Cheryl Hart Snapperman

CHICKEN FEET

My grandmother’s toe has a permanent dent from where a chicken pecked her as a child. As a little girl, I wondered about it. I even touched it once as she slept. Over the years I’ve tried to get up enough nerve to ask for all the details- did it take out a chunk of skin with one peck or many, did you bleed all over the yard, and what ever happened to that chicken. I never do ask, but I’ve noticed she enjoys eating poultry.

In the dorm bathroom, I run into Gina on her way out. I love her Spanish accent; it’s like water flowing.

“What’s with your grandma’s big toe? I saw her clipping her toe nails in here earlier. It was, like, propped up on one of the sinks.”

“Her toe?” I ask, trying to sound puzzled. “Why, do you have some special interest in feet?”

Gina waves my remark away with her hand, as if it were a droning insect. “Never mind. How long is she staying?”

“Not long,” I answer. Not long can mean almost any length of time. Not long to my sixty-six-year old grandmother might mean until I graduate in May.

I glance at Gina as she walks down the hall. Her hair is glossy black and hangs in smooth, unbroken waves. I’ve seen her fingers unconsciously sweep through it, and I’m always amazed to see it softly fall back into place.

My hair is dark brown and cut as short as a boy’s. Maybe even shorter. I guess you could say I’m possessed by hair envy. Three days ago, I cut over ten inches off my hair with a pair of tiny silver nail scissors, and all because of Jason. That remark to his fraternity buddies that he’d never let me cut my hair, because he loved the way it draped his body when we screwed. Back at his place, we argued. I said he had control issues. I also intended to say, ‘we don’t screw, we make love, you idiot,’ but I didn’t. Instead I locked myself in his bathroom and searched the vanity drawers. When I emerged with my new look, his face registered horror for just a second. This was quickly replaced with a smirk as he said, “I think you’re the one with control issues.” We haven’t spoken since.

Then, yesterday, Gram showed up with a suitcase and tight lips. Mom called, but Gram refused to come to the phone. Mom grilled me for information about Gram, of which I had none. It was eerily reminiscent of my high school days, now three and a half years behind me, when she’d interrogate me with the usual who, what, when, where, how, and how much. So I’ve begun screening my calls and don’t pick up when it’s her. Mom should have known that by going all parental, she practically threw me onto Grandma’s side.

Instead of coaxing Grandma to go home, I encouraged her to stay. I gave her a key to the dorm and to my room. Being a resident advisor has its perks; I have a private room and leverage over most of the freshmen girls on my hall.

Back in my room, Gram has finished getting dressed. She is wearing white sneakers, elastic waist jeans, and one of my university sweatshirts. There’s something very wrong with this picture.

“What are we doing today?” she asks.  Her voice is as clear and strong as wind chimes.

I have a rule in my head about Gram and questions. When she arrived yesterday and didn’t ask about my hair, I decided not to ask her why she left Grandpa.

“It’s Monday. I have class.”

“Can I join you?”

“Umm, okay. Well that is, except for my seminar class at 9:00, because it’s only seven people, and it would seem kind of weird.”

She tilts her head and gives a slight nod.

“Let’s get some breakfast in the cafeteria,” I say, as I grab my leather backpack and sling it over my shoulder. I recall that it was a birthday present from Jason.

“Do you have an extra notebook and pen?”

I lean against the doorframe and sigh.

“I might want to take notes,” she says.

The expression of eagerness on her face is too much. I know this is how young children and puppies get their way, but I’m astonished to see her wrinkles reassembling themselves in this gesture. It occurs to me that she is making me her accomplice; that I’m helping her run away from home and dodge mom’s phone calls. At least it’s a diversion from listening to Jason’s old phone messages on my machine—again and again. His voice is like a siren’s call, smooth and seductive. I used to tell him his voice was like a bow being pulled across a cello string, the warm hum of a tenor.

I walk over to my desk and pull a half-used spiral notebook from French last semester and hand it to her along with a pen.

In the hallway, Gina greets us.

“Buenos dias, Jamie. Buenos dias, Abuelita. That’s Spanish for Grandma,” she explains. “You know, I really miss my Abuelita.”

“Where is she?” Gram asks.

