Scarred for Life

My great aunt, Sissy Weatherford, was a cozy pillow of a woman. Sitting on her lap as a child was at once blissfully comfortable and a bit terrifying. Once you climbed up, you wondered if you'd make it back down or if you'd just sink right into her lap and be lost forever. Thankfully, it was usually about the time you'd figure you'd better climb down just in case that she'd need to get back to her crochet.

Sissy was always working on a crocheted afghan. Every woman in the family got one. My mom's was dark blue with little multi-colored bursts. Mine was kind of a raspberry red with pink squares. Don't worry, it was uglier than it sounds. What matters, though, is that it was absolutely the most comfortable blanket ever. Laying under that afghan, with just a sheet between us, is still one of the most blissful tactile memories I have. People, I haven't been able to find that afghan in years and years (I think I recall a child thinking I'd given it to her and being stuck with that plan) and I can still close my eyes and feel it's weight. It brings tears to my eyes.

Aunt Sissy lived in a big old house with a huge yard outside of Athens, Georgia. I loved taking baths in the claw-foot tub and squashing pennies on the railroad tracks. Every year, extended family would come from hundreds of miles to a reunion at Sissy's house. I was probably about 9 years old when the reunion turned into the most surreal event of my life.

That the accident wouldn't even have happened without the fog didn't spring to mind until later. At 7am, it seemed to be an extension of the haze everyone was in as they draped around the porch drinking coffee and trying to wake up. Sissy was inside cooking breakfast. I remember sausage patties and yeast rolls. Always yeast rolls.

I can't remember if I was actually outside when the truck missed the curve in the fog and flipped over onto Sissy's azalea hedge, but I've seen it so many times in my mind's eye that I'm certain I know exactly how it happened. What's unmistakable is that I was outside by the time the first chickens reached the porch.

Many of the chickens died when the truck turned over. They were the lucky ones. The rest of the chickens exploded from their...coops? Pens? Crates? Whatever. There were chickens everywhere. Maybe thousands of them. They were all white, at least until the entire clan of aunts emerged from the house with every piece of cutlery from Sissy's kitchen. An army of southern belles descended the steps of that wrap-around porch with dogged determination. The sheer number of chickens to be dispatched required that no time be wasted.

When the fog lifted, many hundreds of chickens had gone to meet their maker. Some had been decapitated, so their heads were scattered randomly with their bodies landing impossible distances away after too many seconds of the proverbial running around. Others had gotten their necks rung when the knives proved messy and inefficient. Those chickens laid on the ground whole, but broken. None of the chickens were white anymore.

When the cops showed up, they were stumped. They'd never seen such a gruesome scene, but they couldn't figure out what laws had been broken. In the front yard, they issued a citation to the truck driver and helped him arrange for a tow truck. In the back shed, however, the plucking and cleaning had begun. They tried to make me help but I couldn't even stay in the room with the bald chickens hanging upside down to drain. When the fried chicken was served at dinner, I tried one bite but then couldn't even handle the gravy.

The temptation is to think that I made this up. Surely I didn't actually witness a bloody chicken Apocalypse at 9 years old, right? Surely the adults into whose care I'd been trusted didn't try to feed me the victims of a fatal truck crash, right? But no, I've fact checked this crazy story many times over the years.

Tonight for dinner? Steak.