The Life and Times of Chicken Dave

Chickens don't come when they're called. How do I know this? Let me tell you.

Several years ago, my littlest guy decided he loved chickens. He went up to my parents' house in the country, fed their chickens, watched them do their little peck-peck-peck thing in the dirt and fell in love. My father assigned him a chicken, let him name it, said it was his.

Cool, pet chicken, I thought. Coolest thing about the pet chicken: he didn't live at my house.

Later, Dad and I had a conversation about little guy and the pet chicken situation. Maybe one day he could have a pet chicken at your house, Dad said. Mmm-hmmm, I said-the standard reply of a mom who's only half listening while trying to keep two kids from painting the dog and wondering what goes with macaroni and cheese besides hot dogs, because jeebus almighty, I am about sick of hot dogs. We could build a little chicken coop in your back yard, said Dad. Mmmm-hmmm, I said. Mmm-hmmm, we'll build a chicken house, mmm-hmmm, the dog looks lovely purple, mmm-hmmm screw it, I'm ordering a pizza.

A few days later Dad shows up at my door with an evil grin and a peep-peep-peep coming from the hand he's hiding behind his back.

Where's little guy? He asks.

What's in your hand? I counter.

He pulls his hand out, opens it up, and the sight of the little fuzzy orange beak face critter makes me find religion, just for a second. Good god, what the hell is that? I ask.

It's a chicken, says Dad, who apparently moonlights as Captain Obvious when nobody's looking.

Right, but WHY is it a chicken, and why is it in my house?

It was born that way, and because it's little guy's chicken.

No, no it is-

In walks little guy, all big brown eyes and leftover little boy optimism. What's that? What's in your hand?

It's a chicken, says Captain Obvious. Your chicken.

Goddammit fuck. (I didn't say that out loud, but I thought it pretty damn hard.)

Big brown eyes, peep-peep-peep, yellow ball of fuzz, NO.

Can I keep him, mom?

Big brown eyes, peep-peep-peep, yellow ball of fuzz, goddammit fuck sigh... yes.

The question now, of course, is where does one keep a tiny peeping ball of fuzz when you live in a little brick house smack in the middle of the suburbs on less than a quarter of an acre?

The answer, of course (I should have asked Captain Obvious) is inside a giant washing machine box that fits perfectly, and by perfectly I mean just barely and who will possibly notice an enormous peeping cardboard box, behind the couch.

You need to keep him warm, says Dad. You need a gro-bulb. I'm sure you have one in the basement.

I don't know what you're talking about, I say... and go to fetch the gro-bulb from the basement.

An hour later, peeping ball of fuzz has been installed in the cardboard box between several layers of newspaper and the gro-bulb which was I swear to god purchased for some legitimate use, I just don't remember what it was. And my whole house sounds like this:

PEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEP!

Nuggets are sounding awfully good right about now.

I'm naming him Dave, after Dave Grohl, says little guy. Look, he likes to sit on my head.

And that, of course, is how I fell in love with Chicken Dave.

He spent the next several weeks peepeepeepeepeeping like a bird possessed, riding around the house on my head, and growing at an almost frightening rate. Chicken Dave ate a lot. He also pooped a lot. I read more newspapers during that time than ever before in my life.

Pretty soon Chicken Dave was outgrowing the box, and the only thing I've ever been good at nailing was my thumb and... well, we'll leave it at that. Building a chicken coop didn't look like it was going to happen any time soon, so we needed plan B. Back to the basement, foraging, and I found an old dog crate. We set it up inside and parked Chicken Dave in it, to make sure he couldn't get out between the bars. He hopped around for a while, poked his head through the spaces, peeped and clucked and pooped to his little heart's content-but he didn't escape.

The crate-turned-chicken house moved out to the patio, and Chicken Dave became an outdoor chicken. Every morning little guy went out to feed and play with him, and there he was, doing his spastic little chicken dance, safe inside the crate.

Except one day he wasn't.

Chicken Dave was gone.

8:00 in the morning and little boy is distraught. He's gone, he cried. My chicken is gone.

He can't be gone, I said. Not because it defied logic, but because at 8 in the morning, nothing is allowed to be wrong, because my head is still fuzzy and the best I can deal with it is to mutter bad words and crawl inside a chicken cage.

So that's what I did. Convinced, or hoping, that somehow a half-grown chicken could make himself flat and hide under a layer of newspaper, I went outside and poked my head in the crate. No Dave. I crawled further in. Dave? I called. Chicken Dave? Because everyone knows if you do that, the chicken will pop out of a secret compartment and say (in a British accent, don't ask me why) I'm right here, mum, just popped out for a bit of a walk.

But of course that didn't happen.

First stop on the quest to find Dave was, of course, the pen where our giant doberman mutt lived. Have you seen Chicken Dave, Hazel?

Hazel didn't answer, but neither did she have chicken breath or feathers between her teeth, so I took that as a good sign.

Next stop was the woods behind our house. I stomped around there, behind the other houses on our street, calling him at the top of my lungs, pausing periodically when I thought I heard a peep in response. My efforts were in vain.

Next I thought, Okay, if I were outside and saw a baby chicken, what would I do? I'd take him inside, of course. So off I went to the neighbors', still in my pajamas with my bright red combat boots untied, knocking on doors. I know this sounds kind of crazy, but have you seen a chicken? No, like a live chicken. A baby chicken. Well sort of a baby. He's small, but he pretty much looks like a chicken now. His name is Dave. Okay, well if you see him, can you please let me know?

As you might expect when a chicken is on the loose in suburban America, no one had seen a thing.

No one ever sees anything.

After more stomping and calling and hearing imaginary peeping, I gave up.

It was the end of Chicken Dave. Until I moved from that house, I still periodically went and stood in the woods, hoping to hear the telltale crow of a rooster, hoping Chicken Dave would fly up (if he was the flying sort of chicken; in my wishful thoughts he was, anyway) and land on my head.

It never happened. And the moral of the story is, don't talk about chickens while your kids are painting the dog.