by Gish Jen
“The hippies’ll make the payments, but they won’t own the mower,” he said. “You’ll own it.” Giles looked at Ginny. “You’ll own it. As you probably figured out already, living with the King of Deals himself as you do. You know, your pa’s had a hand in every deal that’s gone down here for decades. He even made a dime on my divorce.” He winked. “Remember, Rex? When Diane and me split up and had to sell. Remember?”
“I do,” said Rex.
“Mind you, I’m not saying things have changed,” Giles told Ginny. “No, I’m not saying that at all. But your pa has always been the King of Deals. That’s why everyone called him Rex.” He looked off. “That’s why after a while no one but his ma called him Avery.”
Avery. Everett didn’t know until right then that Rex was not born Rex, but Avery.
What the heck.
Giles had been casual about the down payment, but Ginny and Everett were less casual. ’Cause even that was a lot of money for them, more money than they had. They were going to have to borrow even that from the bank. They checked the numbers again. Checked and rechecked.
“Think the commune’ll pay that?”
Ginny said she was happy to go ask Belle. Saw it as an excuse to go visiting, he guessed. And sure enough, she came back smiling.
“Belle says yes,” she said.
“What does Paxton say?”
She did not like that question.
“Why do you ask?” she said. “Don’t you think Belle knows?”
“I’m just asking.”
“Well, I didn’t ask and I’m not going to ask,” she said. “If you want to know what Paxton thinks you can go ask him yourself.”
And probably he should have, now. He should have. ’Cause when Belle told Paxton about the mower, he put two and two together, see, and called up Giles himself. And then Rex’s old friend, bless him, explained everything to Paxton, including how Ginny and Everett probably could have taught him a thing or two. Seeing as how they lived with the King of Deals himself. And seeing as how Rex had made a deal out of other people’s misery for about as long as anyone could remember.
Sue Ann Horn told them all of it later, see. When she and Randy Little were finally settled in, she told them. Back at the time, though, Belle did not exactly come running to report on what Paxton said. She did not let on that the commune’d gone and got a loan from their daddies and bought their own mower, either. Ginny and Everett knew nothing about nothing until their mower was signed for and sitting in their field. They knew nothing about nothing until there it was, all prepped and green and brandy-ass new.
Theirs.
The last days on the farm were sad. Rex’s bypass was scheduled, but most days he didn’t look as if he was going to make it to the operation. Ginny kept calling the doctor’s office. Terrible, she kept saying. He looks terrible. But the answer kept coming back the same. His condition wasn’t critical enough for him to jump the line. Sure he was tired. Sure he was keeping to bed. He had a bad heart, they said. That’s why he was having the bypass.
’Course, the funny thing when you thought about it was how clear Everett’s pa’s pipes were, thanks to his barely ever getting a bite of those steaks Rex was so used to. But Everett didn’t ever say that to Ginny, now. Nope. He didn’t say it. They were too busy trying to decide what to do. Trying to get used to the idea of some stranger handling the deal. A stranger selling the farm.
Jarvis and Bob came up to help out but made the mistake of asking how this could have happened. And then, well, if they really wanted to know they probably could have heard the story just fine in the city, and without even using the phone. Where the hell were you? Ginny kept saying. Where the hell were you? And, Did you ever think about the farm? Did you ever think what it meant? And, Would you look at Pa, now? Look at him! Look at him! Blasting. She was blasting. She was so mad she banged the truck into a couple of trees. Burnt up just about everything she cooked. She even had trouble with her shoelaces. Couldn’t calm down enough to tie them.
Rex took to praying. ’Course, he always was some kind of Christian. Congregationalist, maybe. Everett’d never seen him pick up a Bible before, though. Rex had never had time for that sort of thing. Wouldn’t have had the interest, either, unless there were passages in Paul about what the weather was going to do. But now he read as if the Good Book might tell him something. As if the Good Book could tell him how his old friend Giles could do him in for the commission on two mowers, for instance. Or whether Satan had gotten to his friend. He thought the Good Book could tell him that. His friend was in trouble, he’d say. He had to pray for him. Pray for his salvation.
