Chicken

The first thing you’ve got to understand is that this isn’t the result of childhood trauma. I had a happy childhood, happier than most. Certainly I haven’t been as happy since. So, you see, trauma’s got nothing to do with it.

Not that I don’t understand the value of trauma. After all, I got into college somehow. Writing a college admissions essay is like writing contemporary poetry: use metaphors, describe eyelashes and eyebrows, make the kitchen counter symbolic of a personal yet widely applicable oppression, and colleges will be begging you to join their diverse institutions. So I arrived in Boston with my clothes, books, and “overwhelming pressures of internalized racism” packed into a yellow suitcase.

My room was on the ninth floor. Three puke-green name tags clung to the door, one with my name on it, the other two with Rachel spelled out in cursive. I wasn’t sure if that was a typo, since whoever did these had spelled my name wrong too. I unpacked everything and waited for a Rachel to arrive.

The first girl came two hours after me, and as soon as I saw her I knew she was Rachel. She was blonde, athletic, and laughed like a horse. Her parents shook my hand and asked about my flight. I said it was good. They said they couldn’t imagine going so far from home. I said it was alright. They felt sorry for me. The conversation went on for an hour, and I felt sorry for me too.

Then, at four o’clock, the second girl appeared. She was short, brunette, and laughed like a kettle. She had dark freckles on light skin. She was also one-hundred-percent Rachel. The two Rachels greeted each other and exchanged phone numbers. The Rachels’ parents discussed hockey and Congress. Rachel Two said hi to me, but didn’t say my name.

That’s what I mean when I say trauma’s got nothing to do with it. Because it wasn’t the trauma, it was the Rachels. It’s important to me you understand that.

---

Things got worse when classes started. On the first day I had sociology, and I watched as the students streamed into the lecture hall. There were six Asians, two of them South-East, one of them mixed—most likely Eurasian. Two others were racially ambiguous, so they counted as half. Eight Asians, then, including me. Not bad.

The professor began his talk on Greek gastronomic tourism. The girl next to me leaned over and asked for a pen.

“Sure,” I said, handing one over.

“Thanks,” she said. She had bright red hair and a brand new laptop. She smiled at me.

Like all college freshmen I took that smile and ran with it. I ran as far as celebrating her baby shower together when she got up and placed the pen on my desk.

“Thanks for the pen,” she said.

“No problem,” I said. “Are you a sociology major?”

“Yep. You?”

“I’m undeclared.”

“Oh, cool.” She picked up her notebook. “Well, it was nice meeting you. See you later.”

I would’ve replied but I didn’t and I couldn’t. The name on her notebook glared at me in scribbled sharpie: Rachel Johnson. You have to understand what that felt like. No one could meet that many Rachels in one week. In the next class—about mass media and gender—I sat somewhere else. I ignored the girl next to me completely. By the third class, the professor droning on about the model minority myth, I was sitting alone.

----

Now we can get to the meat of the story—that is to say, the chicken. The chicken precedes the Rachels. You see, when I was younger I used to cry a lot. My parents realized that the only way to stop me was to feed me chicken: fried, steamed, roasted, grilled, baked, boiled, broiled, oiled, poached, or smoked, any kind of chicken would do. As I got older I stopped crying, but I didn’t stop loving chicken. Even now my dream is to own a chicken farm in Kansas. Anyone can be a chicken farmer, you know. You could be one, if you opened your mind a little.

That year a Korean chicken place opened next to my dorm. I saw it everyday, walking past the already-peeling paint and the all-lowercase sign pronouncing the restaurant’s name. Next to the name was a circle, more precisely an oval, showcasing the restaurant’s logo. A poorly drawn chicken without eyes watched over the passersby.

I held out for two weeks. Schoolwork and stress kept me busy, and avoiding Rachels kept me busier. Now there were five of them: Rachel One, Rachel Two, Rachel Johnson, Rachel Marovitch and Just Rachel. Rachel Marovitch was the President of the Freshmen Activities Board and Just Rachel was my history professor. “You can call me Rachel, Just Rachel,” she said in our first class. Then she laughed like an ocarina jumping octaves.

