The Black Cock – Evan McConahay

September 26, 2025

Andy was stopped at a red light on his way to Burger King when he saw the farmer’s market in the town square through the gaps between dozens if not hundreds of American flags lining the perimeter, raised for Memorial Day.
        One of the ladies sitting at the tables was turning, her head over her shoulder, looking towards the intersection. He couldn’t see her eyes, she was wearing sunglasses. She was smiling.
        Andy decided it might feel good to spend money in a holistic way on a few fresh, healthy groceries. Going to the farmer’s market was something he always meant to do. He even had cash in his wallet this time- sixty dollars. No excuses.
        A small, polite honk came from behind– the light had turned green. Andy pulled into the turning lane and waited again for a steady stream of cars to pass and then he pulled into a parking spot and climbed out of his car.
        Birds were chirping and there was a gentle breeze. Kids on bikes were moving through the square’s diamond sidewalk that surrounded a gazebo in the middle where two guys in black dress shirts and black pants were unfolding a table. Andy realized he’d left his sunglasses and hat in the car. He thought about going back to get them but decided against it.
        Andy began meandering past the tables, squinting around. The first table, near the street, was covered in tomatoes. The next table had lots of peppers and onions and cookies and bread. A beautiful young Amish woman sitting by herself watched over them, her face shielded by a bonnet. Andy became nervous and smiled sheepishly. Everything was reasonably priced. He bought some jalapeño cheese bread and a carton of cookies and even some onions, all for eight bucks. The pair of them made eye contact three times- as he approached the table, as he gave her the money, and after she put everything in a bigger plastic bag for him and handed it to him. They said thank you at the same time. Her eyes were green. He wished for an excuse to say something else or asked her a question but she was already looking down at her hands.
        Walking away slowly, pretending to examine the candles at the next table, he wondered about her, how she got there, where the horse and buggy were- they were nowhere to be seen. Maybe her father or husband were at Walmart. Andy could have sworn there was always at least a handful of Amish people at the Neighborhood Market Walmart that separated the town from the prairies of southern Iowa.
        He tried to put the girl out of his mind as he continued on past the candle table. He looked back at the Amish girl. She was busy talking to a man in stretchy pants, purple shoes and a shirt with a big Nike swoosh on it. His hair was speckled with gray. He was tall, looking down at her and she squinted, looking up at him.
        Hi, there! a lady said. He’d reached the last table, which at first glance, was empty, covered by a yellow tablecloth. The lady with the sunglasses Andy had seen from the intersection was sitting at the table, smiling at him.
        Hello, he returned. In the middle of the tablecloth was a white piece of paper listing various cuts and types of meats and their prices.
        Beautiful day today! she said.
        Yes, truly.
        She was a tiny lady. She had black hair with bangs. A little bit like that funny tiny lady from the Incredibles, he thought. Her skin was a shade or two darker than white and she had a slight accent that he couldn’t place.
        Do you need some meat? She asked.
        He examined the sheet of prices thoroughly.
        I don’t think I do, he said. It had been a long time since he’d eaten any quality meat, meat that wasn’t fried, or, more realistically, microwaved by a teenager or a methamphetamine casualty. Sweat crawled down Andy’s bald head.
        You know, she said, with a secret smile, I could cut you a deal on a chicken.
        Oh, really?
        I’ll give you a chicken for six dollars.
        You will? Is anything wrong with it?
        She scowled, offended, and then smiled. Of course not. They roam the hills until nightfall when they go into their cozy little hutch. Not too little, of course, they have plenty of room. She stood up, standing barely four feet tall, and yanked a big cooler out from underneath the table. She opened it and cool mist rose for a split second. She pulled from within a gallon size Ziplock, airtight, with a chicken within it.
        I even took the giblets out for you, she laughed.
        Alright, you sold me.
        There we go! You look like you could use a little meat! Do you know how to cook a chicken? Have you ever done it?
        Yeah I know how, he said.
        You should cut a lemon in half and squeeze half of it all over the chicken, top and bottom. Then take the other half and shove it inside the cavity. Cover it with salt and pepper. You should buy a few potatoes from Beth over there and cut those up and stick em in a cast iron with some oil, then put the chicken on top and put her in the oven at four fifty. Should be ready in an hour or so.
        He handed her six bucks and she gave him the chicken, then leaned on the table looking up at him.
        How can you tell when it’s done?
        Should be ready in an hour or so. Stick a knife in the crotch and the juice should run clear. Her sunglasses slid down her nose, revealing jade-green eyes. Everyone got uptight about undercooked chicken in the nineties, she said. It only makes people sick because the chickens are all cooped up together, eating each other’s poop. Chicken’s better for you when it’s a little rare, too much heat will kill the nutrition.
        Well, thanks very much.
        My pleasure. Don’t forget those potatoes!
        Have a good night, he said with a nod and eyes-closed-smile.

