September, and the days were getting shorter.
The wild turkeys still prowled the fields beyond the fenced off white turkey grounds.
Many of the white turkeys, who were becoming very big breasted began saying things about the wild turkeys like:
"They are really, when you look at them, very dirty looking. Look how white our feathers are and how dark and filthy they look."
Or
"They are an infestation."
Or
"They must carry disease. Bird flu maybe. Best to keep them on their side of the fence."
Or
"They cackle at me, like I'm some sort of floozy. I'm glad that fence is there. They're all rapist turkeys."
The white turkeys took great pride in their white feathers and their red wattles. They strutted around, shoving out their breasts and they complimented each other with, "You look luminously white today."
They told each other, "Farmer Brown's fence is so great. We will not be replaced by those filthy brown turkeys."
But Brooks and Will and Chamberlain, the three turkeys who had met with the goats, walked along the fence and sometimes they spoke with the wild turkeys.
"Rush says Farmer Brown is a wonderful farmer," Brooks told Thomas.
"Oh, Rush said that did he?" said Thomas.
"Yes," Brooks said, unsettled by Thomas's tone. "He did."
"Well," Thomas said, "I guess Rush should know."
"Why is that?" demanded Brooks.
Thomas did not answer, at first, but just kept pecking at the sere. Finally, he stopped and looked up at the three white, worried turkeys on the other side of the fence and he asked: "Did Rush come from the hatchery with you?"
"No," Brooks said. "He was here to greet us, when we arrived."
"Yes. Rush has been here the past three years," Thomas said. "Sean and Rupert, too."
"Oh?" said Brooks.
"Did you ever wonder why there were only three turkeys here to greet you?" asked Thomas, not looking directly at Brooks, but continuing to hunt and peck around the dry grass.
"Well, no."
"There are dozens of chickens," Thomas said. "Those chickens have been here for five, six years. A dozen goats. Goats been around longer. A score of pigs. Two lamas, six years. Twelve cows, seven years." Thomas said. "But there were only three turkeys," and then Thomas lowered his voice pregnantly. "Only three surviving turkeys to greet you."
"'Surviving' turkeys?" asked Chamberlain. "What do you mean: Surviving turkeys?"
"Have you ever asked the goats or the chickens or the pigs what happened to the other turkeys?The turkeys who were here before you?" asked Thomas.
"Before us?" said Brooks.
"You must have noticed the fencing of your yard was not new," said Thomas.
"You did not think you were the first turkeys to have been brought to the farm."
"We were happy to be brought here," Brooks said. "We had heard we would be free range turkeys on Farmer Brown's farm. We had seen, across the road, how other farmers coop up their birds."
"That is true," Thomas said. "I've flown over some of those turkey coops. You can smell the urine from thirty feet up. It's just ...inhuman."
"We are lucky to have Farmer Brown protect us," Chamberlain said.
"Those three--that troika--they are fat and happy turkeys," Thomas said. "They keep you happy. That's their job. That's why Farmer Brown spares them. They are the Judas goats, or Judas turkeys, as it were," said Thomas. "Ask the old goat."
"What is a Judas goat?" asked Will, after Thomas had left.
"I don't know," said Brooks, "But it doesn't sound good."
The old goat was back to his reticent ways, but Delphi confirmed the three turkeys of the troika had been on the farm for at least three years.
"And how many other turkeys have there been here, on the farm?" asked Brooks.
"When?" said Delphi.
"Last year." asked Chamberlain.
Delphi shot the old goat a look and the old goat looked down at the ground, as if he had not heard, as if this conversation had nothing to do with him and that's the way he wanted to keep it.
"I don't rightly recall," said Delphi.
The three turkeys turned to go, when one of the lamas spoke.
The lama spoke with a strong Spanish accent, but the turkeys had no trouble understanding him:
"There were as many turkeys last September as there are right now, this year," the lama said. "Close to two hundred."
"Where did they all go?" asked Brooks.
"Where they always go," said the lama.
"And where is that?"
"Into the big silver van."
"What van?"
"The van comes every November," said the lama. "In the dark days."
