Now Is the Hour

by Tom Spanbauer

I was on the back of the truck. I picked up a bale of hay, walked with it, set the bale down on the rack floor, kicked the bale. There were two more bales to stack. I wasn’t going to stop moving.

  Breath. I took a deep breath.

  He wasn’t feeling well this afternoon, I said. He’ll be back tomorrow morning.

  Dad pushed his cowboy hat up. Roosky Gypsy eyes. He put his wrists on his hips and hiked his Levi’s up with his wrists.

  He knew I was lying. And I knew that he knew.

  I wasn’t going to budge.

  I picked up another bale, carried it, put the bale on top of the other bale.

  How long you say he’s been sick for? Dad said.

  Just this afternoon, I said.

  I picked up the third bale.

  Funny, Dad said. I ain’t seen him come through the yard with you for two days now.

  I carried the bale to the stack, lifted the bale up with my knee.

  The tops of my lungs, the breath thing starts there.

  That right? I said.

  I punched the bale with my gloved hand, punching the fucker secure into place.

  That’s right, Dad said.

  Hay dust in my throat. I coughed hay dust.

  Well, I said. You must’ve missed him. Six loads yesterday. On our fourth load today. Right on schedule.

  Then: Stomach cramps, I said. George took some Alka-Seltzer. Had to get out of the sun.

  Don’t you worry, I said. He’ll be back tomorrow morning bright and early.

  No more bales on the truck. I jumped down onto the ground, to the stack of hay, so I could throw up some more bales.

  Just as I went for the bale of hay, Dad stepped across, stood himself between me and the hay.

  He’d better be, Dad said. Or I’ll kick both your asses.

  The sun was behind me and was in Dad’s eyes. He was squinting and looking up at me. Up. Maybe it was just how we were standing, but right then I was taller than him, and Dad was looking up at me.

  Suit yourself, I said.

  Dad laughed his chest up one short laugh.

  Pretty tough, ain’t ya? Dad said.

  That place in my chest at the top, the Idaho wind kicking around. I just stood. Made myself taller, didn’t say anything, looked into my father’s squinting eyes. The feeling in my arms that means I am helpless. But I kept standing tall, didn’t show it. Made my face look like it knew it was being looked at.

  Idaho wind. Flies buzzing. Somewhere far away a train whistle. Dad and I stood like that, him and me, for some time.

  Then Dad stepped away.

  I closed my eyes. Took a big breath but a breath he couldn’t see.

  His boots walking through stubble. The loud metal-to-metal pop of the driver’s door. Dad started up the pickup.

  I started throwing hay bales onto the truck. I made like I wasn’t watching him, but I was watching him.

  Dad put his arm up on the back seat, turned to look behind, and he backed up some. Then he put on the brakes. Shut the pickup off. Dad just sat in the pickup looking at me.

  Something was up.

  I bucked a hay bale up onto the truck, then turned around for another bale.

  Rigby John, Dad said.

  Yah, I said.

  I told you to keep your distance with these people, Dad said. Last year it was those Mexicans, and look what that got us. Burned our straw stack down. Now this year. I told you about George. I told you to keep your distance. I thought I could be proud of you, but here you are, doing a goddamn Indian’s work for him and then lying to your father about it. It don’t make no sense. What’s so damn difficult about letting people be? You always got to go get all messed up in them. And they ain’t worth it. All’s they’ll do is stab you in the back.

  I picked up a hay bale, threw it on the truck.

  Dad took his foot off the clutch, and the clutch made that clutch sound.

  My nigger-loving son, Dad said. I swear I don’t know where you come from.

  I was bent over another bale, my gloves around the strings. I let go the strings and stood myself up back to my tallest.

  Dad, I said, don’t use that word. It’s disrespectful. Blacks is what you’re supposed to say.

  My voice was high.

  Did I ever tell you about the time, Dad said, that me and Jimmy Weis took that nigger out of the Golden Wheel Bar in Blackfoot?

  Dad let out a big heehaw.