Andy ate the chicken at sundown. The smell had enticed him while it cooked, teasing and tantalizing him. He did chores he’d neglected so far that week as to distract himself from his growling stomach– when he sat down at the coffee table to eat, his house felt fresh and comfortable. Before he knew it, the carcass sat in front of him, picked clean. Staring at his TV, his stomach and head felt warm. If he’d felt that way before, he couldn’t remember it. His eyes closed and his clasped hands cradling his pregnant belly, he began to doze off.
        When he jerked awake, Something had changed. Dizzily, Andy stood and took the plate into the kitchen, then returned to the living room. He stood in the center of the room with his eyes closed, trying to think, to identify the discomfort. Vague shapes swam and fractaled in the dark of eyelids. He tried the bathroom, tried shitting, curled in an almost chicken like pose with his head close to his knees, opening his eyes to see the checkered tiles on the floor between his feet from time to time to orient himself. After that, he masturbated to porno, trying to distract himself, but the feeling- which wasn’t nausea, he’d confirmed, remained. He drove to Hawkeye Liquors and bought a pint of Jim Beam and a pack of cigarettes. Back in his driveway, he got into the whiskey and lit up. His first drink since he’d moved to Iowa and nothing resembling pleasure came to him- the cigarette just irritated his throat.
        Hours oozed by. He tried to make himself puke up the chicken by sticking his greasy fingers as far as he could down his throat, to no avail. He tried to game, to watch TV but nothing could hold his attention. After finishing the bourbon and masturbating three more times, Andy lay in bed. He kept checking his pulse which seemed rock steady. When he tried to close his eyes and sleep, the vague shapes would be waiting and their impossible dimensions and movements disoriented him, his stomach dropping as if he was on a malfunctioning roller coaster, falling backward instead of forward, the sky shrinking– but when he’d try and get up and puke and the nausea would dissipate, like smoke.
        This went on for days. He called in sick- something he never did, even when he was sick, since he worked from home, designing labels for Trader Joes. After the weekend, Andy went to the hospital and like a dog show dog, went through the motions – check in, nurse, doctor, nurse, blood test, doctor – nothing but a recommendation to speak with a mental health specialist. When he asked for an MRI, the doctor reiterated her recommendation. Even when he told her that the price was not an issue, that his Trader Joe’s insurance would cover it, she denied him, seeming to hold in a laugh as if she was trying to hide a massive centipede crawling around the inside of her mouth.
        Later in the evening, in the backyard, shirtless, drinking icey Jim Beam and chain-smoking, Andy began meditating on the chicken. He hadn’t shit since eating it. He’d not eaten much since, snacking on the rest of the farmer’s market groceries. It was as if his body had absorbed the chicken. He couldn’t go back in time and stop himself from eating the chicken, nor could he remove it from himself, nor still, he’d more or less proven, could he distract himself from its presence or mollify his mind with chemicals. There was no one in his life he could talk to. He had money but there was no item or experience he could think to spend it on. His memories seemed to be stained, there was nothing he could think about or imagine that prodded the whale’s corpse of this new reality. His situation was being eclipsed by the shadow of the future as he became more convinced the feeling was here to stay, and the only thing that made sense was to leave the self behind and beam his consciousness to the scene, incident, offender, chicken. He listened to the cicadas harmonize like a tuning orchestra and watched the sky darken above the little house.

