In Progress

The Summer Harvest: Ch.1

My old man used to tell me, "Son," he’d say, "Boy, there’s two things yuh gotta get yuh tuh make good in this world. Money and God." The one justified the means of the other. Now, which justified which was somethin he never did tell. I spose he spent a good bit of time thinkin on the matter himself. Lord knows the old man had heaps of money. But I often wonder if he ever did find no heaps of God. We weren’t a part of no church, so I knew he wasn’t gettin it there. But the old man did like to rattle on bout the Lord like He and him was old friends.
"Jesus and me," he used to say, "We’s knowd each other since primary school. We used tuh play ball tuhgether. Yeah, I used tuh knock him somethin terrible on the field." And then he’d break off in a laugh what shook the whole house, slap the table, and go on talkin up the good Lord’s name.
I believed him too. Wasn’t til a wiry, weatherbeaten, pale colored fella showed up at the door sayin he was lookin for my pop and that he went by the name of Jesus that I knew the old man was full of shit or somethin worse. He didn’t know no God, just some sorry old bastard from town. Though I never did call him out for it. Seemed to me like the old man had enough on his plate to satisfy two men, or give em nothin but a mountain of sorrows from worryin and weightin em down. Then I had to wonder if he mighta found God or got God or had God with him at least at some point in his life. Cuz why else would he tell me I needed God to make good? Give the old man a quarter and some time and he’s liable to find twenty pounds of sugar what some other fool could only find ten for. Give a man enough time and he’s liable to find just bout anythin. That’s another thing he used to tell me. So I gathered then that he musta had God square up in his left pocket cuz, between whopin on my head and drawin on his Jack and disappearin bout once a week, weren’t much else for the old man but time.
Like I said, my pop was a good man. And like I said he used to disappear bout once a week. He’d set off in his empty pickup and go rattlin down the road twards town, kickin up a terrible brown dust what choked up the horizon when you looked through it, like he was in some awful hurry. So he’d tear off to town, what was somethin like fifteen miles, or so I remember it. He’d always leave round four or five in the evenin, when the shadows are bout half their parents worth, and he’d stay gone the night and the day and then come rollin back the followin evenin. Often times he was skunk drunk when he found his way back, and every time he came towin a full bed of things what he hadn’t set out with the night before. He’d come back bearin dressers and chairs and clothes and jewelry and other things of that sort. The dressers and chairs we’d put in the house if they was good for lookin at and sittin on. If they wasn’t, then they got brought in the house anyways, only my old man would take an axe to em first, so we could burn em up in the fireplace. The clothes we wore and the jewelry we turned round and sold. Or, he’d turn round and sell em when he disappeared again the followin week.
Couple times I’d asked him where he goes when he goes and where from did he get all the things he always had up in his pickup when he got back, but that’d make him awful sore. He’d turn beet red and light after me with a switch or a belt or a bible, whatever’s closer to him at the time. If he caught my arm before I made it out the door he’d come down hard and fast, whopin and cursin and hollerin so it seemed like the whole world might hear. If I could manage to slip his grip I’d fly on down the road, but Lord he had some powerful hands. I remember I broke free one night and tore off for what musta been a mile or two. I ran that dirt road til my feet burned and my lungs stopped workin right, til it hurt more to go on than it did to turn round and go back. Paved road wasn’t for another mile or so more, and wasn’t another house for a few miles after that, so I had nowhere to end up. At that point I started to walkin back.
That particular evenin the sky was cold slate grey and sharp, and I recall it looked like somethin from a picture book, near enough to touch but not what it appeared. Kinda like the negative of somethin else gone, the ghost of somethin once livin. Really there weren’t nothin up there that night but the wornout colorless moon. As I walked it cast a flat light over my head and led my feet round the bumps and breaches in the road, though the path was more or less straight and by then I knew the way blind. It usually took what musta been a half hour or so before the house come back into view. Front door always hung open, light still burnin in the main room. By then my old man’d be past out, slumped all crookedlike over the table or in one of our new chairs. I’d pull the door shut, damp the fire, and fall on into my bed. More than likely the old man wouldn’t remember a thing once the sun broke the sky. Like I said, my pop was a good man.
