I’m a chicken person. Definition? It’s someone who enjoys chicken ownership. Chicken people are a different breed of folks and you don’t meet them every day. My friends Don and Rhonda are chicken people too, living in North Georgia on a nine-acre patch of chicken heaven. Last weekend there was a big cowboy event up in Gainesville where I had been invited to do some book signings, so I decided to stop in for a visit.
Well, on Friday night, after a long day of shaking cowboys hands and listening to endless renditions of “Ghost Rider in the Sky,” I drug home, looking forward to a quiet evening with my feet propped up, but when I walked in the door, Rhonda said, “It’s Friday!” “All day long.” I quipped back. “There’s a chicken auction tonight!” she exclaimed. Now, I had been dragging before, and was too pooped to do much of anything, but the prospect of congregating with a barn full of chicken people was enough to give me a second wind. Off we went.
We drove for about twenty minutes on windy mountain roads. The parking lot was bursting full when we pulled in. We got out of the car and I looked around. There was a church next door, and a pack of wild tow-headed children played and squealed on the playground there. But even over their boisterous cries, I could hear the sound of crowing roosters, and I turned my attention back to the matter at hand.
From deep within the long metal building, I could hear the auctioneer’s voice galloping along. “Gimme five, five, five, five and a half, six.” We walked into the back of the place and heads turned as we made our way to empty seats. Although I was wearing my best Liberty overalls, they pegged me immediately. “Flatlander.” I could hear them thinking. We sat quickly, and I began to absorb the spectacle of the chicken auction.
There was a sign at the front of the hall, hand-made on poster board. It read in stern red words, “ No profanity, alcohol or drugs allowed on the premises.” The walls were hung top to bottom with an astonishing array of framed pictures. Indian braves on horses, Black velvet Elvis paintings, a lithograph of the Last Supper, and a portrait of John Wayne in a cavalry uniform. The bare rafters were obscured with a blue veil of cigar smoke. The auctioneer sat up high, on a judge-like platform. Beneath him was a homemade plywood table where the birds were displayed. A cage of white chickens was next up for the bid. One of the chickens did what chickens do, and laid a bright white egg that rolled around on the cage floor.
A big bellied man with a silver and black pompadour and a Clark Gable moustache pulled a fine white rooster out of the cage. At first it squawked like it was being killed, but he placed it gently into his hand, stretching out its legs and crooking his pinky finger around them. The rooster became immediately docile, almost hypnotized. I was impressed. I sat awed in the presence of a true “chicken whisperer.” He swept the rooster out gracefully, holding it away from his body, displaying it to the crowd. From his high post, the auctioneer started in. And the bidding began. The bird’s owner was a crusty old codger, cigar clenched between his teeth. He stood to the side, watching the proceedings, ready to reject a low bid.
Bidding got off to a slow start. I overheard a lady behind me comment that white chickens were harder to sell. The pressure was on to get the bid up. The chicken handler began to really strut his stuff. Passing the rooster back and forth, hand to hand, he showcased to each side of the room. He flounced its tail feathers. He stretched its wings out like a Japanese fan. The auctioneer was going faster, running the words together in a tripping frenzy.
Finally the action was heating up. A bidding war had begun between a dignified old gentleman in the back, and a young whippersnapper who leaned insolently against the wall beneath the John Wayne picture. The older man flipped a hand like he was swatting a fly. The younger man touched the brim of his cap. The bid climbed and the pace increased.
The chicken handler took the rooster in both hands, lowering it, allowing its feet to barely touch the table. The rooster, thinking freedom was finally at hand, started to run and the handler swept it back up into the air in a graceful arc. The crowd murmured appreciatively. Finally, the bid for the whole cage climbed up to twenty-four dollars. Too rich for the young buck’s blood, so he bowed out and the old gent won. The auctioneer blasted out, “Sold! With the egg throwed in for free!”
The old gent came forward to collect his chickens. The chicken handler pulled them out of the cage one at a time and handed them feet first to the old man, who bundled all eight of them up, four to a hand, and exited with his fluttering prize. He smiled gamely and winked at the young man as he passed, and I almost thought I heard him exclaim, “Son, don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
Previously published in the Times-Georgian.
Mimi Gentry can be read every Thursday in the Times-Georgian.