The Majolica Chicken
The drunken man came home with his head separated, as it were, from his body. Wild-eyed and frothing at the mouth, the head shouted as it hovered above the kitchen table. The body, meanwhile, suited in black wool and vomit-soiled on the left shoulder, buckled and swayed around the kitchen. His right hand unbuttoned his jacket, pulling off several buttons in the process, which clicked to the floor and scattered across the tiles. His left hand reached for a serrated knife from the knife block and waved it around. His head shouted at the little wife, who was hugging a broom in the corner.
“What have you prepared for dinner!”
“Chicken,” said the wife, “and fish, as you requested.”
The head veritably spun around, spewing curses and spitting.
“Chicken and fish!” it cried. “Are you mad! Are you a madwoman? Who eats chicken and fish together? Not I. Not I. Not I!”
“But you said …”
“I said? I said!”
The head squeezed its eyes shut and belched and would likely have vomited had it still been attached to the body. The body, on its own mission, staggered about, bumping into the kitchen island and knocking over the wooden butter churn. Luckily the wife had emptied it earlier.
The head wanted to drink from the uncorked wine bottle on the table and even tried to hover close to it and fit its lips around the opening with no success.
“Help me!” it cried. “Help me with this! I need to drink!”
Still clutching the broom handle, the wife stepped out of the corner and walked over to the table. She grasped the bottle and lifted it to the hovering head. She tried to tip some wine into the gaping mouth, but the head did not hold steady and the wine spilled to the floor.
“Look what you’ve done!” cried the head. “You’re useless! You’re a useless woman!”
Long acclimated to such verbal abuse, the wife set the bottle back on the table. The chicken she had roasted and the fish she had poached grew cold on their plates. The head had scarcely glanced at the plates. All it could do was complain about her cooking the fish in addition to the chicken. But her husband had requested the two and had insisted on no vegetables or potatoes or rice.
The body slumped down against the pantry with one knee up and a forearm resting across it. A foul smell rose from it. The wife suspected it had soiled itself. This had happened on more than one occasion. And she had been forced to clean it up. Of course she did so without complaint, for she was a good wife, loved her husband, cared about him, and wanted the best for him. But she didn’t think she would do anything of the sort on this evening.
“What kind of chicken is this?” cried the hovering head.
She did not answer that question.
“The fish smells foul,” the head said. “It all smells foul. You’re terrible. You’re a terrible cook.”
The wife stepped closer to the head, still holding the broomstick.
“That chicken,” said the head, “that chicken looks like the majolica chicken your mother gave us for a wedding gift. Remember that hideous thing? It was terrible. Your mother’s terrible.”
The wife had all but forgotten about the majolica chicken, a red-and-brown object of exquisite beauty from Italy that her husband had destroyed with a dropkick one evening after a particularly excessive and violent drinking binge.
“Fix me something else,” the head demanded, hovering near her head. “Fix me some pasta. Yes, some pasta with sardines. I want pasta with sardines.”
“Okay,” said the wife, averting her face as her husband’s head smelled like maggoty casu marzu. “Some pasta with sardines.”
As the head hovered with lidded eyes, the little wife lifted the broomstick and pulled it back over her shoulder. Then she torqued her hips and swung the broomstick around at her husband’s head, walloping it out of the air with a dull thunk. It flew across the kitchen and struck the stovepipe before falling on the stovetop with its eyes shut. It made no further sound.
With her things already packed in her portmanteau, the little wife put on a smart blue jacket and some red high heels she had recently purchased in the village. Now she did something curious. She grabbed the fish she had poached for her husband, walked over to the head resting on the stovetop, and stuffed it into the mouth, headfirst.
“Enjoy,” she said.
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