Chapter V

Starling Albright Parker was her full name. She hated her name, always had.
Her mother had named her Starling because she liked the chattery social birds. They came out with the most unusual noises! They seemed so pert and full of life. She didn’t know or care that they were not native to this continent, were disease carriers, drove out the local songbirds, and did millions of dollars worth of damage to crops every year. The bad things about being named Starling didn’t stop there. The other kids tease her unmercifully about being named after a bird, especially one that was an alien pest.
“Hey Star, I hear they named you after a bird because your brain is the same size as a bird’s, Bird brain!” “I heard it was because they don’t belong in this part of the world, and neither do you!”
She shortened it to Star to avoid that line of teasing, but it just sent things off in another direction. Well if they thought she wanted to be called Star because she thought she was better than them, at least it was better than being called a birdbrain.
Albright was her mother’s family name. Supposedly the name meant a lot on the East Coast. Old New England money. In the first place, the West had been settled by people who had the personal fortitude to gather up their belongings and travel across the country to get where they were. They made their way on their own, and respected people who had done the same. Anyone whose claim to fame is that their family stayed back East and squatted over their roost like some old hen with a single egg was not their kind of people. And Delia Albright Parker did little to endear herself to the people of La Grange. When she participated in social events, she seemed to have a “How quaint” sort of attitude, as if the people around her were not quite of the same social status as her. For Star it generated “Not-at-Albright”
Parker. Nothing really wrong with that. Good solid old west name: Quanah Parker the Comanche Chief. Judge Isaac Parker, the Hanging judge. Her dad, Wes Parker claimed to be descended from the famous Judge, but the ties must have been weak, for the genes were definitely watered down. Wes Parker got squeamish at having to gut his own fish. His was a case of someone who, no matter how long they were in La Grange would never be accepted. In a world where everyone did for themselves and made do with what they had, he hired people to do his oil changes even before Jiffy-Lube came into town.
The Parkers had come into town in the fifties. The Parker Family owned a chain of Drugstores, and Wes opened and ran a new store in La Grange. This got them off on the wrong foot to start off with the locals. The Kelly’s had run Kelly’s Drugs for almost as long as there had been a town. Sure they were getting on in years, and had no kids to take over the store, but that was no reason to just drive them out of business. The Parkers had been flayed and hung out to dry before anyone had even gotten to know them. It was rumored that Delia was expecting before they were married, and that the family had married her off to the first available man who wasn’t a criminal, wife beater, or wastrel. Wes’s part was the financial backing to start his very own Drug store. Indeed if one were to look at the dates of their marriage license and Star’s birth certificate, one would come to the conclusion that either Star was a very healthy premature, or something else had been premature.
Add to that the fact that Star’s mother’s hair was dishwater blond, and her Dad’s was dark brown, while her own was flaming red-gold, and you had the makin’s of a real down home scandal. Not that anyone in La Grange gave a rip, but evidently it meant a great deal to Delia’s people. Or so speculation had it.
Star was a little spoiled. When she was in the pre-teen horse years she was much too sophisticated for a pony. She had an Arabian Gelding that was dressage trained, and she had the English saddle and riding outfit, complete with riding crop. But the stuff wasn’t what she needed. Her parents tolerated each other, but there was no love in their relationship. They accommodated each other. He needed the money her family provided; she needed a husband and father for Star. They stayed together “For Star”, but I always felt it was inertia more than anything else. The used Star as a vehicle for scoring points on each other. When Star came downstairs for breakfast, more often than not it was “Oh there you are dear. Your father is having bacon and eggs, and I am having toast and cereal. Which one do you want?” Of course if she chose either one, she was choosing that parent over the other. Also more often than not, she would skip breakfast, No occasion came that couldn’t be used by her parents to score points on each other. Who’s present did she like better? Where did she want to go on vacation? All very thinly disguised jabs in each other’s direction. Star suffered through it all, but it gave her a little different perspective on things. She was always questioning everyone’s motives, never took anything at face value. The times when we were together, she was always picking around at the edges of things, trying to see if there was anything behind the things I did. I happen to be a very straightforward open and honest person. What you see is what you get. Saves me from having to try to remember what lies I told to which person.
The first time I noticed Star, I must have been about ten. She was in my little sister Elizabeth’s class at school. She had come over to play, but ended up landing right in the middle of chicken slaughter day.
We had a farm, and raised all kinds of things. We always had two batches of chickens, one batch of laying hens, one batch of fryers. One of the kid’s jobs was to go out to the hen house in the morning and gather the eggs and feed the chickens. It was always a little like a treasure hunt, because you never knew what you were going to find, Taking the eggs away from the hens could be an adventure too, as some of them took objection to us removing their eggs. After all it wasn't easy producing them.The fryers life was short and pretty good. They were fed and watered and didn't have to produce anything to earn their keep, just put on weight. The down side was that before things froze up in the fall, would come slaughter day. Everyone hates slaughter day. It is nasty, smelly work, but it puts food in the freezer for all winter. The little kids were chicken catchers. Grandfather was the headsman. Uncle Fred and Dad were the gutting crew, and everyone else were Chicken Pluckers. It was our own little assembly line. My job was Chicken Hypnotizer. After the little kids caught a chicken, they would bring it to me. I would stick it's head underneath it's wing and then pump it (the whole bird) up and down for about 30 seconds. Then you could set it down on the ground and it would stay where you set it. Eventually it would sort of shudder, pull it's head out and look around like "Where the hell am I?", but on slaughter day, they generally never came around. If they started to, I would just grab them before they got any ideas about running off, and rehypnotize them. It always caused me to wonder "How did someone figure this out? It would seem logical that it would be someone who wanted to transport chickens quietly and easily. Like maybe a Chicken Thief? How did my grandfather who taught me the fine art of chicken hypnotizing happen to be in possession of this particular bit of information?"I never did get around to asking him this. I'll bet he learned if from his grandfather, too.
I have always wanted to put this on my resume'. Chicken Hypnotizer. That alone should be good for a first interview, and once you get your foot in the door anything is possible.I have never found a use for this very rare skill in the modern world. I mean you can't exactly pick up a newspaper, and there on page 13 of the classified ads you find "Wanted: Chicken Hypnotizer. Full time. Full benefits. Must be experienced. Top Wages."
Star didn’t do well with Chicken Slaughter day. It was OK when she was helping catch the chickens, and when I was hypnotizing them, but when Grandfather started chopping heads, she gained a new perspective on the expression “Heads will roll.” Grandfather had a system. First of all we rolled out an old set of tractor tires and stacked them next to the chopping block. He would reach under the hypnotized chicken and grab them by the feet. And flip them over so that the neck lay out on the chopping block.
Whack.
Throw the chicken into the hole in the tires so that they couldn’t run around the yard and get everything bloody. Go get next chicken.
Somewhere in the middle of the chore, he missed the hole in the tires, and the chicken started running around the front yard, a squirt of blood going up every time it’s heart beat. It ran right by Star, and shortly thereafter, ran out of gas, and fell over. I looked at her and she turned white as a ghost, and ran over behind the raspberry bushes where she deposited her breakfast. I learned later that she was unable to eat chicken for several years after that. She spent the rest of the afternoon crying in Lizardbreath’s room.
She didn’t come back to play so much after that.