Jenny Gloom

The sun gleamed through the sycamore backway of Jenny Gloom’s window. Her room was adjacent to the corner that wrapped around the back end of the house, a humble ranch with an iron red star hung by the front door. Her blonde hair spilled across the white cotton thread of her pillow—a sarcophagus under her flannel sheets. It was time for her to get up. 

It was Jenny’s job to tend to her family’s chickens. A whole bunch of different chickens: white, brown, and black roosters, with red tethered mohawks that wobbled in their peculiar steps, and black eyes. Jenny couldn’t tell if they knew who she was, but she tended to them all the same, and in that regard, this morning would be no different. The pen was kept off the red barn, nested in a sunny patch on the brown leaves and grass. Now it was Autumn, and a white mist left their beaks as they roamed in early October. 

Jenny approached the pen in her rubber boots and dirty jeans. Her eyelids couldn’t help but resist the morning’s call. But she continued through the brush, holding a silver pale with both hands against her legs. She thought about a song she heard on the radio yesterday, and it went …come on baby, light my fire…The grass crunched underneath her feet as she approached the prattle of the chickens that grew louder. 

Half-asleep, Jenny took to rummaging through the pale hay, collecting the eggs. The chickens strutted about her hands and feet. As the sun shone down, she thought the encroaching warmth should lend her more contentment, but it didn’t—it was too bright, she thought. She felt languid inside the barn that hosted her family’s poultry, contemplating the amount of sleep she got, with a tinge of shame—though not sure why, as it was a Saturday, and it was Sundays when she felt that same pit in her stomach because of church. She picked up a thirteenth egg from the hay. 

Sometimes Jenny contemplated if the chickens remembered her. She certainly did, and she had favorites: there Charlie, who was a white chicken; there was Lucy, the gray freckled hen with a powerful walk; and Darryl, the mean one who bit her once—but it was her fault. 

She wondered if they saw her as Jenny, if they liked Jenny, or if they saw her as God. After all, she was big and took their babies. She fed them but she couldn’t let them leave. But it was she who awoke so early to attend to them, all of them. And they talked endlessly amongst each other. 

The rumble of a distant exhaust tore through her thoughts and Jenny slowly rose up her spine. Through a squint, in a stead-fast cloud of dust, Jenny saw the shape of a green, aluminum chevy approaching the barn. With an elbow hanging out of the window, a hand tapping to John Denver, it ripped through the grass like an Arabian stallion—though with horribly misplaced importance—it was Grandpa.

The chickens opened their wings in a panic. Their feathers, dust, and cries swam around Jenny as they lifted themselves off the usually tranquil land. They clucked in confusion but Jenny stood idly inside the shed. The engine growled and heaved before Grandpa took the keys out. He parked and hopped down from the door to position himself beside the truck. Facing Jenny in denim, he placed his hands on his hips.

“Good morning, Jenny.”

She half-squinted at Grandpa, the sun illuminating her freckles, still curiously holding her bucket of eggs.

“Why are you here?” Jenny asked. 

He sighed. “You were up all night listening to the radio again, weren’t you?” 

She did not reply. 

“Well, I baked you’s a pie,” he continued.

Jenny stared at Grandpa as the chickens croaked. 

“What kind of pie?”

“Chicken pot pie.”

She shifted her gaze down to the pullets amidst her ankles. 

“Don’t need any of that.”

Grandpa glared at Jenny decisively. He sighed again with his flannel cladden shoulders, hung his head, then raised his face to her. 

“These chickens,” he motioned his hand toward the soil, “they ought to be like this—heated up inside the oven—so that we can eat. Because people like me and you, we get hungry, and so the chickens die. That’s the way God intended for chickens, you see?”

Jenny held her gaze at Grandpa tightly as she held the handle of her pale, her knuckles white. 

“You shouldn’t talk like that.”

Grandpa shook his head and walked around the front of the truck to the other side. Jenny kept her gaze as he opened the door, stepping down with the pie in his hands.

“I don’t want it.” Jenny said.

“You’re ungrateful.” Grandpa retorted. “And you’re lucky—you’re lucky to be getting this damn pie, so you’re gonna eat it.”

He approached the young girl surrounded by the chickens and straw and wood beams, his shadow growing as he drew nearer, looming over her now—but Jenny did not move. 

“Just leave it here,” she said. 

The steam lifted from the pie crust underneath Grandpa’s chin, which was stationed in his palms above Jenny’s scalp like a buttery halo, and he looked at her. His elbows were still. The girl did not blink.

“You know, when I’m preaching to you and mom at church, I see you falling asleep in those pews. You ought to stop listening to that radio. You’re always a sad little thing, but I want you’s to know, Jesus loves you. And he wants you’s to smile.”

There was a lingering pause. 

Looking up at her grandfather, Jenny was unwavering, but she was scared. Because she didn’t want Jesus or Grandpa to take away her radio. Her eyes were sharp and her stomach tightened. She did not lose grip of her bucket. She wanted to tell Grandpa she hated church. She wanted to tell Grandpa she hated his pie. She wanted to tell Grandpa she hated him. And, most importantly, she never wanted to sit on those wooden pews where her butt got sore, because all she did when she sat there was think about how mean Grandpa was, but everyone else thought he was a good man because he loved God and talked about God, and so everyone listened to Grandpa—but really, she thought, they were scared of him. Jenny decided she didn’t want to be scared anymore. 

Through her freckles, Jenny looked at Grandpa and said, “fuck Jesus.” 

Grandpa leaned back. There was a fire in his ears. The pie wobbled in his old hands until it escaped into a heap of breaded crust and mush on the ground. The hens and roosters flocked curiously to the pile of shredded poultry. He caught his breath and looked up at Jenny. He held himself up by the palms but could not rise to Jenny. The chickens began to swarm all around Grandpa and Jenny. They cried again. But the sun rose on the barn everyday with the little girl inside of it who did not believe in Jesus. 

“Look what you’ve done,” Jenny said.