The doctors had told him to be prepared for strange dreams and even nightmares, but such a slight warning had not prepared him for this. He woke, first, in the recovery room, so called, which was nothing more than a space partitioned by curtains where several patients, mutilated, attached to machinery, lay, their presence known to each other only by beeping and faint chirps and moans. It was when he woke on the fourth floor that he had his first hint.
Joy sat at his side, dark eyes gleaming with excitement when his eyes fluttered open. “Hey, guy,” were her first words. His wife had a knack for perkiness and enthusiasm.
He groaned a bit, lifting his right arm to notice an IV taped halfway down, before saying, “Have you seen the rooster?” The words coming out surprised him.
“Seen the what?” said Joy.
“You heard me. Rooster. The big guy with the red. . . .” I said, turning a bit in the bed, trying to adjust where my gown had caught behind one leg.
“Roger, are you feeling okay?” Now she was standing, coming nearer. “Can I feel your forehead?” Behind her the window showed a faint gray light. Was it morning? or dusk?
“Will they be bringing any food?” he asked.
“The doctor was by about an hour ago,” Joy said. “They’re pleased with the surgery and said your new heart is doing great. All signs go.” She touched his brow with her right hand and stepped back. He could see the rumpled top and pants she must have slept in. Behind her was a cot with mussed sheets, a pillow, a laptop.
“And did they say anything about food? getting up?” Roger said. “Will they bring a tray or just scatter it on the floor?”
Joy’s face twisted a bit near her eyes. “Your head felt all right,” she said, “But I’m going to ask the nurse. . . .” She didn’t complete her sentence and was out the door, turning to the right.
Something felt different for Roger. He could sense a faint pressure in his chest and his gown there was curiously bumpy as though something lay underneath. Stitches, he thought, and a bandage. In other ways, though, Roger had a curious sense of calm. His old heart had been disintegrating, dying, and he hadn’t been sure he’d ever get off the transplant list alive. So many didn’t. When the doctors had said “We have a heart for you,” it was a jolt of news. Unsure of today’s date, all Roger knew was that Joy had answered the phone, told him the news, and in thirty minutes they’d been in the car on the way to the hospital. A bag packed that was thrown into the back seat. Cell phones, chargers, laptop, reading material, snacks for Joy.
There was a checklist and it was activated, like a war plan. Their son, alerted, would come over to feed the cat and water plants in window boxes and on the deck. Their lawyer would get a call about wills, just in case. The newspaper would be suspended, their mail delivery halted, and either he’d live or die in the O.R. Here he was, though, so he had lived after all.
They had given him a hen’s heart. In his previous life, Roger had not liked surprises. If he took the car in for an oil change and the mechanic told him he needed to replace CV joints or brake rotors, he would go ballistic: pointing at the mechanic, accusing him of malfeasance, telling Joy she had failed to maintain the car, complaining to everyone he knew that garages soaked you for your bank balance just to keep in the black themselves. Curious, then, how the certain knowledge of what beat in his chest did not bother him. On the contrary, he was hungry, and ready for corn or mealy bugs. What are mealy bugs, he wondered. Joy should be back soon.
***
She was going to be trouble, Joy was. Nearly two weeks had now passed and today was liberation day: they were leaving the hospital at last. Friends had offered help on the transition and their son Cliff, too, volunteered for nursing. Cliff had a meeting, though, in Middleville, so Joy had said, “Go, go! We’ll be fine. Come by later in the day when you’re back in town.” Roger silently agreed.
“You know the rule about the wheelchair, Roger,” Joy said, nodding at the attendant.
“Yes, Roger, here you go.” The attendant’s words were clipped, professional. “I’ll help you
downstairs for your ride.” She plunked a plastic bag full of prescription bottles into his lap. “Hold this, will you?”
In the short time at Metropolitan Hospital, Roger had learned to keep his mouth shut on a
number of items. Useless to tell them he was hungry for corn and mealy bugs. Doubly useless to tell
them that a walk, a chance to ruffle his feathers, was therapeutic. Joy had grown positively nutty
about his talk of feed. Every day she had insisted on yogurt, the use of a spoon, and drinking milk.
