Whatever Happened To Chicken Boy Todd? 

There was only one strange boy in our neighborhood. 

For 4^th grade show and tell, he brought in his vast collection of sideshow geek memorabilia and a live chicken.
He passed out handwritten “Todd The Odd” business cards to the whole class. I still have that card.
He wore ski pajamas covered with cotton candy feathers stuck on with Elmer’s Glue.

When he brought the live chicken’s head to his lips, girls pressed hands over their mouths and Sister Rose Helene fell to the checkerboard linoleum like a taxidermied penguin. But Todd didn’t bite off the chicken’s head. He simply kissed it on the pecker and took a flamboyant bow.

That’s how he earned his nickname – Chicken Boy Todd.

 As you might guess, Chicken Boy Todd dreamed of becoming a sideshow geek. Only one problem… Todd loved animals too much to eat them, let alone bite off their heads. Especially chickens. He proclaimed himself to be one with the chicken. He idolized Foghorn Leghorn, kept a large coop in his backyard, and named his chickens after members of the 1969 Chicago Cubs.

 (Insert passage of time here)

I heard of a performer who had a brief career in a 1980’s traveling pseudo-nouveau sideshow performance art troupe. This performer billed himself as “The Vegan Geek”, biting the heads off oddly shaped gourds, turnips, and iceberg lettuces.

Back then, I thought ketchup was a vegetable, so I didn’t attend the show… but I wondered.
Back then, I was peripherally employed in the Regan administration, and had no interest in things smacking of sideshow subversion.

Back then, I still believed that dreams were things that are often just within your reach. Now, I know that they are always just beyond your reach.

Chicken Boy Todd was forever torn between his dream of geekdom and his love of live poultry. He is my constant reminder that it’s our dreams that make us live, and our love that makes our dreams so painful when they slip away. 

There’s not enough room within this tiny frame to tell you about my dream. Funny how everyone else’s dream is so much smaller than your own. 

Anyway, this is Todd’s story, not mine.

I wonder whatever happened to Chicken Boy Todd.

I wonder whatever happened to me.