Downtown living still comes with its share of early morning surprises.

January 20, 2010
Yesterday morning, as I was drinking coffee and dreading my mid-afternoon visit to the dentist, I heard a rooster in my backyard. While I do live in Louisiana, this is not a common sound. My house is in the downtown of the second largest city in the state. It is not a wild place, but we do have our fair share of urban critters. Raccoons have invaded my attic in the past. There are rats in the canal behind my house. There were even rabbits across the street for a few months.

Urban poultry raising is all the rage these days and we have a number of start-up coup keepers around but this creature was something else all together with. First, it was a cock. There is no mistaking the origins of the word "cocky" when you see one of these fellows strutting around your backyard. Well, it used to be my backyard. The Black Chicken of Beauregard seemed to have different feelings on the matter. Secondly, he is no doughy, front yard cockerel. He is a sleek, highly mobile panther of a chicken.

Beauregard Town, where I live, is an odd neighborhood. While there is much lip service done in the name if diversity, Beauregard has been practicing it since the place was staked out in 1805. There are rich and poor, black and white, straight and gay, man and chicken. Stories of this chicken have been going around for about a year. I had even seen him once before and, yes, he was crossing the road.

This is not an easy environment for a feral chicken to thrive in. Many a hapless possum has met his eternal reward with a well-thrown brick, ending up basting on a nearby barbeque pit. A man once got a drunk driving ticket on my street for sipping beer on the sidewalk, astride his horse. As I said, it is an odd place. And yet here, amidst the law offices and banks, fire stations and libraries, houses and government buildings, the Black Chicken of Beauregard Town has made a roost for himself.

In keeping with this neighborhood’s peculiar sense of decorum the Black Chicken is treated with respect. My neighbor (he who is handy with a brick) feeds the chicken every morning. How exactly he has become an admired companion to the many characters in the neighborhood rather than coq au vin is a mystery. But, I know it has to mean something special when your local, feathery familiar visits you on a pretty day in January. Black Chicken, you are welcome back anytime.

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