CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY The Education of Mrs. R © M M n adolescent shriek woke her. “Cocker- els,” she thought, K “ cockerels,” with a wry twist to the word. She lay in the da rk l is ten in g . There was no use in covering her head; the screaming still came through. The soloist was suddenly submerged in the chorus. Fifty young roosters, their voices high, uncertain, breaking and guttering and beginning again. She heard the hiss of sheets and felt her husband’s heat moving away from her. “ Christ!” came his voice in the dark. She moved an arm until it touched his back; she rubbed softly at the thinly covered bones of his spine. “ I ’m sorry,” she said. He didn’t move. She heard his hard breath. “ Do it today! I’ve had enough!” She pulled her arm back to her side abruptly. “ Did you hear me?” he hissed. “ Yes.” There was cold weight in her stomach. “ I’ll have to wait until she’s gone to school.” He was silent. The roosters crowed on, a cacaphonic tremor that rang through the walls. She snatched at a robe and tiptoed out of the room. The kitchen clock said five-thirty. She went to the feed sack by the door and poured a measure of grain into the plastic basin. She slid her bare feet into the rubber boots next to the sack and opened the kitchen door. Black air struck her. Dew was falling. The chill touch of the air wet her face and hands and the surface of her robe. Not quite black. She could see the faint loom of the garage where the roosters were cheering, whistling, crowing, chortling, in ferocious competition. Not ten steps to the side door. “ Too c lo se ,’’ she though t. “ Chickens in the dooryard.” A golden-haired woman in a white apron clucking on the doorstep and scattering corn from a bowl to the plump, busy red hens who ran toward her chuckling softly. The picture went with the phrase in her mind. The two together had done this to her. She grunted at the image, her own sound merely a shake in her skull bones. She was too close to them now to hear anything but the roosters. She opened the garage door and the alkaline stink came out. She pulled the string and the light came on. They were all standing around in the straw on the floor waiting for her. The din went up a notch. Wings beat among the reptilian heads stretching at her. She dumped the grain into the long feeding tray, spreading it the full length. The warm bodies moved softly next to her legs; the noise switched suddenly to a treble purr and an occasional squawk. She held herself tightly, deliberately not kicking her way through them. She edged back to the door and stood looking. “ They are the wrong color,” she thought. “ They should have been wine red, not this . . . white.” Her eyes settled on the pale flesh showing through the feathers near the beak and around the eyes. The roiling bulk of white bodies hid the tray with dozens of pink combs bobbing over round yellow eyes. The little yellow eyes, the slits on either side of the yellow beak, the pink, naked flesh jiggling on their necks, even the small pale membrane on either side of their heads, and the tiny bare spot that stood for ears. She could not look at them easily. They disgusted her. The feathers were still unruly, short, sticking out at odd angles. “ They’re still young,” she told herself firmly. “ Just children yet, playing cock.” But the tiny heads on the turning necks, arcing and bowing, the hopping bodies as they climbed over each other to get at the tray. She put the basin on the shelf near the door and reached for the wire broom she used on the perch. “ At least they’re quiet for a while. He can go back to sleep.” She was brushing at the green slime on the boards of the perch when she saw the pale bundle underneath. The bare bulb in the roof threw her shadow across it. It was scattered with straw. Dark blotches marred it. She pushed the broom down under the perch and poked at the bundle. It rolled and a hard yellow foot flopped into sight. She hooked it with the broom and raked it out from under the perch. The head rolled out from under the body. Its eye was closed. A thin grey continued next page Illustration by Jerry Kruger Layout by Erie Edwards 45
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