Fresh Eggs (23 page)

“The big black headline across the top of the page says, ‘F
EATHER
G
IRL
P
ROBED
' and the little headline under that says, ‘Children Services fears abuse by desperate father.' And there's this big picture of Rhea staring out through a wall of chicken wire. Good gravy, Cal. She looks pitiful.”

And that's how Calvin found out. He ran back to the trailer, where Rhea was watching Joon eat his Rice Krispies, and, not knowing what to say, said only, “We've got to go home right away.”

They left Joon at the fair, to keep an eye on the exhibit, to keep selling Ice Noggies, and drove home as fast as the narrow, curvy state routes would allow. When they pulled in, there was a white Ford Escort sitting in the driveway. Inside the house he found that knucklehead from Children Services, April Poulard, asking Donna one question after another. Donna was crying from the questions and sneezing from the young woman's apricot-scented hairspray.

The following day the
Akron Beacon Journal
and the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
and the
Columbus Dispatch
ran their stories. Then the television crews arrived. After the six o'clock news the gawkers started arriving. The deputies. The boys on their bicycles. And now this morning the yellow crime tape.

At 9:30 the lawyer Calvin hired to handle his squabble with the Maple Creek Homeowners' Association arrives. Donna opens the door just wide enough to let him in.

“Morning all,” says Michael Rood III. Remembering Donna's allergic reaction to nearly everything, he plucks the war club-sized briar pipe from his stained teeth and slips it, still billowing, into the side pocket of his seersucker sports coat. Instead of a briefcase, he carries his important papers in a replica Pony Express saddlebag. He slides into the chair across from Calvin. “Worry not, my friend. I think we can get this ‘ol bag of donuts behind us pretty quick.”

“You said that about the homeowners' lawsuit,” Calvin reminds him.

Michael Rood III admits his earlier mistake with a long hard nod. “Right-e-o. I said it would never get to trial and I was wrong. But it won't be a long trial. No jury in Wyssock County is going to find against the smell of a man's manure.”

“Let's hope,” Calvin says.

“Any-hoo, that ‘ol bag of donuts is down the road. Today we've got another problem, don't we?”

Donna brings him a mug of coffee. “They're threatening to put Rhea in a foster home.”

“They always threaten that. SBB. Standard bureaucratic bluff. Where is our sweet little chickadee, anyway?”

“In her room,” says Donna.

Michael Rood III approves. “Keep her there until the hoopla dies down. You don't want to do anything that smacks of abuse or exploitation. Whatever you do, don't yell at her with the windows open.”

Michael Rood III, saddlebag over his shoulder, stands tall on the porch and lights his pipe. The smoke boils straight up then flattens across the ceiling. He pats Biscuit on the head and walks like Abe Lincoln toward the road. He makes sure the charming old farm house is squarely behind him, so the television cameras convey the proper Reaganesque message—farm family fighting for survival against the Big Brother liberal leviathan. As he walks he wishes the Cassowarys had an American flag flying.

He stops at the crime scene tape and waits until the microphones are in his face. Then he says:

“I am Michael Rood III. R-o-o-d. I'm the Cassowary's attorney. Rhea and her parents are quite distraught, as well you can imagine. But we are confident that this misunderstanding can—and will be—resolved quickly. There is simply no evidence that Rhea has been victimized in any way. She has feathers, yes. But she is normal in every other way.”

A reporter shouts: “Is it true she doesn't go to school?”

Michael Rood III's head bobs up and down. “Rhea is home-schooled. Her father trained as a teacher before taking responsibility for the family farm. Her stepmother has an associate's degree in accounting. Her work is monitored regularly by the local school board. The Cassowarys are loving, responsible parents.”

A reporter shouts: “They keep her in a cage!”

“They certainly do not. That chicken wire was there to protect Rhea from the occasional fairgoer who'd try to pluck one of her feathers. Concerned, loving father protecting his daughter. Any one of us would have done the same thing.”

A reporter shouts: “I hear they only feed her bugs and worms.”

“Absolutely ludicrous. I'd love to know your source on that one.”

A reporter shouts: “What about the long hours they force her to work?”

