Broasted bird first dripped down my chin at a Heiner family Fourth of July BBQ back in third grade. Imagine, chicken flowing down your face. Not sauce, chicken. Its juicy meat and crispy, spiced skin changed me. I needed Matty Heiner’s granny’s pressure-fried chicken after that like a kitten needs milk. Then his folks divorced and she stopped sharing. Got to where she only cooked it on Thanksgiving, drove to the shelter and gave it away. But we were on to her, hell-bent on stealing a batch the year before she died.
“You’ll never do it,” Sophie ragged on me daily, dressed in the mermaid costume me and Mom made her for Halloween. Don’t know why I even told her.
“Yeah we will, like candy from a–”
“Not an old lady." Sophie was eight, going on eighty. "'Member Grandma?” She spent every day with Mom at the old folks’ home, like daycare. Must have rubbed off.
“Dude, that’s disgusting,” Matty winced at the bus stop the next morning.
“Twelve in two hours, I shit you not.” Lance was a year older, fourteen and covered in zits. Got held back in third grade for farting bare-assed in his teacher’s face.
“Gross.” It’s one thing to set records, but when a buddy admits he beat-off a dozen times during The Little Mermaid, it kinda makes you sick, especially when your little sister’s been dressed as one for two weeks and counting, hopping around the house in a sleeping bag like a tennis ball in a tube sock.
“Speaking of which,” Lance lifted a sockball, stained yellow, “let’s stash it in the girls’ locker room.”
After lunch, I brought up the bird again.
“So, how we gonna do it?”
“You’re serious?” downing his carton of milk, Matty scraped his tray into the trash.
“Hell yeah, Matty!” Lance chimed in. “Your granny’s bird’s the BEST!”
“I know, but she won't give us any. I've tried. All she talks about are 'God's children at the shelter.' She's nuts.”
“Then we'll take it before she goes. That or rob the shelter.”
“Bap the bitch upside the head, like BOO-YAH!”
“Lance, please.” Matty led us to the basketball courts. “I want her bird as much as you guys, but we gotta think this through.”
We drew the plan in dirt that afternoon. We'd hang out at Matty's granny's after school everyday until the holiday, watch her patterns, do chores, and work our way into her heart so she wouldn't see it coming. Then we'd ask if we could help deliver the chicken, "to feed the hungry," we'd tell her, and take it. Plain and simple. Hardest part would be convincing our folks to let us skip Thanksgiving for the sake of the poor.
"No way," Mom answered that night over Stouffer's wings and mashed.
"He's lying," Sophie snapped, mouth full.
I kicked her tail under the table.
"There's no way you're missing Thanksgiving to go to some soup kitchen. Those people have diseases," Mom pointed with a bone. "And Sophia, what did I tell you about your costume at the table?"
"You hate fish, and don't wanna eat with one."
"Yes. Now go change."
She didn't, just picked up her tray, walked to the TV and turned on Shark Week.
"So help me, if your sister doesn't take that damn thing off I'm gonna throw her in the lake. See if she can swim."
Things went better for Matty and Lance. Their folks thought it was lovely, helping old folks, feeding the homeless. "Bought it hook line and stinker," Lance spat pizza.
"Sinker."
"Huh?"
"Hook line and sinker," I repeated. "Like fishing, dumbass."
"So what're you gonna do?" Matty cut in.
"About what?"
"Thanksgiving. If your Mom won't let you go, what're you gonna do?"
"I'll figure something out..."
"Maybe talk to Sophie." Lance was her biggest fan, got a real kick out of her. Whenever he stayed over, they tag-teamed busting my balls.
"What's in it for me?" she asked, stuffing her face with sardines.
"Chicken. Broasted chicken, best this side of Mississippi."
She smacked my face with a tiny fish and bit its head off. "I know what you get. What about me? I don't eat chicken."
"What? We had it last night."
"Not anymore." She slurped oil from the can. "Mermaids don't eat chicken."
We negotiated for an hour and a half. Came to the decision that if she kept Mom busy on Thanksgiving, I'd teach her how to swim, like Dad taught me.
Gave her her first lesson the next day, down at the lake. "Move your arms like this, and your head like this," I showed her on the shore. "And you're gonna have to take that off," I pointed to her dirty sleeping bag of a costume.
"No. With the tail. That's the deal," and she held onto my shoulders, flopping like a mermaid, up and down, in and out of the water until I may as well have been pulling a dozen of her.
"Seriously, you're sopping," I panted. "I can't do this. You gotta take it off."
But she didn't, just tightened her grip and kicked harder.
"I can't believe she's still wearing that thing," Matty laughed.
Hunched over, I could barely walk.
"Looks like she got the balls," Lance pitched an orange in the street, a sour one, kind that's in marmalade. They're everywhere in Sunny Villas. "I can't believe she's only seven."
"She's eight," I tried to straighten up, winced and shrank back.
Lance smirked, "Eight's the new eighteen."