When I’s eight or ten or somewhere in between, my old man come home from one of his trips with a twenny-two. Had a oak stock, a steel lock what locked like it was brand new, and a barrel, black as an empty well at midnight and polished shinnin like a motor head. Beautiful. Thing stood bout three quarters my worth, right under the chin, so I knew that I had to have it. It went that I’d beg and the old man’d get sore and I’d have to run off to come back and beg again. Weren’t more than a day or two before he got fed up with my jawin so’s to the point that it was causin him more grief to keep the popper from me than it would to just hand it over. Spose the idea of givin his child of eight or ten a piece beautiful as that one was somethin the old man had to play round in his head with. Maybe I just beggered him at the right time on the right day, caught him in a pleasant state. I can’t speculate too much on the old man’s thoughts. Was only when he opened up his mouth to curse or praise or teach that I had any bit of a clue to what the man was thinkin.
Either way I come beggin one afternoon what musta been the middle of the week, early summer. My pop was sittin down over the porch step with a jug in his right and a cig in his left, watchin out at the flies playin hopscotch on the cattlebacks. I’s gettin ready to give him the whole thing and go bout preachin to why I should have that twenny-two, why it weren’t right to keep it from me, and why I needed it, but he cut me before I could even open my mouth and think bout sayin I.
"Boy," he drawled heavy. My old man was kinda slow at the mouth. "Why yuh got tuh come round me everday flappin bout that damned twenny-two? I tell yuh I’s bout had it witcher whinin. Yuh done want me tuh knock yer skull for yuh, do yuh?" It weren’t til the last that he took his eyes off the field and set em hard on me.
"No," I told him. He always had a way of keepin me small when I talked, like I felt I could only ever break out a word or two at a clip.
"No?" He says, straightened and powerful like he’s fetchin to smack me one. He drew his jaw taut and sharp edged, so as to pronounce his grit, and turned his brow down. "No what?"
"No, sir."
"Goddamn right no sir." Then he eased off and set out to starin into the cows again like he felt he accomplished somethin or had made some kinda point and was through with me. "Yuh member that next time yuh dressin me, boy." For a man what was rough natured and generally unsocietallike, he sure did lean on me for my manners. Maybe cuz he lacked em in so many ways.
"Sorry, sir," I says to him timid, kinda like a chicken round a couple of hogs. Not sure if they’s gonna eat her but damn sure that they’s bigger than her. "I only want it what cuz you got one like it yourself and I wanna learn to straight shoot like so I can go out to huntin with you cuz I—"
"Damn it boy." His cig was gone down, so he took his last from it and crushed it out on the porch. He had a look like his nerves was stretched too thin, but softened himself cuz he musta felt like my sell bout goin huntin with him was genuine. Spose it was partly true.
"Well now, I guess I ain’t never thought bout learnin yuh tuh hunt," he thought out loud. "Least not yet."
I could see his wheels were goin, like his mind was buildin up to move his mouth into what I wanted to hear. Weren’t many times til that day that the old man showed any bit of reasonin or acknowledgin to what I had to say. Spose there weren’t many times after neither. Mattered only now that he was listenin and understandin me like I’s a regular old friend of his like Jesus, so I leaned on it some more. I leaned just hard enough to persuade what was a generally unpursuaded man, but not to the point where he’d wanna whop me or send me runnin on down the road.
"I’s just thinkin it’d be good is all, sir."
"Well," he idled for a beat or two. "Well, I spose talkin on it now it done seem such like a bad idea. Boy’s gotta become a man sometime, and sooner than later’d do yuh good." He tipped the jug with his right and prolly thought that whiskey all the way down. Then he broke into a grin what made me know I’d stuck my head in mud and come up clean.
"Now yuh ain’t gonna go round poppin off intuh my livestock with that thing?" His breath turned heavy and mean like he was tryin like hell to be serious and to hide the gentler part of him what had come through in the grin. "A course, that’s if I decide if I should let yuh have it."
"No, pop – sir," I assured him with the very best of my sincerities on my face. "I promise I won’t never do nothin like that." And I’s crossin my fingers in my head just like any person would do when they are sayin whatever they have to for to get what it is they want. I spose in some cases a little untruth is the best thing for everybody. I usually didn’t care too much to be true to my old man, seein how he didn’t care too much bout bein up front with me neither. We got along like that.