  Jimmy put the gunnysack over his head from behind, Dad said, and I hogtied his feet. Boy, you should have heard that nigger yell. Jimmy and I threw him in the back of Jimmy’s pickup, and we took him all the way up to Johnson Creek. We told that nigger we was going to lynch him, but we didn’t. Just scared him, you know. Nigger shit his pants. Jimmy and I laughed and laughed at that nigger, walking around bumping into trees with that gunnysack tied around him with shit in his pants. Damn near laughed our asses off.

  So many times, I wished I had a pitchfork in my hand that day. We’d see how scared somebody could get.

  But there was no pitchfork.

  And I wasn’t ready yet.

  Plus, there he was. He was my father.

  So I just stood. You might say froze. Out in the Idaho sun, July, the heat bearing down, puddles where there weren’t any, big old flies buzzing.

  Froze.

  Froze even more than the Sunset Motel.

  And that’s saying something.

  An old ignorant redneck bragging about being a bully.

  Honor thy father.

  I mean, really.

  Fuck.

  The next morning, sitting in Granny’s high-backed wood chair. I was staring at the scorched curtain, staring into Granny’s dark, empty refrigerator, sipping on a cup of hot coffee with Sego Milk and a teaspoon of sugar, and a cup of horseshit remedy, when I heard George’s footsteps come out of his room.

  Part of me was going to get sick. Another part was leaning back to land a punch like I did under the weeping willow. Another part couldn’t stop staring down at the wood of the table.

  George stood at the table for a while. Out the corner of my eye, all I could see was his crotch. Finally, I turned my head, looked up at him.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  One side of George’s face looked like a busted-up watermelon.

  Big bruises and cuts on his hands.

  You ought to see the other guy, George said.

  Inside the truck, after George got in, slammed his door, and was sitting next to me, before I turned on the key and pushed my foot on the starter and started the truck, George and I sat there for a moment, the shadows and light swirling all around on us. I went to say something, something about his face, something about his yellow dress, just something. But I didn’t know how to say what I had to say. Plus there was so much to say, and where in the hell did you start?

  George reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a cigarette, lit it. Two or three magnificent French inhales, then George handed the cigarette to me.

  It’s weird. It was just a cigarette. In a hay truck in the red rez under a bunch of half-dead Lombardy poplars, one man hands another man a cigarette, and the other man says no. A simple act. Not a big thing in the world with Vietnam and civil rights. But that morning, in my life, that particular cigarette meant all the differnce in the world.

  My excuse was that my lungs were sore.

  Some things, when you look back on what you did, you wish you’d never done them.

  Puke Price, for instance. I mean Allen.

  That morning with the cigarette was another one of those times.

  The truck engine roared big all around us. I put the clutch in, put the gearshift into reverse.

  George’s cigarette in his bruised hand, his torn knuckles, George still held the cigarette out to me.

  Moments of gesture.

  I waved my hand between me and the cigarette.

  I looked straight ahead, didn’t look into George’s eyes.

  No way I can smoke that, I said
.

  We were back onto Quinn Road before George put the cigarette back to his lips. The truck engine seemed loud. I thought the muffler was going.

  But the muffler wasn’t going. The engine was loud because it had to cover up what had happened with Billie. I mean, what didn’t happen.

  It had to be loud to cover up George in his yellow dress, his red shoes.

  It had to be loud so I couldn’t think.

  George didn’t do anything. He didn’t take a deep breath. He didn’t say anything. There was no indication. George just kept smoking the cigarette like it was just another cigarette.

  But that cigarette was differnt. That cigarette was more than it was.

  I did not want to smoke, did not want to wait, to trust, did not want to pray with George Serano.

  I was getting as far away from that guy as I could.

  George got out, unhinged the gatepost to Hess’s forty. He threw the gate into the weeds up against the fence. I heard him jump onto the back of the truck.

  In the mornings, George always got back in the cab after opening the gate. We’d smoke the rest of the cigarette, talk some, and then start in to work.