Rachel Two was also in that class. We sat at opposite ends of the room, and though we both went to our dorm afterwards, we never walked together. She was always a few steps ahead of me.

One Thursday she bumped into Rachel One. They started discussing sports or whatever Rachels talk about, talking and talking the whole way home. As we passed the chicken place my stomach growled loud enough for them to hear. That was the last straw. I turned and ran up the steps, shoving the door hard enough to shake the oval with the blind chicken on it. No one looked up. The speakers were playing pop music with cotton candy tunes.

There seemed to be no waiters, only a counter at the back of the store. Above the counter a board listed meals with names like celebrity babies: Golden Sunset, Maple Leaf, Cheeseling, Hot Power. The cash register pinged as a bearded man finished his purchase, moving off to the side to wait.

Behind the cash register an Asian girl with pink hair was putting away three greasy bank notes. Her nose ring flashed as she looked up at me, taking me in all at once. She was wearing a dirty apron and a nametag that read GUMBO.

“What can I get for you today?”

“Oh.” I scanned the menu again. “A Golden Sunset?”

“Is that a question?”

“No. I’ve never been here before.”

“Okay. So, what do you want?”

“I—uh. I don’t know. What would you pick?”

“Me?” She looked up at the menu. “Cheeseling is pretty underrated, in my opinion.”

“That sounds good. I’ll get that.”

“Awesome.”

She asked for my name and I gave it to her, then I shuffled off to where the bearded man sat. In a few minutes he got his food and left, and then I was joined by a pale, withered woman. She eyed me with suspicion.

“Are you by any chance called Rachel?” I asked her. She hissed and hobbled to the other side of the restaurant.

“Order up,” said Gumbo, handing me a white paper bag. “You know, you’re the first person who’s asked for my recommendation. Feels good to be talked to instead of talked at, if you know what I mean. Most people treat us like dirt.”

“I know what you mean. That sucks.”

“Everything sucks.” She shrugged. “Are you a student here?”

“Yeah, are you?”

“Yep. Senior year now, still no prospects. I’m guessing you’re a freshman.”

“Is it that obvious?”

She laughed. It was a nice laugh. “Not in a bad way. Freshmen are so, I don’t know, young. It’s nice to see.”

The old woman who’d gone off to the side came back, coughing loudly into her hand.

“I prefer young people, you know? Old people can be so impatient.” Gumbo winked at me.

“I don’t want to keep you.”

“Alright, alright.” She glanced at the old woman, then back at me. “You’ll come back soon, won’t you?”

I promised her I would.

---

I’m good at keeping promises, so I came back the very next day. And then the next day, and then the next. I didn’t always buy something—I wasn’t rich enough for that. But I’d sit on the side and talk to her when business was slow, or when she didn’t feel like working.

I know what you think of her. It’s what she thinks of herself. She once told me about a customer who’d grabbed her by the apron, threatening to hurt her if she didn’t refund his order. She knew she should’ve just called for the manager, but instead she grabbed a fork and jammed it into his right eye. He bled everywhere. There was so much blood she thought she had killed him. When the police arrived, the other customers rallied around her and called it self-defense. She wasn’t so sure.

“That’s what it means to be human,” she said. She was in one of her philosophical moods. “There was a lighter beside the fork, you know. If I’d grabbed that I think I would’ve set him on fire. I would’ve set this whole place on fire, to be honest. It’s like a metaphor. Sometimes I’m not even sure it really happened.”

But you already knew that. My point is she admitted she wanted to hurt that guy, she wanted to burn him. That’s true bravery. None of the Rachels could’ve been so brave. None of the Rachels could’ve stabbed that guy in the first place.

I talked to her about the Rachels only once. It was Halloween season and the moon was slimming down like girls on a diet. We sat on the front lawn of the Visual Arts Building, munching on some garlic soy chicken Gumbo had brought from the store. Her hair was now deep blue.

