IT WAS BOUND to happen, and things that are bound to happen generally do, I've found, if you give them two-fifths of a chance. My beloved chickens, in other words, whom I rescued from a tiny Sebastopol feed-store cage and showed acres of the big wide world to, feeding them, playing with them, educating them, and always taking their side in arguments against bobcats and hawks, have turned out to be way cooler than I am. They now live in Oakland, whereas I'm in Noe Valley.

Yep, my good pals Yo-Yo and Lord B.J., who live at 63rd Street and Market, finally realized they've been sitting on a chicken farm, only without the chickens. They even decided to take Big Mama, whose name I had already legally changed to Gumbo, on account of she wasn't keeping up with her end of the bargain (eggs in exchange for all of the above – i.e., food, protection, companionship). For two and a half months she'd been sitting on the nest with a vacuous, maternally determined look on her face, trying to hatch a golf ball. I tried discouraging her. I tried harassing her. I showed sex-education filmstrips on the wall of the coop. Of course, the only ones I could find had more to do with human sexuality than birds or even bees. But the implication was definitely there, that without a rooster there just flat-out ain't going to be no little chicks cracking out of no eggs. Not to mention Titleists.

So, anyway, Yo-Yo and Lord B.J. reckoned they'd gamble on Big Mama, a.k.a. Gumbo, getting knocked out of her broodiness by the trauma of the big move. And if a lot of my new Noe Valley neighbors had bounced around in a box in the back of a pickup truck for an hour and 20 minutes ... but that's starting to sound bluegrassy. The point is that it worked, with one minor hitch.

First thing in the morning her first morning in the East Bay, Big Mama climbs some steps and hops a railing and goes tearing down the street trying to find a bus or a cab or even just directions to Sebastopol. (On the other side of the pond, meanwhile, I was feeling something somewhat similar ... but that's another story. Next week.) Now, if you've ever seen a chicken run, it's pretty funny. And I'm talking about on grass, on the farm. If you've ever seen one run down 63rd toward Market, Oakland ... I wasn't there, so I can only imagine, based on the excellently descriptive eyewitness accounts of Yo-Yo and Lord B.J.

Anyway, Big Mama's back, laying, and living happily ever after with the other ones. I went and saw them, and they're all wearing black stocking caps pulled down to their eyebrows, Raider Nation sticker on the coop.

Me and Lord B.J. slapped that coop together, by the way, in record time (one hour, 45 minutes) the day before the big move. Then he went back to work, and I went driving down Market Street to go get my sister to help load the truck.

That was when I happened onto Westbrooks Bar-B-Q, which isn't a restaurant so much as a sawed-off RV in the parking lot of Jimmy's House of Sparkles car wash at Market and 59th Streets. There's a sign on the sidewalk, three lines: Bar, B, and Que, with an arrow pointing in. I'd already slammed down a sandwich and a peach with the Lord, but this place had My Kind of Place written all over it, not least of all because it wasn't technically a place.

The RV's hood was popped, as in car trouble, and I know just enough about carburetors and kindness to always pull over when I see such signs of distress – especially when the vehicle in question is painted with a picture of a guy in a huge chef's hat with a chicken wing and a drumstick coming out of his head. Smoke billowing forth from ... well, for all I knew it could've been the poor fellow's radiator. In fact, he saw me looking and flagged me down, not so much like "Help!" as "You know you want it."

I did. I do. Hell, it wouldn't be the first time I ate lunch twice in one day, and it won't be the last. Rib sandwich with a side of collards goes for $7, and it's damn good barbecue. Nice sweet, smoky sauce, and plenty of it, poured over some mighty meaty spareribs, couple of slices of sliced bread. Good greens. Grape pop. In other words, uuurrrp.

They have sliced beef, homemade links, and of course chickens, and they're broken down at the car wash weekdays 11 to 6, roughly. They also deliver and cater. If you want to eat it there, there's a nice patio with shaded iron lawn tables and a couple of palm trees; but I think that belongs to the House of Sparkles, so bring a dirty car.

Westbrooks Bar-B-Q. Market and 59th Sts., Oakl. (510) 393-5076. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Takeout only. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.