The Chicken Lady
by Jerine P. Watson
Part 1 appears
in this issue.
conclusion
For the most part of that second day, Rose Ann rocked and waited for Mama Ethel to wake up. She daydreamed about the bank down the street, where she and Mama Ethel went once a month to cash their check. Rose Ann knew she was different, but one thing she knew that other people didn’t know. She wasn’t as helpless as most people thought.
She had watched Mama Ethel cash checks for years and she had seen, many times, the money, oh, the piles of money, behind that counter. If she and Mama Ethel had the right piece of paper, the bank people would give them money. It was just that simple to Rose Ann. But it had to be the right piece of paper. She knew you could write it yourself, if it was exactly right. She could print, but not very well. Mama Ethel had taught her to write her name and the numbers. She had learned other words from signs and labels and magazines. While Mama Ethel slept on, Rose Ann chewed the wad of Juicy Fruit, and rocked and rocked and rocked.
On the morning of the third day, Rose Ann awoke, and gagged. The odor in the room was terrible. It was early in March and beginning to warm up outdoors. She jabbed at Mama Ethel with her elbow, and the old woman felt as cold as ice. She covered her with the torn blanket from under the bed and took the newspapers off the window before she opened it up.
There was no screen, and the sun was shining. People were moving around outdoors; Rose Ann could hear their car engines, their voices. A group of boys playing stickball in the vacant lot across the alley saw Rose Ann leaning out the window, blinking at the brightness of the sunlight.
“Look, you guys! There’s the Chicken Lady’s crazy daughter! Let’s have some fun!”
Rose Ann waved back at them as they raced below the window on their way to the water’s edge. She stretched herself out further, trying to see what they were doing, longing to go with them and play. In minutes they came back around the corner, grinning, their hands dripping.
Rose Ann was still smiling when the first chicken neck hit the window above her head. The little bastards had scooped up all the crab bait that had washed in and were throwing it at her. Two cold, wet sticky things hit her in the face and another got through the window and fell on the floor. Rose Ann got very mad and slammed the window shut. Surely the awful racket they were making would awaken Mama Ethel. Now they were banging on the window and the outside wall with their sticks. Rose Ann stood close to the bed, holding her nose against the stench, shaking Mama Ethel.
“Damn kids, stop that! You boys get away from there! Miz’ Ethel, are you ladies awwright?”
Mr. Garcìa was knocking on the door. Rose Ann liked Mr. Garcìa. He always treated her gentle and nice and made her feel good. Lots of times, when Mama Ethel turned away to get the rent money out of the top drawer, Mr. Garcìa would stroke Rose Ann right in the crack of her behind and she would have to do The Ugly Thing that day for sure.
“Miz’ Ethel, can you hear me? Are you ladies okay? Somethin’ smells awful by this door.”
Rose Ann agreed with that, because she was having trouble not heaving now that she had closed the window again. She slid the chain back and opened the door, smiling at Mr. Garcìa.
When the hearse had left, Pearl had helped her clean the place. It was two days before Rose Ann fully realized Mama Ethel had just upped and left her, like that. And so had the cat. They took the cat away with Mama Ethel. Pearl had brought her bread and milk and spaghetti and had promised those other people she could check on Rose every once in a while.
Mr. Garcìa acted funny and never smiled at Rose Ann the way he used to. He just shook his head and muttered on and on about the smell every time he passed the door. Rose Ann left the window open all the time now and she could hear things. And she rocked and rocked and rocked.
The Citizens State Bank was only three blocks away. When the check came, Mama Ethel and Rose Ann would always get their paper shopping bags ready, put on their outside shoes, go to the bank, show the check to the lady with the funny eyelashes, and she would give them money. Rose Ann was certain money was the answer to everything. She knew if she had some more of it, everything would be better, and she could have all the Juicy Fruit she wanted, but she had to be careful, now that Mama Ethel was gone. She had to think hard and watch out for dangers, all by herself.
One Christmas, she and Mama Ethel had watched television over at Pearl’s. Rose Ann had been absolutely mesmerized by the shimmering screen and the drama that had unfolded. A thief dressed in a Santa Claus beard and hat had pulled off a clever bank robbery. The people in the bank thought he was coming in to give away candy; they didn’t realize he wasn’t the regular Santa. From this, Rose Ann had deduced logically that a disguise was the primary thing to have. That, and something to put the money in, and the correctly written piece of paper.
