Photo by Max Kleinen on Unsplash
I
Johnny Whistler bought God for $12.38, from a farm a few miles outside his home town of Janesboro. It should have been an even $12, but Caleb Smicken––God’s previous owner––had a whim of pricing things according to the time he was selling them. Maybe I’ll come back at one, Johnny had said. Then it’ll be $13, Cal had replied.
God, by the way, was a chicken. It had been God for exactly six years: from the moment its beak poked through the shell of its egg, all the way up until the day Johnny Whistler took it in his hands and fluffed up its feathers, looking it over from top to bottom. Why’s it called God? Johnny’d asked. Cal had blinked in reply. Maybe ‘cause it tastes divine, Johnny had answered himself––then laughed heartily at his own joke.
Afterward, though, jigging home in his truck, Johnny felt a pang of guilt. “A chicken named God,” he mumbled incredulously. “Cal, you old fool.” In the passenger seat beside him, God let out a lusty squawk. Johnny glanced at God and sighed. “I’m gonna call you Henny.”
II
“Henny,” his wife, Kinsey, said when he’d handed her the chicken. “That’s a sweet name.”
“Cal named it God,” Johnny said.
Kinsey’s mouth dropped open. “God?” she repeated, dumbfounded. “That’s blasphemy!” Kinsey took blasphemy very seriously. Once, when Johnny had used the word Hell, she had made him wash his mouth with soap four times: one for each letter.
“Well, its name is Henny now,” Johnny said soothingly. “Can’t get less blasphemous than Henny.”
But God works in mysterious ways, and so too did His namesake. Whenever Johnny or Kinsey called out “Henny!” and beckoned, the chicken would strut off in exactly the opposite direction, throwing them a disdainful glance as it walked.
“That chicken is as dumb as a rock,” Kinsey said, wagging her head. “Better feed it up and get it in the pot quickly.”
But Johnny wasn’t sure. One day, when Kinsey was out visiting her sister, Johnny went out to the yard and clicked his tongue softly. “Come here, God,” he called––and the very next moment, he had a satisfied chicken nuzzling up against his boot.
Johnny stared at the chicken quizzically. “Henny?” he asked. The chicken clucked contemptuously and took a step back. “God?” Johnny said slowly. Immediately, the chicken was back against his boot.
“It’s no use, Kins,” Johnny told his wife that night, taking care to time it just when she was comfortably nestled into him and half-dozing off. “Cal named that chicken God, and now it won’t answer to anything else.”
Kinsey jolted upright and glared daggers at him. “Jonathan. No.”
Johnny shrugged. “Try telling the chicken that.”
“You go back to that awful, awful man and exchange it for a better one, then!”
“A better one? Cal already sold me the best egg-layer he got.”
“I don’t care if the other one never lays a single egg, as long as it’s got a better name.”
“You saying there’s a name better’n God’s?” Johnny mumbled half into his pillow, wincing when Kinsey’s hand came down hard on his shoulder.
III
“These are some mighty fine eggs,” Janesboro’s pastor, Clyde Simmons, said over breakfast with the Whistlers the next week.
“God’s eggs are pretty good,” Johnny replied.
“Everything God creates is good,” Pastor Simmons said, smiling approvingly.
Johnny gestured outside. “I mean that God.”
“So I reckoned,” Pastor Simmons said, raising an eyebrow. “There is, after all, only One.”
“No,” Johnny said. “That God. Out there pecking up grubs from the grass.”
Pastor Simmons peeped out the window, and nearly fell off his chair. “You… you named a chicken after the Almighty!”
“No, no,” Johnny reassured him. “Cal Smicken did.”
“Cal Smicken,” Pastor Simmons muttered. “I should have known… that old heretic. Why hasn’t it struck you to name it something––anything else?”
“The chicken likes it. It wouldn’t answer when we tried calling it Henny.”
“The chicken likes it?” Pastor Simmons spluttered. “I–– well, have you tried acquiring a different chicken, perhaps? One less prone to such blatant heathenry?”
Johnny nodded. “I went back to Cal the next day, and asked him to exchange this here God for a better one.”
A wince flit across the good pastor’s face, but the only word he could summon up was: “Well?”
“Cal said it weren’t a problem, of course he’d do it. Except I reckon it wouldn’t have made no difference, in the end.”
“And why not? Surely the other chicken can’t also have been named God?”
“No sir. But it was called Beelzebub, and I felt switching out God for the Devil weren’t the most prudent exchange to make.”
Pastor Simmons’ cheeks had by now turned the same bright red as the dirt in which God was happily strutting outside. “This is ridiculous! How can one possibly call a chicken by––?”
“Like this,” Johnny said, leading the scandalised pastor outside. “God!” he called––and the chicken ran to his boot, faithful as a feathery little dog.
Pastor Simmons gawped. “Well, if that isn’t the most shameful thing I have ever witnessed! Don’t you know that this–– well, Jonathan, this is nothing short of blasphemy. Referring to a chicken as––why, it’s much worse than cussing, Jonathan!”
Johnny raised his palms up. “It’s a shameful chicken, sure. But it lays the best darn eggs you’ll ever taste.”
IV
“Well I, for one, think you’re mighty sensible.” It was a fine, golden early morning, and Jace Whistler sat at his brother’s dining table, chewing meditatively on his last mouthful of grits. “It’s just a name. The way folks in Janesboro are clucking, they might as well join God out in the yard.”
Johnny shrugged. “It ain’t a very proper name for a chicken. But I reckon Cal ain’t very proper about much.”
“That’s why I like him,” Jace said, grinning. “Johnny, look. You’re gonna love this.” He slid a copy of the Janesboro Daily across the table.
