Let's Burn Down Our Hometown

18. Life Is About Making Choices, So When Do We Get To Choose Death

Eddie did not know the difference between a rooster and a chicken. He wasn't even aware there was a difference. He assumed every chicken did the exact same thing. Was born, laid eggs, died, and became dinner, in that order. 

Evidently not, as Wayne had laughed when Eddie made this known, and Hopper had joined right in, though more condescending rather than humored, but Eddie didn't take offense. They both assured Eddie, after wiping their joyful tears, that he would find out soon enough just what made a rooster different than a chicken.

That became true at five in the morning, the sky only barely lit into a dark shade of blue, when Eddie was made aware of the difference.

Chickens pecked and made small noises of hunger or greetings, and eventually became dinner.

Roosters crowed.

Loud, long, and happy.

Eddie threw off his blanket, bare feet hitting cold wood floorboards, and sped out of his sunroom bedroom, bypassing a snoring Robin, and hit the kitchen with a stomp of fury.

"I'm killing it."

"You do that, we won't have any chicks."

"I give a rat's ass about chicks, Wayne! I need sleep!" Eddie hissed at his Uncle, who had neglected to turn around or even grace Eddie with a glance as he focused on bringing some water to a boil on the stove. The only one of the smacked-together family who enjoyed the taste of instant coffee over Joyce's brewed.

"Chicks means more chickens. More chickens mean more eggs. More eggs mean we eat." Wayne finally turned around, smiling as he dragged his gaze up his Nephew's rumpled state and smirked at the sight of his horrendous head of bed hair. "You like eggs, don't you?" He asked, tilting his head.

"Not anymore." Eddie huffed, knowing he was lying, and turned to gaze out the front window. Though that gaze turned into a hardened glare fast.

There the rooster perched, on the front porch railing, crowing away at the sky where the sun had yet to rise. The chickens, completely ignoring their rooster's cries of greeting, were pecking away at the grass. Delighted by all the new bugs they were finding.

The horses were tied up in the barn, given plenty of hay that had been stacked there already, and kitchen scraps for dinner. The chickens, according to Joyce, would be happily pecking the bugs out of the grass for the time being. They also, apparently, did not need to be kenneled in any way and would stick within the grounds of their property.

How they knew the boundary lines, Eddie didn't have the faintest idea. A chicken's brain was the size of a pea, as far as he was concerned, and therefore he deemed them stupid animals.

"Shoulda got us a rooster at the trailer." Wayne mused, saddling up next to Eddie with his steaming cup of sludge coffee. "Would'a had you out of bed before noon with a rooster in the trailer." He smirked, wrinkled lips pressing against his mug.

"I would have drowned it," Eddie told him, rubbing a fist at his eye. The rooster had finally become satisfied with its screaming and had wandered off. Fluttering down off the porch railing into the dewy grass.

"You would have loved the rotten thing." Wayne nudged him. "Just like all those stray cats you were constantly letting in." Wayne raised his eyebrow at him for that one, daring Eddie to deny it before he shrugged a shoulder. "Since your up, we can start on farm chores. Get some shoes on and a jacket, the knee's telling me it's rain."

"You and your stupid knee, old man." Eddie teased, turning to find his shoes in the cluster of abandoned sneakers by the front door. 

"My knee never lets me down." Wayne knocked his elbow against his shoulder before wrenching the door open, waving Eddie out who shrugged on one of Steve's cotton sweaters that were hanging up on the coat rack Hopper had built out of wood and old nails.