From the front, it looked almost like any other chicken joint haphazardly slapped together anywhere two roads meet together. I was beckoned around the side of the building by the unmistakable smell of live animals and a clucking like a full chorus of chickens.
"Sir", the hostess was calling for me from the opened front door, "I can show you to your table now". She stood half hanging out of the restaurant propped against the door jamb, peering at me expectantly. As far as she was concerned , this was going to be my only chance to eat in this lifetime; perhaps she was willing to make it her business.
She drummed a pen against a pad of paper as she waited for me. I stood at the edge of the building, wanting to see whats going on behind. Stuck there in one of those moments where I can't tell which way I really want to go, I paused and balked as the hostess smacked her chewing gum in contempt. My curiosity gave way to hunger, as it always will, and I let her lead me in to where i could be fed.
"Do you keep real, live chickens here? Out back?" I asked her after i slid down into the booth he gestured me toward, pulling against the wall and away from the nasty woman.
"If you call them real", she muttered as she walked away.
"Hi welcome to SMC", a large man was saying to me immediately. Overly fed and looking too happy to be doing his job. A smile too wide bobbing above a mass stuffed into a white dress shirt; the manager, I noted . "Is this your first time dining with us, sir?"
I started to ask him, "Do you really keep live-
The door from the back slammed open causing everyone; me, the large manager, all the rest of the meager customers, and even the old nasty hostess sitting at a back booth smoking cigaretts intently.
"Dad I can't find the stapler", a voice; a teenaged boy, called out. I only saw his hand for a second, and then there was a crash; glass and metal colliding. A muffled sound of clumsy stepping and stifled expletives.
"My son", the large man before me announced, his fake smile sliding to a sincere joy, "I'm trying to teach him the business". He let a long resigned sigh, and then yelled toward the back, "Darold I was just using the stapler, it should be somewhere right around the desk."
"I looked by the desk", the voice came back, enunciated with a groan at the end.
"On the desk; in the middle is my planner. To the left is the computer, and to the right is the phone. Right between them, at the top of the planner is where i keep my pens and my tape and my punch and my stapler."
Another groan came from the back, "I'll look there, again."
Once we were sure the fracas from the back was over, the large man turned toward me again, his fake smile already bright and intimidating. "Now, how can we help you this evening?"
"What did she mean when she said 'If you call them real'?", I asked him, nodding my head toward the hostess who was now glowering at me.
"Perhaps I should explain SMC technology", the man said. He wiped at his brow with the menu in his hand and began the arduous task of sliding himself into the booth, directly across from me.
"SMC?"
"Self Microwaving Chicken Technology", he announced in an excited whisper once he was situated; his eyes lit up upon uttering the words, and he licked at his lips before continuing. "These guys have been genetically engineered with potentially dangerous radio-active chemicals lying dormant in the coding of their DNA. Once a certain impulse synapse of the brain is switched on, the chickens body quickly works to produce these radioactive elements causing a small fission reaction within the animal, and then cooking itself to a golden, juicy, crispy perfection."
I watched as he watched me for a reaction, but my body and mind wouldn't let me react; both seeming to be out-of-order until I could process what the man had just told me.
"You see, it's a three-way switching mechanism. There are three ways to cause the production and release of...
"I found the stapler." The teenage voice called again, this time a little more muffled as the boy didn't bother opening the door. "Its broke, dad, it wont staple."
His dad, across from me, smiled apologetically. "Darold you probably just have to put some staples in it."
"Where are the-
"On my desk. With my tape and my pens and my punch."
He waited before looking at me again, staring at the door toward the back, hoping he had given the boy enough instruction to occupy himself for at least a little while.
"Where was I? Do you want to see one?" Without waiting for an answer, he swiveled his body around toward the direction of the hostess sitting in the back. "Hessa, can you go grab us a chicken?"
She glared at him from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke for a few tense seconds. As soon as she was moving, she was muttering under her breath, "Get me a chicken, Ill get you frigga fracka chicken". It became impossible to understand her as she moved across the restaurant to a door leading out behind the small building. It pushed open with a creak.
"Hey, which one you bastards wants get 'et?", Hessa cackled at the chickens as she walked through the door and into their midst.
They scurried away from the sight of her, clucking and flapping. A few feathers caught wind and were carried into the restaurant through the open doorway.
After a minute, Hessa appeared again walking back in; the cigarette between her lips splitting a crazy smile; the chicken -held by the neck like she were carrying a flashlight, bobbing and bouncing off her hip with each step- was very much alive, but seemed resigned to her grip.
"Here's your chicken", she said as she plunked it down on its own two legs on top of our table. It just stood there, staring blankly ahead of itself, making no move to run. Hessa turned with a sort of half- laugh, and said, "Enjoy".