“Rhea is a farm girl. Children on farms start helping their parents at an early age. I grew up on a farm myself, helped bale hay when I was nine.”

A reporter shouts: “Being a side show freak is not the same as baling hay.”

Michael Rood III feels the stem of his pipe begin to crack and he wiggles it out of his clenched teeth. “Rhea is not a freak. She is a beautiful, intelligent girl. And she was not in a side show. She was participating in a county fair, as thousands of farm children do every summer. There is nothing more American than a county fair, my friends.”

Norman Marek shows his business card to the deputy, and, getting a thoughtful nod of approval, stoops under the crime tape and jogs up the driveway. He climbs to the porch, ignoring Biscuit's appeal for a pat on the head, and rattles the screen door with his knuckles. When Donna lets him in, he goes straight to the Mr. Coffee. His eyes are blinking like railroad crossing lights. “Who's the horse's ass talking to the press out there?”

Calvin, still at the table, pushes out a chair with his foot. “That's the second-best lawyer in town you told me to hire.”

Norman sips his way across the kitchen and sits. “You have confidence in him, do you?”

“Not especially. But he has quite a bit of confidence in himself.”

“Good enough. I tried calling you all morning.”

“We unplugged the phone.”

“Wise move.” Norman leans and peeks through the blinds. “At least the trucks got through. Eggs have to keep moving no matter what—rain, shine or media circus. Christ, Cal! What in the hell were you thinking?”

“I had to do something.”

“You got Bob's attention, that's for sure.”

“Mr. Gallinipper knows already?”

“It was in this morning's
New York Times
.”

“That was fast.”

“Those liberal pukes at the
Times
have been out to get the chicken people for years. Every time a fish dies downstream from a processing plant—take a free swing at the chicken people.”

“So the story mentioned that I supplied eggs to Gallinipper Foods?”

“First paragraph. Bob is really pissed at you, Cal.
El pisso grande
.”

“I'm pissed at me, too.”

“In case you didn't see it, Cal, there's a Good Citizen clause in your contract. You're expected to behave like a decent human being. First you get sued by your neighbors, then this.” Norman presses the coffee mug against his hurting head. “You've got to trust Bob, Cal. These depressed prices are a temporary thing. Our Egg-ceptional Breakfast campaign has already boosted consumption point-three-five percent. And we're about ready to release a study showing that cholesterol can prevent impotence in men over fifty-five.”

“Does it prevent foreclosure?”

Norman slumps sympathetically. “Why didn't you come to me, Cal?”

“Cassowarys solve their own problems.”

“And
make
their own problems, apparently.”

“So where do we stand? Is Gallinipper going to rip up my contract?”

“Cal! Shame on you! The Gallinipper family is exactly that—a family. Bob loves you like a son.”

“He's never met me.”

Norman points at him and winks. “But he reads your spreadsheets, Cal.”

Betsy Betz has to park three hundreds yards up the road. She may be 65, but she can still jump a country ditch. She lands as gracefully as a young doe. Wades into the shoulder-high weeds. Were this fifteen years ago, and Betsy Betz still Betsy Cassowary, this field would have been filled with neat rows of green corn, just starting to tassel. Now the field is choking with thistles and teasel, wild carrot and wild rose, even some damn blackberry briars.

Storming between two of the long layer houses, she spots Biscuit. The old dog spots her. They run stiff-legged toward each other. “Bisky! Bisky!” she baby-coos. “Do you remember me?”

Biscuit does remember her. He licks the makeup off her face and runs around her in circles all the way to the house. He accepts her invitation to come inside. He hasn't been invited inside since Donna arrived.

The slamming screen door doesn't turn Calvin's head, but the plink of Biscuit's toenails on the linoleum does. “Mother?”

Betsy Betz comes at him with her arm extended like a fly swatter. Calls him a stupid bastard and smacks him hard on the forehead.

“Where's Ben?” Calvin asks her.

“Still in Columbus begging me not to drive when I'm this worked up.” She goes to the cupboard and gets down a cereal bowl. Fills it with water for Biscuit. “Where's Rhea?”

“Upstairs. Donna, too.”

