FEAR AND CHICKENS IN LAS VEGASby Garrett Gilchristwith apologies to raoul duke and hunter thompsonWe were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the chickens began tocross the road. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe we should getsomething to eat . . . ." And suddenly there was a terrible clucking all around us and the road wasfilled with what looked like hideous walking poultry, beaks and huge feathery wings, all screechingand hopping and flapping right in front of the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are thesegoddamn animals?"I slammed on the brakes. My fat Samoan attorney had pulled his shirt up and was chompingdown the last of a Crispy McChicken sandwich, pouring tartar sauce all over his exposed gut tokeep it moist. He half-looked at me and muttered "What the hell are you yelling about, man?""Never mind," I said, staring out into the feathery horizon. "It's your turn to drive." I got up and weswitched seats. No point mentioning those chickens, I thought. The poor bastard will have to dealwith them soon enough."Dammit man," he said as the driver's seat eased into his weight, "I can't concentrate with all thisclucking." I glared at him. Measuring the shape of his skull. "Are you fit to drive?" I asked. "Youneed some medicine?" He shook his head. Sweat and gravy dribbled off of it. "I think I just gotta .. . . get away from all these chickens." There were hundreds of them now, squawking andstrutting like military officers in single file stretched out as far as the twisted eye could see. Theywere stopping traffic. What would Horatio Alger do?KILL THE HEAD AND THE BODY WILL NOT IMMEDIATELY DIEThis line appears in my notebook for some reason. Perhaps some connection with ColonelSanders. Is he still alive? Still able to talk? If he's dead, did they preserve him in 11 herbs andspices? "Let them cross," I heard myself saying. "They could prove useful.""What, you wanna smash their brains in with the tire jack and stuff 'em in the trunk for supper?"His thumb was fiddling with the sharpest knife I've ever seen."Maybe." I said. "First I want to study their habits."I would see my attorney didn't fully approve of my plans but the chickens outnumbered him, andthey were on MY SIDE. You could see them crossing, one by one, a great pulsating wall of out-of-season game stretching out to the horizon, discounted poultry inching ever forward to cross theroad as if it were what they were born to do. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the longrun, but no explanation, no mix or words or memories or sourdough rolls can touch that centralsense of purpose those chickens gave off. They believed, somehow, that they could be better than life and history, madness, fear and loathing. They had something to accomplish. They had aroad to cross."How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?"How many roads must a chicken cross? History is hard to know, because of all the hiredchickens--t, but every now and then the energy of a whole species comes out in a long finesquawk for reasons nobody really understands at the time. They were that squawk, they were thegreat Las Vegas Chicken Wave of that fowl Year of our Lord, 1971, shuffling ever sideways on alengthwise track, going on a real trip that needed no explanation or apology, searching for thatperfect high that only comes from finding an instant's home on that yellow line, knowing that just
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Haha, I'm in to see that one!
Well done. I think Terry Gilliam could work with this...