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Key West #10.5
Chickens
Chickens. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are actually birds. But dogs can also be chickens, and so can people. In fact, all of us are chickens at various times, generally when we are confronted by new and daunting situations, when we are yanked from our comfortable routines and thrust into a world that seems—and is—mysterious and strange.
For an old man named Bert the Shirt, unwelcome change comes by way of a slip-and-fall that necessitates his moving out of his long-occupied Key West condo and into a compound filled with nudists and eccentrics. For Bert and his chihuahua, everything has suddenly been scrambled. Doors and windows are not where they should be. There are new names to be remembered, new customs to absorb.
Most jarring of all, there are weird and primal sounds in the night, courtesy of a tireless feral rooster staked out in an alleyway next door.
Can the real chicken and the figurative chickens peacefully co-exist? Must there be a confrontation, and if so, who will win it? This story, by turns poignant and hilarious, traces the trajectory of Bert’s fears and triumph as he and his less than heroic dog face down their respective demons and prove to themselves that they aren’t chicken.
For an old man named Bert the Shirt, unwelcome change comes by way of a slip-and-fall that necessitates his moving out of his long-occupied Key West condo and into a compound filled with nudists and eccentrics. For Bert and his chihuahua, everything has suddenly been scrambled. Doors and windows are not where they should be. There are new names to be remembered, new customs to absorb.
Most jarring of all, there are weird and primal sounds in the night, courtesy of a tireless feral rooster staked out in an alleyway next door.
Can the real chicken and the figurative chickens peacefully co-exist? Must there be a confrontation, and if so, who will win it? This story, by turns poignant and hilarious, traces the trajectory of Bert’s fears and triumph as he and his less than heroic dog face down their respective demons and prove to themselves that they aren’t chicken.
- GenresFiction
16 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 2, 2014
60 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
About the author
Laurence Shames
40 books239 followersLaurence Shames has been a New York City taxi driver, lounge singer, furniture mover, lifeguard, dishwasher, gym teacher, and shoe salesman. Having failed to distinguish himself in any of those professions, he turned to writing full-time in 1976 and has not done an honest day’s work since.
His basic laziness notwithstanding, Shames has published more than twenty books and hundreds of magazine articles and essays. Best known for his critically acclaimed series of Key West Capers--14 titles and counting!--he has also authored non-fiction and enjoyed considerable though largely secret success as a collaborator and ghostwriter. Shames has penned four New York Times bestsellers. These have appeared on four different lists, under four different names, none of them his own. This might be a record.
Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1951, to chain-smoking parents of modest means but flamboyant emotions, Shames did not know Philip Roth, Paul Simon, Queen Latifa, Shaquille O’Neal, or any of the other really cool people who have come from his hometown. He graduated summa cum laude from NYU in 1972 and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. As a side note, both his alma mater and honorary society have been extraordinarily adept at tracking his many address changes through the decades, in spite of the fact that he’s never sent them one red cent, and never will.
It was on an Italian beach in the summer of 1970 that Shames first heard the sacred call of the writer’s vocation. Lonely and poor, hungry and thirsty, he’d wandered into a seaside trattoria, where he noticed a couple tucking into a big platter of fritto misto. The man was nothing much to look at but the woman was really beautiful. She was perfectly tan and had a very fine-gauge gold chain looped around her bare tummy. The couple was sharing a liter of white wine; condensation beaded the carafe. Eye contact was made; the couple turned out to be Americans. The man wiped olive oil from his rather sensual lips and introduced himself as a writer. Shames knew in that moment that he would be one too.
He began writing stories and longer things he thought of as novels. He couldn’t sell them.
By 1979 he’d somehow become a journalist and was soon publishing in top-shelf magazines like Playboy, Outside, Saturday Review, and Vanity Fair. (This transition entailed some lucky breaks, but is not as vivid a tale as the fritto misto bit, so we’ll just sort of gloss over it.) In 1982, Shames was named Ethics columnist of Esquire, and also made a contributing editor to that magazine.