"Now yuh promise on yer mother, boy. Else yuh won’t be gettin it. Not today nor tomorruh." He was serious as an chestnut oak what’s been chopped through and is on the fall. And I’s serious bout fellin my old man, so I leaned to the last.
"I promise, sir, on my mother."
He seemed to find relief in my honesties. So after my words he picked himself up off the stoop, balanced his way into the house, and come back bearin my winnins in his left hand. And sure as sky is up and the Devil is down my old man let me have that twenny-two. Didn’t show no signs of regret after or nothin, he just sat himself back down and went to starin off into the field again. I gave him a look like pure grain awe was pourin out the corners of my smile, but he didn’t return it. To me it seemed to be what shoulda been a bigger moment in the scale of big moments between a man and his son, but my old man didn’t seem to think much of it. He was prolly just happy to have me off his back bout the piece, so he could be alone again. Hell, I really didn’t care. Besides, in the house he had a whole army of guns to himself, so what’s givin one to his son anyways?
I’s so happy to have the piece that I couldn’t think to thank him and so I didn’t. Musta stood there like a fool in the sun for a number of minutes, gawkin from the twenny-two to my old man and back to the twenny-two, before it hit me what I wanted to do. I’s gonna show this to my mother and my mother’s gonna see what a grownup I’s becomin. The idea was so good that it made my insides waffle and my breath go up high in my chest. Soon enough my mind was dancin over the notion and it was chompin at my bit and tellin me to go. I didn’t give the old man a look after that, to ask him or tell him, cuz he wouldn’t have let me go. His business was his and mine was mine, but trouble drummed up every time they crossed ways. It was best not to tell him more than he needed. Then I hoisted the popper up into the groove on my left shoulder, balancin it with both hands cuz it was up over me like a high chimney to a house, and set off into the smooth summer air.
My old man had what you might consider a considerable spread. I don’t know for sure, cuz I never did get it from his mouth, but I gathered we had bout six hundred acres or more, most of which was once pasturage and bush farm. If you gave it a right goin over I bet the land might even be worth somethin, but I only knew it as it stood neglected. The pastures still held their worth cuz they didn’t need no tendin to, except for the attention of seventy or so head of cattle what kept to their own grassy world. My pop would occasionally milk one of em, and they always seemed watchfully indifferent of him like he’s some exotic foreign thing. Most of the time they’d let him put his hands on em and go on cuttin the cud like my old man wasn’t even there, or like they was just bein complacent to get it over with. I spose he prolly shoulda milked more of em more often, seein how they’d get bloated, but my father didn’t seem to care much for farmwork. He had his weekly ventures to keep his muscle up.
The plot we had was so ample that it was alright for my mother to live at the other end of it from my old man’s house. She and my pop never really saw each other no more, but when they broke I spose they decided it’d be best to stay in a close approximation on my account. She never came to my pop’s house and my pop rarely if never went across to her side of the spread. Only thing connectin the two of em anymore was bout a threequarter mile crosscut through one of the fields and me walkin it four five times a week.
The path to my mother’s was one I had on the back of my hand, much like the dirt road what my father made me so often run. It was at one time a tractor rut what gave my old man passage to the far edges of the corn crop through which it was set down. But since he quit to farmin, and I never did know him to farm, the crosscut had gone from hard earth, what looked like the underside of a tire tread, to a loose overgrowth of dandelion and tallgrass. The crop hadn’t gotten on much better neither. Over a lifetime of disregard and uncultivatin, the corn had fallen outta favor with the soil and come to be patchy and sparse. It weren’t a natural occurrence in our part of Flats and without proper seedin didn’t stand much of a chance gainst the native underbrush. The corn had less or more been replaced by wild blackberry brambles what, much like the tallgrass and dandelion, showed no prudence and crawled slowly outta the fields and into the tractor rut. It didn’t bother me so much, except if ever I caught my leg on a thistle and I’d have to walk the rest of the way with an unagreeable pain shootin up inside me. The blackberries with their white blooms gave the air a tartness what always made me want to pluck one off. But from their color that day I gathered it was only June and they wouldn’t lose their sour for another month, so I left em be.
My mother lived to the northeast on the upbank of Turnmill Run, which was the rivulet what cut off the far edge of our property. Unlike the pasturage round my old man’s place, my mother’s spot was shootin up all kinds of tree life cuz of its nearness to water. Things like droop in dogwood and knotted ashen beech defied the otherwise leveled nature of the crop fields with their timberline. Soon as the shade of those sky piercin trees cooled my skin I knew it wasn’t much more walkin til I’d reach my mother’s.