He had a hankering for rainwater and a few pecks at weeds, but kept his beak shut.
Each day in the hospital had a comforting routine, like a barnyard, with rules of the sun, the weather, and the flock. At sunup the doctors came. It was called “rounds,” a performance that Joy found exhilarating and Roger quite the opposite. Feeding time came shortly thereafter, following “inspection” time and meds. Once Roger had gotten used to the system, lagging a bit behind Joy it’s true, he learned to answer only direct questions, to offer no commentary of his own, and to watch the head rooster carefully.
“How are you feeling today, Roger?” said the white-coated one.
“Good, real good.” Roger’s eyes flicked toward the window. Morning again. Would it rain?
“We want to run some more blood tests this morning, Roger, and also have the occupational therapist stop by today. If the tests look good, if the O.T. report is good, we’ll be okaying a release later today.”
Roger heard this with relief. After the visit with the psychiatrist, he had been worried. He had heard a nurse mention a “psych” ward and though he didn’t know clearly what it meant, he envisioned a large pen and a roving black and white dog.
“What blood tests, Doctor?” This was Joy with her endless questions. She took her advocate role very seriously, a worrisome intervention, especially when it came to his mental state. Thank god she hadn’t been allowed to remain in the room when the psychiatrist came. And that he had managed, later, to finesse the report and blame some of his medication. He’d never take that Vicodin again. Well, that’s what he’d told them.
***
As a heart transplant patient, one perk was: doctors came to him. After a week as an in-patient, Roger was able to get up from bed, walk with some assistance, use the bathroom in his room, and participate in limited physical therapy. When the knock on his door came, Roger thought it would be the PT person; instead, here was a face he did not recognize. She was dark-haired, thin, slight of build. Of course she wore the requisite name tag and white coat.
“I’m Dr. Edwards; Ran Edwards, short for Randy.” She stuck out her small cool hand which he took.
“PT again?” Roger asked. He hadn’t remembered it on the schedule. He definitely did not know this doctor.
“No, I’m here to ask you a few questions about your operation, Roger, and how you’re doing since. Is that okay with you?” Dr. Edwards’s eyes were dark. She stared right at him and did not glance away.
“I guess so. Is this a survey?”
“Not really. It’s more a follow-up on your mental health.” Now Dr. Edwards took out a small notebook from her inside pocket. “Your date of surgery, was that June 1st?”
“Something like that. My wife Joy always handles the details. She went home to. . . .” Roger stopped mid sentence.
“That’s okay. Just tell me a bit about how you felt after the surgery. Start at the beginning.” Dr. Edwards had pulled over a stool and balanced on its seat.
“I woke up just fine, if that’s what you mean. I was a bit surprised about the hen heart and I understand that the rooster won’t confirm it, but I know what’s up.” Roger lifted his right arm and shook it a bit. “My wing gets really stiff from just sitting.”
Dr. Edwards was scratching a few things on a notepad with her pen.
“What were your indications of the ‘hen heart,’ as you call it.” She was looking at me intently again. It made Roger look behind him; was that look for him? He lifted his left arm and shook it.
“Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. I woke, I felt better, but things were different right away. I felt feathery, wanted to peck the ground. Roosters were all over the place, and I looked up to them.”
This speech was the longest Roger had made in awhile, a risk, but worth taking if she could get it.
“Did you talk to your doctor?” She paused, pen in mid-air.
“I caught on to the secrecy right away. The research project. The inflammatory nature of organ transplant from another species. I can keep my beak shut.”
“But how would it work to have a hen’s heart in a human, Roger? Isn’t the size a bit off?” Again, the pen, the pause.
“Size? Look, I understand logical objections, but I know how I feel. They gave me a hen’s heart, and I’m fine with it. My wife doesn’t want to admit it but it’s the case. I just want to get out of here now and find a good barnyard.” Roger paused. Why did he add that last sentence? why couldn’t he learn not to offer comments?
“Barnyard?” Dr. Edwards’s stare was flat, intense.
“I’m going to find my flock. Whatever it takes.” Color seemed to have risen in the doctor’s face. The notebook went away.
