Thirty-One Chickens

'That lady has thirty-one chickens!' the cashier tells me. She points and I look towards the exit, to where the automatic doors slide apart to release a woman pushing a trolley laden with planks. 'She's building a coop for them.'

'I thought that was illegal.'

'Anyone can build a coop for their chickens,' she tells me. 'I have chickens too.'

'I mean I thought it was illegal to have so many.' I try to remember how many chickens Byron has in his own back garden. 'I thought there was some city law preventing anyone keeping more than eight.'

'There is,' she says. 'That lady lives outside of the city, so she has thirty-one.'

'Wow,' I say, submitting my purchases to the cashier's scanner - a new air filter for the lawnmower and a bottle of oil for the chainsaw.

The farm on which I grew up, the one upon which they eventually built the set for Teletubbies, was next to a chicken farm, and Paul, who lived on that chicken farm was my best friend at school. There were seventy-five thousand chickens on his farm, and I recall the figure because he reminded us of it from time to time; and apparently he reminded Tom Mahon of the statistic with such frequency that Tom often referred to him as Seventy-Five Thousand Chickens by way of a nickname.

'Do you live on Corinne?' I ask the cashier. I notice that she's actually sort of foxy, an older Latina with beautiful grey hair, and I realise that my question probably sounds like a come on.

Maybe I could stop by a little later…

'I always used to go past this house with chickens out in the back garden,' I tell her with increased urgency. 'I just meant that I wondered if that was you, as you have chickens.'

'I know that house,' she tells me with some caution, although maybe it's my imagination. 'I live over that way. Is it Sumner? On the corner?'

'Yes, on the corner. I think it's the last one before you get to Eisenhauer. Anyway, the chickens haven't been there recently,' I add, now wondering why the hell I mentioned it in the first place.

'I know the house you mean. That will be $17.82.'

I try to remember whether I insert my card into the slot or slide it down the thing at the side. Whichever one I do, the display always seems to tell me I should have done the other one.

'A lot of people keep chickens,' the cashier adds. 'My neighbour - he had chickens too.'

Do I want cash, yes or no…

'Well, they were all males so they weren't chickens. They were roosters.'

'Ouch,' I say. 'I hope he enjoyed getting up early in the morning.'

'Isn't that funny,' the woman says thoughtfully.

'I guess he didn't need the eggs,' I say, noticing how I now remind myself of some old boy, one lame observation after another.

'Only one reason a man keeps just roosters,' the woman says. She scowls lightly.

'Ewww,' I say as the penny drops.

I leave with my air filter and my oil in a grey polythene bag. I think of the dead bull terrier I once found in a cardboard box on the Holbrook Road. I called animal control. They said it was probably the collateral from some illegal dog fight, probably dumped.

So that turned dark pretty quickly, as the saying goes.