o I'm driving, I'm driving down The Strip, one hand in the glove box an eye to the radio when I saw the chicken man. I swear I just about lost it there, just about took out a whole bevy of nuns there on the sidewalk, me not having enough eyes in my head to include the road in my sights. The chicken man was there in front of the new Popeye's: hopping and barking out his pleas to passers-by to come into the place and feast on buffalo wings and we all know what those are. It was a strange and traitorous act, selling out his own kind like that. His massive yellow feathered suit ruffled with the wind and as he paced and as he did his chicken dance, which was three jerky movements forward, three jerky movements back. People tried to avoid him mostly, but he danced in their paths, handed them unwanted flyers, squawked something I couldn't quite make out.

I drove around the block just to glean him again, such a sight as he was, 'cause I couldn't just let this chance pass me by and there was me, pulling alongside at a slow cruise, and there was he, this crazy yellow thing. I leaned out the window.

"Hey chicken man!"

He turned around on his big chicken feet to look at me, stringy-haired white trash hanging half out the window of a faded green '68 Impala that I was. I flipped him my middle finger, bird to bird, and grinned wide and loopy.

"Fuck you, chicken man!" I yelled. And drove.

When I looked in my rearview he was there, running along behind, skinny chicken legs propelling him forward like some demon fowl, his middle finger extended in each hand, pumping out in front of him like a couple of six shooters.

Goddamn, it was the greatest day of my life.

Henry looked up from his cereal at me and gave me one of those older brother stares. He wiped some milk from his upper lip and nodded sagely.

"We're all the Chicken Man," he said, and went back to his cereal.

Asshole.