“Thanks for your time, Roger. I appreciate your feedback.” And she was gone on those whispery soft soled shoes. Just one hasty rather wild-eyed look back.
***
Now the parade down the hall to the elevator, down, and out. The hospital floors gleamed. Art work looked out brightly from corners.
“So my tests were good?” Roger asked Joy, turning his head so his words reached her, pushing his chair.
“Yes. They asked about your mental state too, wanting to know if you still felt odd. I told them. . . .”
Her words were fading out. The elevator door had just been about to close when a tall white coated man had entered. Rooster, he thought, and a gorgeous one! What I wouldn’t give. . . .
“Are you listening?” Joy demanded.
“Yes,” Roger promptly said. “Yeah, I haven’t had any more sensations,” he lied.
“Good. Because that shrink was ready to admit you.”
“I’m telling you, she never asked about my meds. That vicodin did weird things to my head. And then, you know, there’s metaphor.” Roger enjoyed the sensation of being wheeled along. The wheels made a soothing whoosh. Out of the elevator, across the lobby. Almost free.
“Yeah, sure, the hospital as barnyard. Roger,” Joy said. “Don’t get into that now.”
***
The moon cast a white path, eerie, across backyard grass. Then a voice, “Geez, Roger. What in hell are you doing out here?” Joy, and not happy to see him. They’d been home just one day.
On the screened porch Roger had found himself attracted to their rattan settee. It had the faint odor of barnyard straw, very faintly of course, and he had scrunched himself up, huddling on the cushion against one arm as though it were a companion hen.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Roger said.
“Come back to bed, please. It’s four a.m. and this cool air isn’t good for you,” Joy always piled up her reasons. Sensible even now, she wore a robe and slippers. Roger was in boxer shorts and a thin t-shirt.
“I want a divorce.” He paused for the words to sink in. “I need to get out of here. The house is driving me nuts.” Roger’s words seemed to have no effect on Joy that he could see. Had she stopped taking him seriously? he wondered.
“Bed, Roger. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
***
They’d been married for twenty-seven years, years mostly happy like any married couple. Biggest accomplishment? Raising Cliff. And having careers, travel, some good times. But now Roger had been keeping things to himself ever since the operation. After he’d mentioned the hen heart and Joy freaked out, well, it was clear they had big differences. He was ready to embrace this new life, find a flock, start over in a new place—Joy’s solution was a shrink, “telling all” to the doctors. Well, he wasn’t falling into that trap. A hen heart was not what he had expected but he liked how he felt: he was now a follower, gentle, a warm egg-layer (he hoped, once he got resettled). Back in bed with Joy, reluctantly, Roger’s dreams were anything but fearful. No foxes or raccoons in these imaginings. No, he smelled straw and snoozed to the gentle, lulling clucking of a flock of similar birds. There was a delicious warmth.
***
At breakfast, she started in.
“I suggest we take a drive. Maybe Marne or Coopersville. So you can see some of the countryside.” Although Joy’s words were reasonable, Roger sense an iciness in her tone. She lifted her coffee cup and sipped. She had offered him none.
“What if I want to go alone?”
“Not a good idea. Too many meds still. And we have an appointment later.” Roger vaguely remembered a follow-up appointment. “Convenient to just swing back through town for that.” Joy huffed up then and clattered dishes into the sink. “I’m taking a shower. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”
Roger took his cereal out on the screened porch where he could sniff straw and grass. The morning was cool. Most of the backyard lay in shadow from the tall oaks. “I wonder if I’ll miss this,” he mused. “I wonder if Joy will have to sell and move to a condo.” He touched his chest where the sternum still ached a bit, especially in the mornings. “Keep going, heart,” he said softly, “we’ll get home somehow.”
***
The drive along the interstate was brisk. Everything was in leaf, and green swaths of light fell across fields, trees, bushes. They passed an abandoned orchard with stunted trees near the highway, but apples gleamed between leaves.
“Let’s get off here,” Joy said, pointing to the sign that said Coopersville. “There are farms out here.” They passed, at the interchange, fast food joints and a Shell gas station. Quickly enough they were on a two-lane road, Joy setting cruise control down a notch at 55 m.p.h.
