Summary

Socrates Fortlow comes out into the alley behind his small two-room apartment in the Watts section of Los Angeles at 6:00 am to check on Billy, the old rooster kept by a neighbor woman, but finds a young boy of about 12 has killed the bird with a serrated kitchen knife. Socrates catches the boy, whose name is Darryl, and makes him bring the dead rooster into his kitchen and pluck the bird clean, after which Socrates cooks the bird and he and Darryl eat it together. All during this time Socrates talks to the young boy, and tells Darryl he has spent much of his life in prison for murder, after which Darryl tells him his father was in prison, but died there.

At one point during their conversation, when he asks Darryl why he killed his “friend” (meaning Billy the rooster), Socrates realizes from the...