"Guys!" Matty pleaded. "We're good kids, remember? Who wanna help out. Granny's smart. We gotta be on it."
"Speaking of 'on it,' about Sophie..." Lance kept going.
After two blocks I'd had enough, so I pegged him in the head with an orange, he threw me on the ground, and I couldn't get up on account of my back. Just then, Matty looked away, smiled and waved at his Granny, staring out her Caddy as she drove past.
When she got home a half hour later we were in her backyard, throwing grapefruit at rabbits. "Pick 'em up! Pick 'em up!" Matty yelled as she turned onto Redwood.
We met her in the garage, arms filled with bags of freshly busted fruit.
"Oh Matty," he helped her out of her car, "I knew it was you." Steadying herself, she hugged him. "Who's this?"
"This is Lance,"
"Hey," he shook her hand.
"and Collin."
I gave her half a hug.
"You met them before."
"I know, I know." She walked slow, using her car to guide her.
"We picked up citrus," Matty lifted his bags for her to see.
"For juice?"
"No, off the ground."
"Well put it in the trash," she laughed. "Oh Matty," and opened the door.
Inside I vacuumed, while Lance washed the windows and Matty baked cookies with his granny to the sound of fuzzy songs I didn't recognize. Her carpet was tall, changed colors with every pass. I took my shoes and socks off in her bedroom, scrunched my toes and took my time. Old pictures in picture frames on doilies, the place smelled moist, dusty, with a whiff of chocolate chip.
"Boys!" Her voice quivered down the hall, followed by Matty.
"Dude, cookies are ready," he looked in the room. "And put your shoes on. That's creepy."
Wiping chocolate off our faces a dozen cookies later, we were reminded of her chicken, broasted to perfection, crisp, tender, seeping down our arms, and what we had to do.
That night all I could think about was Grandma. Not Matty's. Mine. She died when I was ten. My other one wasn't dead yet, but she lived in Alaska or something. Mom said she didn't come around because we reminded her of Dad. I don't believe that. Mom worked at an old folks' home, she knew how to get them to sleep, go to the bathroom and eat.
"Christ! Again with the sardines?"
Sophie gagged fish on Mom's meatloaf.
"Sophia Lauren, so help me God, that's it!" Mom slammed her plate. "Take that goddamn tail off before I rip it off you!"
Sophie sucked her can and Mom lunged. There was nothing I could do. They flipped the table before Mom got her on the ground by the throat and unzipped her.
I hadn't seen Sophie without her costume on since Halloween. Her skin was paler than normal, almost pink. Wrinkly, like she'd been swimming for days, it reminded me of when I got my cast off after jumping from a tree at Grandma's funeral.
Next day we broke the pact and called it off. Matty had a change of heart, said the cookies were too damn good, his granny was on to us. No way we'll get away with it. He stood his ground until we brought up her bird, chicken marshmallows broasted autumn brown, waiting to melt in our mouths and ooze down our chests.
"Alright, alright! That's enough!" he cried uncle. "We'll go after class."
And we did. Same thing, only this time Lance watered houseplants, Matty did the laundry, and I washed the dishes. It was me and her in the kitchen. She was cooking on the stove, something else in the oven. Smell had me drooling in the sink. Garlic, tomato, basil – pasta sauce and fresh-baked bread.
"You're staying for dinner, I hope," her knotted fingers brushed my arm.
"Me too," I smiled.
She laughed, hiding her face like a kid. "Set the table when you’re done. With the dishes," she nodded at the pile I still had to wash and ambled to her wooden spoon on the stove. "Here," she shuffled back to me, spoon steaming red, "try this."
I did, and choirs sang, "Marinara! Marinara! Where's the broasted chicken!?" Not that her sauce didn't change my life, because it did, but every artist has their masterpiece.
"How is it?"
I couldn't respond.
She giggled, shuffling back to her pot on the burner.
"Lemme try, Granny," Matty rounded the corner, arms full of laundry.
"When you're done folding, now scoot." She waved her spoon at him. "Kitchen's no place for the wash."
We worked in silence, her shaking dashes here, slicing garlic there, while I dried the last of the dishes and set the table. Over a quiet dinner, I watched Lance load his pockets with garlic toast and Matty suck down three plates of pillowy pasta I'd never had before, a pair of underpants stuck to his back with static the whole meal.
"Nyo-kee," she said over again. "It's Italian. Pronounced, nyo-kee."
I was an hour late getting home, so I snuck through Sophie's window. No use trying the door. Mom locked me out as usual. She'd already gone to bed, Sophie said. That meant she had a headache.
"I can't believe she did that," I brought up the tail from the night before.
"Yeah," Sophie pulled a sleeping bag from the hall closet. "I'm over it."
"You gonna make another?"
"No. You are. That's the deal, remember? You still gotta teach me to swim."
