(Don't go looking for East Egypt, it's under the lake built by the Army Corps of Engineers)
The barroom floor was slick with beer and the quickly eroding local topsoil. The barmaid slipped and hit the barfloor hard, taking a tray loaded with two pitchers of pisswater draft beer. "I fuckin quit, Earl. You hear me?!" She rose, filthy, and threw empty and full glasses to the ground, smashing them in front of the table where Earl sat in deep concentration. He was locked fist and arm in a mortal battle with the man in front of him, "You just get back to work, NormaJean, you know we got 6 kids to feed." With these words he pushed the man's arm to the table splashing them both with St. Louis's finest pilsner. His drunk opponent scowled and threw money at Earl, Jackson and Lincoln staring at him twice.
"Thanks, Harley, you big wuss. NormaJean, get yourself cleaned up, we is going out." Earl looked up beaming with pride.
"You got time for another match, mister?" Earl looked around and didn't see the challenger. After a few seconds, a chicken hopped up on the barstool and smiled at Earl.
"A fuckin chicken?"
"Put your arm on the table, Earl, I'm gonna kick your shitstompin ass."
Now, Earl is not a patient man. And he's not a humble man. And the last thing Earl likes is to play the fool. He now had the familiar attention of the bar, but he also felt like he was wearing a giant crown that said King Fool.
"I ain't wrestling no fucking chicken, now go off and make nuggets or whatever you chickens do." With this Earl had regained some of the respect of his childhood friends and enemies in the bar. He had them laughing and rolling in the dirty aisles.
"I got a hundred bucks that says you can't beat me, Earl." The bird scratched the table and puffed out what amounted to probably an 8 ounce chicken breast. The bar fell silent.
NormaJean approached the table. "You gotta fight the chicken Earl or you'd lose your seat." Everyone looked at the barstool, Earl's stool, the one with UNDEFEATED painted in bright red letters by the owner of the bar, Big Ernie, who stared at Earl from behind the bar. Someone started clucking softly.
"Alright!" Earl shouted, his veins standing out on his neck. "C'mon, chicken. Bring it."
The chicken put a wing out and Earl grasped it. They stared at each other while the bartender chanted, "Ready, Go!"
Earl gained an unsurprising lead on the chicken but what shocked the crowd is that the chicken did not go immediately flying off the table. The chicken was holding steady. Sweat beads popped out on Earl's brow and their arms started shaking. It was not evident whether it was Earl's arm or the chicken's that was doing the shaking, but Earl didn't seem to be gaining much more ground.
"C'mon Earl, I'm firing up the grill right now." The crowd started chanting "Finger lickin, finger lickin, finger lickin." The chicken started a low sound like Bruce Lee when he approaches an enemy. Turning its head away, the chicken pushed its breast forward and whipped its head around screeching "Bkaw!" Earl's fist slammed to the table, flipping it over in the same movement. Earl had lost.
Earl grabbed the chicken by the neck and the two wrestled on the slimy bar floor.
In a spirit of sportmanship and fairplay, the patrons of the bar tore the two apart. Big Ernie looked at his best customer, sadly. "Now, Earl, you got to pay this chicken what you owe him."
"I ain't a him." The chicken claimed, wiping some blood of its beak.
"That's right, roosters are the guys. This here is a girl chicken."
"Earl got beat by a girl chicken!" shouted Harley, feeling vindicated for his loss earlier. With that Earl left the bar a crushed man.
The chicken got up and brushed herself off. "The name's Matilda."
Matilda took her place in Earl's seat most nights of the week, arm wrestling for money and getting ready for the West Egypt Regional Arm Wrestling Championship. A lot more chickens were coming to the bar, looking on with pride as Matilda dispatched her challengers. The folks of West Egypt are pretty simple and tolerant folk, so they just kept right on drinking whether it was with chickens or not. Ernie was happy because he had more business than ever. People were pouring in from a four state area to wrestle with the chicken. Ernie also declared that if Earl didn't pay Matilda the $100 he owed her, he was not allowed back in the bar.
Out of respect for his star customer, Ernie took his famous Buffalo wings off the menu. Anyone who might complain had only to look at the determination outlined by the set of Matilda's beak. They would soon be eating crow.
Earl wasn't seen in public for many months for anything more than to go to the gas station for a twelve pack of beer. It was rumored he bought a computer and was spending time on the internet. NormaJean wouldn't say too much about it. She kept a tight lip and kept on serving the chickens, making it obvious that she didn't care for them too much. She didn't complain aloud because they were, for the most part, decent tippers.
On the day of the Championship, Matilda took her seat and waited patiently for the bar to fill up. All manner of good old boy and Midwestern cowboy meandered into the bar and soon the place was rollicking in exceptional fashion. Ernie's 75 cent draws were keeping the braggarts bragging, the hotheads arguing and, it seemed to Matilda, to be just a room full of cocky roosters strutting around. "I know how to handle this type," she muttered.
