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Ron Allen started working as a chicken farmer when he was 13, on a 20-acre plot of land that had been in the family for generations. Soon after Ron turned 14, the land was bought up by chicken industry professionals, converted into a proper industrial operation, and known from then on as Tucker Farms.
For the rest of his decades-long career as a chicken farmer, Ron would think fondly of his first year of work. He would remember the chickens running around in the wide, free-range field where his family kept them as if it were a vision from another life.
More frequent than Ron’s tender recollections of the pre-Tucker era were his recurring dreams of being in the slaughterhouse. About once a month, he would have a dream in which he was acronizing chickens. He would take a recently-slaughtered chicken carcass, dunk it in a bucket of antibiotic solution, throw it on an ever-growing mountain of chickens, and wake up in a cold sweat. No matter how many years went by, the dream remained just as vivid as if he were a teenager in the slaughterhouse.
Ron had opposed acronizing from the beginning. Even when every farmer was dunking their chickens in antibiotics to prevent them from spoiling, Ron was skeptical that it was the agricultural miracle that the media and government were making it out to be. His issue with acronizing really came down to taste: the taste of chicken was not to be messed with, and acronizing messed with it.
Dunking chickens in antibiotics fell out of favor a few decades into Ron’s career.
“Now,” Ron would explain to his daughter, Natasha, “we dunk the antibiotics in the chicken.”
Indeed, a couple years back, Ron’s boss had given him orders to start mixing antibioitcs into the chickens’ food and water supply, so that they could grow bigger and live in close quarters without getting sick.
“A horse of a different color,” he told Natasha, who had no interest in continuing the family business, “but acronizing just the same.”
His boss had started hinting at retirement at Ron’s 50-year anniversary party. “Fifty years in chicken farming!” he’d said. “Wouldn’t you like to spend a few years drunk on a beach?” Ron said firmly that he wouldn’t, and kindly asked his boss not to ask questions like that anymore.
Now, at 88 years old, Ron was as committed to chicken farming as he’d ever been. The only problem was the dementia. On his good days, he was perfectly lucid; on the bad days, he had no idea where his mind had gone. He would come home from work, and his daughter, Natasha, would tell him about the news, about his grandchildren, about all kinds of things he couldn’t understand. He would sit there nodding, hoping she wouldn’t ask him any questions.
Going to the farm helped. He could keep his wits about him on the farm. The routine, the familiarity, had a way of bringing him back to reality. It wasn’t because he loved chicken farming, or because he was too stubborn to retire, that he kept going to the farm. It was because his life depended on it. A life of sitting at home, listening to his daughter slowly catch on to his dysfunction was not the one he wanted to live.
Ron was something like the last in a generation who grew up eating acronized chicken. The chicken he ate now tasted better, but still not as good as the chicken from his childhood. But that was before the chicken industry exploded, before every farmer was hell bent on growing the biggest chickens nature would allow. On his good days, he would tell Natasha that the chicken she’d bought from the store was nowhere near as good as the stuff he’d eaten when he was a kid. On his bad days, he couldn’t even tell chicken from beef.
One day, Ron went into work as usual. He felt every part of his brain clicking into place as he listened to the crunch of the gravel under his tires. Things started to get a little fuzzy when he saw his boss step out of the barn, as if he’d been waiting for Ron’s arrival.
“Ron, it’s bad news,” the boss started, lighting a cigarette. Ron stared at the glowing tip of the cigarette and willed his brain to let him pay attention.
“Ron?” the boss said. “Are you with me?”
Ron followed the cigarette with his eyes as the boss took it from his mouth and held it at his side. He watched the smoke billow upward, and he locked eyes with the boss as he said, “They’re making me let you go.”
“What?” Ron said, and he noticed a certain intensity in the boss’s expression. “Aren’t you the boss?”
“Yeah, but I’m not the boss. That’s… someone else.”
Ron stared at him as he took a pull from his cigarette.
“But I’m still putting in good work,” Ron said.
“I know, Ron. I wish I could help. But I can’t. The decision is made.”
“I’ve been working at this farm for damn near sixty years, and—”
“You have to go now, Ron. Before this gets embarrassing for you.”
Ron let his mouth drop open. He tried to respond, but his breath caught in his throat. He started coughing.
“It’s time to go, Ron,” the boss said. He flashed a gun tucked into his pants.
“What in God’s name…” Ron said, still coughing. He looked at the gun, then back at his boss.
“Go,” his boss said. He dropped the cigarette on the ground and stomped it out harder than was necessary.
Ron looked at the cigarette, then back up at the boss. He cleared his throat, stifling another cough.
“Loud and clear, boss,” he said.
He got back into his car, turned the key, and drove back home.
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