The Secret Wisdom of the Earth

by Christopher Scotton

  We came to the intersection of Routes 17 and 32. A four-story structure sat abandoned on a cut-in on the corner. Small windows frosted over, some boarded, some broken. Ten-foot chain-link with concertina wire on top.

  “What’s this old building?”

  “This used to be the plant for Lux Industries, a chemical company that employed just about everyone in town who wasn’t a miner. They made urinal mints, splash guards, and other things for public toilets.”

  “What are urinal mints?”

  “You know, those little round perfumey things in the bottom of urinals.”

  “Why do they call them mints? They don’t taste like mints, do they?”

  “Well, I’ve never tried one, Kevin, but I imagine they don’t taste like mints. Anyway, the Medgar plant was one of the leading producers of urinal mints in the entire country. Just about every urinal mint east of the Mississippi and south of Maryland came from Medgar.”

  I thought about all those men, holding their penises and staring down at a urinal mint from Medgar, tearing the rinds off cigarette butts with their piss streams. Lux Industries, Medgar, Kentucky emblazoned on the splash guard. It made me proud.

  “What happened to it?”

  “They moved production to Mexico and closed it the same year the mines shut.” He looked over at me. “It wasn’t a good year for us.”

  We took a right on 17 and followed the edge of the valley floor. The Mitchell farm occupied a prime funnel-shaped valley between two rolling hills of Rag Mountain that eased out of her like inviting legs. Next to Rag was the flat gray wound from the strip-mine operation, running across three stubbed hills and hollows.

  We dusted up the dirt road, past a company of steer enjoying a morning cud, to the barns and pens and the slight incline of the lane, which signaled the business end of the farm. Farther up the hill, the Mitchell house, with its two stone chimneys, one at either end, watched old and proud.

  Despite the name, Grubby Mitchell wasn’t a particularly messy farmer. In fact it was generally held that he ran the farm better than his father, or even his grandfather, Clovis Mitchell, who had the original misfortune to acquire the nickname “Grubby” in 1922. In Medgar, nicknames did tend to stick.

  As the story goes, Grubby’s father, Liam, dug and built Clovis a private outhouse for his fiftieth birthday. One with a fancy metal toilet-paper holder, a hand-laid parquet floor, and a real porcelain toilet and seat (first one in the county). Clovis, a proud man, assiduous in appearance, lorded the toilet over the other farmers and miners who played cards at the back of Hivey’s Farm Supply, allowing everyone a look but denying all, even family, the opportunity to try the smooth, inviting seat.

  One spring night six years later, with the toilet seat in full use by Clovis, the floorboards gave way, and he and the toilet splashed into the effluvium ten feet below. His shouts went unheard for a day and a half and the search was in high rash when he was discovered and retrieved from the black muck, clutching the broken halves of the toilet seat in both hands, mumbling incoherently.

  The men at Hivey’s, all of whom participated in the search and were present when Clovis was hoisted from the hole, gut laughed uncontrollably when Dell Hitchens, a Negro who worked the farm, said loudly, “Das da grubbiest I ever seen Mr. Mitchell.” Clovis was never particularly well liked at Hivey’s, even before he got the porcelain toilet, and the name Grubby stuck like gum on a summer sidewalk.

  When he died, the farm and the nickname passed to Liam, then to his son, Raymond, who was standing with Paitsel Meadows in the barn door examining the carburetor they had just pulled from his deep-red Massey Ferguson tractor when we rattled up into the barnyard.

  “Morning, Grub, Paitsel,” Pops said as he eased himself down from the worn front seat of the truck and reached into the back for his brown veterinary satchel.

  “Mornin,” they returned, staying fixed on the suspect carburetor.

  I exited on the other side and followed Pops close behind.

  “Grubby, this is my grandson, Kevin.”

  They looked up from the engine piece.

  “Heard you was livin here now, pleased,” Mr. Mitchell said and nodded.

  Paitsel smiled. “Good to see you again, son.”

  “Engine’s been leanin out so I thought I’d have Pait up to pull the carb and see.”

  “Well, that’s sensible, Grub. While you’re doing that we’ll have a look at those bulls. Where are they?”

  “Pen behind the pen barn.”

  We walked to the back of the pen barn, which held two petulant bulls with proud horns and swaying testicles, who looked as if they wouldn’t relinquish them without a discussion.

  “How are we going to do these bulls without getting kicked?”

  “Getting kicked is the last thing we should worry about… Look at those horns.”

  I leaned on the fence. Pops opened the double doors of a large barn and began assembling a run of portable fencing from the pen gate to the barn.

  “Pops, really, how are we gonna do this?” I worried.

  “Well, Kevin, I don’t rightly know; I’ve never done it before.”

  “You’ve never done this before?”

  “Nope, that’s why I asked you to come.”

  “I’ve never done this before either, you know that.”

  “Well, we’re just gonna have to learn as we go, I guess—do you want to hold the bull or do the cutting?”

  I thought about my options for a moment. “Uh, I guess I’ll hold the bull.”