She was explaining to me why college was a scam. “It’s capitalism,” she said, biting off another piece of chicken. “The myth of meritocracy. You know the electrician who came to fix our security system? He went to college here. Got a Phd in Engineering, and for what? Just to fix chicken store security systems. He didn’t even fix it, of course. But that’s what I mean. Nobody ever earns anything. It’s all a game of luck.”

“You think we got here because we’re lucky?”

“Or unlucky.” She laughed. “Don’t look so serious. I’m rambling, that’s all.”

A group of girls walked past us, wearing school hoodies and school backpacks. One of the girls let out a loud, high-pitched laugh like a whinnying horse. I looked down at the grass.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.” I plucked a blade of grass, rolled it between my fingers.

“Hey, you know you can talk to me about whatever. I won’t judge.” I tore the blade down the middle and then into smaller chunks. It poured through my hand like rain. “It’s just—sometimes there’s this group of people, right? This group of people you don’t understand. Do you know what I mean?”

“What group?”

“Any group. Like, um, football players.”

“Okay. Football players.”

“So you only hear about them at first, because you come from a school that doesn’t have football. And then you meet one of them. And then you start meeting more and more, until there’s so many you can’t even count anymore. You never knew there were so many. And they’re all—I don’t know. Frightening. You don’t understand them at all. You don’t play football.”

“I see,” Gumbo said, smiling. “And I don’t know how to talk to these people—these football players.” “Yes, exactly.”

“Well, the first thing I’d do is learn more about football, so I can talk to them about it. Maybe I’d find something we have in common that isn’t football. Once I’ve broken the ice, I’d probably see they’re not so scary after all. And then we’d be friends.” “This isn’t a joke.”

“I’m not joking.” She shook her head. “Look, I get it. Making friends is scary, especially in a new environment. But you’d be surprised how many football players also want more friends. You’ve just got to go for it.”

“I don’t want to be their friend.” “What? Then what do you want from them?”

I plucked a blade of grass. I ripped it to pieces. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“Okay.” She frowned, picking up a chicken strip. “You know you can talk to me about whatever.”

I told her I knew.

--- I wish I could’ve made her understand. If I had, then things would’ve turned out differently. It wasn’t all my fault. Some feelings you can only feel. It just burns in the back of your head until you die.

It’s like the day before Thanksgiving. Rachel One and Rachel Two were going home by the same train, keeping their doors open as they packed. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without getting caught in conversational crossfire.

“My parents are so annoying this time of year,” Rachel One was saying. “They’re always like, you’ve lost so much weight! Or, you’re getting chubby! What gives?”

“That’s just parents. God, if my mom’s going to present that slideshow of me again, I swear I’m never going back.”

“Oh, hey.” This was directed at me. “You got any Thanksgiving plans?”

“Not really.”

Rachel Two frowned. “You’re not staying here alone, are you?” “I am. It’s fine, though. I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

“Really? They don’t have it where you’re from?”

“No.” “Hey, you know what?” Rachel One leaned against the doorsill. “Why don’t you come over to my place? Just for Thanksgiving dinner. That’s what the holiday’s all about, really.”

“To your place?”

“It’s only an hour away. Trust me, my parents won’t mind.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“You won’t.”

I did think about it. Gumbo had gotten to me, like she always did. It’s astounding how easy it is to lie to yourself. I thought, for a second, that I wanted to be their friend.

“Well, maybe—”

A knock sounded at the door. Rachel Two went over and opened it, letting out a kettle-like squeak as she flung her arms around whoever was outside. I could only see the top of the person’s head, but that was enough. Her hair was as bright as a brand-new laptop.

“Rach! You didn’t tell us you were coming by.”

Rachel Johnson swept into our dorm, holding two boxes of chocolate. She distributed them to Rachel One and Rachel Two. “I wasn’t going to let you leave without saying goodbye.”

“Aw, you’re too sweet. Hey, have you met our suite mate?” Rachel Johnson looked at me. Her gaze split my skin up and down like figure skates.

“I’m not sure. Remind me of your name again?”

That’s when I felt it—the burning. A forest fire in the back of my head. I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know how. Some feelings you can only feel.

“Rachel invited her over for Thanksgiving, Rach. Isn’t that nice?”