Parked in a bank parking lot kiddie-corner to the square, sipping bourbon out of a sixty four ounce styrofoam cup, Andy stared at the woman for three hours until she dragged the cooler back to her truck and made a second trip to collect her table. Her big black truck roared to life and slid backwards into the street from the diagonal parking spot and he crept out of the bank’s parking lot, following behind, driving south, past Burger King and Walmart and the edge of town. He followed her when she turned onto a dirt road. Her truck kicked up so much dust that part of him worried she’d disappear within the cloud- however, he saw her turn down a driveway after a few miles. He crept past, locking eyes on the place and the truck’s glowing tail lights, and onward still- he’d return after dark. He drove on and when he reached an old cement bridge, he crossed it and pulled off to the side of the road into the tall grass and parked and got out of the truck to stand in the middle of the bridge and to stare down into the water that passed beneath it while he waited for the sun to finish setting.
        An hour later, Andy approached the derelict property on foot, where there were virtually no signs of life- even the dust covered truck looked as if it had been parked for years. Gone was the impenetrable wall of cicada noise that filled Iowa nights from May until October. Like a cat, he cautiously approached the house and looked through the glass panels on the front door, where he saw only vague darkness. However, in the still night, he heard what sounded like a heartbeat. Too drunk to be disturbed, he deduced quickly that the sound wasn’t coming from inside the house.
        He crossed the yard and began down the long driveway, where the truck sat in front of what looked like a shed you can buy pre-built from Home Depot. Sure enough, the heartbeat grew louder as he neared the small building. In tandem, he realized that he was hearing the kick drum of a techno song and also that red light was barely bleeding through the gap beneath the structure’s door. He circled the building, and upon finding a four paneled window on its backside, he looked within.
        The woman had stripped down to a black sports bra and gym shorts. He was surprised to see her tight, well-sculpted body, which she’d hidden well at the farmer’s market beneath her billowy linens. She was stretching in Downward Dog, and to her side was a wall of cages the size of shoeboxes, some with chicken heads sticking out of them. The woman cycled through a few more poses and then pulled a pair of thick gloves from a metal prep table on the opposite side of the room from the cages. She opened a cage and pulled a fat, golden hen from inside with one hand. With her other, she reached up towards the ceiling and pulled down a cable. At the end of the cable, there was a clamp which she attached to the chicken’s reptilian feet. It wobbled in the air while she took off her gloves, bowed her head and closed her eyes. The song, which seemed to be playing from a bluetooth speaker on the table, crescendoed and when the beat dropped, the woman began beating the fuck out of the chicken. She began with swift, strong, calculated punches, treating the chicken like a proper punching bag, her body moving cohesively as a unit, her legs and hips turning with grace, her black bob bouncing as she seemed to synch with the music, which never seemed to end, it just ebbed and flowed- she must have been listening to a recorded mix. Her punches were synched perfectly to the music and Andy’s imagination suggested a sweaty, dank room full of women in spandex somewhere in a large city with a leader-woman in the front of the room mirroring her minions, yelling instructions, encouragement, taking breaks to pace back and forth like a lioness. The chicken swung through the air away from her and when it returned her fist was waiting for it. However, when the song transitioned into a darker one, featuring some unintelligible mantra repeated over brutal synths, the woman began losing control, falling out of sync. She wailed on the chicken, grunting loudly with each punch like an interrogating detective whose partner had stepped away from the other side of the two-way glass for more coffee. Blood and feathers rained from the oscillating chicken and the woman’s feet left grimy smeared footprints on the floor. She ran out of breath and exhausted, turned away from the chicken.
        Andy ducked. He waited a minute or two, crouched, with his eyes closed tight. Abruptly, the song changed to some kind of breathy woman’s incomprehensible singing, melodic babbling, percussed only by gongs and some kind of hand drumming. Andy peaked again to see the woman clipping the chicken’s beak clean off with a pair of pliers. Then, she stripped naked, throwing her sweaty clothes into a corner before kneeling beneath the hanging chicken, whose wings still seized. The woman sucked a mouthful of blood from the chicken’s mouth before reaching up to release the chicken and when she brought the animal between her knees, Andy’s stomach fell out of him into a black place where his mind followed – he lost consciousness.

Andy returned to his body hours later when he was roused by the yodeling of a rooster that had climbed onto his slowly rising and falling chest. His eyes shot open and the rooster peered down, its gizzard precious scarlet, its eyes yellow and its feathers pitch black, the early morning sky dark and purple behind. They stared at each other. Andy felt paralyzed, scared the cock might peck his eyes out. The bird merely stared down at him, seeming to make eye contact with its black-sun pupils as if it was trying to communicate telepathically with him. Slowly, Andy rose and the rooster hopped off into the grass. Andy took another peek into the window only to find the room obscured by blackout curtains. He crept around to find an empty driveway. Hastily, he jogged back to the dirt road, and finding himself quickly exhausted and sore, power-walked down the road to his car and was filled with relief when he found it unscathed. When he looked into the back up camera’s screen, he found the rooster trotting towards the car. Andy honked once and the cock ignored it. He opened the door and the cock was there– it lept and glided over his lap and into the passenger seat where it stood alert for a moment before settling. Andy reached out a knuckle slowly towards the bird’s face and when he was not pecked, massaged the soft, little feathers around the bird’s eyes, feathers that shone with the beautiful half-colors found in pools of oil.
        Andy then drove off down the dirt road, blasting past the woman’s property. When he reached the highway, he turned left instead of right and drove for thirty miles to Ottumwa, the next town over, where instead of a Walmart Neighborhood Market they have a Supercenter, where Andy bought a bag of birdseed and a shotgun.