译者注: 标题下的一句警语 (斜体) 系作者摹仿莎翁 “凯撒大帝” (“Julius Caesar”) 剧中凯撒大帝在征服Zela城后的名言: “I came, I saw, I conquered” (veni vidi vici).
Chicken Delight
She came, she clucked, she conquered our New York City backyard
By William Grimes
From “New York Times” (now included in his book entitled “My Fine Feathered Friend”)
One day in the dead of winter, I looked out my back window and saw a chicken.
It was jet-black with a crimson wattle, and it seemed unaware that it was
in New York City. In classic barnyard fashion, it was scratching, pecking
and clucking.
How it came to a small backyard in Astoria, Queens, remains a matter of
conjecture. The chicken made its first appearance next door, at the home
of a multitude of cabdrivers from Bangladesh. My wife, Nancy, and I figured
they had bought the chicken and were fattening it for a feast. That hypothesis
fell into doubt when the chicken hopped the fence and began pacing the
perimeter of our yard with a proprietary air.
Eating it was out of the question. As a restaurant critic and an animal
lover, I subscribe to a policy of complete hypocrisy. Serve fish or fowl
to me, but don’t ask me to watch the killing. Once I meet it, I don’t want
to eat it.
Nancy and I next theorized that the chicken had escaped from a live-poultry
market about four blocks away and was on the run. Our hearts went out to
the brave little refugee. We had to save it.
Chickens were beginning to sound like the ideal pet.
The chicken took to its new surroundings easily. Its main social task
was to integrate into the cat society—a group of about five strays we feed.
How would the two species deal with each other?
One morning I looked out the window and saw four cats lined up at their
food bowls, and, right in the middle, eating cat food with gusto, was the
chicken. Occasionally it would push a cat aside to get a better position.
The cats, for their part, regarded the chicken warily. To the extent that
it was a bird, it was prey. But big prey. From time to time they would
stalk, press their bodies to the ground, swish their tails and give every
sign of going for the kill. Then they would register the chicken’s size
and become gripped by second thoughts. A face-saving, halfhearted lunge
would follow.
The two sides soon achieved parity. Sometimes, I’d look out back and see
a cat chasing the chicken. Ten minutes later I’d see the chicken chasing
a cat. I like to think they reached the plane of mutual respect. Perhaps
affection.
Although it was nice to know the chicken could eat anything, cat food
didn’t seem right. I called my mother.
Mom drove to the local feed store in La Porte, Texas, and picked up a
25-pound bag of scratch grains, a blend of milo, corn and oats. She began
shipping the grain in installments. The chicken seemed to appreciate the
feed.
Our care paid off. One morning, Nancy spied an egg on the patio. At the
base of the pine tree, where the chicken slept, was a nest containing four
more eggs. They were small, somewhere between ecru and beige, but this
was it. The blessed event.
After I wrote about the chicken in the New York Times, my mail-bag was
bursting with letters offering advice on the proper care and feeding of
chickens. Disturbed that she did not have a name, fans wrote with suggestions.
Vivian had a certain sultry appeal; Henrietta seemed cute. But Henny Penny?
The media jumped in. National Public Radio quizzed me about the chicken
for one of its weekend programs. “My producer wants to know, could you
hold the telephone up to the chicken so we can hear it?” the interviewer
asked. Unfortunately, I don’t have a 100-foot cord on my telephone. The
Associated Press sent a photographer to capture the chicken’s many moods.
(She had two.)
Then one morning I looked out my kitchen window, and my heart stopped.
No chicken—not in my pine tree or the tree next door. Nor was she pecking
and scratching in any of the nearby yards. There were no signs of violence,
only a single black feather near the back door.
She was definitely missing. But why?
Spring was in the air. Could she be looking for love? Or perhaps she was
reacting badly to the burdens of celebrity? Or maybe she was simply looking
for a place to lay her eggs in peace. 作者: wxll 时间: 2006-5-22 13:24 译文幽默，至于信达雅，请廖康鉴定。