She starts for the stairs, then turns back and smacks him across the forehead again. “You've got a million chickens and you can't make a living?”

He tells her it's only 810,000 now. He tries to explain the depressed market and corresponding low wholesale prices. He holds up his thumb and forefinger. “I'm that close to losing the farm.”

“Then lose it! Sell the damn place if you can't make a go.”

“I can't sell the farm and you know it.”

“But you can sell your daughter?”

The stairs squeak. A sneeze echoes down. Donna appears, blurry eyed from trying to nap. “You didn't drive up by yourself, did you?”

Betsy holds out her arms, inviting a hug. “You holding up okay, honey?”

Donna bends over and hugs, her nose immediately stuffing up from the makeup, perfume and polyester pantsuit. “Why don't you go up and surprise Rhea? She's reading that book you sent her, I think.”

“What book is that?”

“The one about the birds. She absolutely loves it. She sneaks out at night and reads it to her chickens. I'll make us some soup.”

And so Betsy Betz goes upstairs and finds her granddaughter curled on her bed, huge stereo earphones over the crown of her feathered head, a book with birds on the cover in front of her face.

“Knock knock,” Betsy sings out.

“Gammy Betz!” Rhea tosses the book and the earphones and crawls across the bed into her grandmother's arms. There are tears. Assurances that everything is going to be fine.

“Now tell me all about this wonderful book I didn't send you,” Betsy says.

Betsy Betz is not upstairs five minutes when the screen door bangs again. A woman with tight gray curls hobbles in on a three-legged aluminum cane. It is Kitty Marabout, Jeanie's mom, Rhea's Toledo grandmother. “I'm filing for custody,” she announces.

Twenty-eight

Sitareh Aram finds her husband sitting on his yoga rug, in the lotus position, his toes tucked behind his knees. His face is as pink as a baked salmon, and glistening, as if the salmon had just been basted with butter. “Why are you crying, Pirooz?”

“I am not crying.”

“Then you are leaking badly.”

“I am meditating, my dear Sitareh.”

“And crying.”

Dr. Pirooz Aram surrenders. “Yes, dammit, I am crying. You are happy now?”

His wife bends over him, lifts his black felt beret like the lid of a kettle and kisses the hairless circle on the top of his head. “About what?”

“About one of my patients.”

“They usually make you laugh.”

“This one makes me cry.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Other than leave me to my yoga?”

She replaces his beret and goes about collecting the newspapers he has tossed on the floor. It is his way: read a few pages then toss them, as if discarding pistachio shells after the meats are chewed and swallowed. “I know their sanity is your business, Pirooz. But your sadness is mine.”

“You are tippy-toeing a delicate line, Sitareh. Don't you have some exams to grade? Your students are anxious to know how ignorant they are.”

Pirooz finishes his yoga. Takes a shower. Eats his granola on the bedroom balcony, wearing nothing but baby powder and his beret. He does not put on a business suit today, but dresses in a pair of white slacks and one of the Hawaiian shirts he bought on vacation, the blue one with the white palm trees. He exchanges his black beret for a red one.

“Not working today, Pirooz?” his wife asks when she sees his outfit.

“You are tippy-toeing again,” he says.

He leaves his house and drives his red Toyota to the interstate. Instead of going north toward the huge medical building where he keeps his office, he goes south, toward Wyssock County.

In the days before Abraham, he thinks as he drives, before religion became so filled with guilt and misery, a girl with Rhea's gifts would have been made a goddess, worshipped with wonderful feasts, wonderful poems, wonderful songs and dances. He is surprised to find the Cassowary farm after only a few wrong turns.

There are dozens of cars parked along the road. There are vans from television stations. There are police cars, some blinking red, some blinking blue. There are dozens of people, bunched like grapes, staring at the white farmhouse, as if at any moment it will metamorphosize into a huge flying saucer and screw itself into the sky. Just as he gets out of his Toyota, a phalanx of boys on bicycles charge the wide yellow ribbon someone has tied between the telephone poles. “Be careful Pirooz,” he warns himself, “you have just landed in one of Salvador Dali's paintings.”