"How long have you been on the farm?" Brooks asked the lama.
"Six years," said the lama. "But I am here for my fur. They shear me every Spring. That's all they want from me."
"And what do they want from us?" asked Brooks.
"Not fur," said the lama.
As August bled into September, the white turkeys became more and more convinced they understood their own position on the farm and in the world.
The wild turkeys still skulked around the periphery of the turkey enclosure, but after Farmer Brown's shot gun blast, the wild turkeys did not attempt another incursion at the feeding pots.
The white turkeys, getting fatter and slower by the day, were careful to clear a path for Farmer Brown, as he had shown his temper when he kicked turkeys.
Some of the turkeys, especially the females, muttered that Farmer Brown might not be a very nice man, after all. But that would later be addressed by the troika turkeys, in good time.
Farmer Brown arrived every day and spoke to the turkeys, and told them how important they were, but more and more he spoke of himself.
He told them he was the best farmer to ever farm in the history of the whole world. He also said he was the best businessman ever to have lived and he said he was the richest farmer in the world, the richest farmer who ever lived. He had negotiated a great price for turkey feed and the turkeys would all be winners. He was the greatest negotiator who had ever lived.
Some of the birds, who had been partial to soybeans, noticed there were no more soybeans in the mix, but this was to be explained.
Three of the very fattest white turkeys,who the turkeys called "the troika," Rush, Sean and Rupert took it upon themselves to explain Farmer Brown to the other turkeys: the turkey Rush hopped up on the big hay bale and jumped up and down on his fat legs, sweat rolling down his beak. If you have ever seen a turkey sweat, you would know: a sweaty turkey is a sight most people will not forget and Rush was a very fat, very sweaty turkey.
He explained that the soybean farmers had tried to rip off Farmer Brown on the price of soybeans so Farmer Brown retaliated by charging the soybean farmers a toll. He had erected a large swinging gate at the entrance to the farm, and whenever a truck approached, one of the hired men was there to be sure the driver paid the toll or he would not be allowed to drive his truck into the farm.
Rush explained this was an example of what made Farmer Brown the most brilliant man, the best businessman, the most extraordinary negotiator the world had ever seen, since the dawn of creation.
Turkey Brooks recalled, as Rush declaimed, having seen a truck back up at the gate, the prior week and he thought that had probably been the soybean farmer's truck.
The feed, of late, had become somewhat tasteless and not at all filling. The protein in the soybeans, most of the more knowledgeable turkeys agreed, was filling and without it, the turkeys never felt really sated.
"I do miss the soybeans, " Turkey Will murmured to Brooks under his breath, so as not to be overheard by Turkey Rush, who had moved on to the subject of Farmer Brown's meeting with the fisher cats.
The fisher cats screeched eerily some nights and nobody could sleep. It sounded like the night Chrissie had been murdered. Some of the turkeys were so upset by these night howls they could not eat the next day and some even began to lose weight, and Farmer Brown became alarmed whenever the turkeys lost weight.
So Farmer Brown had cleverly arranged a meeting with the fisher cats and it had gone very well, Rush told them.
Turkey Sean now leaped up on the hay bale and shoved Rush aside and he said, "You should have seen those fisher cats: they just cowered in front of Farmer Brown. They promised they would stop screeching at night, anywhere within ear shot of the turkey enclosure."
He paused for effect:
"They said they would not attempt to dig under the fence and they would eat no more turkeys from Farmer Brown's farm, if only Farmer Brown would not aim his shotgun at them," Turkey Sean said.
"Any more turkeys?" asked turkey Chamberlain.
Sean said, "Well, you remember...Chrissie. That time we found Chrissie's head..."
"But I thought the wild turkeys killed Chrissie," said Will.
"What stupid turkey you are," shouted Sean. "What turkey could decapitate another turkey? No, that was the fisher cats. Don't you remember the screeching the night before we found Chrissie?"
Brooks raised his head above the crowd of turkeys: "Farmer Brown said the wild turkeys killed Chrissie. I remember."
