Of course you knew that it was inevitable that people in the complex would name the chickens. The rooster with his swagger, his loner personae, and exceedingly loud crowing is called Big Boy. The rusty-brown rooster with the bright red comb and magnificent iridescent green tail feathers is Little Boy. The hens, one black, one brown, are mostly known as “the sisters,” but some folks refer to the brown, biddable biddie as Hennie. The black headstrong one is — yeah, you guessed it — Pennie.

For a while it seemed that there was a romance developing between Pennie and Big Boy, or at least that’s what it looked like to me, though they were a star-crossed pair. While Little Boy, in his I’m-the-boss manner, did his best to herd everyone up onto the fence and into the trees for the night, Pennie would lag behind. She’d stand on the top rail of the fence waiting for Big Boy to arrive.

Some days Pennie waited a good long while. But once he’d finished pecking in the dirt or exploring the underside of the cars in the parking lot, he’d flap to the top of the fence in a single hop. When he did, Pennie would rush toward him, and he toward her, like Cathy and Heathcliff across the moor.

Whether Pennie’s romance with Big Boy would ever have ended up with Pennie hatching a brood of chicks is something we’ll never know. Two days ago, the Animal Control van pulled up below the chickens’ favorite roosting trees. A man in a jump-suit climbed out, put on leather gloves, and eye protection. Then, taking out a net, he headed down the drive. A few minutes later I saw him return carrying Big Boy upside down and by his ankles.

By the time I ran down to intervene, the man had Big Boy in a cage and had slammed the door to the van. Even with the door closed, I could hear Big Boy was crowing.

“What are you doing with that rooster?” I demanded.

He opened the driver’s door and turned and scowled at me for interfering. “We’ve had complaints about him crowing at all hours, so the county is ‘relocating’ him.”

Like someone in the witness protection program?

I thought briefly about following the van down to Animal Control and bailing Big Boy out. But if I brought him back to the apartments, his recapture was inevitable. Instead, I stood there feeling helpless. I watched the van roll down the drive and wondered if the other chickens would miss Big Boy. I suspected Pennie would.

I went inside, scooped up some feed and sprinkled it at the edge of the driveway. It seemed like the least that I could do.