Having Mama Ethel’s wig to herself had brought the entire television plot back into her mind. She practiced her numbers and letters, writing on a paper sack, her tongue moving back and forth on the outside of her upper lip as she concentrated and clutched the short stub of pencil. When she had scribbled on every inch of the sack, she decided she was ready. She tore off a corner of a clean sack and wrote the words, “GIVE ME MONEY 4980.” Rose Ann had never learned about decimals.
It didn’t look right the first time, so she wrote it over and over. When she got tired, she’d sit in the rocker and think, chewing her old gum wad. Finally, the day the rooster’s beak got picked away, she wrote it again, fast, put on the wig, the glasses, her outside shoes, grabbed up the shopping bag, walked out of the rooming house and down toward the bank.
It was 11:35 in the morning. All the bank employees were relaxed and happy, talking cheerfully about Old Man Fitzgerald, who had given everybody a raise that day. It was St. Patrick’s Day, and Irish Mr. Fitzgerald was a believer in well-paid help. Several of the men had been promoted and were passing around little paper jiggers decorated with green shamrocks and containing a swallow or two of Irish whiskey. This was a custom at Citizen’s State, but only on St. Patrick’s Day.
When Rose Ann entered the bank, most of the lady tellers had a little buzz on, because the gentlemen had slipped them seconds and thirds. They were anxious to get to lunch and to put some solid food on their stomachs or something else more satisfying if they thought they could get by with an extra-long lunch hour. None of them had their minds on banking business at this particular time. The bank guard, Mr. Jenssen, had gone to lunch at 11:00 instead of noon, complaining of a headache. Nobody noticed the gray-haired woman clutching a shopping bag walk toward the teller’s cage.
Rose Ann had to wait in line behind two men who were talking to the lady teller, and not about money things. Rose Ann could tell from the way the woman leaned into the counter making her blouse pull tighter against her bosom that it was The Ugly Thing and the Devil, again. Rose Ann decided if her plan wasn’t hurting anybody but the Devil, everything would be all right.
The last man in line walked away, and Rose Ann shuffled closer to the teller’s window.
“Good morning! And what can I do for you today, dearie?”
The woman wasn’t even looking at Rose Ann. She was watching a man leave the bank. He turned around at the front door, motioned to his watch with a leer, and she giggled and waved. Rose Ann reached down into her shopping bag and pulled out the torn piece of brown paper, shoving it across the counter.
“GIVE ME MONEY 4980.”
The teller’s smile froze as if it had been acid-etched. Her long fingers with their red nails began to tremble, and she looked hastily around for Mr. Jenssen. Most of the other men had also gone to lunch, and she risked a tremulous smile in Rose Ann’s direction. All she saw was a cold stare behind the steel-rimmed bifocals under the horrible gray hair.
The woman, or it could’ve been a man in disguise, threatened her with a gun — she testified later — and was huge. Natalie, the teller, opened her cash drawer and, loving her life and her hard-earned firmness better than any lousy job, handed over $4,980.00 in small, unmarked bills, out of sheer behavioral conditioning.
The wheezing creature staring at her exuded an overwhelmingly repulsive odor, adding nausea to Natalie’s state of rising panic. Rose Ann glanced away from the heavily made-up face and looked disbelievingly at the stack of money on the cool marble counter in front of her.
Startled into remembering why she was there, Rose Ann scraped the bills off the smooth surface and into the sack, then turned and scuttled out the side door, the same way she and Mama Ethel had always left the bank. Outside the heavy glass door that whooshed when she stepped on the black rubber pad, Rose Ann decided not to stop and step on it again and again like she usually did when Mama Ethel was with her. She walked on and, like the fake Santa had done with his beard and hat, she stuffed the eyeglasses and the wig into the bag on top of the money. Expressionless and unnoticed, Rose Ann went straight home, taking great pains to be careful crossing the street, just as Mama Ethel had taught her.
By the time Rose Ann had turned the corner and was out of sight, the bank was in an uproar. The alarm was ringing, people were racing around fuzzy-minded with the early drink, yelling that they had seen the getaway car, it was that black Buick, did anybody get the license number? It never occurred to anyone the Chicken Lady’s daughter was capable of such brilliant timing.
Back at The Plaza, Rose Ann rocked and rocked, the paper sack safe under the bed. She thought about those huge packages of Juicy Fruit she had seen hanging by the checkout stands in the grocery store. Why, there must be at least ten packs of gum in each one! She wondered how many she could buy tomorrow. She rocked delightedly, smiling at the remnants of the rooster, chewing the big wad of gum in time to the monotonous thump of the chair.
Copyright © 2019 by Jerine P. Watson
