THE CHICKEN CATCHERS (1: Wendigo's Wife)

THE CHICKEN CATCHERS: 1 The Wendigo's Wife

At what age do we learn to pick our own scabs? Who remembers how that starts, but we've all done it, the pull against the skin, the sting of resistance as we scratch, and it feels good somehow, then blood. It's fascinating, in a weird kind of way. Even if you're told it's stupid, you won't stop, just learn to hide it better and do it in private. You might tell your own children not to do it too, but behind closed doors, when no one is looking, you'll still get the itch.

We even taste it, sometimes, under the thin pretense it's all part of the healing process. So, what's that about, an opportunity to look under the skin, to know ourselves on a new kind of level? I don't think it makes sense to anybody, really, and yet, it's a universal experience everyone discovers for themselves at some point, so far back, we can't even remember the first time.

That's how it is with the chicken catchers. I don't remember when I started to be afraid of them, but I couldn't entirely leave them alone either. Maybe, I was always afraid and hung up about them, those nights they'd come out to our farm. Even when you're just a kid, there's an instinctual reaction to some men. They were my father's friends after all.

On thing I do remember is the sudden realization that my Daddy wasn't a good sort of man. I was watching some sort of TV show, with a hero racing to save some frightened woman. She fell of course and screamed. Just as the bad man stood over her, I thought, "That's what my Dad is. I shouldn't give him hugs any more, and victims really need more practical shoes. They always fall, don't they."

When you're just a little girl, you don't know everything about what that kind of man will do to you, in a situation like that. You just get a feeling. It's there in the pit of your stomach, and your air catches on it when you breathe. My bedroom window was mostly on the wrong side, so I could never see much, when the chicken catchers came, and I think that was a big part of it. That's how our minds run wild. They were a noisy bunch, and that feeling was always there.

Mom tried to keep me away from the worst of it, when they were all together like that, but we both knew the end of it, come next-day, with a piss-up like that. Daddy would sleep till noon, and there would be fresh hell for us both, until the hangover subsided. It could last days, and misery loves company. There would be nowhere to squirrel me away then without major distractions, so it was scurry, scurry and hope for the best. The hope can be worse than anything.

Anyone would pray for a miracle. We weren't a church going family, and my background on the character of who might be listening was definitely pretty shaky. But, that must be something we can discover for ourselves too, when we're desperate enough. You look out into the night, searching the shadows for danger, or a horror you can't even understand, and your lips just start moving, an instinctual reaction that goes back as far as you can remember.
"Take me away. Please, get me out of here."

The trees of the wood lot blocked most of my view, so all I'd get was glimpses, black on white when they moved in front of the headlights. I knew those men as well as the landscape because one or another was always around, and it was easy to make up the rest of the details, the smell of blood, beer and cigarettes, the dirty hands, as they yanked down their mesh-backed hats or stopped to scratch their hairy, bloated bellies.

I totally admit, I didn't know a hell of a lot about what was really going on with the chickens, but an animal stuck in a trap will bite off its own foot, for a chance to escape. They don't know what's coming either. That's how desperation is, and none of those jokers were going to sneak up on me, even if I had to stay up all night.

Most people live their whole lives without understanding that kind of real fear. It's not the pain and abuse that gets you. It's the quiet moments in between, when you can't see what's ahead, and your mind is just going around and around in circles. You can't leave the thought alone, and it's worse because you do it to yourself. Even when you know it's making everything worse, you don't stop.