“Back in Barcelona, with my parents.”

As we walk to the cafeteria, they continue their conversation. I pull my hat down tighter against the wind rushing past my ears. I find myself leading the way and listening.

“What do you miss most about her?”

“Being with her in the kitchen. She taught me everything I know about cooking.”

They keep talking about food and recipes as we make our breakfast selections. We sit down at an empty table with our trays. Gram takes a forkful of eggs and makes a face.

“The food isn’t that great,” I tell her, “but lack of temptation keeps me thin.”

“That greasy food is only good for boys,” Gina tells Gram. “See those jocks over there. Their plates are loaded. See Jamie and me—cereal, banana, skim milk.”

“And coffee. You can’t forget the coffee,” I say.

It is the one item all three of us have in common.

As we clear our table, I start instructing Gram on where to meet me after my seminar class.

“Why aren’t you taking your Abuelita with you?!” Gina exclaims.

I pull Gina aside and whisper, “It is an intense seminar for seniors only, and they don’t mean her kind of senior!”

“Abuelita, why don’t you come to class with me?”

Gina ignores my wild hand gestures and continues. “I take all those introductory classes in the big lecture halls—over a hundred students. We’ll hide in the last row. That’s where I usually sit anyway.” She calls out, “Hasta luego, Jamie,” as she links arms with my grandma and leads her towards the quadrangle.

Later that day, I find Gram back in the dorm room, sewing a button onto a trendy blouse, her reading glasses perched on her nose, as she uses my desk lamp to illuminate her progress.

“It’s for Gina,” she explains.

“How was class?” I ask.

“It was lovely. First we went to Adult Abnormal Psychology and heard a fascinating lecture on deviant sexual behavior.”

“What?!”

“It was very informative. Then ecology. I had no idea the planet was in such dire straights.” She bit the thread and tied it off. “There. All done. Would you mind running this down to Gina for me?”

I march to Gina’s door and knock.

She opens the door with a phone in the crook of her neck.

I thrust the blouse into her hands. “Get your own Grandma,” I tell her.

Gina laughs. “I just love your American jokes. Tell your Abuelita thanks,” she says as she closes the door and continues her conversation in Spanish.

The next morning, I pick up the phone so quickly, I forget to screen the call. I try to deny it, but I hope it’s Jason. This is the third time we’ve broken up, and I worry about the pattern we’ve created. I think of musical scores and try to recall the name for the symbol that means to repeat a section and how to tell if the repeat is to be endless.

“Jamie, it’s Mom.” As if I didn’t recognize her voice.

“Yes, Mom.”

“I’m very concerned about Grammy. I’m thinking about getting on a plane and coming over there.”

“No, no. Don’t do that. You’ll just scare her off to some other relative. She’s doing fine here.” I open my door and lean out to keep watch for Gram’s return from the bathroom.

“Why did she leave Pop Pop?” Mom asks.

“I don’t know.”

“What did she say when you asked?”

I can’t tell her I hadn’t even broached the question. “Mom, you’re pressing too hard. Just give her some space.”

“What is she now, a teenager?” she asks, not a little perturbed.

I spot Gram coming down the hall with a university baseball cap on her head.

“No, Mom. More like a college student.”

A week goes by. Gram in a bathrobe walking down the hall to take a shower is no longer an unusual sight. Some of my freshmen advisees have taken to following her as though she were a mother hen. She has become the stand-in grandmother for all of the girls, and for a few, this means ignoring her completely. The rest were won over by her homemade chocolate chip cookies prepared in the rarely used dorm kitchen. What I don’t understand is her cheerfulness. She’s left her husband of . . . well, I’m not sure how many years. Probably close to fifty. I try to imagine fifty years with the same guy, then I kind of see her point. I adjust the Post-It on the machine that says ‘Do not erase.’ I press the button and listen to Jason’s old messages again, his voice playing my heart with the skill of a virtuoso.

I tape signs in the hallway, alerting the residents to a hall meeting that evening. I am forced to hold monthly meetings where I must talk about dorm rules and university policy, a small price to pay, considering my free room. And the university pays for the doughnuts, which is the only reason anybody goes, anyway.

