Page 237 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 207

“This is turning into Apocalypse Now.”
“This has always been Apocalypse Now.”
“Don’t you care?”
“Of course, I care. I actually want to see how far he’ll go.”
I think one of Ryan’s character faults was that he always wanted the
intensity of life in extremis.
Thom watched the chickens, curious at their liberation, slowly spread
out from each other, hunting and pecking across the lawn. The girls each
had a supply of brown Safeway bags under their arms. Thom lit a Camel
and cupped it in his hand, waiting in ambush. He smoked slowly, relishing
the maneuvers.
“Come on, Dad,” Sie yelled. “This is boring.”
“Shut up,” Thom said. “Keep back up against the house. I don’t want
you in range when the shooting starts.”
“I don’t believe this,” I said.
“Believe it,” Ryan said. “Should I be the only witness to all this
madness?”
Thom raised his rifle, aimed it through the window, sighted a Rhode
Island Red, hunched his shoulder, resighted the target, squeezed the trig-
ger, and dropped the chicken in its tracks.
“Is that supper?” I asked.
The other chickens wandered mindlessly on the lawn.
“Okay, people. Get on it!” Thom said. “Bea, you pick it up and put it
in Sie’s bag. Abe, I want you to place the bag with the chicken in it exactly
where it dropped.”
The children followed the orders.
“I like this,” Abe shouted back.
“It’s gross,” Bea said.
Thom took a slow, careful hour, gunning down chicken after chicken.
The kids no longer needed orders. After each kill, they bagged the body
and set its memorial sack where it had fallen. The lawn was dotted with a
random disarray of brown grocery bags leaking chicken blood.
Thom called out to the triplets. “You go play now.”
“We are playing,” Abe said.
Thom walked toward us in the kitchen. “That takes care of that,” he
said.
“Of what?” I was incredulous.
“Those fuckers haven’t laid an egg in three weeks.”
“It’s winter,” Ryan said. “They don’t lay in winter.”
Thom turned to Sandy. “Make me some more coffee.”

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