That giant who used to live right up the road here in Seville—”

“Captain Bates.”

“Every one of those people was born a freak, Cal. Born with special gifts they could cash in on. And you've got that sexy little girl up there covered with feathers.”

Calvin drives his fist square into the flat expanse between Paul Bilderback's wild eyes.

That same afternoon Calvin carefully opens a certified letter with his swollen hand. It's from Pauline R. Plover. Pauline graduated from West Wyssock High School the same year he did. They were in several classes together, including art class. She was the only one who could draw or paint better than him. Now Pauline is administrative clerk of the Wyssock County Common Pleas Court and it is her duty to notify him that the Maple Creek Estates Homeowners' Association has filed a lawsuit against him, demanding that he immediately stop exposing the families of Maple Creek to the deleterious effects of his chicken manure. They also want $1.3 million in cash.

Calvin sits at the wobbly table in the breakfast nook and empties a mug of black coffee, one small noisy sip at a time. Then he calls Norman Marek. He leaves this message on his answering machine: “Hi, Norman. This is Calvin Cassowary. I'm being sued. Call me as soon as you can. Okay?”

It's nine that night before Norman calls back. He tells Calvin not to worry. “You're not the first to be sued over this, and you won't be the last. Get a good night's sleep and in the morning hire the best lawyer in town.”

“The best lawyer in town has already been hired by the homeowners' association,” Calvin informs him.

“Then hire the second best. And put him in touch with us. Our legal beagles have all the ammunition you'll need to blow those bunny hugging pukes to kingdom come.”

Calvin has the phone cord stretched as far as it will go. His forehead is pressed against the cold glass on the porch door. His layer houses lay side by side like a row of huge coffins shipped back from some little war. “Is this going to be expensive, Norman?”

“Just remember you've got Bob Gallinipper on your side,” Norman says. He promises to FedEx a Manure Management Lawsuit Kit first thing in the morning. He promises that everything will be copacetic.

At 11:30 Calvin curls up on the living room sofa like a fetal giraffe and clicks on
The Tonight Show
. He hears the laughter but not Johnny Carson's jokes. Sometime after three he squeaks upstairs. Shortly before five he squeaks back down and puts on the coffee. For an hour he busies himself preparing Rhea's lessons. Given her feather problem, he wishes she had a greater enthusiasm for learning, a love for art or science, a knack for music or mathematics, something that would demonstrate God's fairness. But Rhea is just an average student. She just plods competently along.

By the time Jimmy Faldstool pulls in, Calvin has finished three cups of coffee and soaked up the acid puddled in his stomach with four slices of unbuttered toast. He rushes out to the layer houses, not because Jimmy has to be told what to do—Jimmy knows the routine better than he does—but because it's been a long and brutal night and he needs a friendly face.

Jimmy gives him the smile he needs, then says, “You look like crud, Cal. Didn't you sleep?”

Calvin holds up his thumb and index finger, showing Jimmy he only slept about an inch. He follows Jimmy inside to the employee locker room.

While Jimmy nervously changes into his overalls and rubber boots, Calvin nervously makes a pot of coffee. Only when the Mr. Coffee is dripping and puffing does he fold his arms tight around his ribs and say, “Jimmy, things aren't going very well.”

Jimmy leans against the wall and searches his chin for a spot that needs itching. “Cal, you just say the word and I'll quit. I'll have Joon quit, too.”

“Jimmy, Jesus. That's not what I'm saying. You and Joon would have to quit eight or nine thousand times to put the farm back in the black.”

“Sorry we don't make more,” Jimmy says. He gets two paper cups from the cupboard and sets them side by side on the table. Then he says, “You're the best boss I've ever had.”

Calvin fills the cups. “And you're the best employee I've ever had. In fact—”

Calvin stops talking and takes a long sip of coffee. That
in fact
that just tumbled out of his mouth was completely unexpected, a decision made by his subconscious, against the better judgment of his conscious self. “In fact, Jimmy, I'm promoting you to manager.”

The cup in Jimmy Faldstool's hands is quivering like a volcano about ready to blow. “Good gravy, I ain't smart enough to manage this place.”

“You're already managing it,” Calvin says, “and if you're smart enough to manage it when I'm here, then you're sure-as-hell smart enough to manage it when I'm not here.”

“When you're not here? Good gravy!”

Having been forced by his subconscious into a decision, Calvin feels relaxed, even sleepy. He goes to the house. Goes to the desk in the dining room and searches the drawers for a pad of typing paper. He finds the sharpest pencil he can. Donna is just squeaking down the stairs when he's heading out the door. “I'll be back in a couple hours,” he says.

Donna sneezes and waves good-bye.

It is still early. No more than seven. The sun, although bright, has not yet floated free of the trees on the eastern horizon. Mr. Shakyshiver is crowing with confidence.

Calvin looks for Biscuit, hoping the dog will follow him into the woods, the way farm dogs are supposed to follow their masters. But Biscuit is off on some adventure of his own, it seems; either that or he's still curled up in the back of his dog house. So Calvin heads for the woods alone.

The fields below the layer houses are slippery with mud. The fields stink, too. The chicken manure spread just before Thanksgiving is just now thawing. In the weeks to come it will seep deep into the soil, fortifying the roots of a hundred varieties of weeds. For generations these fields were filled with neat rows of corn or soy, hay or wheat. Now they are filled with weeds.

He descends the fields all the way to Three Fish Creek. On the barren hill above him sit the dozens of big houses that comprise the outpost of urban-sprawl erroneously known as Maple Creek Estates. Some of the houses are supposed to be Victorians, some Tudors, some Georgians, some New England saltboxes. But beneath their brick and vinyl facades, beneath their gingerbready affectations, they are all of the same style, Reaganesque: huge empty boxes of plywood and particle board, held together with glue and staples and adjustable mortgages; temples of two-income opulence which their owners will be forced to sell the instant they're downsized and/or divorced.

Calvin has not been inside any of the houses himself, but Donna has. She went snooping with Marilyn Dickcissel when the first two models were opened to the public. “The kitchens are absolutely gorgeous,” she reported. “They have these little garages, with these little slide-up doors, where you can park your toaster and your coffeemaker.”

Marilyn had been impressed with the bathrooms. “You've never seen such big bathtubs in your life. Especially the ones in the owner's suites. You could bathe a bull.”

Calvin had laughed at that, and pictured a huge grinning Hereford luxuriating on his back in a sea of suds, while Marilyn scrubbed its huge balls with a floor brush. “And just what is an owner's suite?”

“What we hicks call the master bedroom,” Donna said, letting him know she was well satisfied with the old Cassowary farmhouse.

Despite the lawsuit he faces, Calvin is glad that the stench of his 810,000 Leghorns is rolling up that hill.

He follows the creek upstream. The water is still clear and shallow, speeding noisily over the gray-blue shale bottom. In a week or two, when the spring rains begin in earnest, the water will boil deep and brown, uprooting small trees, and rearranging rocks. As he walks he looks for minnows in the deeper holes, but doesn't see any.

Three Fish Creek twists between high shale walls for a half-mile or so. Then the banks fade away and the surrounding land flattens out. He is on Andy Abram's dairy farm now. Andy must be getting up there, Calvin thinks. How long before these fields and pastures are covered with Reaganesque mansions, their huge bathtubs filled with luxuriating bulls?

He follows the creek into a marsh. It covers several acres. The spring growth hasn't started yet, so the marsh is brown and barren. The old deer path is still here and as he walks it, he expects any second to scare out a doe or two.