"I know, but–"
"No buts, you helped make the first one, now you gotta make another. It's easy." Handing me the bag, she walked to her bedroom and turned out the light. "See you at the lake. Eight o'clock, sharp."
Next day was Saturday. No school or Granny's, and Sophie took full advantage. Took me until two in the morning to stitch her new tail, cutting scales from plastic bags and painting them with glittery puff paint, like the first one.
She loved it. "Looks great," she said, pulling off her shorts and sliding in. "Yeah..." sighing, she cinched the straps I attached to keep it on in the water.
"How's it feel?"
"Like home," her tail flapped behind us, slow, sun glaring as I towed her.
"How's it been there? At the home."
"It's sad." Sophie didn't like talking about her geriatric daycare. "Everyone's dying. Kinda makes you wonder."
"'Bout what?"
"Being what you wanna be. Like a mermaid."
"Or a chicken thief."
She laughed, smacking my back, and kicked harder. "Only you don't have a tail!"
After the lesson, we hid her new fin beneath the log Dad carved our names into.
"Our secret," she said, and I agreed. Another on our growing list.
"What did I tell you? She has no idea!" Lance still smelled like garlic, smashed pieces of toast in his pockets during frog baseball that afternoon.
"Maybe not," Matty pitched, "but Thanksgiving's five days away."
I swung and missed on purpose.
"So?" Lance grabbed the frog before it hopped back in the water.
"We got a lotta work to do."
"Like what?" I was hot, beat from pulling Sophie on my back all morning, while the stink of dead frogs and stale garlic toast made me dizzy.
"We have to be sure she makes the chicken." Matty pitched again. "She won't if she's onto us."
That time I connected, whacked the frog so hard I fell under its guts. Spitting intestines, I laid there lifeless. Lance couldn't help himself, laughing on his knees beside me, so hard he was crying. Matty was laughing too, red-faced, saying something I couldn't hear as I got up and ran.
They had no idea where I was going, so I went straight there.
"Carl!"
"Misses Heiner," I greeted her through the screen. "It's Collin, Matty's friend."
"I know, I know. Come in!" she handed me the door. "Come on in."
As I did, I watched her feet brush through the carpet in holey ankle nylons.
"Sorry if you're busy." The TV was blaring, so I turned it down.
"Busy with a whole lotta nothin!" She lowered onto the sofa, arms keeping her steady. "Is Matty with you?"
"He's not." I stopped sitting. "But I can get him."
"No, no. He'll come when he's ready. Next week, I suppose. Next week..."
We sat to a quiet old western she couldn't possibly have heard. I barely could. Just wind chimes out front, until I had to pee.
Walking back down the hall, I asked her, "Are you going to the shelter for the holiday, Misses Heiner?"
"Why yes," she tried to stand, but sat back down with her hand on her chest. "I go every year. Christmas with my children, Thanksgiving with the Lord's. It's tradition."
"That's amazing," I knelt beside her at the sofa. "What kind of food do you bring? Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy?"
She swatted at me, grinning, "Everyone brings those. I make something special, from the heart."
"What's that?"
"Chicken my grandmother taught me to make."
"Think we could help?"
"Of course!" She adjusted her necklace, "Thanksgiving morning, before the parade."
Sophie and I had another lesson the next night at sundown.
"How're ya feelin?" she rubbed my shoulders as I pulled her through the water, tail crinkling, sparkling in the last scraps of day.
"Alright. Ready, I guess."
"You guess?" Her tail pushed us faster. "That's no answer."
"I'm ready then."
"Three days!" She started screaming, "Three days and it'll all be ours, chicken and fish, wings to tail!" Like a mantra, she repeated, "chicken and fish, wings to tail," then the whole thing over and over again. Meanwhile, she was an engine behind me, slicing us across the lake and back in no time, all the while chanting, "Three days and it'll all be ours, chicken and fish, wings to tail! Chicken and fish, wings to tail!"
So we went to Matty's Granny's to do chores everyday until Thanksgiving, and every time she made us dinner, teasing us with flaky chicken pot pies, over-stuffed bell peppers, and lasagna as thick as my face. Walking home after each meal, got harder and harder to control our lust.
"I can't stand it!" Matty shook his fists at streetlights.
Lance started singing, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Can't wait 'til, tomorrow!" dancing down the street.
When I got home, Mom grounded me, said she made a nice dinner and asked where I'd been. I told her the truth.
"If you like spending so much time with old folks, why don't you come with me to the home like your sister?" She was packing leftovers. "They're the ones who need visitors." Stacking tupperware in the fridge, she added, "and don't think I'm making dinner again tomorrow. This is it."
Turns out Sophie didn't eat either. "It was beef stroganoff," she told me in her room. "Mermaids don't eat beef, I told her, and she flipped out. Grounded me for a week."
The fact we both got grounded ended up working in our favor. Changed the plan so Sophie would join, meet us at the lake if the coast was clear. When Mom sentenced us to our rooms, she never checked on us. Took it as alone time. So come 5am, I locked my bedroom door and crawled out the window.