“Open the window,” she said. “Let’s get some country air.”
Up ahead on the right Roger could see some silver silos in a group of three, some low buildings that were long as fields, and behind it all, a farmhouse with a green roof. The air did smell differently—organic, really, was the word he would use. Then when a gust hit him as Joy slowed the car down to turn, maybe even ripe.
“Why are we stopping?” Roger chirped out. He was bouncing a bit in his seat, excited as a pullet.
Joy turned and gave him a look. “You wanted to see a chicken farm. Here we are.” At that, she pulled up in a cloud of tire dust, squirreling in on the gravel and stopping just short of what looked like an entrance to one of the low-slung buildings, a sliding metal door, a ramp, and a regular sized door with a dusty window.
“Get out,” she said. “Let’s see if we can have a look around.”
***
Later, Roger asked himself if Joy’s cruel streak had ever been so noticeable. Later, when he couldn’t get the terrible images of cages out of his mind, the awful smell of chicken shit out of his nose, he wondered if anyone had ever dealt him such a raw hand.
There had been row upon row of chickens in cages. Chickens who couldn’t stand up in the wire cages, who had pecked off the feathers of the bird next to them due to stress, birds without eyes, some with sores on their skin.
In less than five minutes, Roger had said, “Please, Joy, let’s go.”
“Go?” she said. “We’re just getting started.” He watched her back walking away before he turned and bolted for the door. Outside he leaned over, catching his breath, trying not to shake. He needed water but she had locked the car. He looked for a patch of shade, walking slowly to it, then crouching down on his haunches sat there to wait.
***
Roger was still shaken during the drive back home. Joy turned up the radio to a contemporary jazz station, tapping her hand on the steering wheel in time, seemingly unaffected by their visit.
“So that could be your new life,” she said finally.
Briefly Roger had a vision of himself in a large cage, then on a conveyor belt, stripped and bleeding, heading for execution.
“It’s not what I had in mind,” he said.
“We have that follow-up appointment this afternoon at 3,” her voice, matter-of-fact.
Roger decided quickly, “I’ll go by myself, Joy. I can take a taxi.”
And so it happened that Roger met with his doctor alone, agreeing to the usual proddings and pokings, blood pressure, temperature, disrobing and climbing onto the examining table. Later he stopped downstairs for blood drawing. His real goal, however, was a trip back out to the country, this time to a barnyard more suitable with his vision.
The taxi driver was surprised at the name, but Roger simply added, “It’s a farm. Here’s the address.” He handed over a slip of paper. The driver appeared to be Middle Eastern, quickly tapping the numbers and street name into his GPS and handing the slip back.
When Roger first saw the sign, the words “Crane Dance” in green cut into a large oak slab, he knew this was going to be more like it. Underneath, in small letters, it said “eat wild.” There was a small yellow house nestled under a stand of cottonwood trees. Lilacs wafted their scent across the lawn, and he glimpsed a hammock tied with stout rope between two smaller trees. It’s true there was that slight organic, ripe smell again. He could see a corral with a white fence, pens with tall green wire fencings surrounding them, white chickens outside scrabbling on the dirt. On the house’s other side, he saw fields in neat rows, plants that appeared to be corn, along with other smaller plants, maybe lettuce, onions. A green tractor puttered along a dirt track.
“I’ll be here about an hour,” Roger said to the driver. “Can you come back?”
“You will have to pay,” said Abdul-Salam.
“Yes, fine.” This as Roger shut the cab door, moving toward a red headed woman coming out from the field, a woman in jeans, t-shirt, tall green boots.
Over the next hour, Roger relaxed in his skin more than he had since the surgery. Following Ruby through the fields, stopping with her to feed the chickens, he listened closely to her talk of ethics and farming, animal rights and food.
Would this be a place where he could live? Roger wondered. He did not broach the subject with her. How to bring up his hen heart?
Finally, Ruby had turned to him, though. “What’s your interest in Crane Dance, Roger? Are you going to start a farm?”
“Looking for a place to live,” Roger said as he studied Ruby’s face. Beneath red eyebrows, her eyes were a clear gray green. “See I had some surgery, and ever since then I’ve felt . . . well, . . . close to chickens.” He wanted to see how she took this.
