ELADATL. Sesshu Foster
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in the broiling desert? There was no sign of movement, no vehicles, nor people, nor anything. There seemed to be no fence around the buildings, so I figured that they were not a prison, like the county jail compounds—Sybil Brand for women and Peter Pitchess for men—located behind high fences near my house, in the neighborhood where Raúl and I lived.
Who builds these long buildings out here in the desert, who works here? It reminded me of the movies, where scientists are working on top-secret projects. Blankly metallic in the afternoon sunshine, I knew they were too far away to ever get Beto there and back. I wondered if there was a way Raúl and I could tie little Beto to a bush, or just tell him not to move while we ran as fast as we could to go investigate those strange buildings. We might find some real treasure! But Raúl said Beto would cry, and his mom was already pissed off and didn’t need a reason to whip the crap out of him. When we got back to the van and asked Raúl’s father about the windowless buildings as long as city blocks, he told us that it was a chicken farm. I said, “I thought scientists were working on something there.” He shook his head, “Chickens come from there.”
The United States was at war when we were growing up, as we came of age, during our young adulthood, throughout our lifetimes, and after we died. The wars could never stop, it was too late for that now. People didn’t mention it. It wasn’t worth thinking about. United States equals WAR. So? They got Mexicans to fight in the wars and deported them afterward. Some wars, if you blinked you missed them. Grenada, Panama. Of course, the industrial-military complex conducted fullblown wars in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan—and those soldiers, privatized mercenaries and civilian contractors, didn’t want to work in KFC and Popeye’s frying chickens like Mexicanos, though they did eat mountains of chicken.
Myself, I like to take two chickens, fryers five or six pounds each, slice them from the neck through the breast cartilage down to the bottom, spread the ribcage apart and place them backside up on a cutting board and press down till the ribs crack and the chickens flatten about as flat as they can be. Rub both chickens with achiote paste that you can cut with lemon juice and mashed garlic in liquified butter, maybe with chipotle powder and/or red pepper flakes if you want to increase the necessary heat. On the barbecue over semi-low coals, it takes about an hour and you have two red juicy fiery chickens to serve to your guests with the side dishes. My friend Rick has a killer curry chicken recipe he cooks in a wok and serves over rice, so hot it burns your mouth, but these days I prefer my barbecue chickens, which when flattened cook all the way through without having to be turned, over a bed of Mexican mesquite charcoal. They brown nice and crisp on top like that.
After listening to a Recent Rupture Radio Hour (Ehekatl KXPO 99.9 FM), which features guests like Chicano Moratorium organizer Chalio Muñoz, I was especially intrigued by urban agriculturalist and chicken farmer, Liki Renteria. What he said about raising poultry for personal needs in an urban setting was eye-opening and enlightening. On his rough estate on a slope in Happy Valley, adjacent to Eugene Debs County Park (where it would seem his chickens have the run of many acres of urban green space, however fraught with raccoons and coyotes), Liki Renteria farms hundreds of heirloom variety pullets and cocks: Cuckoo Marans, Salmon Faverolles, Speckled Sussex Triplets, and Dark Cornish Plymouth Barred Rocks. Renteria, a favorite guest on the radio show for several reasons, answered many questions from the audience about raising your own organic food in an urban setting. I’ve been lucky to catch him on the radio lately on a couple of episodes, where he answered questions from the audience with alacrity and generosity. Audience members (seemingly a wide spectrum of Eastside residents of all ages and genders) could not get enough, asking him about food pyramids, urban ethics, sustainable agriculture, legal issues, and even questions about the effect of select foods on personal relationships. I was deeply impressed with all the information and began to believe that it might be good to purchase some big fat Rhode Islands for myself.
Recently Tina and I were at some “industry” (show biz) lawyer’s house in Laurel Canyon, a benefit for arts programs for children with AIDS. Tina told me I should go when somebody asked me to read some poems there, and, even if I didn’t want to, she was curious and it was for a good cause, etc., even if it was going to take us an hour or more to get across town in traffic, if there were no accidents. The usual bottleneck on the 110 through downtown to the 101, bottleneck there too, breaking up a bit by Alvarado to Highland, south to Hollywood and due west on whatever it is, people driving so rude, night falling, lights of the city coming on in the glittering chill, winking and twinkling as we drove up into the hills. Tina reread Google-map directions as I drove rushed and gloomy.
“I don’t care if I’m late,” I sulked, but I drove fast (anyway I tend to drive fast). Tina soothed me, nonchalantly, “We’ll get there.” I had to park a couple blocks away on a narrow winding street hemmed in between tall walls, tall hedges, tall structures obscured by trees. I gave my name to a couple at the door who checked it against a list. The hostess, a TV actress, met us as we were walking in—she looked at me with wide eyes as if tentatively recognizing me based on somebody else’s verbal description and thanked me for coming, telling me I was to follow the musician (“That’s your cue, just let us know if you need anything. The program this evening is bursting, so please keep it under three minutes. Will that be satisfactory?” “Sure,” I said, “I won’t go longer than even one minute.”). I’d been staring at the actress, her face round and shining like the moon, thinking that I had seen that face before on TV and in movies where it appeared normal-sized. She turned to other arrivals. We moved forward through a crowd. What’s her name? I asked Tina. Tina said she thought her name was Something Something, but then corrected herself, saying, “but I’m probably wrong.” I forgot the name a minute later. The party was all white people except for a few black people who apparently also worked in television or film. I recognized another actress who used to be Jackson Brown’s girlfriend and who we used to see, sometimes with him, in downtown protest marches and demonstrations. She was in some terrific famous science fiction movie that academics loved to reference when discussing the future of Los Angeles. People were dressed in clothes they might wear on TV and also regular clothes, jeans, T-shirts or whatever. Nobody was talking to us just yet so we ambled through the living room where people milled with plates of food, drinks in hand. “Man,” I whined, “when is the musician going to play? They haven’t even started the program yet. Maybe the musician will be on first and then me and we can get out of here. What does this guy do, anyway? To earn enough to buy this big house overlooking Hollywood.” Tina told me that he was a former communist in the 1960s, lawyer for the Black Panthers and other radical groups, lately he mostly did “entertainment law,” made lots of money and tried to give some of it back. I scanned the spines of books on the nearest bookshelves. Social issue or political titles, nonfiction trade hardcover books (Uneasy Rivals: Men and Women in Today’s Workplace, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela). Easy reading, not very interesting. Outside there was a deck where caterers grilled imitation Thai chicken satay on skewers, which we stood in a short line for and set on a bed of rice with Chinese chicken salad (made from the same frozen cuts of white meat, it seemed). I handed Tina a plastic cup of sparkling cider as we pushed through knots of people glancing at us so coldly their looks were almost openly hostile, out onto the hillside, laid out in a grassy open garden under oak trees. “This is very nice, very nice indeed,” Tina said. “I can’t wait till I get the fuck out of here,” I said. “You gotta do your one good deed today,” Tina said. I tried to tear the satay off the bamboo skewer with my teeth without stabbing myself with the skewer’s charred point. The meat sort of crumbled like charcoal in my mouth. “This chicken is dry,” I said. “My favorite,” Tina said. “Yeah, right,” I said.
Tina said the gardens alone were worth the trip. I couldn’t see it, but I said the gardens were nice, to show that I could appreciate horticulture where she was involved. It was a nice warm evening above the city. When she was finished with her food I took her plate and we sauntered the path that wound down the hillside.
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