The rooster crowed predawn. A rousing, rooster reveille. 

Was it a lucid dream, a subliminal sound? After all, I had fallen asleep reading David Sedaris, whose brother, Paul, is nicknamed “the Rooster.”

Unmistakable, again. A rooster’s lusty crow.

“Didya hear that?”

Don nodded, splashing his face. Our morning-has-broken repartee is mostly “Uh huh” or “Not yet,” in answer to “Ready for coffee?” or “Ready to walk the dogs?” 

Not “Was that a rooster?”

We live in town, on a park, and have seen foxes, deer, raccoon, possums, chipmunks and squirrels. Once, I encountered a juvenile bear during a morning run. We’ve a variety of birdlife, including hawks and owls. But a rooster? Never.

The real secret to our relationship, we’ve silently agreed, is keeping things muted until coffee cups are filled and emptied, the paper skimmed, and we’ve dressed without walking into closet walls. Neither of us are morning people. 

Pulling on sneakers and grabbing dog leashes, we both understood we were going to look for the rooster.

“Sounded close,” Don muttered, and we set out, as if we were advance scouts nearing enemy lines. A Delft-blue sky rimmed the horizon above our usual trail into Latham Park. There was no birdsong beyond harsh complaints from an agitated murder of crows congregating along power lines, and the plaintive moans of mourning doves. 

The rooster was nowhere to be seen, but day after day we kept hearing him.

We redoubled efforts to find him during morning and afternoon walks. We began inhaling our cuppa joe and I waved the paper off, determined. 

“Didya hear him this morning?” I began asking first off. It felt portentous.

Along the park trail, seeking confirmation from others, too, I’d ask perfect strangers, “Didya hear that?”

“A rooster!” they’d marvel, squinting at me with interest as if I had conjured the bird up. Sometimes his crowing sounded well beyond the prior day’s perimeter, surprising us.    

Then, finally, he just appeared as we gardened one Saturday. The Dude himself!

Our wildest terrier alerted us when the rooster strolled over for a drink from our fountain. Bax trembled with excitement, as if to say, “I found him, and I’m keeping him!”

When I approached the rooster, he nonchalantly disappeared into the woods, strutting along our neighbor’s fence line. His plumage was colorful; a gorgeous fellow. 

My grandmothers had kept chickens, and I’d written about raising urban chickens for this magazine; I knew enough to give him space.

A few days later, we spotted him in the shaded perimeter of a parking lot. We froze, pulling the terriers closer. Soon after, we discovered the rooster was gaining an online presence on Nextdoor.

Some had names in mind, including Leghorn Foghorn. Don called him Russell Crowe.

Our editor once had a rooster cleverly called Brewster Roostamante. 

But the person resolved to capture the rooster dubbed him the innocuous sounding Todd. (Didn’t he deserve better?) After organizing a small posse for the weekend, a trap was sprung after his fourth or fifth reveille.

Soon after, we both started hearing phantom crowing. 

“Didya hear that?” I asked Don, pausing my weeding the weekend of Todd’s entrapment.

“I keep thinking I hear him, too.” He pulled a sad face.

Trundling him off to suburbia, Todd’s captor posted a mugshot. “Todd” was captive, pacing in a dog kennel. Gone was his devil-may-care swagger. Can a rooster look dispirited? 

Within 24 hours Todd was transported away to God-knows-where by God-knows-who. I imagine the clever bird had already figured out how things lay, so to speak.

Because the pairing of roosters and life in a high-density neighborhood, it turns out, is a foul, foul affair.