Rex playing savior. That was something to see, all right.
“We’re going to have to start over,” Everett said, one day. Ginny was standing there in the kitchen door, smoking and giving him her back. But he talked anyway, now, see. Talked to her back. “Listen. We won’t move to the city, but how about we move across the lake? Into town. How about we move into town?”
A puff of smoke came out of her.
“Far enough to put this behind us but close enough we’ll still have our roots. You’ll see a doctor and have us some babies. I’ll find some work. Rex’ll live with us. What do you say?”
She smoked.
“Those cigarettes are going to kill you.” He didn’t dare bring up the eating. Figured he’d let her pants talk to her personal. But the smoking, now. He had to say something about the smoking. “You see what it says on the package? The surgeon general says so. Everyone says so. You’re going to get cancer.”
“Oh, yeah?” She lit up another cigarette.
They called the doctor’s office again. Said they wanted Rex looked at. ’Cause he looks terrible, they said. ’Cause there’s a lot of stress here. All they wanted was an appointment, they said. And they did get one in the end, see. They got one. It wasn’t for two months, though.
Ginny smoked.
It was Rex who brought up the subject of graves. Said they could try to save the family plot, now. They could try. He didn’t want to be buried there, though. Nope. Said if he was buried there he could not rest for missing his cows.
“I’d just be all the time thinking about them. What a herd we had. Escape artists.” He laughed. “Escape artists.”
Ginny swallowed.
“Remember when we sold the dairy herd? When your ma died?”
“I remember.”
“Thought that was the end of the world. Remember?” “I remember.”
“Thought there could never be as hard a time as that.” He laughed a kind of laugh. “Just goes to show what a man knows.”
He wanted to be buried in the Christian cemetery.
“Could be a mite lonely at first, but maybe we can buy up a couple of plots around mine. What do you say? See if anybody wants to join me. You. The boys. Everett. Improves your chances of going to heaven, you know.”
“Is that right?”
“Starts you out one step closer. And let’s face it. Some of us need the boost.”
“I hear you, Pa,” Ginny said. “I don’t think we’ll be burying you anytime soon, but I hear you.”
“Pre-need, isn’t that what they say?” he said. “It’s good to decide on things pre-need.”
“I guess,” said Ginny.
Seeing as they were on the subject, she asked if he wanted her mother moved over there, too, to join him. Keep him company. “Not that we’re planning on burying you anytime soon,” she said again.
“Nah. Let the dead rest,” he said. “Though I will miss her. What a good woman she was, your mother. I never did think I could manage without her.”
They listed the farm with a big-name agency. Folks with an office in the city and brochures. And they did talk great. They did. They talked great. But they sent morons to show the place. Showed it to morons, too. It was morons walking around with morons. Ginny kept the place perfect as a magazine, but that wasn’t enough, now, see. That wasn’t enough. The morons would stop and
say, loud enough for Ginny and Everett to hear, They prettied it up, but did they insulate the place? They prettied it up, but did they update the wiring?
Everett would’ve freed the cows to get Ginny out of there. Spare her the ordeal. But once, just going out for a walk, they’d come back to dead quiet.
“Pa! Pa!” Steep as those old stairs was, Ginny ran up them by twos. “Pa!”
Rex was asleep. He had pulled down his window shade so as not to see any more morons. In fact, so as not to be looking at the farm at all.
“I always used to tell Celia,” he said, “that a family farm is a soap opera. I just plain don’t want to watch.”
’Course, they had their hopes even then, but what a sorry lot of hopes they was. Everett hoped never to see Giles again, now. That was one hope. He hoped never to see Belle or Paxton either. That was another. And Paxton he never did see again, luckily. Giles, neither.