With fanfare, Ernie called for the start of the first round of arm grappeling. Matilda quickly dispensed with a skinny, young combine jockey from Colby. The kid left the bar to drink in the parking lot in shame. Ernie showed up with a bowl of raw popcorn for Matilda's refreshment. She pecked at the corn, while sizing up the competition on both ends of the bar with the eyes mounted so conveniently on either side of her head. There didn't seem to be a punk here who could take her.
To no great surprise of the locals, Matilda kicked every dusty ass that confronted her until she sat waiting for a match that would decide who she would wrestle for the title. A mechanic from Dodge City met with a college football player visiting from Nebraska. The football player had massive arms but absurdly small hands. The mechanic turned the match around by squeezing the jock's hand until he gave up from the pain. It was a modus Matilda had seen employed before. It was also one of the more problematic techniques of her foes.
The mechanic looked up from the match, as if he was not surprised in the least bit by his arrival to the final round. He smiled and looked at the chicken. "It's you and me, Mother Goose." Matilda did not even glorify the idiocy of the remark.
Matilda glared back like a cockatrice that expected to turn any onlooker to stone. Suddenly, the bardoor swung open and Earl all but ran in. "Stop this match! I have evidence here that invalidates every fight this chicken here has ever won." The barroom gave its full attention over to Earl and his outrageous claim.
Ernie stepped up to officiate and give ruling. "Hold on, Earl, what do you have there?" He held his hand out for the folder in Earl's hand.
"I have here rules of the National Armwrestling League that states very specifically that both contestants must lock in firm grip with their hands. You can see right here in Section 8. Now, it is obvious that this here piece of poultry has no hands. Furthermore, no elbows per se to set firmly on the surface and site of the contest. I move that we disqualify this hen from all further competitions." Earl confronted the crowd with a look of appeal.
Many just seemed confused that anyone would take the time to even consider splitting hairs over such a fine point. If the folks of West Egypt were fair and tolerant, they were just as suspicious of authority. Earl was coming on like an expert, a pointy-headed intellectual fergoshsakes. What set the crowd off was when the mechanic, who had the most to gain by the ruling just said, "You can take your rules and shove them individually up your puckered ass." The crowd began to mop the muddy floor with poor Earl and clinch his final debasement.
This left Matilda to face her final opponent of the evening. The boys in the back quieted down and sat on Earl in anticipation of the evening's last combat. The mechanic cracked his knuckles loudly and looked around the room as if gleaning some of the collective strength of those salt of the earth folks around him. He placed his elbow down and spread his fingers wide, peering through his eyebrows at Matilda. Matilda clasped her opponent with what grippage she had and Ernie started the round.
The strength of the opponents seemed evenly matched, so noone took an early lead. The mechanic and Matilda stare at each other, their arms unwavering, trying to get some upper hand in the psychological game. The crowd fell to a hush and the rowdy drunks got up and left Earl to lay alone in the beer dregs. Ernie stopped NormaJean from dispensing draws so that no noise might disturb the participants.
"I ate fried chicken all day in preparation for this match," the mechanic growled. Some hens who sat far in the back clucked loudly in disgust. Matilda's comb bent forward on her head.
"Don't slip off the barstool with your greasy ass," Matilda retorted to the delight of the same hens.
This volley of remarks started a slight wavering of the locked fists from one side slightly to the other. There was no shaking in spite of the incredible effort both were putting into the contest. To the onlooker, it might seem that they were toying with each other.
Since there was nobody watching Earl, he snuck back behind the bar and opened up a beer, chugging it greedily and staring at the crowd. He looked like a man that had nothing to lose. NormaJean ignored him categorically. Not one of his so-called friends had raised a word in his defence on either occasion of his humiliation. So he did what he set out to do. He climbed on top of the bar unnoticed. And he jumped from the bar to the table where the championship was on the cusp of its conclusion. The mechanic seemed to be making his last push when Earl landed atop them both.
The match was effectively ended, so the mechanic began to pummel Earl with new- found strength. Some of Earl's townie friends decided to renew their fraternal bond. Random contestants started taking their frustrations out on each other. The bar erupted into distilled chaos and flying spirits.
Matilda had caught much of Earl's beergut on the back. With great effort, she dragged herself out of the bar. The chicken found a clear spot and passed out in the parking lot. In her delirium, she heard someone calling her name. "Matilda, it's time to go home." She barely had the strength to open one eye. She saw a goateed man with a round face and squinty eyes, like a cross between Satan and Mao Tse Tung. He wore a bolo tie and a spotless downy white suit. He said, "You've been a very bad chicken. You've had your fun, but now it's time to return and pay the price for this freedom." The voice was hypnotic, scolding and soothing at once.
Matilda felt some strength return and rose to her feet. "How did you find me?"
"It wasn't difficult. Someone has been posting about a chicken with incredible strength on the internet. I quickly made my way here."
Matilda looked imploringly at the gentleman. "Isn't there some deal we could make? I could make you famous."
"I'm not in the business to promote arm-wrestling chickens. I'm in the business to provide hot, quality meals quickly at a low cost to the consumer."
"Are you mad that I beat you down with that scarecrow?" Matilda said with pride.
"We've had to strengthen security at the plant significantly," the man explained, straightening his bolo.