From the beginning to the end, this essay embraces about 85 years of the life of the author. On the other hand, this essay embraces perhaps 40 years of the life of the red rooster that is the title of this piece.
During the last half of the 1920s, my father was employed by the Evens and Howard Brick Refractory Company in Brentwood, Missouri. I am not sure why this is the case but brick refractory refers to bricks that are intended to be used in high-temperature situations such as the inside of a kiln. In any event, the Evens Howard operation became bankrupt about 1930. At first the employees were laid off but it soon developed that they would never go to work again at that factory. From about 1925 onward, the Carr family had resided in Richmond Heights, Missouri. The lot was only 50 feet wide but it was about 220 feet deep.
In 1929 when my father was laid off, there were no such things as insurance programs to ease the unemployed into reemployment. He was simply out of a job. The point is that with my father being laid off, there was absolutely no money coming in to the Carr household. My four siblings were a good bit older than I was and contributed some money. Between their contributions and whatever temporary work my father was able to pick up, the family survived. But it was a precarious existence.
Somewhere in 1930, my mother conceived the idea that it would be helpful to the family’s finances if she had a hen house to keep chickens in. The chickens would lay eggs and from time to time they would provide a meal or two.
Now in point of fact, if a person decides that he or she wishes to keep chickens, it is also incumbent upon the owner to provide the minimum of one rooster per 15 or 20 chickens. I am not capable of describing here all of the love lives that take place when a rooster is brought into the chicken house. However, I recall that the rooster’s sexual appetite was largely insatiable.
When my mother decided to go into the chicken-raising business, she had her choice of several different breeds. But in the end she was always attracted to a breed called “Rhode Island Reds.” They were supposedly good egg-layers and they would provide a nutritious meal from time to time when eaten. The series of roosters that were brought in to tend my mother’s flock of hens were also proud creatures to the point of my deciding that they were egomaniacs. I have long thought that there was nothing quite as proud as a rooster of the Rhode Island Red species.
For the next several years I helped my mother tending to her flock. Among my duties was to clean the roost, which was not only unsightly but unsanitary as well. Early in the game, I saw that when my mother wished to provide to us with a “nutritious meal,” she would use her skirts to isolate the hens and would then grab the hen by the legs and wring its neck. I never wanted to see the death of a chicken. I thought it was an absolutely hideous exhibition of brutality. For that reason, I refused to eat the so-called “nutritious meal.” So it is that from age 7 or 8, I never consumed a chicken leg or a chicken wing or any other part of a chicken. And that prohibition continues until this day. But while I was refusing to touch that cooked chicken, the rooster was still parading around the chicken house with its comb erect and was ready to fight anyone who disturbed him and his hens.
Now we shift to a scene that took place in the mid 1970s. On this occasion, my employer, the AT&T Corporation, had assigned me to overseas duties. I greatly enjoyed working with all of the people who were responsible for providing international telephone service between those countries and the United States.
My first trip to Rome took place shortly after it was liberated in 1944. At that point, I was an American soldier. I next saw Rome in the mid 1970s as an employee of the AT&T Corporation.
On my first trip to Rome, I stayed at the Hotel Excelsior, located on the Via Veneto. It turned out that the Excelsior was a commercial hotel not much to my liking. On inquiry, I soon determined that two blocks east of the Excelsior was a quieter hotel located at the top of the Spanish Steps. My recollection is that there are about 19 or 20 of the so-called Spanish Steps. However, on or at the foot of the Spanish Steps is a lovely café or nightclub called the L’Arciliuto. Upon inquiry, I located a fellow named Enzo Samaritani. It turns out that Enzo was the owner and entertainer at L’Arciliuto. He was not only the player of the piano but he sang a good many songs of his own composition. Over the next few years, I saw Enzo frequently. On one occasion, he took me to the basement of his establishment and withdrew a large spike, dating to the 15th century. He presented it to me. It had an honored place in my home until 2008, when I presented it to the owners of a restaurant here called Basilico.
Ah, but I am running astray here because what I really wanted to talk about was the Hotel Hassler at the top of the Spanish Steps. It was a quiet hotel where almost everything worked to perfection. My only complaint was that over the years when I presented myself to the front desk clerk, he would determine that I was unaccompanied. Accordingly, he assigned me to a room with a single bed. I stayed at the Hassler on many occasions for perhaps the next several years. In all of that time, I never enjoyed the luxury of a double bed. The fact that I put up with the single bed business is testimony to the fact that the Hassler was a quiet hotel that tended to all of my needs, such as same-day laundry service.