When I arrived that afternoon it was like my arms were thin molasses from bearin the weight of the twenny-two all that way, and my mother was already waitin for me. She had come accustom to my trips, what were generally after the second meal of the day, and knew to expect me round that time. Normally we’d sit just up over the bank of Turnmill, lettin the water run away and talkin like a mother and a son do. If it was sunny we’d talk in the shady dotted light under the roof of the trees. If it was rainy we’d talk through the chorus of rainbeaten leaves and get dropped on. If it was snowy there’d be a blanket to wrap round the two of us and we’d collect white weather on our heads while we talked. She never did take me into her house, didn’t even offer. Spose I would’ve been outta place in there, but it never did bother me none cuz I liked our spot outside near the bank just fine.
I think she knew how excited I was when I come marchin over into her direction, balancin the popper manlike as I could with a look like I had just gotten away with somethin. I musta looked kinda like the cat who swallowed the canary, cuz it felt like my eyes couldn’t hide the pride.
"Look at what I got," I says to her, as I took a seat on her right facin the water. I let the piece down gentle across my folded lap to give my arms a rest, cuz they were fed up with me.
"Well, isn’t that lovely, dear," she’d say with a perfect lilt. And then she’d let me talk.
"Oh yeah, you bet. I knew you’d think it was perty, that’s why I brung it. Take a look at this stock here. Pop told me it was oak. The lamination is so slick. Look. And it even has some pheasants carved into it." Then I had to catch my breath from prattlin on and hold the piece up so as to present the stock to my mother’s inspection. The picture was of three birds what looked kinda like chickenmallard crossbreeds what I took to be pheasants. Two of them pheasant were in flight and another one was not far behind it, liftin off the ground outta a tallgrass field. The trio of em were woodworked into the handle of the twenny-two and flyin back the butt end of the stock.
"Ruffed grouse, dear," she corrected me. "See the plume on his head there?" And then she’d point some extra feathers out on the head of the grounded bird and I’d know for certain it was a grouse. I felt pretty thickheaded after that, but I knew my mother was right. Seemed she always knew everythin.
"You must be fairly tired from carrying a thing that large all this way, dear," she’d say to me all motherlylike, as if her eyes would be comfortin me.
"No, I ain’t tired ma." I lied to her but I think she knew. "It weren’t nothin for me. I could do it again, walk there and back again, holdin this here popper up over my head as I went. Heck, I could carry it one arm there and the other arm back, if you want me to." And then I put both my arms right out in front of me and squeezed em hard as I could so my mother could see. Weren’t much life left in em before the squeeze and I could feel em drainin all the way out, but I held em there all constricted until my mother’d speak and relieve me.
"We don’t use heck, dear. Correct?"
"I’m sorry ma, that’s right."
"Good. And no, dear, I wouldn’t want you to do a silly thing like that." And I’s awful glad too, cuz I knew I wasn’t gonna make it halfway back down the rut before my arms wholly fell off.
Then I put the butt of the twenny-two stiff gainst my right shoulder and did my best to show my mother I could aim it. The muzzle came up and I pointed it out over the creek and set my eyes to lookin down the barrel. Though I couldn’t hold it steady for any period of time and soon as I lifted her up she’d start saggin back down under her own weight like some trampled flower.
"That’s fine, ma. I wouldn’t wanna do all that walkin when I could just as easy sit right here. Specially if I’d just end up right back where I started out from anyways."
She didn’t say nothin in response to that, and I’s still catchin the air up in my lungs and tryin to get a regular beatin back in my chest, so I didn’t say nothin after that neither. It didn’t matter none though. Often times we’d just sit and be together, listenin to the talkin waters of Turnmill dribble along on their undyin travels.
As I continued attemptin to point the popper into the trees on the other side, the barrel began wiltin faster and faster, always endin up pointed straight into the run. So presently I gave up and set the twenny-two down on the grass to my left and let my arms soak up a much needed rest. The sun came down quiet and warm through the breaks in the beech cover and felt good on the tops of my cheeks. My mother and I sat there appreciatin the afternoon until the daylight disappeared behind us and it was time for me to head on home. At that point I hefted the twenny-two, which had become unheavy durin my sit, up over my left shoulder, said my goodbye to my mother, and took off down the rut where my father’d be waitin in the house, prolly raked and ready to buck his head.
