A Rooster Crows in Brooklyn

Years ago Doug lived in Los Angeles - before I knew him. He was deciding whether or not to go graduate school, trying to decide if he should leave LA; and one morning in the middle of LA County he was awakened by a rooster crowing. I often make him tell me this story... and the end of the story is that when he hears that rooster crowing he thinks to himself, "I've got to get the fuck out of here." Like that was the signal it was time to leave Los Angeles, the big city, the excess, the current road trip, all that; and go back to school.

When we lived in New York in Hell's Kitchen I heard roosters crowing all the time. I wanted to leave the City; nothing was going my way and things hadn't worked out the way I supposed. Every time we heard a rooster crow in the morning I would say to Doug, "See? We've got to get the fuck out of here. The rooster is telling us. The rooster is telling us to go." But Doug would remind me that the California rooster was the harbinger and a rooster to be obeyed because his crowing came out of nowhere. And that's why it was a sign. "These roosters crow all the time" he would say as salsa music blared from the apartment building behind us. "Castro had chickens in NY, it's not so unusual here."

I was reminded of all this by this story of a woman getting shot by an arrow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/nyregion/17arrow.html?ref=nyregion

This woman was getting out of her car and as she opened the door she got hit in the gut with an arrow. I think if that happened to me, and Doug were there with me at that moment, I would say, "OK, are you satisfied? It's the wild west in Manhattan. Can we go now?"