Have Mercy

The text from the barn reads "Clucky is sick".   "What's wrong?" I text back.  "He's sick."

I should expect this from my youngest son.  Descriptive, diagnostic, deductive language is not in his wheel house.  I will check on the rooster in the morning.  It is dark, the long day has stretched me thin and wimpy, rubbing tired eyes that just beg to close and be let alone for a summer night's short slumber.

My son is tired too, but will never admit it.  He insists and negotiates.  It is the ritual.  A person with autism can always win an argument by sheer perseverance.  The thing is to out-think the argument and turn the requests into inert concepts, this while every creative cell in your body aches for rest.  You still eke out the will to hold on to structure, order, and prayers that he will go to bed or at least let you go to bed despite the emphatic and repetitive statements that: he's not tired, and why can't he play video games, and he's quite sure that his older brother plays video games while we sleep, and can he have one more snack?  

I wash my face, hiding in the basement bathroom to avoid the pelting of repetition and demands. He's 16.  This "phase" is not going away soon.  I pray for maturity - his and mine.   "He's tired," my voice says aloud meant to console my own self, and blissfully I don't argue with me, if only to prove that the statement can be made without an ensuing battle.

I fall asleep in a nano second and wake to a sleeping house, except for the wide awake deaf dog who has taken up barking at 550 am each morning.  This is the dog who a few years ago wouldn't so much as whimper or whine even when she accidentally got locked in the attic for a few hours.  Now, she barks, but only in the morning, and only at me.  She wants to eat earlier each day it seems.  Does she think I'm a morning person?

The barn is quiet.  The sheep see this entourage- caretaker, 3 dogs, and a calico cat posing as a 4th canine, and announce our arrival to the peaceful zoo. Forget about the roosters banging that morning gong, it's the sheep that really begin the cacophony.  Small peeps from chicks, chuff chuffing turkeys, and finally the complaints of ducks matching the sheep to the decibel.  "Good morning you throng of beings!"

Can you hear me now?

The first barn door opens and teenage chicks rush the open air as if they were fleeing a burning building.  In the exodus, a few fly onto the arm that holds open the barn door and then stare at me surprised.    How can a chicken look so surprised?

A few stragglers remain.  The fuzzy headed Golden Laced Polish named Fluffy, her companion "Little One" and then there is Clucky up on the roost teetering ever so slightly.

The barn stinks.  Fetid is the word that bounces around in the sunshine streaming through dusty window panes.

I lift Clucky and examine his back end expecting diarrhea because there are reddish brown streaks on his legs.  I see and smell an awfulness that I don't know how to describe. There is an opening I think, but it is moving. No...writhing.  I look closer because I can't wrap my brain around this grotesque moment.  The writhing, it's maggots and the opening is large. Really large.  The maggots obscure the magnitude of the sore, but there is wetness, and dare I say, a foul juice leaking from him.  

I can't think and just put him down staring into his eyes looking for communication of pain or weakness.  He looks back at me then tends to his wound and looks at me again. It's a "can't you do something about this?" look.  

"Maggots are good" comes out of my mouth.  They are good.  They eat necrotic tissue, and have been used in deep wounds even in people to aid healing.

In chicken populations, it is important to keep things from being shiny.  Shiny is irresistible.  Blood and pus are shiny and the other chickens will peck out of curiosity, and like a "B" rate sci-fi movie, may turn carnivorous.

I find a bottle of Blu-kote in the medical supplies.  It is an anti-septic spray that coats an area blue and dries to a matte finish.  I spray Clucky.  He looks relieved.  He leaves the barn and I watch him closely.  He drinks and drinks from the waterer just filled cool and fresh .

The hens who have shunned him for years come along side of him.  I think "How sweet, they are comforting him", but no they are following him and eating the maggots that fall from the wound. Ugh!  Why didn't I become a vet?  Isn't there more I can do??

After chores and picking vegetables, I tend to breakfast dishes.  Our dog Bailey stays outside while I wash.  She starts barking and I shoosh her.   "You are going to wake the kids!" I whisper-yell.  She doesn't stop.  I walk outside to see what she's fussing about and there is Clucky in the carport looking and smelling like the walking dead.  Her hair is raised at this rooster who has been a pet since his birth.  Unusual.

I lament that I can't do more, but then I realize that I can give him antibiotics to help with the infection.  Getting the needle ready, I see him duck into the cover of the grapevines as if he knows that a needle is coming.  I catch him which is hardly a feat, clean a spot on his thigh and press the healing into him. After that it is prayers and time.  Truly, I am out of ammo and turning it over to God.  I set him down and realize just how warm he was.  Febrile and wounded- poor sweet baby!