But one day he looked out the window and saw company, and it wasn’t a moron bringing a moron. It was Belle with her bare feet and that torn-up clothes. Never mind it was fall. Warm for fall, but still fall. She was wearing cutoffs so you could see the hair on her legs. A T-shirt with no sleeves so you could see her underarm hair, too. Luckily, she kept her arms more or less by her sides as she swung them. Not swinging them one back and one forward, the way most folks did, but both forward and then both back, so you could see her tits squeeze. Squeeze and hang, squeeze and hang, like they were being milked.
He intercepted her on the walk. Asked what she’d come for.
“I came to say I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize, I guess. I mean, I just had no idea. That all this would happen. I had no idea.”
She was still swinging her arms. When he didn’t answer right off, though, she stopped.
“Well, that’s fine,” he said. “But I don’t think you should go in there.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause you might get yourself killed,” he said.
“Rex might kill me?”
“Ginny,” he said. “Ginny might kill you.”
“She’s mad, huh.” Belle cracked her knuckles.
“I’d say so. Yeah. She’s mad, all right.”
“This is so like high school,” Belle said. “Except that it ain’t.”
He laughed then—the first laugh he’d laughed in a while. “Nope,” he said. “You got that right, now. It ain’t.”
“Maybe I’ll write a note,” she said. “Get some nice stationery. You know, with flowers in it. Think so? Think I should write a note?”
“That’d be safer,” he said.
And two days later, here comes Belle’s note in the general delivery. It’s on stationery with flower petals, sure enough. The address was in purple ink and all around it there were designs. Scrolls and leaves. A parrot. He handed the thing to Ginny.
“A note for you,” he said. “I think it’s from Belle.”
He did think Ginny would at least read it, now. He thought she’d read it and go blasting. But she did not read it and she did not blast. Instead she stabbed it with a steak knife and held it up over the kitchen sink. Then she took a lighter and lit it. Held it careful so the ashes wouldn’t mess up the magazine look.
“I saw Belle the other day,” he said. “She told me to tell you she’s sorry.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, if you see her again, tell her I’m fixing to jab out her eyes with a pitchfork,” Ginny said.
One night, Rex woke up shouting, “They’re out! They’re out!” and leapt out of bed to go rescue the cows—thought they’d broke out of the barn. Ginny took off after him only to hear him fall clear down the stairs.
“Pa!” she shouted. “Pa!”
Ginny and Everett shot down to the stairwell and then half stumbled, half fell down the stairs themselves. Those stairs being genuine old farmhouse stairs, and steep, see. They were steep. ’Course, in all their years on the farm, no one had ever fallen down them before. But in their panic and the pitch black, Ginny slipped and then Everett did, too. His heel slipped, then his tailbone hit. And next thing he knew, they were all in a pileup at the bottom.
“Pa! Pa!”
Rex was still alive by the time they got the light turned on. Sitting there holding his chest, but the calmest of the three of them. Kingly. He was kingly. His eyes glowing this weird color in the lamplight—like he wasn’t a person anymore, but something else. A king.
“Now, I know you know CPR,” he said. Clear and calm. “But I want you to let me die. Hear me? I want you to let me die.”
“Pa,” said Ginny.
“I can’t,” said Everett.
“You can,” said Rex, his eyes glowing. “You can. You’re a poor man’s son who’s made quite a mess here. But this much I think you can manage.”
“Pa,” said Ginny. “You can’t mean that. Pa.”
But his eyes had stopped glowing and he was going pale.
Excepting the commune members, the whole town turned up for the funeral. They had a beautiful day for it, too, cool. Autumnal. The leaves falling down like even the trees were crying. ’Course, the people cried louder. Said what a good man he was. Said how he’d be missed. Said how he was a style of farmer you didn’t see much anymore. An old-timer. The real thing. Said how what happened was a crying shame. They were outraged that he died before a cancel came in. Outraged by medical care in general. How impersonal it was. They didn’t say why they stopped coming to him for real estate, though, and that made Ginny mad, see. She did try not to show it. She tried. But in the end she started blasting about how they killed him. How they weren’t good enough to lick the soles of his dead feet. What hypocrites they was.