That's when turkey Rupert jumped up on the hale bale, and he shoved Sean aside and he pushed Rush off the bale altogether.
"You remember?" Rupert taunted Brooks.
"Yes," said Brooks. "I thought it odd that a turkey could behead another turkey, so I remember."
"Memory!" Rupert sneered. "Is so last week."
"So last week?" Brooks repeated, not understanding.
"What is memory but a malleable, easily contaminated and distorted thing? You remember Farmer Brown saying it was wild turkeys. I remember him telling his hired men to dig a barrier under the fence. Turkeys, wild turkeys at least, can fly over any fence. Why you'd need a roof over this yard to keep out wild turkeys.
No, Farmer Brown knew it was the fisher cats who got Chrissie. That's why he had his men dig the barrier trench."
"It didn't make much sense," Brooks admitted.
"Because your memory is fake news," laughed Rupert. "Phony memories."
"But..." Brooks stammered.
"Memory is not to be trusted. All that matters is what we say now."
And all the white turkeys nodded. Yes, memory could not be trusted. Memory is past and the past does not matter."
"All that matters is what we say now," Brooks repeated.
Then Rupert looked over the flock and said, "Some of you have spoken to me about how frightened you were when Farmer Brown kicked you out of his way, as he was leaving. But that was a show of strength. Farmer Brown is a strong man. A man who gets his way. A man who can protect you. You don't want some candy ass, fearful man dealing with fisher cats, foxes or wild turkeys. You need a strong man."
"A strong man is good for turkeys," Brooks said to himself. "That sounds right."
For the rest of July, the white turkeys grew fatter and happier. Farmer Brown's men brought their feed every morning at 10 AM and sometimes added some creamy mix which was delectable and they ate that and got fatter still.
The wild turkeys appeared like shadows every morning just before sun rise and pecked around the field outside the fence and they returned at dusk and fed near by.
The fields were going dry, outside the fence. Foraging for the wild turkeys was getting harder.
"Summers are getting hotter," Thomas was heard to say. "The fields are drying up into a sere."
There were no more incursions inside the fenced in yard, no more beheadings, no more bloody feathers.
In the dark, the white turkeys could some nights hear the wild turkeys calling to each other and sometimes they heard a fisher cat scream, which was blood curdling, but no fisher cat ever got by the fence.
With August, the fields turned to dust in places and , in the grazing fields where the wild turkeys roamed, the pickings were slim.
One morning, just after Farmer Brown had filled the feeding bins, a wild turkey swooped down and edged in among the white turkeys at the feeding bins. He was careful to not shove any white turkeys aside, because he seemed to understand the feed was for the white turkeys, but he looked famished and he ate what he could.
"I'm sorry," the wild turkey said. "But that feed looked so moist and plentiful and we are hungry, all of us. I'll not bother you."
The white turkeys were startled. They were startled because this had never happened before and they were startled because the wild turkey seemed to come out of nowhere, dropping out of the clouds, as it were. And they were startled to see how the fence did nothing to prevent the wild turkey from flying in.
And the fact was, there really was plenty of feed. The white turkeys never even finished it; they just ate until they could eat no more, so the polite wild turkey had only to stand back for fifteen minutes and he could feed.
Suddenly, a boom and blast and the wild turkey seemed jolted, as if he had touched the electric fence along the cow pasture, and he fell heavily where he had stood.
Farmer Brown appeared, holding his smoking shot gun in his right hand and with his left, he lifted the wild turkey by the neck.
"This bird tried to get in to steal your food," Farmer Brown boomed. "There is not enough of the good, rich feed for wild turkeys and prize white turkeys. This yard is full."
The white turkeys nodded and agreed, although they were a little shocked to see a turkey shot dead. They agreed it was unfortunate but necessary. Farmer Brown had acted for their benefit.
Through the gate on the goat pen side, the goats watched the events.
Brooks waddled over to where Delphi the goat was standing. Brooks was getting fatter and broader and moved with some effort.
"Farmer Brown does protect us," Brooks told the goat.
"Well," said the goat. "He does kill turkeys."
"A wild, brown, dark turkey," Brooks objected. "Who was trespassing."