Johnny picked it up. “Debate Heats Up About Whistler Family Chicken,” he read. “They wrote a whole story about it in the newsletter? It’s been months now, and they ain’t got nothing better to do than this?”
“Don’t you see?” Jace cackled. “They love it, Johnny. They ain’t had anything interesting to wag their tongues about for the last fifty years, and then along you and Cal come with your heathenous fowl. You ask me, you should get a whole flock of ‘em. Name the next one Jesus Almighty, that’ll really get them going. Maybe they’ll even put you in the big city papers.”
“More likely they’ll get the big city pastors to come down here and scold me,” Johnny said. “Pastor Simmons is already coming around for breakfast most days to chew me out. Although I think maybe he’s doing it a little bit for God’s eggs, too.”
“They’re pretty heavenly,” Jace said, bouncing his eyebrows. “Now, you tend to your holy charge there––and you tell me when it’s ready for the pot.”
“Here we are, jesting about eating God,” Johnny said. “What does that make us?”
“Hungry,” Jace called back, on his way out the door.
V
“Grain, potatoes, sugar, tin of tobacco. That all for you, Uncle Johnny?”
“Sure is, Olive,” Johnny said, leaning against the counter of Baker’s General Store and watching absently as his niece rang up his total. Mid-way through punching buttons on the cash register, however, she stopped and looked at him with plaintive eyes.
“I wish you wouldn’t cook your chicken!”
“I won’t,” Johnny said. “Kinsey or Jace will––they’re mighty fine with fried chicken. I’d just make a mess of it. Don’t you worry, I’ll let you and your pa know that night, if the smell don’t. I know how much Roscoe likes a good chicken dinner.”
Olive shook her head frantically. “No, no! I mean––I don’t think you should kill it, Uncle Johnny.”
Johnny’s eyebrows jumped up. “Well, why not? It’s only a chicken.”
“I don’t think it would be right,” Olive said, shifting awkwardly. “To kill something named after the Lord. It’s–– it’s uncomfortable.”
“It’s a chicken,” Johnny repeated. “What does it matter if it’s called God? It’ll taste just the same as a chicken named Henny or Daisy.”
“But Uncle Johnny!” Olive said. “It’s not the taste I’m worried about, it’s––”
“See you, Olive,” Johnny said, gathering up his goods and handing her a wad of money. “Keep the change.”
VI
“Can you hear something?” Kinsey whispered, poking her husband’s shoulder.
Johnny narrowed his eyes and cocked his ears. “Yeah,” he said. “Footsteps. I reckon folks across the state line can hear ‘em, too.”
“Oh, Johnny, what if someone’s trying to break in?” Kinsey squealed in terror.
Johnny snorted. “And steal what? Yesterday’s leftover pie?”
“Be serious, Johnny,” Kinsey said.
“All right, all right, I’ll go check,” Johnny said. He picked up the ancient musket leaning against the wall of their bedroom and trudged toward the door. “I reckon it’s just Cousin Roscoe tripping over his own porch stairs next door,” he called back to his nervous wife.
Johnny made his way to the backyard and paused. Two shadowy figures loomed over God’s coop, mumbling to each other. “Hey!” he yelled, pointing his musket––and the two men froze. “What the Hell are you doing?”
“Don’t use that word, Jonathan,” one of them said. “And please, put down the musket.”
Johnny blinked. “Pastor Simmons?”
The speaker sighed and flicked on a torch. Johnny squinted through the sudden brightness. There stood Clyde Simmons, along with his brother-in-law Roscoe Baker. Nestled in Roscoe’s arms was none other than God.
“I’d hoped you would be asleep by now,” the pastor said sheepishly.
“What are you doing here?” Johnny snapped.
“Olive begged you not to kill it this afternoon,” Roscoe said. “She been fretting ever since, asking if Uncle Johnny’s going to burn if he eats God.”
“She been that torn up over any other chicken before?” Johnny retorted.
“This chicken is different,” Pastor Simmons said. “It’s bad enough that you decided to name a farm animal after our Saviour––but to kill it is going too far!”
“It’s just a chicken!” Johnny half-yelled.
“It’s a chicken named God!” Pastor Simmons half-yelled back.
“Shh, you’ll wake the neighbourhood,” Roscoe said.
“You can’t kill God,” the pastor said, quieter. “Think of the message it’ll send, won’t you?”
“Well, God ain’t been doing much providing as of late,” Johnny said sourly. “And now you tell me I can’t even put that stringy old thing in the pot?”
“We’ll get you another,” Roscoe said desperately. “Take one of mine––a fine fat egg-layer. You’ll have the pick of my coop.”
Johnny bit his cheek in contemplation. He glanced at the chicken named God, who, by now, was slightly balding, and––if Johnny were being honest––looked as toothsome as a horseshoe. He contemplated saying no, just to see the other men’s faces. “I could eat God,” he murmured. Both the pastor and Roscoe grew pale, and Johnny stifled a snicker. “Naw,” he said finally. “Go on then, take him. I’ll drop by to pick up a new one tomorrow, Ros.”
“‘Course,” Roscoe said, looking relieved.
“Thank you for being so understanding, Jonathan,” Pastor Simmons said, shaking Johnny’s hand. “I’ll keep her myself. Perhaps she can be our church chicken.”
“Sure,” Johnny said. “Not a big loss for me. God appears to be a little too tough for me to swallow, anyway.” Then, ignoring the two men’s horrified expressions, he turned and walked back into his house.
Aditi Ramaswamy is twenty-four years old, and her dream job is to haunt a pond in the woods. Until she becomes the forest spirit she's destined to be, though, she'll stick to software engineering and writing somewhat irreverent fiction.