As might be expected, a good many of my evenings were spent at the bar of the Hassler Hotel. At the time, I was a devotée of Black and White Scotch Whiskey. As I entered the bar room, the bartender would place a bottle of Black and White on the ledge in front of him. Before I told him that was what I wanted, which he knew already, he had prepared me a drink.
On most visits to Rome, my ordinary routine would be to have a drink at the Hassler Bar before having dinner at Trastevere. Then I found it enjoyable to visit Enzo Samaritani at the L’Arciliuto before retiring. This made my visits to Rome very pleasant.
In one of my early visits to the bar at the Hotel Hassler, I noticed that behind the bartender was a shelf of glass which contained exhibitions of Roman artwork. Prominent among the pieces displayed was a pitcher. The pitcher was in the form of a rooster with his beak being of course where the water disgorged. When I visited the bar at the Hassler, it brought back several pleasant memories from my childhood in Missouri. Upon examination, I determined that the pitcher was in the form of a rooster which was apparently of the Rhode Island Red species.
On one visit to the bar room at the Hassler, I mentioned this to the bartender. At that point, I gave no more thought to the rooster on the shelf. I expect that my intention was to think of a meal that I was going to have at a place called Trastevere, which means “across the Tiber River” and is located near the Vatican City. I must point out that the Vatican City has no restaurants of its own that I can think of.
The next morning when it was necessary for me to check out, the clerk said that he had a package for me. I was running a bit late so I took the package with me, thinking that I would open it on the way to the airport.
The airport in Rome, called Fiumicino, stood a distance from the town. When I unwrapped the package that was given to me as I checked out, I discovered that it was the rooster from the bar that I had so admired. At that time on international flights, passengers were requested to appear at the airport an hour in advance of the flight. That gave me plenty of time to call my secretary in New York and dictate a response to the gift that had been given to me as I left the Hassler.
And so now we go to the final stage of the residence of the Rhode Island Red rooster at our home in Short Hills. I suppose that the rooster thought of it as a demotion but in any case he was displayed prominently on a shelf in our bar room. He did not have as many admirers as he had in previous days when he ruled the roost in Rome, but his future was assured.
Neither the rooster nor myself nor my wife realized it, but we are growing a good bit older. During this process of growing older, we have undertaken the desire to place our treasured belongings in homes where they will be well cared for. For example, my large collection of books has been distributed to university libraries.
And so it was that one evening recently my wife suggested that the Rhode Island Red rooster should be given to a young couple in New Providence who have just started an establishment called Paolo’s Kitchen. Paolo’s Kitchen is not a restaurant. It is simply a place where magnificent food is produced. Even the Romans would admire Paolo’s Kitchen.
And so the Rhode Island Red rooster begins the next phase of his travels through life. Life started in Rome and is now continuing in a town called New Providence in New Jersey. As a curious coincidence, Rome and New Providence, New Jersey are among my favorite towns. New Providence is the town that I lived in for about 11 years when I first came to work in New York.
I know that Paula and her husband Paolo will provide a good home for the Rhode Island Red rooster. And so that matter is settled as to the future of the Rhode Island Red rooster. It gives me great peace to know that he has a place of honor in his new home where the offerings of Paolo’s kitchen are available to him.
E. E. CARR
February 24, 2012
Essay 637
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Kevin’s commentary: The first and most important subject upon which I tend to disagree with Pop is the legitimacy of fiction as a literary genre. A very, very close second is his stance on chicken, which is perhaps one of my favorite foodstuffs and which he will not touch with a ten-foot pole. Then again I never had to watch any get throttled to death in my backyard. Still, though. Since I hate seafood, maybe from now on I will claim that my mother tortured oysters or something on our porch during my developmental years.
EEC Response to Kevin’s commentary:
Good Jezzus – This kid says that his idea of heaven is eating a chicken sandwich while reading a novel. Both of these propositions are thoroughly revolting. Good Jezzus, Good Sweet Smelling Jezzus
Clarifying note from Kevin: while perhaps not heaven, this sounds like an excellent way to pass an afternoon.