"He can't sell wild turkey meat," Delphi noted. "He doesn't want to waste his feed on them."
Another indicator of my aging out of popular culture and folkways is my antipathy toward hugging and strong preference for handshakes.
Hugging strikes me as an inappropriate expression of phony intimacy and it's used for all sorts of occasions when less connection exists than a hug would suggest. Greeting a nephew I haven't seen in a while, a kid I like a lot but am not bosom buddies with, an old and precious friend of my wife, but someone I do not share that intimate connection with, and even my sons, with whom the bond is as deep as any I know, but still, we have always shaken hands from the time they were little kids.
Shaking hands allows you to look the person in the eye and to exchange silent communication of love, pride, relief, congratulations, regret, anticipation, concern, sympathy.
Hugging does none of that. It's a cheap way out of having to actually connect with a person who you might really not know all that well or even want to know that well.
It's often a phony expression of more feeling than you actually feel. It's most often trotted out for cousins, nephews, in laws, friends you never really liked and haven't seen in a while but you are supposed to feel affection for.
In my 20's I dated a girl for much longer than I should have, but I was struck, watching her be introduced to a man, how she shook his hand. Her back was straight and she offered her hand directly and forthrightly and she smiled smartly, but not with any seduction, simple, forthright, she seemed to convey, "I'm not at all intimidated. I'm glad to meet you as you might be an interesting person, but I'm not going to take the next step now. We are simply introduced now."
All that is lost with the gooey, phony, hug.
It's the same bucket as referring to "your father" as "your Dad." Good Lord, spare me. He is your father. She is your mother, not your "Mom" except, perhaps to you. Let you call her "Mom." That is your special privilege. Do not intrude on that space if she is not your own "Mom."
Inappropriate, forced causal is infused in American life today. George W. Bush was relentless in this. One thing, maybe the only thing, you can say for Donald Trump is he wears dark suits and silk ties and he doesn't "Mom" a lot of people, at least not that I've heard.
Formality conveys respect. Calling someone "Mr." does not distance that person. It conveys respect.
Get over it.
For several days after the meeting with the goats, the three turkeys who were there said nothing to the rest of the flock.
Farmer Brown fed them every day and a hired man raked out the turkey poop and the weather was clear and the air smelled sweet.
Every day, Farmer Brown hopped up on a hay bale and took a deep breath and spoke boldly to the turkeys.
"You are so lucky to be on my farm!" he told them. "On other farms you would be penned into a coop where you could barely breathe and barely move. And the stench in those coops could knock a cat off a fish cart. Those turkeys are living in squalor. Here, you have freedom. You can roam all over this yard."
The turkeys had heard from the crows they were much better off on Farmer Brown's farm than other turkeys.
"There is a farm just three miles from here, as the crow flies," said one of the crows "Where all the turkeys are kept inside a long, low building and they cannot move, they are packed in so tightly."
"It's clean here," the turkeys said. They could see the pig sty across the road and they knew they had it better than the pigs.
"We are very lucky to live on Farmer Brown's farm," the turkeys told each other.
The farmer came every day with feed and filled the six pots set out in the fence in turkey yard.
"You are free range turkeys," Farm Brown told them every day. "You are the most free turkeys there are. You are free to roam around this vast yard freely."
As the turkeys clustered around the pots and ate, the farmer spoke to them.
"I started this farm ten years ago and everybody said I was crazy. They said I couldn't succeed. They said I'd go belly up in a year. But all those 'experts' were wrong. This was a good farm back in the day, but then the newspaper, the 'Hampshire Crier' said farming was doomed and everyone should sell their farms and go to town and work as clerks in stores. The newspaper people are so dishonest. You can never believe a word they say. But I bought this farm and I proved them all totally wrong. And now I'm going to make this farm great again. The 'Crier' prints lies every day about how this farm is failing. But it's going to be a winner! You turkeys will make this farm a winner, because you are all winners!"
The turkeys listened and swelled up their oversized breasts and said, "We will make this farm great again."