“Surgery can often cause some life changes. Let’s go down to the barn.” Ruby hadn’t blanched at his comment. Roger wondered if she could hear him over the roar of the tractor.
The barn really wasn’t a good idea after all. Roger again felt queasy as he had in the morning; it wasn’t just the hens in cages—which they return to voluntarily, said Ruby. It was the smell of manure, the constant clucking, the rooster calling from outside. Roger had seen the rooster fly at a hen, too, scratching her with his yellow claws, and then Ruby told him that the feet have spurs—quite sharp. It’s how the rooster establishes his position in the barnyard. Somehow the whole scene made him wonder how he’d fit in, whether he could take the rooster flying at him. Egg laying had seemed vaguely interesting to him, but he hadn’t thought about the impregnation part. Ugh! was his only word for that.
By the time, Abdul-Salam returned, Roger was ready to go. “Come back any time!” chirped Ruby. They had exchanged phone numbers. Waving as the taxi pulled away, Roger felt his own insincerity. Would he be back? Somehow he doubted it. Just where do I belong?
***
On the screened porch that night, trying to sleep, Roger fretted. Fireflies winked in the grass and bushes, but he could see nothing. He touched his sternum. When Joy had fixed dinner, Roger had begged off. “Just not hungry, Joy. Sorry,” he had told her.
Now Roger tried to see if his appetite revived if he thought of bugs, insects. He could see a Japanese beetle hanging outside the screen and a fat earthworm curled near the deck in moisture from the sprinkler. Neither was appealing. His stomach felt empty.
“I’m still moving out,” Roger had told Joy. “I’m not sure where I’ll go but I feel too confined.” Her face had gone flat at his words. With an abrupt move, she had risen and taken her silverware and plate to the kitchen. Roger heard the dishwasher rack slide in.
“Suit yourself,” floated back from the kitchen. “Let me know how it works out.”
Roger heard the door slam, the car engine start.
Now he wondered, what had the doctor said the other day, “How are you doing with the pills—the immunosuppressants?” He gave Roger an unsmiling look.
“What did you say, ‘suppressants’?” Roger picked his fingernail. “I meant to ask you, what are they suppressing?”
“The transplanted organ came from someone else, Roger. We’re trying to ease that process with pharmacology. Immunosuppressants take the edge off.” The doctor was looking at the laptop screen. “Tissue rejection. Feelings of . . . .”
Should he say anything now, Roger wondered. “Does anyone ever feel changed by their new organ, taking on characteristics of—.” He stopped.
“Of course,” said Dr. Ashmead. “Competely normal. And they usually pass in a couple of months.”
***
“I’m going to volunteer at Crane Dance,” Roger told Joy the next morning. “It’s a farm out in Marne. I’ve been thinking. . . .” he looked across the green tablecloth at her tired face, “thinking I’ve been pretty unfair to you.”
Behind her head, a bluejay landed at the suet feeder. The bird bobbed and pecked.
“You’ve been through a lot.” Joy concentrated on her toast, reaching for some butter.
“I’ll stay, Joy, but I need some time to adjust. Once I retired, once this surgery happened, well—.” He stopped. “I want to work in dirt, touch the grass and growing things. I’m a little sick of being human.” These weren’t the words he had practiced saying. Still, they were his words.
Joy reached across the table and patted his hand. “I understand,” she said. “And what about the ‘hen heart’ business? Are you giving that up?”
Roger was grateful she didn’t grin.
“I’m taking the drugs. They seem to work.” He stood, watching the red bellied woodpecker they both admired going at the suet after scaring away a wren.
“That feathery sensation seems to have passed. Maybe for good.” Roger was done with the discussion now. He felt as tired as he had before the heart transplant but a nap seemed like the best idea. In a bed, he thought, and maybe with Joy.
“I’m going to lie down,” he said. “Do you want to come?”
Patricia Clark is a poet with seven books of poetry, most recently O Lucky Day )2025). She has a book of short stories forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2027 and this story will be included. Recently she won a Pushcart Prize for a poem in O Lucky Day.