Generally I made it back round supper time, what was a fascination of itself on account of my old man. I gather he learned himself to cook outta the necessities of his circumstance, bein without a woman in the home, but it weren’t ever all that good. Meals’d come together as a last second thing, where either the sun would be beddin down or I’d be pokin round and lookin hungry and he’d realize it was time to stove. Irregardless of his sentiments and his draw count on the day he always found his way to makin dinner. Often times I’d wait at the table watchin him crack and chop and fry, all the while mutterin and swayin under the pressure of his daily consumption, and wonder why it was that he bothered. Spose he saw it as an obligation and a chore. But, the truth of it is that cookin is nurturin, and nurturin is a love of some kind or another. Course I only came to that conclusion some years later.
Anyhow, that night he had everythin set when I come through the door cuz the sun had been gone a while by then. The house wore its usual dinnertime stench of overly charred meat, of an uncertain make, and burnt salt so prevailin that it made me phlegm up in the top of my throat. My old man was glosseyed and put down at the table in the main room with a plate for me and a plate for himself, which I always had to find curious cuz he didn’t never have much of an appetite outside of his bottle. But it was kinda ceremonious, our sittin down together, like an attempt of his at things bein normallike round the table. I didn’t know it no different though, since I couldn’t never remember my mother eatin with us, and so the whole thing got lost on me.
"Yuh been out through the field agin tuhday, boy?" He weren’t ready to buck just yet and his voice came gruff and tired. "Gone out tuh see yer mama agin?" He didn’t approve of my spendin so much of my days in the company of my mother, to which I spose I understood but still knowinly disobeyed.
"No, sir."
At that he turned from tired to spiteful and set his eyes right into me.
"Ain’t no good lyin tuh me bout it, boy. I seen yuh take off."
I’s standin bout ten paces inside the door, the twenny-two restin stock to the floor in my right hand. I gripped up on the muzzle and considered runnin out cuz I knew he prolly had seen me, but I decided to smooth it and pull one over on him.
"No sir," I stammered, "Well, yes sir. Yes. That’s true. I did set out to the fields. But I’s just layin out there in the tallgrass, drawin a beat on some birds and coons. I didn’t never go to mothers."
"Birds and coons, huh?" He saw through me.
"Yes, sir. Cept I don’t have no ammo for this here—"
"Yuh tryin tuh spin me, boy?" His tone took insulted and he turned his craw up, "I know where it is yuh go."

The Jack musta been itchin him up somethin monstrous that night, cuz he did know I regularly spent my days on Turnmill but generally wouldn’t rail on it less I started things down that path. My mentionin my mother was what regularly set him off, but I hadn’t said a thing and he went right to it. He had his good times and his evil times.
"Never, sir," I says, at which he looked even more incensed. Realizin his misconception with my response I’s quick to pad up his nerve. "I mean, I mean, I know you know where it is I take to, but what I meant was I wouldn’t never try to spin you—"
"Listen here now damnit," he weren’t havin it.
"—Sir."
He’s pointin a regimented left hand in my direction and leanin his choleric weight into his elbow. His eyes were distant and wet, but they hung to mine with a sincerity I hadn’t often seen in the old man.
"That’s onehunerd percent goddamned right. I do know where yuh take tuh. And short a boundin yuh up tuh a post in the ground I know I couldn stop yuh neither." He took a labored breath from deep inside his body and it rattled til he began to cough. They were wicked whoopin coughs, kinda like an old crudded engine what’s strugglin to kick on. Hackin fits often caught him when he got worked up.
"And I live with it," he broke between coughs, "I live with it damnit. I have tuh! Nine years," he stopped short to suppress his fit with a long draw, all the while keepin his eyes locked on me. There was somethin wild behind em, like the fear in a dyin animal. "Nine years it’s been and I been puttin up with it! With you!" Jack sprayed from his mouth in angry bursts as he spoke, and he slammed the jug down hard into the table, upturnin his plate and sendin a fork to the floor. It was a wonder the jugbottom didn’t break out.
"With this." And he turned his head down to register the mess he had just made of his dinner.
