The Fried Chicken

By Bakdi Soemanto

Night trembled on the old houses in the neighborhood including his mother's, and, eventually on his own body and soul. It was the day before the Christmas Eve midnight mass.

As usual, he had not gone to midnight mass last year, nor the year before, nor the year before that. He had not gone for more than 10 years. He preferred morning mass where he could see hundreds of children singing in choir or running around the yard shouting at each other.

Christmas mass should be innocent like a baby crying for his mother to breastfeed, he thought. It should be as clear as a morning dew. Nothing pretentious should happen in Christmas mass, he imagined, because this particular mass was meant for the herdsman in the open grassy lands where sentences were all spoken in the present tense. No grammar teachers occupied with mistakes were there, because the only language needed was that of true love. No political terms were uttered because Christmas had nothing to do with power. Everybody should listen to their own conscience calling them to heed the whispering silence..

"Hark!" a voice shouted. He looked around to see if his mother had come to call him inside because of the worrying cold weather. He had been so weak for years he had to stay warm inside rather than hang around the veranda late at night. But no one was there. The front door was still half closed.

"Hark!" a voice cried loudly. He heard someone frying chicken; the appetizing smells of the chickens hovered around his nostrils. There were low humming sounds coming from the south as if hundreds of guests were talking nonsense while enjoying their leisure.

On the spur of the moment, he remembered that precisely in front of his house was a fried chicken restaurant. People from all over the world came to enjoy meals there everyday. Nevertheless, it was strange that they had come for supper at dawn. Plakotham stood up to see if there were cars lined along the road in front of the restaurant as usual. But none were there. He sat again.

The restaurant was an old one. It was established a long time ago before he was born. According to his father, the restaurant had been closed when the Japanese invaded Java and was later opened again when the Republic was declared by Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta.

His mother said it had been handed down from one generation to another, yet the flavor was constant. When his father died of typhoid in the abortive coup, his mother decided she wanted a similar restaurant.

However, she did could realize her dream because she did not meet the requirements. To have a small business she had to go to the Kalurahan (village administration office) to get permission for her business which first had to be recommended by the neighborhood. Of course the manager of the existing restaurant did not give his consent because he did not want a business rival. Instead, he invited her to join his business. If she invested her money in the restaurant, she would be allowed to establish a branch of the eatery, but not in the same road.

"But how? Where?" Plakotham's mother asked.

"I'll rent a house for you and you'll run that branch," the manager said.

"Where?" she asked again.

"There..." the manager pointed. "It is about 15 kilometers from here." As he moved his arm, bad smells wafted out.

"My goodness," she thought. "Your heart is as stinky as your armpits."

The disagreement aggravated the relationship. She did not understand why the manager was suddenly so cruel despite living in the same neighborhood. Plakotham's mother saw red but being Javanese she kept silent, promising herself to avoid the manager and the restaurant.

"When you graduate, I'll take you to the best restaurant we have in the country," his mother said him 20 years ago. "But please don't go into that poisonous one!" she said pointing at the eating house. "I would rather die than have you go in there."

Now, late at night, sitting alone on the veranda, Plakotham tried to resist the delicious smells. He thought he would invite Mbak Tarti, a young woman he loved dearly, to have dinner with him in the restaurant tomorrow after mass.

He suddenly missed midnight mass a lot. There would be hundreds of people dressed up singing the hymns excitedly and he would be part of it. For at least two hours, people could forget their daily burdens listening to the good news of the newborn King. The infant was in the manger, surrounded by glitteringly colorful lamps, watching the community glorying and comforting Him.

In fact he had been thinking for years of going to the midnight mass but he was scared of his mother.

"The Christmas mass is befouled. I don't like it," the mother said.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Don't you see that every Christmas, the devil displays the fried chicken on the table as if it was a formation of troops at the classical war of Bharatayuddha in the Kurusetra battle field." she said.

"He does that in front of the church. Every Christmas!" she remarked angrily.

"He means to attract people to buy, but no-one pays any attention to it." she added.

"But everybody does. They enjoy the fried chicken," was Plakotham's answer.

"No. You're wrong, my dear. Not a single person is attracted to do so. If you thought they did, you were mistaken. The whole world has been polluted because of his manner," she added.

"We'd better go in the morning. No fried chicken, no pollution. Do you understand?" she concluded.

Looking into his mother's eyes, he felt fear. He thought she was enslaved by hatred, a mysterious evil bursting out of powerlessness that would undoubtedly lead her to the brink of self-destructiveness.

He knew his mother was in danger. As the Christmas celebrations approached, she was getting more and more angry. She kept grumbling about everything he did. Christmas had been for years a hell of grief, shame and lost love for his family. Oh, dear!

"I think I have to do something for mother," Plakotham thought. He went inside, closed the door and went to the kitchen. According to Mbak Tarti, to cook a fried chicken was not that easy. Yet, everybody could do it with a cookbook.

The recipe said he needed coconut water to boil the chicken. This meant Plakotham needed least three coconuts. Driven by a great desire for fried chicken, Plakotham gripped firmly one of the coconuts his mother had bought and smashed it forcefully on the floor.

"What's that?" his mother cried as she woke up. She ran to the kitchen.

"What are you doing. Are you crazy?"

"I'm cooking a fried chicken for you."

"What?"

"This fried chicken will be very special. It will be much better than that cooked by our neighbor. You can display this in front of the church tomorrow after the Christmas mass..."

"O, my God!"

"Don't worry, mother. You'll have the best fried chicken restaurant in the world."

"But I don't have any chicken to cook."

"No matter what you have now, I'll cook one for you. It'll be large."

"When did you buy the chicken? You did not go anywhere this morning, did you?"

Plakotham did not answer. Instead, he handed her a big dagger.

"What is that for?"

"You have to slaughter me. Otherwise, tomorrow night I'll take Mbak Tarti to the fried chicken restaurant after midnight. We've got to celebrate the newborn King by greeting people we have been resenting. There's no love lost between our neighbor and you. I've got to stop it...!"

His mother was startled. She stared at her son without saying a word. Silent was the night. A baby love was seemingly struggling to be born in a world full of hatred, jealousy, anger, ambition and ruthlessness.

"Come on, Mother. Start cooking. What do you want to fry first? My arms, my legs, my head? No. You've to boil them with the coconut water first. Right? Shall I switch the stove on for you?" Plakotham said.

"No-o-o-o!" She cried, louder and louder breaking the silence of the night.

Bakdi Soemanto is a staff member of the Center for Studies of Culture and Social Change at the University of Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta.