Ryan Vine
KFC
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you.
—Philip Levine
I slice and dump vacuum-packed bags of raw chicken
into a waist-high aluminum drum—a kind of barrel
on its side—gut the plastic flavor pack, squeeze it in
and wash with water from the swan’s-neck tap whatever’s
left of both bags then splash that in there, too. I shut
the hatch, spin the squeaky drum, chant 1 3 5 bingo
bango bongo fifteen times and slap the side when it’s done.
Kyle’s propped the receiving door open. He’s smoking.
The snowy wind blows the smoke back in.
After
I’ve spun the drum and the seasoning has become
inextricable from chicken skin, I give it one last
rotation, aim the hatch at the wheels, roll the catching
cart into position and pull the sticky, ringed pin. Imagine
disemboweling an aluminum pony: all the raw, wet
noises unraveling. Cold air slides across the floor
like a cast spell and Kyle’s stopped even trying
to blow his smoke out the door.
I’m only sixteen
but when I drop the pieces of dead bird into the batter box
I understand it’s not much bigger than the boxes
these poor birds lived their short lives in. Still, I coat the slippery
chicken in just enough flavored dust, pick ten pieces for a meal
toss them into a rectangular wire basket the size of a bread pan
and lower it into one of the four dirty fryers that Kyle
was supposed to clean. They lean against the wall behind us
smoking like they’re on break.
In the middle of what becomes
my last shift, I slam a bottle of Robitussin and within minutes
I can’t even stand. I push my foot through the floor and watch it
in the basement knock the white buckets around, down by where
we keep the huge American flags washed and folded. You should go
Kyle says. But I don’t want to. Even as he bows by the back door
and I’m sucked into the street, even out here where everything
is sparkling snow—and not the falling kind but the finer stuff
the wind pulls from empty parking lots or apartment rooftops—
I don’t feel like leaving. I’m not bothered by the boulder
my mind’s become, rolling down the hills I’m trying to climb.