chicken legs

Vernie–whose real name was Casey, but we couldn’t call him that because the lead singer, whose real name was James, went by Casey–was grief-stricken and tortured by the untimely death of Chicken Legs. A funeral was held in the back parking lot behind the Safeway. Chicken Legs was a Chinese Water Lizard; I had not known him well. He enjoyed eating crickets, sunning himself in his orange-lit terrarium, and on rare occasion, fanning out his neck flaps and running on the toothpick appendages for which he was named. He also enjoyed the heart-felt devotion of one Mr. Vernie H.

I’m hesitant to write about Vernie because he’s too big for the page. Most girls I know would give up a kidney to have the beam of his attention on them. But no, Chicken Legs was the focus of the man, the legend, the guitar player in Kai’s band. Vernie is the Dos Equis guy and the Marlboro Man rolled into one. He looks like a Calvin Klein ad: he’s too skinny, he always has five o’clock shadow, he actually wears things like boots, cowboy hats, white tank tops with levis and big leather belts, and red bandanas around his neck–and it’s his true skin. He’ll lean against his motorcycle with a rolled cigarette hanging off his lip and it’s the most natural thing in the world. He’s a millionaire, jet-setter, male model, rock star, only he’s broke. He’s always been broke, but it’s like he lives in a world of some other currency. In the ten years that I’ve known him, he’s been in a motorcycle gang, spent a year in Barcelona for no discernible reason, weathered Hurricane Katrina while tending bar in New Orleans, homesteaded in Montana, sailed a catamaran to Argentina, moved to Alaska to be a bush pilot, and became a craftsman of wooden boats in the San Juans.

Anyway, this maverick Valentino, this love-child of Don Juan and John Wayne, this James Dean 007, once loved a reptile that was not long for this earth.

Chicken Legs, RIP 2000-2000

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• Vernie