  That morning, when George jumped onto the hay rack instead of getting in the cab, it was sore in my chest, not cigarette-smoke sore, but sore in my heart where George used to be.

  I pulled the truck alongside a stack of hay, shut the truck off.

  My breath. Lots of deep breaths.

  When I opened the door and stood outside in the field, George was on the back of the truck trying to get his gloves on over his beat-up hands.

  I tried to think of something nice to say. Couldn’t think. I put my gloves on too.

  George’s face in the morning sun wasn’t just black and blue. His face was every color you could think of.

  Well! George said. Let’s haul your fucking hay!

  The top part of my lungs, the breath.

  It’s not my hay, I said. It’s my dad’s.

  Then why not let him haul it? George said.

  The hay dust inside in the fingers of my gloves.

  When I looked up at George, inside in the whites of George’s eyes, little red lightnings.

  No doubt about it. George and I were in for another round.

  I picked up a hay bale, bucked the hay bale up to George.

  George picked up the bale, walked to the front of the truck.

  Why don’t you and I say fuck it, George said. And go for a hike up Scout Mountain? It’s a beautiful day. What do you say?

  George’s lip was bleeding.

  All I wanted was to bend over and hold my chest and my stomach.

  A hike? I said. What, are you crazy? We’ve got hay to haul.

  I bucked up another bale.

  George gave the bale a kick, then picked it up.

  The hay, the hay, the goddamn hay, George said. Your whole life, that’s all it is is hay.

  Another bale up.

  But, I said, my dad.

  George picked up the bale, walked with the bale, stacked it.

  Don’t blame it on your dad, George said. You’re a grown man, George said. Why don’t you do something for yourself once?

  Another bale up. Hay dust blowing back into my face.

  I hacked up, spit hay dust.

  I can’t just up and leave, I said.

  Why not? George said. You’re not a slave.

  I am till I’m eighteen, I said.

  Then what? George said. Get drafted and go to ’Nam?

  George picked up the hay bale and threw the hay bale the length of the truck bed.

  Great! George said. Just great! From a hay slave to a war slave. Fucking great!

  The feeling in my arms that means I’m helpless.

  I’m not going to Vietnam, I said.

  My voice was high.

  George shook his shoulders and wiggled his butt. He made his voice sound high and like a girl’s, like mine: I’m not going to Vietnam.

  I bucked another bale up onto the truck.

  George picked it up, threw the bale back into my face. My arms went up just in time, but I was on the ground.

  What the fuck you got to say about it?! George screamed. You do everything you’re told! Of course you’ll go to Vietnam! If they tell you to go, you’ll go!

  Red blood so red on his lips. Blood stretched over his white teeth.

  I was back up on my feet as fast as I could get.

  What do you know? I said.

  You’re an ignorant, dutiful redneck, George said. The army’s full of them. What the fuck else is there to know?

  Redneck? I said. I’m not a redneck.

  My neck was red, my face was red, I’m sure.

  George’s feet were planted square underneath him. From where I stood, he was twelve feet tall.

  Redneck pussy, George said. You wouldn’t say shit if your mouth was full of it!

  Keep away from those people. They only mean trouble for you.

  Me a pussy! I screamed. Look who’s talking!

  George’s leap from the truck was like Superman landing. He landed right next to me — a little too close for me to take a swing, but still I thought I’d better. I was taking a swing when George’s gloved hand caught my arm. George’s body pushed my body up against the stack of hay.

  You’d better take a good look at yourself! I said.

  George put his face right into my face. He was spitting blood.

  And what is it I would see if I looked, huh? George said. What is it, huh?

  George’s hand was bringing my arm down slow.

  You’re the pussy! I said.

  George’s dark eyes, the gold bars in them. The red lightnings in the whites.

  Tell me what makes me such a pussy, George said.

  My arm was down all the way down. George’s hand on my arm pressing into my crotch.

  It was roiling in my gut and up and out my lips before I even knew it.