By 1986 he was writing non-fiction books. The critical, if not the commercial, success of these first established Shames’ credentials as a collaborator/ghostwriter. His 1991 national bestseller, Boss of Bosses, written with two FBI agents, got him thinking about the Mafia. It also bought him a ticket out of New York and a sweet little house in Key West, where he finally got back to Plan A: writing novels. Given his then-current preoccupations, the novels naturally featured palm trees, high humidity, dogs in sunglasses, and New York mobsters blundering through a town where people were too laid back to be afraid of them. But this part of the story is best told with reference to the books themselves, so please spend some time and explore them.
His basic laziness notwithstanding, Shames has published more than twenty books and hundreds of magazine articles and essays. Best known for his critically acclaimed series of Key West Capers--14 titles and counting!--he has also authored non-fiction and enjoyed considerable though largely secret success as a collaborator and ghostwriter. Shames has penned four New York Times bestsellers. These have appeared on four different lists, under four different names, none of them his own. This might be a record.
Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1951, to chain-smoking parents of modest means but flamboyant emotions, Shames did not know Philip Roth, Paul Simon, Queen Latifa, Shaquille O’Neal, or any of the other really cool people who have come from his hometown. He graduated summa cum laude from NYU in 1972 and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. As a side note, both his alma mater and honorary society have been extraordinarily adept at tracking his many address changes through the decades, in spite of the fact that he’s never sent them one red cent, and never will.
It was on an Italian beach in the summer of 1970 that Shames first heard the sacred call of the writer’s vocation. Lonely and poor, hungry and thirsty, he’d wandered into a seaside trattoria, where he noticed a couple tucking into a big platter of fritto misto. The man was nothing much to look at but the woman was really beautiful. She was perfectly tan and had a very fine-gauge gold chain looped around her bare tummy. The couple was sharing a liter of white wine; condensation beaded the carafe. Eye contact was made; the couple turned out to be Americans. The man wiped olive oil from his rather sensual lips and introduced himself as a writer. Shames knew in that moment that he would be one too.
He began writing stories and longer things he thought of as novels. He couldn’t sell them.
By 1979 he’d somehow become a journalist and was soon publishing in top-shelf magazines like Playboy, Outside, Saturday Review, and Vanity Fair. (This transition entailed some lucky breaks, but is not as vivid a tale as the fritto misto bit, so we’ll just sort of gloss over it.) In 1982, Shames was named Ethics columnist of Esquire, and also made a contributing editor to that magazine.
By 1986 he was writing non-fiction books. The critical, if not the commercial, success of these first established Shames’ credentials as a collaborator/ghostwriter. His 1991 national bestseller, Boss of Bosses, written with two FBI agents, got him thinking about the Mafia. It also bought him a ticket out of New York and a sweet little house in Key West, where he finally got back to Plan A: writing novels. Given his then-current preoccupations, the novels naturally featured palm trees, high humidity, dogs in sunglasses, and New York mobsters blundering through a town where people were too laid back to be afraid of them. But this part of the story is best told with reference to the books themselves, so please spend some time and explore them.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 26, 2019
Another Experience
I shorted this a star just because it was short though it had potential to get really tasty like the rest of the Key West Capers. Shamed has a way with making one enjoy their time not spent in Florida.
I shorted this a star just because it was short though it had potential to get really tasty like the rest of the Key West Capers. Shamed has a way with making one enjoy their time not spent in Florida.
February 20, 2019
Cute read, anything with Bert the Shirt and Nacho in it is always entertaining :)
May 1, 2020
Pleasant short story with Bert the Shirt and Joey Goldman where the series started.
November 21, 2022
Delightful, but much too short. I need more!
June 22, 2024
The only way this could be better is if it were longer. Cannot get enough of Nacho and Bert the Shirt.
December 1, 2014
Great little story about change and being brave.
June 3, 2018
Interesting and well written story and I wanted it to go on! Left me hanging and feeling lost.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews