Chicken Fingers

My dad dove into the fridge for the raw thighs of featherless squawk machines. The lifeless meat jiggled as it hit the granite counter. My dad coated the meat with zesty seasoning and took off his wedding ring. He was, for a moment, a single man massaging a dead chicken. I watched the spices scatter over the pink skin and waited for my dad to carry out the cool glass container. I saw smoke from the barbeque swallow my dad's head. He coughed and took a few steps back from the grill. Between the smoke and a dusty window screen he yelled out that the chicken would be ready in twenty minutes. He made promises and kept them. I looked beyond the smoke dancing through my dad's grey-blonde hair and remembered our times together when he sang our favorite song, "I Only Have Eyes for You." I called it the "smoke alarm song" because my smoke alarm would twinkle in the dark room every eight seconds among the galaxy of glowin-the-dark stars on the ceiling. I was calmed by its routine process signaling the absence of smoke and danger. I was safe next to my dad, and the smoke alarm flashed as we rested side by side, gazing at the plastic galaxy. He would sing, "are the stars out tonight, I don't know if it's cloudy or bright," and my voice would crack, "I only have eyes for you, dear." As I became a teenager, the "smoke alarm song" was no longer our bedtime routine, and I rested alone looking at the remaining stars that had just enough glue from ten years past. I sometimes cried myself to sleep and sometimes fell asleep grinning so wide; my retainers fell out. My last moments of consciousness ended while gazing at a plastic galaxy. The chicken was done, and my dad finished singing to the cooked meat. He slipped his ring back on and called our family to the table. He was a happily married man-eating chicken with his family.