That night, girls line up on both sides of the hallway near my door, all sitting with their backs against the wall. Gram sits next to Gina, munching on doughnuts, as I conduct the meeting. I let them know if they plan on staying in the dorms next month during spring break, they need to sign a list posted on my door. At the end, one girl raises her hand to ask a question.

“Yes, Carla,” I say.

“Can you explain to us the university policy on dorm visitors? I don’t think I understand it.” Giggles burst out from the girls on either side of Carla. They are the girls that ignore Gram.

“Oh, it’s quite strict,” I tell her. “But not as strict as the university’s policy on underage drinking. That can get you into serious trouble, possibly expelled. So I know when I hear a blender behind your closed door, that you’re only making virgin daiquiris, right?”

Silence from Carla.

“Okay, then. This meeting is over.”

Gina follows me and Gram back to my room. I lock the door, then pull wine coolers from my mini fridge. Soon, the three of us are sipping the sweet bubbly.

The phone rings. I kind of hope it’s him, but since I’m not alone, I let the machine pick up. It’s Mom, worried about Gram. “Pop Pop is wondering why she hasn’t called.”

Gram snorts. “Why doesn’t he call me?”

Gina and I convulse with laughter on the floor. That’s something we might say about a guy.

“I guess you’re not home,” Mom continues on the machine. “Call me back.”

Gina finishes her wine cooler and announces she is drunk. She doesn’t weigh enough to give blood, so this is hardly a surprise. She sprawls out on the carpet, close to Gram’s bare feet.

“Abuelita, tell me about your toe.”

“You don’t have to,” I say.

Gram looks thoughtfully at her deformed big toe and smiles. “It’s not as though it still hurts. It happened when I was a little girl.”

“How old?” Gina shouts.

“About nine. We had a chicken coop behind the house with a little fence around it. One of my chores was to feed them and collect the eggs. I loved the chickens except the mean one, though she usually left me alone.”

“Didn’t they all look the same?” I ask.

“No, this one had a strange black mark near one eye. So one day this chicken gets close while I’m tossing out the feed and pecks on my big toe.”

Gram reaches down and grabs the toe for emphasis.

“That hen tore out a piece of my big toe. I ran to the house crying, bleeding, and swearing I’d never set foot near the coop again. My daddy caught that chicken and brought it to me. He placed my hands on its neck and together we snapped it.”

“That’s horrible,” I exclaim.

“No, it wasn’t. That chicken was destined to be dinner eventually. What my daddy did was help me get over my fear by giving me power. Sort of like getting back on a horse after you fall off.”

“How exactly is that like killing a chicken?” I ask.

Gina reaches over and pats Gram’s leg. “Never mind her,” she slurs. “I understand you, Abuelita!”

A few minutes later, we can hear Gina’s soft snores. Gram gets up and puts a light blanket on Gina’s sleeping form stretched out on the carpet.

“She’s a sweet girl,” Gram sighs.

“She certainly makes a better granddaughter.”

“Nonsense.” Gram walks over and hugs me. Her fingers touch the back of my short hair. It’s not a stylish cut, it’s a hack job. Even my Gram can see that. I can feel the question rising within her.

“Why?” Gram asks.

“A boy. Why did you leave Grandpa?”

“I didn’t mean to. I thought when I left, he’d come after me. But I now see I’m just as stubborn as he is. I’ve had it in me all along to set things straight.” She pauses. “I’m going home tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to snap Grandpa’s neck, are you?”

She pulls me to her bosom and laughs so hard I feel tears land on my scalp.

Once Gram is asleep, I tiptoe over to the answering machine on my desk. I know there’s a recording of Jason singing Happy Birthday, another wishing me luck on a test. And a new one, asking if we can talk. If I put the volume on low, I’d be able to hear his voice without waking Gram or Gina. I feel the temptation coursing through my blood. But I don’t like the person I am when I’m with him. Instead, I reach for the ‘delete all’ button. The motion is small and uses just one finger, but it’s all mine.

Cheryl Hart Snapperman enjoys reading and writing. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama and other venues. She has a B.S. and J.D. from Emory University and owes her current sanity to her writer's group for resurrecting saved copies of her writing from their own computers after hers crashed.

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