cheap eats

Dances with rats

by l.e. leone

Some days it never even really gets light out. It gets less dark, like in Alaska, and then it gets dark again. You can hear the rain on the roof, driving the point home, even when it's not raining. The wind blows it down out of the redwoods. On days like this, the chicken farmer spends less time outside scratching with his or her chickens, and more time huddled by the woodstove with Weirdo the Cat, listening to the rain on the roof and the rats under the floor circussing around on the water pipes, swinging from wires, and rattling up a wintry racket. Or maybe the wind's blowing them down out of the redwoods, which I guess would make them squirrels and cute and cuddly.

But they're rats, I know, because every now and again but not often enough I kill one. Neno says, if you can't beat 'em eat 'em, and he even attached a recipe. But this doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me. If you can't beat 'em, Neno, how the hell are you supposed to eat 'em?

They're more likely, in the end, to eat me.

Rats are cheaper eaters than all of us. I can't even leave my soap outside in the tub anymore, because they eat my soap. Last night I dreamed one was licking my hand, like a dog. Don't feel bad for the chicken farmer though. It was one of my favorite dreams ever. The rat was a comedian rat, a ragged old master of slapstick, putting on a one-rat show for my benefit. My favorite part was when, in the middle of a mad dash toward the wall, he went up on his hind legs and did this hilarious sideways soft-shoe vaudeville hat-and-cane thing, then mad dashed the wall again and badly botched an attempt to Donald O'Connor it.

I laughed, I cried, and if I were a dream reviewer I would highly recommend that you have this one. But I'm not, so let me tell you about a day in the life of a chicken farmer. In the city. Sunday. No sports this past weekend because of all the weather, but I did get to play a Lord Exister show in the Tenderloin, at the 509 Cultural Center. The promoter, a real person with the real name of Mad V. Dog, pretty much assured me that no one would be there, but I'm in no position to pass up a paying gig. The pay: two dollars and free food from my new favorite Indian restaurant.

All right then. I wowed a standing-room-only crowd (11 chairs, 12 people) with my heartfelt homemade ho-hum ditty-wa-ditties about chickens and butter, and then Mad Dog's band, the Merchants of the New Bizarre, wowed the seven of us who were left when the five of them took the stage.

And then: By way of a headlining act, cheap Tenderloin Indian food was ordered and picked up and brought back by Mr. Dog and we all ate it around a big table while watching this Indian dance movie about a beautiful young woman dancer who is well liked by the masses but maybe vulgar or something so she is reviled by the art-dance community. Especially an old man with a beard who goes around tearing down posters for her shows.

But then somehow, while I was refilling my plate, the cranky old man becomes the beautiful young dancer's teacher, and she's going to learn to dance more highfalutinly, or something, but they're worried that her dance partner might be falling in love with her but then he either breaks his leg or someone breaks it for him – I couldn't tell you for certain and anyway I had to leave before the end. Good thing I'm not no movie reviewer!

My favorite dish, ordered in my honor (I like to believe), was called Butter Chicken. It said so on the Styrofoam. The rest of them were impossible to read, but in some cases recognizable: saag paneer, tandoori chicken, this great ground lamb and potato combo, some really spicy little fried fritter things, so on and so forth. Pappadam, naan, basmati rice – the leftovers of which my chickens are delightedly chowing down, as we speak. Five butts up.

Six. Everything was great! I wish I could tell you the name of my new favorite Indian restaurant, but – being a dumbass chicken farmer from an enchanted land where rats dance and it rains even when it isn't raining – I, um, forgot what it was. Anyway I never technically went there, so here's where I had breakfast:

Sally's. 300 De Haro (at 16th St.), SF. (415) 626-6006. Mon.-Fri., 6:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and wine. MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible. E-mail L.E. Leone at le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com.