“You’re the sweet one,” Rachel Johnson said to Rachel One. “Does she eat turkey though?”

“Oh, yeah. Do you eat turkey? I can cook some other stuff. Um, maybe some sushi?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Rachel. Of course she eats turkey.”

“You don’t know that, El.”

It was getting too hot so I went to the bathroom and locked the door. I don’t know how long I stayed there. One hour, maybe two. Rachel One kept magazines in the bathroom. They were in a pink plastic cart, organized by genre: three magazines about cooking, two Vogues, six for celebrity gossip. They were all out of date. When I was seven I used to look through magazines and count the number of people who looked like me. I didn’t know how to count very high, but that didn’t matter. It never affected the game.

I heard the Rachels leave for dinner and crept back to my room. That image of the three of them together wouldn’t leave my mind. To be their friend, I had to be a Rachel. Could I be a Rachel? No, I couldn’t. I guess that’s why I went to buy gasoline.

---

I don’t know what Gumbo told you, but this is what really happened. It was ten thirty. I met Gumbo as she was leaving work, shaking her hair free of grease. Her hair was now blonde. She laughed when I told her to change it.

“You’re always so serious. You could loosen up a little, you know.” Then she stopped laughing. “What’s that?”

“Gasoline.” “Gasoline?” She weighed the word on her tongue. “Huh. Gasoline.”

“I’m going to burn the store down.”

“You are? Wow. Could I at least steal some chicken first?”

“Sure. I’m going to steal some too.”

She laughed again, which is when I realized she laughed a lot. “Okay, you really should be heading home though. It’s getting late.”

“I have to burn down the store first.”

Her face did this flip, this shuttering. “You’re not serious, are you? Oh. Oh god. Hey, why don’t we go somewhere, and you can tell me what’s up?”

But I had already told her. I told her on the lawn in front of the Visual Arts Building, and I told her the day we first met. I was always telling her. Sometimes I was screaming it to her face.

“Did you lock the door yet?”

“Look, what’s this about? Is it grades? Have you been doing bad in classes?”

“It’s not about that.” She was beginning to frustrate me. “Look, you said you wanted to get rid of this place. Now I’m doing that. Don’t you understand?”

“You can’t just—that was a metaphor. I didn’t actually want to burn anything!”

“So you lied to me?”

“Oh my god, no. Look, I did stab that man, but it was self-defense. I didn’t—everyone exaggerates sometimes, okay? So I didn’t feel everything I said I did. I’m not crazy. You’re not crazy too. Right?”

There is no worse feeling than disappointment. It’s the same feeling as betrayal, only you feel sorry for them. Someone told Gumbo she was exaggerating. Someone taught Gumbo to swallow her anger like medicine. But anger is meant to be tasted.

I couldn’t look at her after that, so I went ahead and tried the door. Unlocked. The door swung silently on its hinges and I entered the store.

The room was still hot and heavy with chicken scent. Scraps of paper crawled along the floor, nudged by a timid wind. The fridges sung low songs in the kitchen. Outside, I could hear Gumbo calling the police. She told them her real name and said she was afraid. She told them there was something wrong with me, and she told them to be gentle.

I was not gentle. I tore the cap open and turned the jerrycan upside down. The oil sludged out in splotchy bursts, splatting on the ground like water balloons. I walked up and down the room from right to left. By the time I finished, my pants and shoes were dripping brown.

I took a break and headed for the kitchen. Most of the leftovers had been thrown away, but I salvaged a box from the fridge. I sat down and the oil seeped through to my skin. Then I began to eat.

Did I know there wasn’t a lighter in the store? I don’t think so. You know, I would’ve burnt it all down if there was a lighter. I would have. I would. But the fact is that there wasn’t. So I kept eating and thinking it over. It being the Rachels, and Gumbo, and Thanksgiving dinner, and disappointment. I thought about how none of those things were that different from an unburnt chicken shop.

So that’s the whole thing, as far as I can tell it. I hope you’re satisfied. On my chicken farm everyone will be satisfied, even down to the chickens—and no one will cry. That’s my dream. Do you understand?