Chapter 18. Ferdy Chicken Stays the Course
Ferdy Chicken held the frayed end of the phone cord in his hand.
The phone cord that was connected to the red phone.
“Well,” he thought, “this is embarrassing.”
He had picked up the receiver, hot to call the mayor’s office, and heard the calm tones of absolutely nothing in the earpiece. Instead of the mayor eagerly answering the phone and awaiting word on the worsening situation, there was no sound at all. No dial tone, no ring ordinarily associated with this communication device, no operator. He had picked up the phone from the desktop and shaken it a bit, the receiver still clutched at his ear, and still heard nothing. Then, he had traced the cord from the phone’s base to the wall socket, only to find that the phone wasn’t connected to anything. Instead, the cord hung impotently behind the desk. Only when he held the frayed end in front of his face did he remember that the phone had never been hooked up. He had bought it at the neighbor’s garage sale and set it on the desk. He had fully intended to get it hooked up, in fact had fully intended to replace its frayed cord with a new one and then get it hooked it up. But he never had.
All this time, where he had fantasized that the mayor was reachable at a moment’s notice, in fact he wasn’t. Ferdy Chicken was alone in the world, cut off from its greater happenings, unable to send his most important communication.
He supposed, now that he thought about it, that the mayor wouldn’t have been in his office anyway. Surely, this late in the evening, the mayor was already home, probably in his pajamas, watching the nightly news. News which would no doubt share nothing of real import, of real threat.
Being a superhero, Ferdy Chicken mused, was not without its difficulties. A marginalized superhero, more so. Where any superhero worth his salt should be able to contact the city fathers at the touch of a button, Ferdy Chicken hadn’t yet proved himself, and so wasn’t welcome in the mayor’s office. The frayed end of the phone cord reminded him of that little scenario, as well.
The episode at the mayor’s office had gone badly. He had shown up in full regalia, cape and all, knowing that the man himself would want to shake his hand and thank him for his work on behalf of Lone Tree, and would consider Ferdy’s request for a direct phone line.
In the end, of course, he hadn’t even seen the mayor. He hadn’t gotten any farther than the outer office before the mayor’s secretary had called the police. “There’s a weird guy here, in tights and a cape. He says he’s a fervid chicken, or something.”
“Ferdy...” he had corrected her, even as she was speaking to the cops. “Ferdy Chicken.” In the end, he had exited the city building before the police had come to haul him away, first through the office door and then down an empty hall, and finally through a bathroom window onto the street. It was no good having one’s picture in the paper, as a superhero, unless one was being handed a medal by the mayor. If he was going to leave an impression on the residents of Lone Tree, he didn’t want it to be the image of him being led away from the mayor’s office in handcuffs.
Instead, he had slunk home, in the shadows of hedges and alleys. But where the average man might have given up after such an experience, hung up his suit, returned to a normal life, Ferdy didn’t give up. His time at the mayor’s office, as bad as it had been, enlivened him toward to a vision of a day when he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed to be seen walking the streets of town dressed as a chicken. He determined then that he would prove himself. He would haul in some threat. He would, some day, be the hero of the hour.
In a town the size of Lone Tree, of course, there were few real threats. It was a pretty quiet place, mostly. Ferdy looked at the frayed end of the phone cord one last time, and felt his spirits sinking. But where Fred Chickweed would have allowed his eroding spirits to drag him down, to discard his chosen course, to quit in the face of daunting odds, Ferdy Chicken would have none of it. For Ferdy Chicken, there was still hope. There was still a chance, however slim. Ferdy Chicken was no quitter. The monsters of the lake would be his route to the top. He set down the base of the phone on the desk, and set the handset carefully into its cradle. Someday, he was sure, he would have a direct line to the mayor. Until then, he’d have to make do with what he had.
Ferdy Chicken pulled the notepad next to the nonworking phone toward him, and retrieved a stub of pencil from the drawer. Quickly, he penned a note:
Mayor King:
Monsters headed toward Moon Pk. Meet you there when the crime is sol- ved.
Your first citizen,
Ferdy Chicken
Ferdy Chicken’s handwriting, it must be said, wasn’t good. The term “chicken scratches,” though it might be literally true, glorified the markings upon the page. He abbreviated the “Park” in Moon Park to Pk., and, having run out of room on his one line note, hyphenated ‘solved’ so that half of the word appeared on the line below. “Sol-ved.” “Until the crime is sol-ved.” He tucked the note into his right work boot. He was nearly ready.
The only thing left was to check his equipment. He had always wanted to check his equipment. He had done so through countless dry runs, but this time, it was not a drill. This time, it was for real. With the air of a competent man competently doing his work with competence, he stalked over to the footlocker underneath his workbench. He twirled the combination lock to the right and to the left, 36-54-17, managing to unlock it on his first attempt. He took it from the hasp and opened the lid. Before him lay a superhero’s treasure: the tools of the trade.
He pulled out a length of rope. “Rope: check!” Next, the tripwire. “Tripwire: check!” And, holy of holies, his grappling hook. “Grappling hook: check!” Then, with the smooth motions of continual practice, he tied the end of the rope to the grappling hook’s large metallic eye. “Rope with grappling hook attached to it: check!”
He was ready to go. Ferdy Chicken gathered up his equipment in his arms, and flew the coop.