Stephen Dixon - His Wife Leaves Him

Free range chicken jokes. They usually made them up on long car trips between Baltimore and New York and New York and Maine. He thinks the first time was when she said, just after they crossed the bridge from Portsmouth into Maine, that what she wants to do soon as they get settled in the house is go to Sunset Acres Farm in North Brooksville for goat cheese and a free range chicken. “I’ve been longing to roast one for a while and theirs are the plumpest and freshest.” One of the kids said “What’s a free range chicken?” and she told her. That’s when he, out of nowhere, it seemed, came up with the first of about a hundred free range chicken jokes they made between them, or, as he once put it, “laid.” He said to Maureen, he thinks it was, “That’s not all you should know about free range chickens. Did you know that free range chickens love opera? And do you know what their favorite opera is?” and she said “I don’t know opera,” and he said to Gwen “You?” and she said “No.” He said “ La Bohen .” “Oh, that’s terrible,” she said, and he said “So do one better, though I didn’t think it so bad. The free range chicken joke world is rich with bohential.” “Now I get it,” Maureen said, and Gwen said “That one’s better. All right. What’s a free range chicken’s favorite musical?” and he said “I don’t know,” and she said “Maureen? Rosalind?” and Maureen said “We don’t know either,” and she said “ Bye Bye Birdie .” He said “That’s a joke? It has to relate more to free range chickens, or just chickens, like my ‘La Bohen.’ Because what do you mean, a free range chicken flying away? Chickens might flap up and down a few feet, but they don’t fly.” “I could have just meant saying goodbye to one, it’s off to the oven. You can be so hard to please sometimes. But I have another one. What’s a free range chicken’s favorite opera in German?” and he ran through his mind operas by Wagner, Richard and Johann Strauss, Berg, Gluck, Fidelio , the German ones by Mozart, couldn’t come up with one, tried thinking of other German composers, finally said “It’s taking my attention away from my driving. What is a free range chicken’s favorite German opera?” and she said “ The Three Henny Opera .” “Now you got it,” he said. “I was going to say The Chickolate Soldier , by Oscar Straus, which my father took me to when I was around eight, but that was an operetta and nowhere near as good a choice as yours.” It went like that. They might have made a few more that first time. Favorite actor: Gregory Peck. Favorite actress: he forgets what that one was, but one of them came up with someone. He thinks he said, after her opera jokes — he knows he said it sometime, and if he said it then, then probably prefaced it with “As long as we’re on music”—“What’s a free range chicken’s favorite orchestral composition?” and she said “I don’t know,” and he said “ The Eggmont Overture .” “That’s good,” she said: “Clever; erudite,” and Maureen or Rosalind said “I never heard of it.” He said “Beethoven, but not as famous as the Leonore Overtures .” One time he said, again in the van and probably while he was driving — he used them to pass the time if they hadn’t spoken for a while and there was nothing worth listening to on the radio—“You know what? We’ve never done a literary free range chicken joke,” and she said “That should be easy for us, but I can’t immediately think of one.” “So we’ll assume I’ve asked one about its favorite novel,” he said, “And you’ve given up and my answer is The Egg and I .” “Who’s it by?” and she said “Betsy or Betty MacDonald. In the forties. American. It was a popular work. And along those same lines, what’s a free range chicken’s favorite movie?” and she said “ Bye Bye Birdie ,” and he said “I thought we disqualified that one. The Egg and I . Also in the Forties. I think with Fred McMurray and Irene Dunne. God, how come I’ve stored these things? I never saw the picture.” Another time — one of them was driving — she said “I have a good one,” and he said “Free range chicken joke?” and she said “Uh-huh,” and he said “So let’s hear it.” “What’s a free range chicken’s least favorite song?” and he said “Ah, we’re changing the format around a little; good. I don’t know. What?” and she said “‘Home in the Range.’” “Now you’re cooking,” he said, “and I didn’t mean that to be a pun. It just came out.” “I’ve another,” and he said “You’re really rolling. What?” and she said “What’s a free range chicken’s favorite play by Shakespeare?” “ Henry the Fourth ?” and she said “That’s too easy and not very funny.” “ Henry the Fourth, Part Two ?” and she said no. “ Henry the Fifth ?” and she said “From now on, no more ‘Henry’ answers in free range chicken jokes.” “Then what is its favorite Shakespeare play?” and she said “ Omelet ,” and he said “Your best yet. Maybe the best from either of us. Can’t be beat. Oh, I did it again. And I have one related to that. What’s a free range chicken’s favorite Shakespearean food when it’s not an omelet?” and she said “I won’t even try,” and he said “Try, because mine’s not too good,” and she said “I can’t; my last two wore me out,” and he said “Eggs Benedict,” and she said “It wasn’t that bad.” Another time she said “What’s an unkosher free range chicken?” and he thought Eggs? Hens? Pullets? Capons? Poultry? Chickens? Chickies? Chicks? and said “Chickse,” and she said “Right.” “I have one close to that. What’s an inebriated free range chicken called?” and she said “Tell me,” and he said “A chicker.” “I don’t get it,” and he said “ Shikker . Drunkard,” and she said “I never heard the word,” and he said “You must have.” Another time, he was driving, and she said “Martin?” and he looked at her and she was smiling and he said “Free range chicken?” and she said “What do you call one who’s crossed the road?” and he said “A busy road?” and she said yes, and he said “A dead free range chicken?” “Quick. Another. When is a free range chicken not free?” and he said “When it doesn’t cross the road? When it’s living in North Korea? I don’t know. Probably has nothing to do with incarceration. When?” and she said “I don’t know either. I thought you might. We’ll think of something.” “How about when it’s in the range? On it, trussed, ready to be put in?” and she said “I think we should give up. Did I already ask what’s a free range chicken’s favorite nightshade vegetable?” and he said “You did.” “Skin inflammation? Not favorite but just is?” and he said “After the eggplant one, and because the possibilities are pretty thin, I’d have to say eggzema.” “Then a free range chicken who’s also a petty thief? As you can see, I’ve been thinking about these when we weren’t doing them,” and he said “Peckpocket?” “Favorite brandy? No, skip that. Favorite gum?” This went on for years. Less often on her part after her first stroke because she had trouble getting out what she wanted to say. He doesn’t think they did them anyplace but in the minivan. Just once, when he was in bed recovering from an appendectomy and the painkiller wasn’t working and she tried to take his mind off the pain and he said “Sweetheart, I’m sorry, but you might be making it worse. To change around an old nonfree-range-chicken joke a little, it’s not only when I laugh that it hurts.” But what’s he getting at with this? She once said, after they exchanged a few free range chicken jokes or one of them was on a roll: “I hope you never tire of doing this, because I love our recurring routine. It’s something just between us, not that we couldn’t bring other people in, but I wouldn’t want to. It’s also as if we’re two other people when we do them,” and he said “I think I know what you mean. But there have been so many and some really good ones, usually yours, like ‘omelet’ and ‘notherclucker’ and ‘chickanery,’ that we ought to write the best ones down.” “No, that’d ruin it. We’d start making them up for posterity rather than just for a good time,” and he said “I don’t think so. We’d be saving them for our old age — at least mine, since it’ll come long before yours — when we might not be as quick and funny and could use a little humor, but I’ll go along with anything you say.”