but to actually do good. I know it sounds crazy, my boy, but sometimes nature provides too much life for one situation. In this case there were too many puppies born to Old Ma. Mr. Johnson had to put a few down because there was not anyone who would want the pups, and the old man and Old Ma cannot take care of them. Son, sometimes things have to be sacrificed for the greater good. Old Ma could only nurse a few pups and too many was too many, so Mr. Johnson had to drown some of them right off. A sacrifice for the greater good of the family. Not something that anyone likes to do, but something that a man has to take unto his own sometimes in life. I am sure that Mr. Johnson was in no ways happy to do what he had to do today, but he had to do it nonetheless. If he had not, more would have suffered later on. Do you understand, son?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is an adult topic, Tommy, and I do not expect you to fully understand, but just know that Mr. Johnson was not being a bad man today. He was helping Old Ma and her other pups in the long run.”
“Yes, sir.”
He rubbed the boys head. “Alright, go back to whatever you were doing before, but do not go far and stay away from Mr. Johnson’s. Your ma is going to have supper set here right away.”
For supper they had potatoes. The boy’s cousin cried and the boy wished that she would not. He was starving and wished that his father would set down so they could start to eat.
“Before we begin, we have some news, Thomas. We are going to have a new addition to the family for a while. Your auntie had to go away and we are going to be looking after your cousin. I need you to be a big boy and help out as much as you can. Clean up after yourself, young man, and help whenever your father and I ask. No questions. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You may begin your supper.”
Thomas dug into the potatoes that lay on his plate.
“I am sorry for what you had to see this morning, Thomas. Your father told me what happened. I want you to know that sometimes life on the farm can be hard and hard decisions have to be made from time to time. Please look at me when I am talking to you, young man. Thank you. Now, are you alright?”
Having stopped chewing midway through his bite in order to look his mother in the eye he was unable to answer immediately. He chewed fast, took a drink of water, and swallowed. “Yes, Mom, I am fine. Pa and me talked about it a piece.”
“Alright. Eat your dinner up. The baby is going to have a nap, and your father is going to town for a little while so you need to be quiet and play outside this afternoon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He ate his potatoes and drank down his water.
“May I be excused then, Mom?”
“Yes, sir. And, Thomas,” she said, pausing until the boy stuck his head back around the corner. “Please be quiet.”
He left the house and allowed the door to slam behind him, looking at the sky above as he walked towards the barn. Near the barn door a blue jay flew in his path almost hitting him, and he wondered if a bird had ever flown into anyone. Inside the barn he sat and petted his horse thinking about his new gun and his new cousin and his mother and father and the new puppies and the dead puppies and Old Mr. Johnson.
Later he walked back to the house. At the door he turned and peered around the farm, before entering in silence. When he left, he again quietly shut the door behind him, this time walking fast to the trees, slipping under the fence and following his hard-beaten path down to Old Man Johnson’s. At the barn he took off his shirt and folded it neatly and set it on the box on the ground. A huge orange moon was just rising in the sky behind him as he picked the child from the grass and walked to the barrel. He heard his mother frantically calling his and the child’s names from the house, the sound of her voice coming closer and closer as he pushed the child into the barrel, water pouring out the sides onto the dirt below.
The following is a preview from Jesse’s debut novel, Old Ghosts.
Please visit jessezaraska.com
PART 1 – Brother’s Keeper
In the last rays of the setting sun/And the past days that’s where our memories run. - Robert Halford
1
THEY ARRIVED IN THE EARLY MORNING. Three men. The sun already punishing. The boy was beside the barn feeding his horse when they came up the path. The one in the lead was shirtless, his top attached to a loop in his low hanging pants, a dark tan covering his upper body. To his right limped a small man in black suspenders and a dirty white shirt, straining to keep up, his right hand dragging what looked to be a shotgun through the dirt, it leaving a trail as far back as the boy could see. On the left hand side of the road taking up the back position walked a giant.
The boy stepped through the hole in the back of the barn and ran to the opposite side and took down a pitchfork that hung on rusted nails, his hands beginning to sweat. Under the few tools that hung beside it, initials, bringing to mind a thousand memories: his father and him carving their names, his father showing him Mack for the first time, his father giving the boys trouble for racing through the barn. Where’s the gun? He pictured it leaning in the corner of the kitchen, his mother singing next to it, preparing dinner, unaware. Am I being dumb? Is this threat? Where’s Liam? Walk out and greet them or get to the house? He stirred, shifting his weight from one boot to the other on the hard-packed earth below, his hands pressed against the warm planks of the barn wall, watching through one of his knotholes as the men passed. His heart leapt. The man with no shirt walked up the back steps of the house while the two others waited at the bottom. The man knocked on the door and the boy’s mother came to the door and the boy heard her say hello. He watched the man with no shirt and his mother converse but he could not make out what was being said. A minute into the conversation the man in the suspenders began scanning the yard. He was soon limping towards the barn and the boy. The boy moved from the knothole and stood frozen against the wall whispering please god, please god. His mind raced. His heart pounded. A whippoorwill called. He gripped the fork waiting for the man to open the barn door. His mother screamed, and he turned back and watched with one eye as the giant leapt up the steps and into the house followed by the limping man who wore suspenders. The boy stood in the barn, heart racing, hands sweating, listening to the cries of his mother. You monsters! Monsters. Thomas! Liam! No!
A Warm Afternoon, A Dark Summer Night Page 2