THE PRESENT
In the September heat a black Ford pick up came along raising a mushroom cloud on the unpaved road. Its body had been dented in a hundred mishaps, the metal dulled by coats of mud. A body like the farmer who drove it, worn down by many years of harsh prairie wind and snow. And hard labor.
Spring rains had mixed residue of fertilizer, feed, and grain onto the truck puddling the metal with vague brown stains. Each summer’s sun had scorched that year’s weather into its skin. Newer spots stood out like blemishes on a youth’s face.
The pick up went along going somewhere with steady determination. It would have born witness if it could to the lives of its two passengers.
The pick up had been well used. It had taken the drunken farmer home on hundreds of Saturday nights, brought his disheveled children to drive-in movies, and obliged his dying wife.
On either side of the road stretched low rolling pastures of shrub and tall grass. It was a yellow land and barren but for one or two windmills and dark spots that were foraging cattle, an occasional sign of activity other than the pick up itself. Now the land-sprawl was looking dead and burnt out at its edges.
The day was far too hot for this time of year. Abnormal heat. The pick-up’s valves clattered, no more than usual, but making the temperature seem even higher. Slumped over the steering wheel, the grizzled haired farmer talked with the youth beside him.
“What’s the matter boy? You ain’t talking? Seems to me you’d be asking me all sorts of questions, you’d be so excited.”
The long boyish face turned to look at the driver, big wondering blue eyes staring in a careful discomfort. He was flaxen haired, bowl cut, skin sun burned but still smooth as cream.
The farmer was horse faced, a skull even longer than his son’s, but angular with a narrow forehead, sharp cheek bones, and a pinched Norman nose. Wide high nostrils dripped tendrils of black hair. His skin was rough, permanently in a hard blush fanning across his face in and down his neck to his collar. The man’s eyes were bright blue same as his son’s but round and shiny like dimes.
“Pa, I don’t feel like goin’ to town, ‘sides I needed to help Flora put out the wash, she’s too little to reach the line.”
The man looked quickly at his son, his eyes narrowing. His voice rose into a growling command.
“Come now boy, you’re making them excuses. My Pa took me to town on my sixteenth birthday, I’m taking you.
“God damn son, the way you been draggin’ yourself round I’m starting to think I should have brung you last year. Now git your ass in gear for this, ain’t nothin’ bad– you gotta start living early, do it fast and enjoy it as best you can.”
Snorting the farmer grimaced as he twisted his finger in his right ear.
“Hell, I most talked my Pa’s head off badgerin’ him to take me to town. I dreamed about it for weeks. Still the best birthday I ever had.”
The man’s thick hands gripped the steering wheel. His fingers were coarse and scarred. The top of his hands were tinted red, small hairs rose in black arched rows. The nails were bitten back to the quick.
In his corner the boy squirmed. “But Pa, what if I have a girl. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Sixteen is old enough to make a decision. If Ma were alive she’d say it weren’t right. I’m … “
Taking his hand from his ear, the farmer pushed the boy’s head sharply against the front window. His son grunted softly.
“Boy, your Ma’s dead and it is your sixteenth birthday, so shut your damn mouth. If you’re man enough you’ll have a good time. I ain’t gonna worry about you after today.”
It was quiet in the truck. The farmer periodically hummed a phrase and scratched himself. His boy leaned against the door looking out the window at the passing signs and telephone poles. His face was thinner and whiter than his father’s except for the red mark on his forehead where it had hit the glass. The boy’s aspect was fresh and fragile, the kind waiting to be ruined.
Slowly the black pick-up turned from the country road and jogged into a tiny county seat town. Its two blocks of stores were half boarded up. Tumble weeds filled the parking slots.
The truck passed slowly, the tall white grain elevators, co-op building, and Moose Lodge. It crossed the weed grown railroad track and stopped in an alley beside a sandstone wall under a “No Parking” sign. The engine popped after the ignition was off and a smoky dust settled in the sunlight on the dashboard.
Climbing out and down with an exasperated curse, the farmer shouted to the youth “Don’t just sit there with your ass in a sling.” The boy sluggishly followed eyes blinking quickly against the sunlight and his mouth slightly open.
The man in his grey striped overalls, their side buttons undone around the red flannel shirt with its sweat stains, stalked ahead of the neat shabbiness of his son’s shirt and jeans. Once he playfully circled his son in a skipping maneuver to kick the boy in the rump making him pick up his pace. “Git along lil doggy, git along.”
The couple walked into the musty hall and climbed the narrow sway backed stairs disappearing above mottled walls into the gloom of the second floor.
Fans droned in the distance, it was becoming a very hot day. A woman tittered.
Loud enough to be heard from above the man said. “Happy birthday son.”
A door slammed shut.
Alone, with his hands in his back pockets the farmer stepped again into the street’s mean glare. He blinked several times at the court house clock, hesitated, looking up and down the empty scene. Hitching up his overalls he leaned forward to spit on the brick sidewalk.
Finally decided, the farmer sauntered across the street to the dim cool doorway of a tavern. Inside amorphous forms bent together, squatting in the gloom. These shapes were relics. Most were holding bright glasses of cold beer, gold and wet..
The farmer sat with his elbows on the bar top sleeves going soggy. His fingers spread open into the puddles of spilled beer. There were no shadows in the tavern, too dim for them. Only the voices of the farmers and ranchers animated the scene. People telling stories, the same old stories, gossiping, complaining and laughing in the bar’s crepuscular juke box light.
After he drank his beer the man and asked for another. When he belched he tucked his bristled chin to the top of his bristled chest hair, a dark grass growing on him shooting out from above the top botom of his shirt..
He looked back through the open doorway into the hard sunlight. The farmer shot his stare across the street aiming in on that particular second story window.
As he watched the window a gust of dirty wind listlessly sucked out the torn bottom of its lace curtain. Breeze tossed it against the exterior brick. It rippled fitfully in the wind, slowing as the lick of breeze died. At last it hung bedraggled against the casement.
The farmer spoke then to the bar.. “It’s my boy’s sixteenth birthday, he’s gettin’ his first …”
An old man, a brittle husk of one, tittered the one reply.
“At M’s? Bet he’s squealin’ like a pig at slaughter.”
The tavern was warm and humid. Silent while waiting for another quarter to play a tune. Outside, the sunlight gave no quarter.
In the alley across the street a black Ford pick-up was burning metal. It was blinding to the eye like headlights on brights coming forward along a long dark road.
Originally published in COTTONWOOD, the literary magazine of The University of Kansas.