  I don’t parade around town in a yellow dress and fancy red high heels! I said.

  The wind blew George’s hair back off his forehead. For a moment, I thought George would smile. But he didn’t smile. George never smiled.

  My arm was clenched, and my hand and George’s hand were pushing deep into my crotch.

  George’s breath was cigarette smoke and toothpaste and blood.

  Up close, his bad eye, his left eye, was yellow and weeping.

  No accounting for taste, George said. Now, is there?

  I lifted up my other arm slow. For a moment there, I thought I’d just lay it on his shoulder. Instead, I grabbed the back of George’s hair, knocked his hat off, pulled his face up.

  At that angle George was some Picasso painting.

  At least I’m not hiding, George said. It kills a man’s soul when he hides.

  My hand in George’s hair was pulling as hard as I could. George’s hand on my hand pushed into my crotch was lifting me off the ground.

  I wasn’t going to let go and neither was he. Grunts and groans, cursing and swearing, there we were again, George Serano and me, kicking up dust, round three.

  A gust of wind, a hawk, some large bird flying low, in a moment, something collapsed. George and I were falling, falling. On the ground, in the stubble, next to the truck tire, we landed.

  Our arms around each other, our legs.

  George was trying to catch his breath. My breath was in and out of me too. It ain’t like on TV when you fight. You have to stop and catch your wind.

  Our deep breaths. The buzz of flies. Wind.

  Things got slow.

  George’s voice in my ear: I saw you, George said. You and your girlfriend. That’s why I came out the door and down the steps. I wanted you to see me. I wanted to freak out the white boy.

  George’s chest up against my chest, the quick laugh.

  Guess my plan worked, George said.

  Arms and legs and arms. I untangled myself, I pushed myself away. Scooted my butt across the ground, leaned against the
truck tire.

  George let his head drop onto his arm. He lay in the alfalfa stubble like a nude with his clothes on. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out his Camels, tapped one out. He lit his Camel with a new blue Bic lighter. The perfect French inhale. After several puffs, he did not offer the cigarette to me.

  When he finally spoke, George’s voice was quiet, deep, down low.

  It’s true, George said. I got a great big pussy. But I do what I want.

  Even Grandma tells you what to do, George said. Sego Milk and a teaspoon of sugar, and what do you do?

  I’m not at all like you, George said.

  George wiped the bloody spit from his mouth onto his sleeve.

  In your whole fucking life, George said. Have you ever done anything that somebody hasn’t told you to do?

  Right then and there, I’d have slapped George good just to prove I could, really, prove that I was a badass and I could hit a man smack where it hurt the most, right in his bloody wound. But there was the blood on his lips and blood coming down his chin and his blue and green and yellow swollen eye. Blood on his cigarette.

  I couldn’t do it.

  Fuck you, I said.

  No, George said. Fuck you.

  Don’t ask me how, or why, but George and I finished out the day hauling. It wasn’t our regular seven loads, only five, but still.

  That next morning, driving the truck to Granny’s house, I never in a million years figured to see George. Thought he’d be off somewhere waiting. But there he was, seven-thirty A.M., standing at the side of the road.

  George got in the truck, didn’t say good morning or fuck you. Didn’t look at me. Same way with the rest of the mornings. George was shut down like a steel trap. A total stranger. And meaner than ever. Even after his lip healed and the green balloon that was his eye went down, we still didn’t talk. George never once looked me in the eye. Smoked his cigarette alone.

  Which was just fine by me.

  I’d bought my own cigarettes. Pall Malls.

  I wasn’t no better. Just about everything was pissing me off. If a hay bale broke, or the stack on the truck shifted, or if the truck didn’t start right off, I took it as a personal offense. One time, the vehicle registration and the proof of insurance that was clipped to the driver’s side visor fell down while I was driving over the corrugations. Those fucking little pieces of paper falling down like that pissed me off so bad I took those papers and crushed those papers in my hand, then stuck them in my mouth, and I was ready to gnash them into oblivion before I regained my senses.