I could feel my head shakin and my mouth go numb, as a cold sweat filmed up on my right hand, which white knuckled the barrel of the twenny-two. I’s unable to get up a word, so I stood there and took it. The popper was the only thing keepin me on my feet.
When his eyes come back up the old man had a look of stone sobriety what made the color drop outta my face. He had let this much out and figured to finish his point.
"But if I ever catch yuh near yer mama with that goddamned gun!" he snarled and pointed with a menacin finger,"or find that yuh been tuh see her with it! I’m gonna string yer ass up!" Then his eyes gone intensely depraved, but his voice went the other way and quieted, losin all intonation, which bore right through me, "And then beat on yuh til yuh can’t walk."
My old man rose from his seat, took up the bottle, and didn’t leave his eyes from me. He drew long again and set the Jack down. Then he come heavy and hulkin in my direction til he got so close he’s chokin me with the poison on his breath. I woulda run off but my feet were pegs in the floor and I could feel my mind startin to slip. He breathed sour into my face, and as my body began to drop he grabbed me up with both hands viced on my shoulders.
"Where was yuh tuhday, boy?" His voice whispered like a steam pipe what’s bout to blow. "Answer me when I speak tuh yuh. Where yuh been with that twenny-two?" He waited just long enough to let slip and fight back another cough before his wits snapped and the pipe blew.
"Answer me goddamnit!" and he began shakin me with a strength which defied his consumed state.
"Talk!" The gun slipped from my hand and collapsed to the ground like a hammer drivin a nail. It lay there while the room got agitated and my vision bounced. My old man began screamin with a tortured determination.
"Talk yuh little bastard! Done yuh know!? Respect goddamn yuh! Respect!" He began thrashin me bout side to side and his fingers burrowed deeper into my shoulder bones.
"Tell me where the hell yuh been with that gun yuh lout bum bastard! Tell me!"
"I’ll kill yuh for this I swear tuh heaven! Done yuh know it’s yer!?" his voice cracked apart and he all of a sudden thrust me back gainst the wall. I brought up my arms best I could to shield myself from the whoppin and closed my eyes.
"It’s yer, yer mama," came instead of rabid fist. "It’s."
"Done yuh know it’s, today," his voice ebbed and went away into an aired realization, "it’s yer. It’s yer birthday." I opened my eyes guardedlike and stared up at him. I had no thoughts to put to words.
"It’s," his lips began to tremor and his eyes sunk in shock at himself. He musta seen somethin in my face what shamed him and put the humanity back in him, cuz as he turned away from me I could see him fallin apart.
He stood there for a while sunk and defeated and lookin down at himself. Then his breathin idled for a moment as if he were steadyin himself to speak, but he didn’t turn round. Instead he walked vapid and ghostlike to the table for the Jack and then to his bedroom, draggin his body behind him, without a word. The light from the main room worked its way into the shadows as his body disappeared. From the darkness I could hear the wet slide of broken suction followed by the splash of liquid in a bottle. Then the same two sounds a second time. Then nothing. After a painful exhalation came long and drawn out from the bedroom, the door swung slowly shut and he silently placed the lock home. The slightest click came from the door as he took his hand off the knob on the other side, which let me know that it was final.
The whoppin and the wailin on me were things I could take, on account that they were worldly and empty at the same time. I could always escape, if not on foot then in my head. Still there’s a kinda closeness in it, some kinda touch like a hug. A clement hand, like an evil hand, is still just as warm. And when he raised a hand, I knew it were only Jack takin my father for an ugly ride. That it weren’t his heart, just an etherized head what no longer belonged to him. But when the old man took it to words I felt obscene and undesired. No dull fists or hugs, just a jagged and piercin hate what turned me upended and alone. So much distance can be made in so few words. So much pain, real pain what don’t go away like a bruise or a swell. So much truth. That night his heart had shone itself for what it was, and I knew then that he would never come outta his bedroom again, least not the way I’d seen him. The respect was gone, and so I lifted the twenny-two off the dusty floor and brought it over to the table with me. Then I turned my old man’s chair round and leaned the popper up gainst it, and I ate my dinner in quiet isolation, feelin very cold.

Thought, No. 1

When we emerse ourselves in literature,

we are at the same time dissociating ourselves from reality.

We die and are reborn each time we open a book.