"This!" The large manager man held his arms out on either side of the chicken, like a sacred offering. "You see it looks like an ordinary chicken. Wings, beak, feet, tail. But look here." With his thumb and forefinger, he spread feathers away from the breast, revealing a small dark raise in the skin. He gestured for me to look closer, at first I thought it was almost like a cherry-red finger nail; perfectly round and translucent. Poking out of the surrounding skin, a little red plastic button.
"That's how you cook it?" I asked him.
"Just press the little red button and wait," he said to me, mocking a tapping motion; to instruct me but also there was an undeniable glint of hunger in his grin.
I started examining the chicken, moving feathers around and trying to coerce the animal to open its mouth, "Where are the other two triggers?"
"Ah, well you see, its not like that", the man started to explain to me. He shot me a little disappointed glance, and pressed the button himself. It lit up red and the chicken stood erect and still as if at attention, and began slowly to rotate. "That is the second part of the triple triggering device; when the chicken reaches full adulthood and is switched on to cook. The first part of the trigger would happen much earlier, if the egg that this chicken came from had never become a chicken, that egg would have, after a predetermined amount of time, released the nuclear elements into itself, producing the best damn hard boiled eggs you've ever had."
For some reason, this struck me as appetizing. Maybe it was the the authoritative and passionate way this man before me talked about food, maybe it was the slow spinning chicken, rotating in front of me, the completely unnatural chemical reaction occurring within its skin already giving off a pleasant aroma. I licked at my own lips and gave him a quick, impressed nod.
He began again to explain, "Now, the third part of the trigger...
"Dad, wheres that thing to make the holes in the paper.", the voice of the teenage boy returned, jarred us from our peace as it shot from the back room.
The man before me sighed and rolled his eyes. "The three hole punch", he yelled into the air, back to the boy, "Its on my desk where I keep the pens and the tape and the stapler."
"Aaargh", the boys frustrated voice rang out, and then we heard loud foot steps stomping back off toward the desk.
I found myself momentarily hypnotized my the spinning chicken. Its eyes shut and standing perfectly still, but rotating slowly, steadily in place. It looked to be in a deep trance. The feathers had seemed to have turned to dust and drifted away, the bare skin was beginning to glow a pulsating golden hue. My stomach churned against itself and growled.
"How do you know when it's done?" I asked.
"It will stop spinning and beep. Let it stand for two minutes before serving."
"Beep?"
"It will beep", he explained. "Just like a microwave oven does. Beep- Beep- Beep- BEEEEEP. At first they had it 'cluck' when it was done, but allot of people found that to be too morbid."
"Ask him what happens if you eat it before its done", the hostess, situated again at her booth in the back, yelled to me. She let out a nasty, evil laugh, and nodded at me. Somehow taking great joy in the exchange that was taking place."
"Dad." The boy again, his fingers pushing thru the door, I could make out his face as he poked through the door. He looked almost exactly like a younger, slightly smaller version of his father, the man seated across from me. "Where do you keep the extra holes? I can't get the three hole puncher to punch. And I already looked on your desk."
A strange expression came over the mans face; part fear, part defeat, part confusion, and some things I couldn't quite place. "Darold it's probably just jammed, here- bring it here."
"It's the third trigger," Hessa stated, still smiling insane. She sucked on her cigarette and continued to speak, a low fog of smoke spilling out over her lip as she did. "If you go and eat that chicken before its fully cooked, before all that nuclear stuff has done its thing. The radioactive chemicals get into you, get mixed up in your DNA. And then it gets passed on to your kids. Isn't that right Darold?"
Now standing before his father who was fidgeting with the punch, the boy gave Hessa a meek, silent look. She let a long slow report of laughter ring out throughout the restaurant, reverberating off the wooden crossbeams of the ceiling, and echoing against the windows.
I sat, quiet and tense. The hostess continued to giggle and now cough occasionally. The manager, his face red and visibly wet, concerned his effort toward unplugging bits of paper from the three hole punch. Darold, the boy, stood dumbly gawking, his acne-riddled face only half visible under his long greasy locks of black hair. A small wheezing of breath beinh his only acknowledgeable sign of life.
The chicken suddenly beeped and I nearly lept out of my seat. I laughed, realizing it was our food, and held my hand against my chest to still my racing heart. The man across from me was smiling again, his eyes alight in anticipation of tearing into the bird.
Even Darold, now, looked alive; lifted his head a little to regard the chicken, and licked at his lips. He smiled and reached his hand up to move his hair away from his face. I saw his eyes stare with the same intensity as his fathers, but I was taken aback by what looked like a huge, red pimple directly in the middle of his forehead. My heart dropped into my stomach as I realized, unmistakably, that it was a little red plastic button.