Money Chickens

Abstract

Money Chickens Ghassan Zeineddine (bio) Some folks store their money in safes; Baba used chickens. I was six the first time I saw him shove a Ziploc bag filled with bills inside a chicken in the kitchen of our two-bedroom house in East Dearborn, Michigan, one evening back in 1988. He sat at the table, wearing yellow rubber gloves that reached halfway up his forearms, a cigarette dangling from his lips. The chicken lay on the cutting board. A small man with small hands, Baba had no problem thrusting his fist into the bird’s bowels. He then sheathed the body in plastic wrap and placed it in the freezer. He slipped off his gloves, dropped them in the sink, and sat back down at the table to finish his cigarette. I reached inside my pocket and pulled out my pack of candy cigarettes. I loved the first puffs from my cigarette because I was able to produce smoke made of powdered sugar, smoke that merged with Baba’s into a ghostly swirl that hung over us like a shared thought. Police sirens wailed in the distance. Baba looked out the window. “In the name of God, most gracious, most merciful,” he said in Arabic. I repeated his prayer, looking at his reflection in the window—the plump bags under his eyes, his thick mustache with curled tips. His face sagged with exhaustion. I had those very same bags under my eyes, giving me a somber, contemplative look for a boy so young. I was named after Baba’s father, Ali. “There’s trouble in Detroit,” Baba said. He had a loud voice, which developed from years of yelling over the sound of machines at the Ford Rouge plant where he worked. Detroit was a few blocks east. “We have to hide our money from the thieves across the border.” I removed my cigarette from my mouth. “Are we safe here, Baba?” “We’ll be safer once we return to Lebanon. That’s what the money chicken is for: to build ourselves a house back home.” The money Baba made at the plant was barely enough to keep us afloat, not with the mortgage and the arrival of my baby sister. For the past month, he had been working odd jobs on the weekend to make extra cash, mostly as a handyman. But I saw him solely as a carmaker. Whenever I spotted a Ford sedan or truck on the road, I suspected Baba had had a hand in its making. The only home I knew was Dearborn, where I was born and raised. My parents immigrated to America following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, seven years into the country’s gruesome civil war. I was too young to point out Baba’s fallacy: How was Lebanon safer than America when Lebanese were killing one another in the streets? Mama entered the kitchen, holding my sister in her arms. Her long black hair was parted down the middle. She wore her hijab over her shoulders like a shawl, always prepared to wrap it around her head on the chance a male neighbor came calling. She was a tall, big-boned woman who towered over Baba and me. She sniffed the air. “I smell raw meat.” The cutting board was still on the table. [End Page 177] “I found a new hiding place to safeguard our money,” Baba said, and explained his stuffing. Mama’s eyes widened. She opened the freezer and looked inside. “Dear God!” “Don’t worry, the chicken is halal. We can keep your pearl necklace and gold bracelets inside of one.” “I prefer the bank’s safe.” Baba looked at me, telling me through his tired eyes that this chicken business would remain a father-son affair. We had communicated in a private language similar to the one used between lovers. We reached for another cigarette at the same time. ________ In junior high, I sold cigarettes to the white students in West Dearborn. Every Friday after school, I’d take the crosstown bus and get off on Michigan Avenue and stand outside Blockbuster, the comic book store, or the local hamburger joint, waiting...