It was the hottest Thanksgiving on record. By the time I got to Granny's I was drenched. "Oh dear," she kissed my cheek, "let's clean you up," and she washed my clothes while I took a shower. Gave me her robe to wear after, fluffy pink, over a glass of orange juice until they got dry.
Waiting for Matty and Lance, she looked up at the clock. "My, we better get started," and pushed off the table to stand. "Gotta be at the shelter by nine."
I watched her walk to the pantry, slowly setting a palette of ingredients beside the stove. Then she went in the closet and asked, "Carl, can I borrow you a second?"
What I saw was a one of a kind vat, made by the hands of someone in love – steel and iron, half my height, worn by years of use. I gripped the sides and pulled. It was on wheels, almost as heavy as me. Only reason I could move it was I could already smell what was to come.
She smiled and told me to plug it in by the stove. "Then the chicken," she added.
Opening the fridge, it hit me. That's what I smelled, chicken on every shelf, soaking in creamy yellow rainbows, speckled green and red.
"What's in it?" I asked, loading up the counter.
Again, she smiled over a bowl of flour, salt and pepper, picked up a chicken breast and coated it. "Do like this. One side, then the other." Handing me the job, she walked to the fryer. "Oil's gotta be nice and hot." She moved her hand over it. "Then plop 'em in," taking the breast I coated, she dropped it in the oil. "Ten at a time. Coat the bottom." So we did. "Then cinch the lid, like this. And wait."
We sipped another glass of juice as they fried, watching hummingbirds suck her backyard feeder.
That's when we heard the door.
"Granny, it's Matty!"
"And Lance!"
"Ohh," she struggled to stand. "You're late!"
"I know," Matty squinted at me as he hugged her. "What the hell are you wearing?"
I forgot about her robe. "My clothes are in the dryer."
"Kinky!" Lance screamed in Granny's ear as he kissed her on the cheek. "What'd we miss? Other than," he grabbed my pink, fluffy sleeve, "you know?"
I got dressed in the garage while Granny caught them up. The smell was magical. I couldn't believe it. We were about to do it, to taste it. Something missing since we were kids would be ours again. Holidays always felt different, but this one really was – the beginning of everything, and the end of the rest.
"NOOOOO!!!" Granny screamed suddenly. "Don't you dare!"
Back in the kitchen, Matty screamed back. "Why!? Huh? You give it to bums. What about your grandson!?"
"It's not for you." She adjusted the fresh fried breasts on a rack with tongs. "It's for God's children. You get Christmas, remember?"
"But I hate ham! So does Dad."
"You do not. And your father had a choice."
Lance elbowed Matty. "Shut up," he whispered, coating drumsticks.
I stepped beside them to my bowl of flour and worked in silence, Granny in charge of frying, timing and drying, while Matty, Lance and I dredged the bird.
We wrapped up right on schedule. I loaded the car with Lance, while Matty turned on the hose out front, high enough to run into the street.
"Christ it's hot," Lance's forehead dripped on the platter he was carrying.
"So's the chicken," I added, squeezing into the backseat. Matty rode up front.
Halfway down the drive, as she closed the garage, Granny noticed water running down the block from her yard. "Oh my, Matty, can you–" seeing the pan of chicken on his lap, she turned to Lance and I, "Boys..." Our laps also covered, she unclipped her seatbelt and pulled herself out of the car to shut the hose.
That's when we sprung.
Matty handed me his platter, crawled into the driver's seat, slammed the door and tore off. Lance turned around and pointed, cackling in my ear as Granny stumbled after us in the rearview, sweating, locked out of her house, no chicken for God's children.
Plan was to go to the lake, where we could eat in peace. Only we couldn't help ourselves. Rounding the corner out of Sunny Villas, Lance ripped into his tray and passed it around. We ate three pieces each before I told them Sophie was coming.
"Not for this," Matty chewed, half-eaten leg in hand as he drove.
"'Course not," I threw my scraps out the window. "She just eats fish."
Greasy fingerprints made a crime scene of the car by the time we parked. There by the lake, we rearranged our trays. Took turns choosing, piling stacks a dozen high, sweating oil in the sun.
I realized then what we'd done was wrong, but I didn't care. I couldn't stop. None of us could. Chicken-faced and swollen, I grinned my way to bone after bone, sucked each one clean until it hit me. No matter how happy we were, it wouldn't last. Soon enough we'd be stuffed, bird gone, nothing left but a stomachache and a story.
In my chicken black hole, I started looking for Sophie. Maybe she'd want to go home, spend time with Mom for the holiday, or go back and get Granny off the street.
That's when I saw it. A tail. A big one, kicking out of the water in the distance.
"You guys see that?" I turned to Matty and Lance, passed out on the shore.
They didn't budge.
I checked beneath Dad's log for Sophie's costume. It was still there. She hadn't come. Maybe Mom caught her, I thought, and lay back down relieved.
