Chicken Lady

We almost met Chicken Lady. As we ate dinner outdoors at the Shark's Cove Grill on Oahu's north shore, she walked around back to rummage through the grill's dumpster. The wild chickens, who nibbled near our feet, took off after her. At that moment, I learned, motivated chickens move fast. They formed a ragged half-moon around Chicken Lady. Then a second ragged curve, this one of feral cats, gathered behind the chickens. Chicken Lady, bent over waist-deep in whatever, started flinging scraps behind her back: Some juicy bits landed near chickens, other tidbits landed near cats. She kept a few pieces for herself. "Girls," I observed, "That's what happens when you buy a one-way ticket to Hawaii." During the next few days, we watched Chicken Lady make her rounds and discovered she lives with a pet cat under a patch of shrubs along Waimea Bay Beach. She was the first of many homeless we saw on Oahu. Most probably started their Hawaiian adventure with a dream to live in paradise, then tumbled into mental illness. Chicken Lady sleeps and wakes to the sound of the surf. She feeds the chickens and the cats. They would miss her if she wasn't there. To live by the ocean, to be needed: It's still a scrap of paradise.