Awkward Meals: Chicks

Excerpt from a letter sent July 1991

...That evening Christina 
(Howie Chen's girlfriend
 (Howie Chen from Ridgecrest
  (that is to say I'm not talking about Howard "Duchess"
   (Though no one called him "Duchess" in Lowell
    (Except for Ming "Ming-a-ling" Chen, another Lowellite by way 
     of Presidio Middle School. The three of us, along with Crystal 
     Marmol, were partners in science class. Crystal was not nice, 
     but Howard, Ming, and I got along fine. But at one point 
     Howard played a Duchess in some play, and made the mistake of 
     admitting to some embarrassment, and so Ming and I made a 
     point of calling him Duchess at every opportunity.
     (I can't really remember anything I did back in Middle School 
      that I feel proud of))--I 
    only know about that because I went to Middle School with that 
    particular Howard Chen)
   Chen from Lowell)--math   
  guy--high voice--you either know who I'm talking about now or 
  you don't)
 (But this reminds me of something that I forgot to mention in the 
  last letter. 
  (No, I definitely didn't mention it--unless it was the letter 
   before that 
   (But I won't bother to check that one)) 
  Sometime recently 
  (within the last month and a half, anyhow) 
  Howie called Jimmy 
  (a co-worker, a closer friend of Howie) 
  at work. Jimmy was talking loud because Howie was using the 
  speakerphone.  Jimmy switched over to speakerphone on our end and 
  asked me to talk to Howie for a while because he 
  (Jimmy (not Howie)) 
  had to go do something. So I talked to Howie for a while, and 
  Jimmy and I both talked to him through the speakerphone when Jimmy 
  came back. And it turned out that the reason that Howie was using 
  his speakerphone was that he was fixing dinner for Christina and 
  himself, one part of the dinner he was in charge of. Christina 
  apparently wanted to have quail chicks 
  (Part of what most affected me about what was going on is due to 
   my forays into the world of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Where the 
   quail chick is of course, the symbol for /w/ or /oo/. It's always 
   been my favorite 'sound' glyph to draw, and it saddened me to 
   think of several of the cute little buggers becoming a dinner) 
  for dinner. Freshly killed quail chicks. She didn't want to kill 
  them. 
  (She wanted Howie to kill them.)
  Howie didn't want to kill them. But Christina's will was stronger. 
  So Howie was calling us up hoping that we would sort of take his 
  mind off of what he was doing. 
  (I forget how it came up what he was going to do.)
  "Gee, Howie, don't you feel kind of icky?" 
  "Yeah, I don't want to do this." 
  "So why do it?" 
  "Christina wants me to." 
  ... 
  "Can't you buy, like pre-killed chicks or something?" 
  "Yeah, but Christina wants me to kill these." 
  "I guess they're fresher that way?" 
  "Yeah. Could we talk about something else?" 
  But conversation sort of came back to the chicks. 

  How was he killing them? 
  (He was twisting their necks.) 

  What was that sound? 
  (That was their blood coming out from where he'd cut them 
   (No way, there couldn't be that much blood in a quail 
    chick--Howie was just running water in the sink to wash 
    something away, right? To ruffle the feathers to make 
    them easier to pluck, right? 
    (But Howie didn't answer)))

  And how did Howie let himself get talked 
  (And the talk was drawing attention. Both ends of this 
   conversation were using speakerphones. As a result, all 
   participants in the conversation had to shout to be 
   heard. Jimmy and I were at work. In Jimmy's cubicle, with 
   walls that don't go all the way up to the ceiling, and no 
   door. And so everyone on that side of the building was 
   hearing our half of the conversation. And coming by to 
   find out what the hell was going on 
   (Howie's just called us up to kill some birds at us was 
    our answer, as well as our tribute 
    (though, now I wonder: would he have appreciated it 
     considering the 
     (then again, how's he ever to find out?) 
     circumstances?) 
    to Douglas Adams).  
   We had to explain quite a few times before people were convince
   we didn't hang with dangerous lunatics)
  into these situations? Finally I found someplace to go, and left 
  Jimmy to talk to Howie, who had by this time killed the chicks.)
 from Hong Kong by way of Canada) 
stopped by to visit Piaw, one of the new coops...

Slippery Memories

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