Again, the tail crested, this time closer, glistening.
"Sophie!"
A small hand broke the surface with a wave, and a voice sang, "Chicken and fish, wings to tail! Chicken and fish, wings to tail!" as it swam into the fading light of day.
“You’ll never do it,” Sophie ragged on me daily, dressed in the mermaid costume me and Mom made her for Halloween. Don’t know why I even told her.
“Yeah we will, like candy from a–”
“Not an old lady." Sophie was eight, going on eighty. "'Member Grandma?” She spent every day with Mom at the old folks’ home, like daycare. Must have rubbed off.
“Dude, that’s disgusting,” Matty winced at the bus stop the next morning.
“Twelve in two hours, I shit you not.” Lance was a year older, fourteen and covered in zits. Got held back in third grade for farting bare-assed in his teacher’s face.
“Gross.” It’s one thing to set records, but when a buddy admits he beat-off a dozen times during The Little Mermaid, it kinda makes you sick, especially when your little sister’s been dressed as one for two weeks and counting, hopping around the house in a sleeping bag like a tennis ball in a tube sock.
“Speaking of which,” Lance lifted a sockball, stained yellow, “let’s stash it in the girls’ locker room.”
After lunch, I brought up the bird again.
“So, how we gonna do it?”
“You’re serious?” downing his carton of milk, Matty scraped his tray into the trash.
“Hell yeah, Matty!” Lance chimed in. “Your granny’s bird’s the BEST!”
“I know, but she won't give us any. I've tried. All she talks about are 'God's children at the shelter.' She's nuts.”
“Then we'll take it before she goes. That or rob the shelter.”
“Bap the bitch upside the head, like BOO-YAH!”
“Lance, please.” Matty led us to the basketball courts. “I want her bird as much as you guys, but we gotta think this through.”
We drew the plan in dirt that afternoon. We'd hang out at Matty's granny's after school everyday until the holiday, watch her patterns, do chores, and work our way into her heart so she wouldn't see it coming. Then we'd ask if we could help deliver the chicken, "to feed the hungry," we'd tell her, and take it. Plain and simple. Hardest part would be convincing our folks to let us skip Thanksgiving for the sake of the poor.
"No way," Mom answered that night over Stouffer's wings and mashed.
"He's lying," Sophie snapped, mouth full.
I kicked her tail under the table.
"There's no way you're missing Thanksgiving to go to some soup kitchen. Those people have diseases," Mom pointed with a bone. "And Sophia, what did I tell you about your costume at the table?"
"You hate fish, and don't wanna eat with one."
"Yes. Now go change."
She didn't, just picked up her tray, walked to the TV and turned on Shark Week.
"So help me, if your sister doesn't take that damn thing off I'm gonna throw her in the lake. See if she can swim."
Things went better for Matty and Lance. Their folks thought it was lovely, helping old folks, feeding the homeless. "Bought it hook line and stinker," Lance spat pizza.
"Sinker."
"Huh?"
"Hook line and sinker," I repeated. "Like fishing, dumbass."
"So what're you gonna do?" Matty cut in.
"About what?"
"Thanksgiving. If your Mom won't let you go, what're you gonna do?"
"I'll figure something out..."
"Maybe talk to Sophie." Lance was her biggest fan, got a real kick out of her. Whenever he stayed over, they tag-teamed busting my balls.
"What's in it for me?" she asked, stuffing her face with sardines.
"Chicken. Broasted chicken, best this side of Mississippi."
She smacked my face with a tiny fish and bit its head off. "I know what you get. What about me? I don't eat chicken."
"What? We had it last night."
"Not anymore." She slurped oil from the can. "Mermaids don't eat chicken."
We negotiated for an hour and a half. Came to the decision that if she kept Mom busy on Thanksgiving, I'd teach her how to swim, like Dad taught me.
Gave her her first lesson the next day, down at the lake. "Move your arms like this, and your head like this," I showed her on the shore. "And you're gonna have to take that off," I pointed to her dirty sleeping bag of a costume.
"No. With the tail. That's the deal," and she held onto my shoulders, flopping like a mermaid, up and down, in and out of the water until I may as well have been pulling a dozen of her.
"Seriously, you're sopping," I panted. "I can't do this. You gotta take it off."
But she didn't, just tightened her grip and kicked harder.
"I can't believe she's still wearing that thing," Matty laughed.
Hunched over, I could barely walk.
"Looks like she got the balls," Lance pitched an orange in the street, a sour one, kind that's in marmalade. They're everywhere in Sunny Villas. "I can't believe she's only seven."
"She's eight," I tried to straighten up, winced and shrank back.
Lance smirked, "Eight's the new eighteen."
"Guys!" Matty pleaded. "We're good kids, remember? Who wanna help out. Granny's smart. We gotta be on it."
"Speaking of 'on it,' about Sophie..." Lance kept going.
