Anthony Miller's Fresh Air Fund Stories

My first experience with another man happened in the hen house. I was only thirteen and Anthony, a Fresh-Air fund kid from Brooklyn showed me that there isn’t too much difference between the races.

Granddaddy told me that Fresh-Air kids from the city grew tails. I believed him and just had to see for myself.

It was true. It surprised me when I noticed Anthony’s long black tail grew from his belly though.

It all happened very innocently. Anthony was a little older than I and was street smart. He hated the Fresh Air Fund and would rather have stayed with his Aunt Millie in Brooklyn, but his mother, a girl from North Carolina felt it necessary that he participate in a summer program which granted inner-city youth the opportunity to experience the simpler side of life.

Anthony wouldn’t talk to anyone in his new home. My mother tried very hard to make sure he felt welcome but he only sat at the breakfast table with his arms crossed refusing to pick-up a fork and eat.

“Those eggs are brown,” Anthony said while refusing to peel a farm fresh boiled egg and eat it.

“Sally laid that egg,” I said to the tall Black kid with puffy hair.

“Sally?”

“Sally is a chicken we hatched inside an ink-u-bater,” I explained. We have twenty-five chickens now, you wanna see them?”

Anthony ran to the door, put on his shoes and went running across the pasture towards the wooden hen house before I could catch up to him.

“Where’s da chicken heads?” he asked.

“Right there in front of you. Ain’t they something?”

“Those are pigeons, where da chicken heads?” He asked while showing me how kids from Brooklyn feed their chickens.