  We moved inside the barn. It was kept as the rest of the Mitchell spread, well used and well placed, with five stalls, a wood ladder to a hay-stacked loft, honed farm tools of various utility shining the walls. The farm was fifty acres of pasture, feed corn, and steer, except for eight sheep, four goats, two horses, and a pig. Pops said that after the Mitchells’ only child, Ray Jr., was killed in Vietnam, Grubby threw himself into the place to stop from thinking about it. The farm was his pride now, and it showed.

  “Well, Kevin, I think you’re off the hook. Mr. Mitchell has a squeeze chute for just such delicate procedures.” He gestured to a narrow aluminium-sided gauntlet with stocks attached to the exit gate for holding an animal’s head.

  Grubby and Paitsel walked around the corner wiping their hands on a greasy towel.

  “Bad float,” Paitsel said and moved to help Pops finish the run to the squeeze chute.

  “You’re eight months late on these yearlings, Grubby. Why the delay?”

  “Was hopin to stud em with Earl’s stock, but all they want to do is fight. Shem nearly got gored last week.”

  “Where is he, anyway? You seem short of hands today.”

  “Lazy sumbitch quit on me.”

  “What are you going to do for hands?”

  Grubby put out his and splayed his fingers like he was showing the years in a decade.

  “I’ll stay an help,” Paitsel said.

  “Appreciate it, Pait.” Never one for fence-post chat, Grubby opened the pen gate, split the bulls, and began sheepdogging the smaller one toward the squeeze chute.

  “Gwan, bull, hep… hep gip, gya ha gwan.”

  The bull responded immediately, sprinting out of the pen, into the run, and into the squeeze chute as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of the annoying protrusions from his head and the danglings between his legs.

  Paitsel immobilized the bull’s head and shoulders in the stocks. Pops quickly loaded a syringe with lidocaine and began feeling the space between the bull’s ear and eye. “There’s a nerve called the cornual that snakes up into the horn. It’s easier on the animal if we take that out.” He tapped a spot on the bull’s skull and injected the lidocaine. Same on the other side.

  “Son, hand me the dehorner. It’s the one that looks like a mini post-hole digger.”

  I gave him the tool, hand grip first, and he slid the cup over the bull’s horn and pulled the handles apart like he was trimming an errant tree branch. The horn popped off
and a spurt of blood pulsed from the bull. Pops reached into the cavity with forceps and pulled out the bleeding stump of artery, then switched the apparatus to the other horn and repeated the procedure. He sprayed both stumps with antiseptic.

  Next Pops went to the animal’s husky testicles. “The key to a successful castration,” he explained as he removed a long, thin knife and a syringe from his bag, “is to act with dispatch, before the bull knows what you’re up to… and to use copious amounts of lidocaine so you don’t get your head kicked in.” He shot the bull’s scrotum full of the anesthesia and stood for a moment while it took effect. After a few minutes, he quickly cut off the bottom third of the sac, reached in and snipped the bull’s balls, and dropped the gonads in a nearby metal bowl. It took about four seconds. Blood and fluid ran from the hollowed sac. My hand went instinctively to my crotch. Pops sutured the blood vessels and sprayed antiseptic onto the wound. Through it all the young bull happily chewed his cud and gaped at the gardening tools on the other side of the barn. Pops opened the stocks and pushed the head of the bull out the gate and into the exit run that led back to the holding pen.

  The second bull stood in the corner of the pen facing us. Grubby started toward it, waving his hands wildly. “Hep, ha bull piyow ha hep ha bull.”

  The bull regarded us contemptuously. As Grubby neared, it jerked away to the other side of the pen and stopped, facing us again.

  “Hep now, ha bull yipe hiya.”

  Grubby closed and the bull jerked away and ran to the other side, facing us once more.

  “Ho bull, ho hep bull hya.”

  Same result.

  And again.

  “I think he’s on to us, Grub,” Pops deadpanned after Grubby’s sixth unsuccessful attempt to herd the animal. “That’s an uncommonly smart bull.”

  “Well, he ain’t smarter than me… hep, hya bull now.”

  Same result.

  “Normally I wouldn’t argue the point, Grubby, but he’s still got his oysters attached and all you’ve herded so far is wind.”

  “Lemme show you how it’s done, Grub.” Paitsel hopped the fence in a single easy motion and sauntered toward the bull. As he approached, arms flailing, the bull put his horns in gear and chased him around the pen—it made for a sight as Paitsel, running as if hard to home plate, streaked to the gauntlet and one-stepped over the fence with the athleticism of a professional rodeo clown. We all collapsed in laughter as the bull speared the fence post.

  “Paitsel, that bull almost herded you into the stocks. If he had, I’m afraid I might’ve done my business on you.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t a paid you then,” Grubby responded. If nothing else, Grubby Mitchell was a practical man.

  Pops reached into his bag and removed a syringe gun, then loaded it with brown liquid.

  “Keep him occupied.”