After two blocks I'd had enough, so I pegged him in the head with an orange, he threw me on the ground, and I couldn't get up on account of my back. Just then, Matty looked away, smiled and waved at his Granny, staring out her Caddy as she drove past.
When she got home a half hour later we were in her backyard, throwing grapefruit at rabbits. "Pick 'em up! Pick 'em up!" Matty yelled as she turned onto Redwood.
We met her in the garage, arms filled with bags of freshly busted fruit.
"Oh Matty," he helped her out of her car, "I knew it was you." Steadying herself, she hugged him. "Who's this?"
"This is Lance,"
"Hey," he shook her hand.
"and Collin."
I gave her half a hug.
"You met them before."
"I know, I know." She walked slow, using her car to guide her.
"We picked up citrus," Matty lifted his bags for her to see.
"For juice?"
"No, off the ground."
"Well put it in the trash," she laughed. "Oh Matty," and opened the door.
Inside I vacuumed, while Lance washed the windows and Matty baked cookies with his granny to the sound of fuzzy songs I didn't recognize. Her carpet was tall, changed colors with every pass. I took my shoes and socks off in her bedroom, scrunched my toes and took my time. Old pictures in picture frames on doilies, the place smelled moist, dusty, with a whiff of chocolate chip.
"Boys!" Her voice quivered down the hall, followed by Matty.
"Dude, cookies are ready," he looked in the room. "And put your shoes on. That's creepy."
Wiping chocolate off our faces a dozen cookies later, we were reminded of her chicken, broasted to perfection, crisp, tender, seeping down our arms, and what we had to do.
That night all I could think about was Grandma. Not Matty's. Mine. She died when I was ten. My other one wasn't dead yet, but she lived in Alaska or something. Mom said she didn't come around because we reminded her of Dad. I don't believe that. Mom worked at an old folks' home, she knew how to get them to sleep, go to the bathroom and eat.
"Christ! Again with the sardines?"
Sophie gagged fish on Mom's meatloaf.
"Sophia Lauren, so help me God, that's it!" Mom slammed her plate. "Take that goddamn tail off before I rip it off you!"
Sophie sucked her can and Mom lunged. There was nothing I could do. They flipped the table before Mom got her on the ground by the throat and unzipped her.
I hadn't seen Sophie without her costume on since Halloween. Her skin was paler than normal, almost pink. Wrinkly, like she'd been swimming for days, it reminded me of when I got my cast off after jumping from a tree at Grandma's funeral.
Next day we broke the pact and called it off. Matty had a change of heart, said the cookies were too damn good, his granny was on to us. No way we'll get away with it. He stood his ground until we brought up her bird, chicken marshmallows broasted autumn brown, waiting to melt in our mouths and ooze down our chests.
"Alright, alright! That's enough!" he cried uncle. "We'll go after class."
And we did. Same thing, only this time Lance watered houseplants, Matty did the laundry, and I washed the dishes. It was me and her in the kitchen. She was cooking on the stove, something else in the oven. Smell had me drooling in the sink. Garlic, tomato, basil – pasta sauce and fresh-baked bread.
"You're staying for dinner, I hope," her knotted fingers brushed my arm.
"Me too," I smiled.
She laughed, hiding her face like a kid. "Set the table when you’re done. With the dishes," she nodded at the pile I still had to wash and ambled to her wooden spoon on the stove. "Here," she shuffled back to me, spoon steaming red, "try this."
I did, and choirs sang, "Marinara! Marinara! Where's the broasted chicken!?" Not that her sauce didn't change my life, because it did, but every artist has their masterpiece.
"How is it?"
I couldn't respond.
She giggled, shuffling back to her pot on the burner.
"Lemme try, Granny," Matty rounded the corner, arms full of laundry.
"When you're done folding, now scoot." She waved her spoon at him. "Kitchen's no place for the wash."
We worked in silence, her shaking dashes here, slicing garlic there, while I dried the last of the dishes and set the table. Over a quiet dinner, I watched Lance load his pockets with garlic toast and Matty suck down three plates of pillowy pasta I'd never had before, a pair of underpants stuck to his back with static the whole meal.
"Nyo-kee," she said over again. "It's Italian. Pronounced, nyo-kee."
I was an hour late getting home, so I snuck through Sophie's window. No use trying the door. Mom locked me out as usual. She'd already gone to bed, Sophie said. That meant she had a headache.
"I can't believe she did that," I brought up the tail from the night before.
"Yeah," Sophie pulled a sleeping bag from the hall closet. "I'm over it."
"You gonna make another?"
"No. You are. That's the deal, remember? You still gotta teach me to swim."
"I know, but–"
"No buts, you helped make the first one, now you gotta make another. It's easy." Handing me the bag, she walked to her bedroom and turned out the light. "See you at the lake. Eight o'clock, sharp."
Next day was Saturday. No school or Granny's, and Sophie took full advantage. Took me until two in the morning to stitch her new tail, cutting scales from plastic bags and painting them with glittery puff paint, like the first one.
