12
Sheila Johnston (née Fowler) lived with her husband Michael and their daughter Pat in a nice enough house on the corner of the main intersection in the oldest town in the county.
Sheila made it a point to make dinner for Michael and Pat every weeknight, but on weekends, she improvised. Tonight, she had settled on pizza from the local joint that had just opened.
“They’re still finding themselves,” Sheila offered as she choked down a bite of pizza from the new local joint. She looked at Pat, who was absentmindedly nibbling from her crust while staring down at her lap.
“Are you on your phone?”
Pat looked straight into Sheila’s eyes and said, “The pizza is dry.”
“They just opened, Pat. It’s a local business. We have to support local businesses.”
“Do we, though?” Pat muttered, and looked back down at her lap.
Sheila looked to Michael for support, but he was staring at the TV screen. Sheila hated having the TV on during dinner, but she had long since stopped picking that fight.
“It’s all going to shit,” Michael said to no one in particular.
Sheila glanced at the TV and saw a headline saying something about skyrocketing crime rates. She rolled her eyes. She had learned to tune out the sound of rigged elections and “illegals destroying the country.”
Most nights, as Sheila sat alone at the dinner table with her family, her thoughts turned to Angela. In those moments, she often wondered whether Angela was the one who got it right.
Sheila and Angela came from a long line of chicken farmers. In a town full of Smiths and Bakers, the Fowlers had always been outliers. Raising chickens was never as highly respected as the other trades, but the Fowlers continued to provide their community with chicken and eggs.
Sheila had worked hard to break free of the Fowler cycle. Getting married to Michael and changing her last name had, at first, brought her relief. Of course, she loved the Fowler side of her family, but as time went on, she began to notice the knowing glances exchanged by the townspeople when the Fowlers showed up to an event. It wasn’t until well into her adulthood that she realized the Fowlers were seen as nothing more than the “crazy chicken people.”
Now, with Michael having been laid off, and Pat being hopelessly lost to the internet, Sheila often wondered if she should’ve stayed a Fowler. A life wedded to a man who spoke almost exclusively in racist conspiracy theories, trying to raise a daughter who might as well have lived in a different town—was this really better? She chewed her pizza as the news anchor droned.
“Can I be done?” Pat said suddenly, without looking up from her lap.
“You mean, ‘May I be excused?’”
“Same fucking thing, mom,” Pat said, pushing her chair out from the table.
“Don’t talk to me that way,” Sheila said, but Pat was already stomping up the stairs.
“You gonna let her get away with that?” Michael said, still staring at the TV screen.
“Don’t,” Sheila said.
Michael didn’t respond. They sat at the table for over a minute as Sheila felt her mind start to detach from her surroundings.
“Not gonna find a job anytime soon,” Michael said suddenly, and Sheila’s attention snapped back in place. She was surprised to hear so many words from him.
“You don’t think?” she replied sympathetically.
Michel grunted in assent. Sheila waited for him to say more, but knew after a moment that he wouldn’t. She hesitated, then said, “You don’t think you can—”
“Tried already,” Michael snapped, eyes fixed on the TV.
“Oh.”
Michael turned up the volume. They sat there for another minute.
“What I’d really like to do is go to the city and rip these fuckers a new asshole,” he said, nodding toward the screen, which displayed a massive crowd of men inside what looked like a cage, stripped down to pristine, white boxers. Sheila felt a surge of indignation in her chest.
“I think their assholes are getting ripped enough,” she said.
Michael chewed his pizza silently.
Sheila’s thoughts returned to Angela. She wondered if things might be better if she moved in with Angela and the chickens. Of course, the living arrangement was disgusting, but maybe if she moved in, they could compromise on something. She could get a nice chicken coop for her, maybe even find a way to connect it to the trailer. A fence, or something….
“You don’t think it’s a good idea to go back to the hospital and see if there’s anything else you can do there?” Sheila said, trying to pull her mind back to the present.
“I’m not going back to that fuckin’ place.”
“Why not?” she said, knowing that she was pushing her luck.
“What do you mean, ‘why not?’ That place is fucked,” Michael said.
Before she knew what she was doing, she replied, “Is the place fucked, or are you fucked?”
“Excuse me?” Michael said, turning to look at her for the first time since they’d sat down.
“Did you really get laid off, or did you say something racist to a coworker again?”
“I didn’t say nothing to nobody,” he seethed. “The hospital is out of money. The whole country is going to shit. Do you even know what’s going on right now?”
“Do you?” Sheila said, and gestured toward the TV, which was playing a commercial for adult diapers.
Michael laughed at her. “You don’t understand.”
“You’ll have to get a job at some point.”
“Well, you can let me know if you hear of anything,” Michael said. “There’s no jobs in this town anymore.”
Sheila didn’t reply. She knew he was right. It had been getting harder to find work in their town for years, but it had gotten worse very quickly in the last few months. It had never been this bad before, not in their lifetime, and not in their parents’ lifetimes.
Michael turned the TV back on. Sheila took another bite of her pizza, which combined with her saliva to form a chunk of concrete in her mouth. She spit it out onto her plate. Michael took one look at her, winced, and turned back to the TV.
“Gross,” he said.
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