But then one night a piercing shrieking such as the turkeys had never heard split the night darkness and every bird awoke, terrified. The screeching went on for only a few minutes, but it seemed like hours and then nothing. The birds' eyes, huge with alarm, found each other in the darkness, but presently, everyone settled back down to sleep.
The next morning, they found the blood and the feathers. It was hard to imagine a turkey could have so much blood inside, and the feathers, white and pure, but some drenched in blood were scattered near the fence. Then they found the head. It was so mangled and distorted, the turkeys could not recognize who it was. The neck had been sliced off, as if with a knife. Some very sharp teeth would have been required for that.
And under the fence a tunnel, and the drag marks and feathers showed clearly where the unfortunate turkey had been dragged under and dragged out into the field.
Turkeys ran to and fro, calling out names of friends and eventually one turkey was determined to be missing: Chrissie, that big breasted, snow white bird who some turkeys remembered, but some had not ever really known her; some remembered her, walking around the enclosure sticking out her breast. Now her head lay on the bloody dirt, her feathers bloodied, scattered about.
Farmer Brown arrived that morning, with two hired men and they looked at the blood and the feathers and the hired men looked at the hole under the fence and the farmer told them they would have to dig a trench and fill it with planks to prevent another incursion.
Then he turned to the turkeys and spoke in a loud voice from deep in his chest:
"The wild turkeys have done this. The wild turkeys are determined to get into this enclosure. First, they'll go for the females, and you know what they want with the females. Then, they'll go after the males.
First they do beheadings.
Then they rape.
Then they murder.
And wild turkeys carry disease and the death of those left behind will be slow and ugly. The wild turkeys will infest this flock, unless we resist.
But my men will dig a trench. And I'll make this fence high enough so they cannot fly over it and when it is complete, you will be safe. You are my beautiful, white turkeys. I'll keep you safe."
The birds clustered together in smaller groups, and they agreed, most of them, they were lucky to have the farmer to protect them.
A few turkeys remained quiet. The three who had met with the goats were particularly silent.Brooks said he would arrange another meeting with the goats.
That night the three turkeys met with the goats:
"Farmer said the wild turkeys took Chrissie," Brooks told the goats.
Again, the old goat said nothing, but the young goat, Delphi, asked, "Do you believe the farmer? Do you think the wild turkeys got under the fence and got Chrissie?"
"I cannot understand how a turkey could slice through a neck and decapitate another turkey. Pecking eyes out, yes. But that?"
"More likely," said Delphi. "A fox. Or a fisher cat."
"But the farmer is digging a trench to protect us," Brooks said hopefully. "And he'll build the fence so high the turkeys cannot fly over it."
For the first time, the old goat spoke: "He is protecting his investment."
"I don't understand," said Brooks, who was as startled to hear the old goat speak as he was confused by what he said.
The old goat's voice sounded as if it bubbled up from some deep well.
"Without you," said the old goat. "He loses his farm."
"But why?"
"You," said the old goat. "Are his cash crop. He can sell off a few pigs now and then. He can sell the milk from the cows and the chickens' eggs, but you are what keeps his cash flow going. He grows no crops. All he has for cash is you."
"But he is building the fence so high..." the turkey Chamberlain expostulated.
"Have you ever seen a wild turkey fly?" asked the old goat.
"No," the white turkeys admitted.
"I've seen them at the tops of those trees," said the old goat. "No fence can contain them."
Back among the flock the three turkeys thought about what the old goat had said.
"What does he know?" asked Chamberlain "He's just an old goat."
"Those wild turkeys are the real problem," said Will. "They are not like us. If it weren't for the fence, they would be in here ravishing our females and pecking our eyes out."
Just then, the hedgehog popped out of the ground and expostulated, "He is going to kill you and take the money."
Then he disappeared under ground again.
"That hedgehog is getting on my nerves," said Chamberlain.
"He might work for the newspaper," Will said.
"The hedgehog," said Brooks, "is not clever."
"The farmer is very smart." Chamberlain observed. "Very clever."
"The hedgehog knows only one thing." Brooks said.
And then he added, "But he knows it very well."