She loved it. "Looks great," she said, pulling off her shorts and sliding in. "Yeah..." sighing, she cinched the straps I attached to keep it on in the water.
"How's it feel?"
"Like home," her tail flapped behind us, slow, sun glaring as I towed her.
"How's it been there? At the home."
"It's sad." Sophie didn't like talking about her geriatric daycare. "Everyone's dying. Kinda makes you wonder."
"'Bout what?"
"Being what you wanna be. Like a mermaid."
"Or a chicken thief."
She laughed, smacking my back, and kicked harder. "Only you don't have a tail!"
After the lesson, we hid her new fin beneath the log Dad carved our names into.
"Our secret," she said, and I agreed. Another on our growing list.
"What did I tell you? She has no idea!" Lance still smelled like garlic, smashed pieces of toast in his pockets during frog baseball that afternoon.
"Maybe not," Matty pitched, "but Thanksgiving's five days away."
I swung and missed on purpose.
"So?" Lance grabbed the frog before it hopped back in the water.
"We got a lotta work to do."
"Like what?" I was hot, beat from pulling Sophie on my back all morning, while the stink of dead frogs and stale garlic toast made me dizzy.
"We have to be sure she makes the chicken." Matty pitched again. "She won't if she's onto us."
That time I connected, whacked the frog so hard I fell under its guts. Spitting intestines, I laid there lifeless. Lance couldn't help himself, laughing on his knees beside me, so hard he was crying. Matty was laughing too, red-faced, saying something I couldn't hear as I got up and ran.
They had no idea where I was going, so I went straight there.
"Carl!"
"Misses Heiner," I greeted her through the screen. "It's Collin, Matty's friend."
"I know, I know. Come in!" she handed me the door. "Come on in."
As I did, I watched her feet brush through the carpet in holey ankle nylons.
"Sorry if you're busy." The TV was blaring, so I turned it down.
"Busy with a whole lotta nothin!" She lowered onto the sofa, arms keeping her steady. "Is Matty with you?"
"He's not." I stopped sitting. "But I can get him."
"No, no. He'll come when he's ready. Next week, I suppose. Next week..."
We sat to a quiet old western she couldn't possibly have heard. I barely could. Just wind chimes out front, until I had to pee.
Walking back down the hall, I asked her, "Are you going to the shelter for the holiday, Misses Heiner?"
"Why yes," she tried to stand, but sat back down with her hand on her chest. "I go every year. Christmas with my children, Thanksgiving with the Lord's. It's tradition."
"That's amazing," I knelt beside her at the sofa. "What kind of food do you bring? Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy?"
She swatted at me, grinning, "Everyone brings those. I make something special, from the heart."
"What's that?"
"Chicken my grandmother taught me to make."
"Think we could help?"
"Of course!" She adjusted her necklace, "Thanksgiving morning, before the parade."
Sophie and I had another lesson the next night at sundown.
"How're ya feelin?" she rubbed my shoulders as I pulled her through the water, tail crinkling, sparkling in the last scraps of day.
"Alright. Ready, I guess."
"You guess?" Her tail pushed us faster. "That's no answer."
"I'm ready then."
"Three days!" She started screaming, "Three days and it'll all be ours, chicken and fish, wings to tail!" Like a mantra, she repeated, "chicken and fish, wings to tail," then the whole thing over and over again. Meanwhile, she was an engine behind me, slicing us across the lake and back in no time, all the while chanting, "Three days and it'll all be ours, chicken and fish, wings to tail! Chicken and fish, wings to tail!"
So we went to Matty's Granny's to do chores everyday until Thanksgiving, and every time she made us dinner, teasing us with flaky chicken pot pies, over-stuffed bell peppers, and lasagna as thick as my face. Walking home after each meal, got harder and harder to control our lust.
"I can't stand it!" Matty shook his fists at streetlights.
Lance started singing, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Can't wait 'til, tomorrow!" dancing down the street.
When I got home, Mom grounded me, said she made a nice dinner and asked where I'd been. I told her the truth.
"If you like spending so much time with old folks, why don't you come with me to the home like your sister?" She was packing leftovers. "They're the ones who need visitors." Stacking tupperware in the fridge, she added, "and don't think I'm making dinner again tomorrow. This is it."
Turns out Sophie didn't eat either. "It was beef stroganoff," she told me in her room. "Mermaids don't eat beef, I told her, and she flipped out. Grounded me for a week."
The fact we both got grounded ended up working in our favor. Changed the plan so Sophie would join, meet us at the lake if the coast was clear. When Mom sentenced us to our rooms, she never checked on us. Took it as alone time. So come 5am, I locked my bedroom door and crawled out the window.
It was the hottest Thanksgiving on record. By the time I got to Granny's I was drenched. "Oh dear," she kissed my cheek, "let's clean you up," and she washed my clothes while I took a shower. Gave me her robe to wear after, fluffy pink, over a glass of orange juice until they got dry.