The next morning, he looks better.  He feels cooler.  The maggots are still at work but the smell is less intense.  Whew! Maybe he gets a reprieve.  He's young, strong and kind.  He's been taking care of a crippled rooster for years, fetching him food, protecting him from the more aggressive roosters. Truly, karma should be on his side.

Clucky's buddy Crooked Neck.
When he's tired, he just can't
hold his head up any longer.

I notice in the corner, "Little One" is fluffed out like she is cold.  Holding her to my chest, she warms up.  I set her by the food.  Her crop is empty, her keel bone has no meat on it, and she is not growing like the other chicks.  This one is not well.  I wonder if she has survived merely because our 16 year son loves her the most of all 20 chicks in the barn.

I text my boy and let him know that she is sick.  He comes to the barn and puts her into a pen with fresh food and water along with her faithful companion, Fluffy.  Maybe a few days of easy food and a little rest will turn her around.

Another night passes and again, the barn doors open, the chickens burst forth into an unseasonably mild day as if summer has taken a summer vacation.  Clucky stands next to a wall propped up.  "Little One" lies motionless in the pen.  I take Fluffy out and relieve her of duty letting her know that she did not let her friend die alone. 

Fluffy

Clucky is hot again, burning up.  Blu-kote in hand I lift him up towards the sunlight.  The maggots have cleared from half of the wound. The opening is larger than I thought and the cleared portion shows his intestines.

There is no fixing this.  There is no magic spray, or liquid in a needle that can fix this.  This is a fatal error and this is the day that mercy begs to be doled out.  Sometimes, we have to show mercy.  Sometimes, you wake up and you have to, or maybe you get to stop a being from suffering.

I grab an empty feed sack and place Little One inside,  the feed sack seeming to weigh the same after the addition.  She was even more slight than she seemed.

I grab another empty feed sack in my right hand, stoop down and cradle Clucky in my the crook of my left arm.  We walk steady to the house, opening gates gingerly not wanting to cause Clucky even the slightest discomfort.  "You are a good boy." I tell him all the long walk home.  

My oldest son is getting ready for work and I ask him if he can help me with one small thing.  "I'm really in a rush" he says.  "It's Clucky, I just need you to start the car. " I say back.  My voice is steady and my boy knows that he will help me out.  

I open the feed sack, gently place Clucky inside and hold the mouth of the sack up tight against the exhaust from the truck. My oldest son starts the car and I count seconds.  At 45 seconds there is a flapping and a squawk, and then nothing.  I count to 180 and shut off the car.  He has flown.  

The 2 bags feel so limp, or is it me?  I set them both inside of our burn barrel.  I have a meeting at school, so I rush into the house and shower.  The tears run and I shave my legs blindly, reach for shampoo and conditioner, wash my tear streaked face and dry my hair.  Still crying, I apply a thin layer of mascara, grab my purse and drive away from the 2 bags and one sleeping child.

The meeting is so "other" world.  I wonder at how pulled together these women look.  I wonder if anyone else killed a friend this morning.  I wonder what pain is lurking behind their smiles.

I text My youngest son during a break to let him know that 2 of our flock are gone.  I blink tears away while I write it out.  He sends back, "they are in heaven now."  I blink faster pushing the remorse deeper.

My empathetic son greets me at the door when I get home.  "Where are Clucky and Little One?" he asks.  I tell him about the bags and we get a shovel for burial.  At first the plan is 2 holes, but it changes to one after the 20th shovelful.  We dig 2 feet down and place the bags, rolled up so neatly, into the hole.  

I think about the paper feed sacks, how they resemble the brown paper bags the homeless clutch to hide the liquid shame. I should uncover our pets, but it's too much to see. It's tidy this way and easy.  

We cover them with dark crumbly earth, and mark the place with a stepping stone.  It is done, our burdens passed on to the microbes and insects.  We walk back to the house and my youngest asks if I'm ok.  "Yep. OK" I say.  "How about you? Ok?" I ask back.  "I will miss them."  He says.

We walk back into the house arm in arm and he asks the question he asks every day after lunch.  "What are we having for supper?"  I almost say "chicken," but it's too cruel to joke yet.  

"Corn.  We are having corn and something."  

"We just had corn!" He complains.  

"Yep, but the corn is ready so we will eat corn tonite and maybe tomorrow, and probably the next day."  

These are the rules of the farm.  You eat what is in season, you tend to the sick and provide health to the well. Sometimes you cull out a being.  


Always you are merciful.

Clucky, Handsome and Strong.