I remember for a week span, during my second grade year, we had a chicken in our back yard in Orange County, CA. I was very perplexed as to why a chicken all of sudden would appear in our back yard, as we never had any pets before. I sort of grew attached to it over the course of the next few days. It tried to attack me everytime I went outside, and I found that endearing.

I can’t remember if I or my brothers attempted to give the animal a name or not. If we did, I’m sure we would have named it Ron Cey, at the time a popular third-basemen for the local Los Angeles Dodgers baseball franchise who was given the nickname “The Penguin,” which, incidentally, is also a type of bird.

One day a bunch of my mom’s Vietnamese friends showed up with a bunch of foodstuffs, as if they were planning some sort of function. One enterprising man—he was probably a badass from the Old Country, maybe he was VC or maybe more likely he actually fought for the South or even most likely he was just some guy who grew up in the countryside and this was socially obligatory for him —he went out into our makeshift chicken coop and chased down the little bird, and proceeded to cut its head right off.

After witnessing the bird being bled and drained over a bucket for some time, I lost interest and went inside to watch Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The bird was undoubtedly disemboweled and defeathered, as the next time I saw it, the chicken was being cooked in a big pot on the stove, where it would simmer for hours and hours.

I remember that it was delicious.