Waiting for Matty and Lance, she looked up at the clock. "My, we better get started," and pushed off the table to stand. "Gotta be at the shelter by nine."
I watched her walk to the pantry, slowly setting a palette of ingredients beside the stove. Then she went in the closet and asked, "Carl, can I borrow you a second?"
What I saw was a one of a kind vat, made by the hands of someone in love – steel and iron, half my height, worn by years of use. I gripped the sides and pulled. It was on wheels, almost as heavy as me. Only reason I could move it was I could already smell what was to come.
She smiled and told me to plug it in by the stove. "Then the chicken," she added.
Opening the fridge, it hit me. That's what I smelled, chicken on every shelf, soaking in creamy yellow rainbows, speckled green and red.
"What's in it?" I asked, loading up the counter.
Again, she smiled over a bowl of flour, salt and pepper, picked up a chicken breast and coated it. "Do like this. One side, then the other." Handing me the job, she walked to the fryer. "Oil's gotta be nice and hot." She moved her hand over it. "Then plop 'em in," taking the breast I coated, she dropped it in the oil. "Ten at a time. Coat the bottom." So we did. "Then cinch the lid, like this. And wait."
We sipped another glass of juice as they fried, watching hummingbirds suck her backyard feeder.
That's when we heard the door.
"Granny, it's Matty!"
"And Lance!"
"Ohh," she struggled to stand. "You're late!"
"I know," Matty squinted at me as he hugged her. "What the hell are you wearing?"
I forgot about her robe. "My clothes are in the dryer."
"Kinky!" Lance screamed in Granny's ear as he kissed her on the cheek. "What'd we miss? Other than," he grabbed my pink, fluffy sleeve, "you know?"
I got dressed in the garage while Granny caught them up. The smell was magical. I couldn't believe it. We were about to do it, to taste it. Something missing since we were kids would be ours again. Holidays always felt different, but this one really was – the beginning of everything, and the end of the rest.
"NOOOOO!!!" Granny screamed suddenly. "Don't you dare!"
Back in the kitchen, Matty screamed back. "Why!? Huh? You give it to bums. What about your grandson!?"
"It's not for you." She adjusted the fresh fried breasts on a rack with tongs. "It's for God's children. You get Christmas, remember?"
"But I hate ham! So does Dad."
"You do not. And your father had a choice."
Lance elbowed Matty. "Shut up," he whispered, coating drumsticks.
I stepped beside them to my bowl of flour and worked in silence, Granny in charge of frying, timing and drying, while Matty, Lance and I dredged the bird.
We wrapped up right on schedule. I loaded the car with Lance, while Matty turned on the hose out front, high enough to run into the street.
"Christ it's hot," Lance's forehead dripped on the platter he was carrying.
"So's the chicken," I added, squeezing into the backseat. Matty rode up front.
Halfway down the drive, as she closed the garage, Granny noticed water running down the block from her yard. "Oh my, Matty, can you–" seeing the pan of chicken on his lap, she turned to Lance and I, "Boys..." Our laps also covered, she unclipped her seatbelt and pulled herself out of the car to shut the hose.
That's when we sprung.
Matty handed me his platter, crawled into the driver's seat, slammed the door and tore off. Lance turned around and pointed, cackling in my ear as Granny stumbled after us in the rearview, sweating, locked out of her house, no chicken for God's children.
Plan was to go to the lake, where we could eat in peace. Only we couldn't help ourselves. Rounding the corner out of Sunny Villas, Lance ripped into his tray and passed it around. We ate three pieces each before I told them Sophie was coming.
"Not for this," Matty chewed, half-eaten leg in hand as he drove.
"'Course not," I threw my scraps out the window. "She just eats fish."
Greasy fingerprints made a crime scene of the car by the time we parked. There by the lake, we rearranged our trays. Took turns choosing, piling stacks a dozen high, sweating oil in the sun.
I realized then what we'd done was wrong, but I didn't care. I couldn't stop. None of us could. Chicken-faced and swollen, I grinned my way to bone after bone, sucked each one clean until it hit me. No matter how happy we were, it wouldn't last. Soon enough we'd be stuffed, bird gone, nothing left but a stomachache and a story.
In my chicken black hole, I started looking for Sophie. Maybe she'd want to go home, spend time with Mom for the holiday, or go back and get Granny off the street.
That's when I saw it. A tail. A big one, kicking out of the water in the distance.
"You guys see that?" I turned to Matty and Lance, passed out on the shore.
They didn't budge.
I checked beneath Dad's log for Sophie's costume. It was still there. She hadn't come. Maybe Mom caught her, I thought, and lay back down relieved.
Again, the tail crested, this time closer, glistening.
"Sophie!"
A small hand broke the surface with a wave, and a voice sang, "Chicken and fish, wings to tail! Chicken and fish, wings to tail!" as it swam into the fading light of day.