Blasting. She was blasting.
She slept hard that night.
The farm didn’t sell for anything like what it was worth. Time was, when Rex could have gotten a whole lot more. Time was, when they wouldn’t have had to pay commission, either. Instead it was six percent to sell the farm to the commune. Belle and Paxton tried to get other folks to explain. How they wished they weren’t buying the thing. How they didn’t even want it. How they were just worried about the runoff. And folks did tell Ginny. How this move might even be dangerous for the commune. Risky. How it might be risky.
Ginny hoped it ruined them.
“How can they so much as step into that barn?” she said. “How can they step into the house? Where is their conscience?”
Ginny and Everett rented themselves a place to live in. Everett found himself a job.
Ginny smoked.
Who found what first? It was hard to say. But one spring day, Ginny came home a little lighter, and he did, too.
“I found this land,” he said.
“I found this church.”
Now, he knew she’d been looking for a church. Knew she’d been shopping around, looking for something closer in. But mostly she’d been fixed on what she didn’t like. The prayer bands, for instance. She didn’t like the prayer bands, didn’t like the whole electronic thing. Whoring, she called it. Whoring after seekers. And she didn’t like the preaching that went with it. That was whoring, too. The preachers being whorers, a lot of them. Sleazy, she said. Corporate.
He did think she was being picky. Persnickety, even. She was being persnickety. But well, now, finally she’d found one she liked. A welcoming church, she called it. Small. She liked it that someone greeted her as soon as she walked in. She liked it that someone helped her find a seat. She liked it that people remembered her name right off. Personal, it was. This church was personal. The preacher didn’t just stand up front like a stiff. He came down and talked to folks. Gave his sermon with his knee up on a front-row chair. ’Course, he had to hold his hands on top of the chair for balance. But he was about reaching out, see. He was about reaching people where they lived, and she got that, she said. Spirit. He had spirit. And the congregation had spirit, too. They’d even built the church themselves. Made it out of a house. ’Course, it wasn’t nothing fancy, now. Nothing like
what J. H. Moses would’ve done. But it was real, she said. It was like their beliefs, which were about keeping to the real word of God. Honoring it. Preserving it. They were about the real Bible. That’s why they were called the Heritage Bible Church. And that’s why they weren’t Lutheran or Presbyterian or anything like that. Why they were independent. An independent church. Everett’d never heard of an independent church. But what the heck. He was just glad she had someplace to go. People to talk to. Glad she’d be getting out of the house.
“Great,” he said. “You’re coming out of it. Feeling better. Great.”
’Course, she wanted him to come with her. Keep her company, see. And he did, once. Promised her he’d come again, too.
“When you’re ready?” she said.
“When I’m ready.”
“Promise?” “Promise.”
“Because they understand,” she said. “They understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That an evil has been done to us.”
“Great,” he said.
Today she’d probably claim she felt the same about the land as he did about the church. Today she’d probably claim it was mostly something the other person was keen on. But he remembers different, now. He remembers she loved it. And, to be frank, it was some land. It wasn’t big. Five acres. A hoofprint. It wasn’t what they were used to, at all. But it was closer in to things. And high, it was high. Faced southeast. Had a drop-dead view. You could even see their old farm, if you looked. You had to squint, but you could see it. He thought the thing priced reasonable for what it was.
“We can put up a little house,” he said. “Can’t you just see your sunroom? I’m going to put it right facing the view. Glass it in so you can use it all year round, and you mark my words. All winter long, you’re going to sit in there like a cat.”
“Is the money really enough?” she asked. “For the land and a house, too?”
“If we build smart.”
“Think my pa would approve? Of us building a house instead of starting a new farm?”