  He walked around the outside as Grubby eased off the fence into the pen. While the bull was distracted by the flapping human, Pops quickly stepped over the fence and shot the solution into the bull’s flank, then rejoined us by the squeeze chute.

  The bull was stationary, watching us with engaged horns. After about two minutes he snorted and jerked toward us, leaving his four hooves in place, falling chin first into the dirt.

  “Jus bout had him,” mumbled Grubby to nobody in particular. He was embarrassed at not being able to control his own farm animals and still angry at Shem Glick for quitting the place.

  “Kevin, my dehorner, please,” Pops said, already at the bull’s head. “And the chloroxylenol; I don’t want such a clever bull to get an infection.”

  I came back with the instrument and the disinfectant and watched him go to work. Within one minute he had the bull dehorned and deballed.

  Grubby took the bowl, turned to the house, and yelled, “Maynaaaaaa. Oysters is up.” After a few moments, Mayna Mitchell banged out the side kitchen screen door and walked toward us, full frontal apron dusted with flour. She was an ample woman with small eyes sunk deep into an oversize head. She wore stern, square-toe shoes holding up ankles run over by the fat in her calves. Titanic, slung-low breasts that lolled from side to side and seemed ready to rip from their moorings on a single misstep. She wordlessly took the metal bowl, turned, and walked back up to the house.

  We washed up and exited into the yard just as the bleeding bull made his first awkward steps. Paitsel went off to repair the siding on a grain shed, and Grubby Mitchell stood with his abnormally long arms wrapped around his thin frame, hands tucked so far behind him he could swat a fly on his right buttock with his left hand. He took a step toward Pops and whispered, “Been wonderin your take on this Paul thing.” He unwrapped an arm to scratch a place on his cheek.

  “It’s a damn molehill, in my opinion. Everybody needs to just untwist their girdles and get back to living their own life. What Paul does is his own business.”

  Just then, a piercing explosion broke across the valley and a plume of smoke and debris rose from the hauled-off mountaintop at the back of Grubby’s farm. We all turned to it as if we were watching fireworks on the Fourth. A clump of cows charged to the other end of their field. A horse bolted and kicked at the air. “That ain’t no dang molehill.”

  “Betty Dodger would agree with you.”

  “Goddamn Bubba Boyd. All that blastin is makin my herd nervous. I think that’s why the rut went so poorly.”

  “No doubt. That’ll put any animal off of conjugal activities.”

  “Says he wants to meet with me. Think he wants to buy me out.”

  “Who, Bubba?”

  Grubby nodded.

  “Don’t do it, Grub. This land here is who you are.”

  He shrugged and looked over at the lopped-off mountain that used to tower over the farm.

  Pops frowned and placed his satchel in the truck bed. “We’ll see you in a month for the blowfly.”

  He backed up the truck and we headed down the road, dust eddies swirling in our wake. I kept thinking about all that blood and how the bulls didn’t even flinch or cry out. “Don’t they even feel it when you cut them like that? I mean, it’s like they don’t feel a thing,” I said as we turned onto Route 17.

  Pops thought for a moment. “Well, I did give them a local, but that’s the one thing the bovine community has over us humans. God gave us the power to reason, but he made them pretty much impervious to pain. To be honest, I’m not sure who got the better deal.”

  That evening Pops brought Mom out to join us on the porch. She folded her arms around herself and sat like we were strangers at a bus stop in a bad town.

  “Kevin, you did real well today,” Pops announced with one eye on Mom. “I’m proud of you.”

  “I didn’t do much,” I mumbled and turned to the street so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

  “That’s precisely my point. You stayed out of my way and didn’t get gored by one of those bulls. A splendid first day as a veterinary assistant, in my book.”

  “What do you mean, ‘first day’?”

  “I mean I’m hiring you to be my personal veterinary assistant. Pay you ten dollars a week; all the Appalachian mountain oysters you can eat.”

  I nodded and said nothing, but a secret smile climbed within me.

  “Great news, Annie,” Pops said hopefully to Mom, who was staring at the great hickory tree in Pops’ front yard as if a primer on loss and heartbreak had been written into the bark. “Kevin’s graciously agreed to join the Peebles Veterinary Practice. We may have to get a new sign, ‘Peebles and Grandson.’ What do you think, Kevin?”

  “Why not ‘Grandson and Peebles’?” I said, too loud to sound natural.

  Both of us looked eagerly for a response. She put her hand to her mouth and went at the thumb quick.

  “Not until you do your first solo castration,” Pops said, his voice trailing to a whisper when he realized we would get no answer.

  I inspected a divot of paint that had been chipped from the porch floor, revealing years of alternating white a
nd gray coats, seven in all, as Pops regarded his silent, broken daughter and the ice in his sour mash glass shifted.

  That week was calls in the morning with Pops and afternoons with Buzzy learning the mystic ways of the mountains: a sheep dipping on Tuesday and a dammed-up creek; a hoof clipping on Wednesday and a home-strung zip line; blue tongue shots on Thursday and a found fox pelt and bones on Friday. Each time I mentioned the Telling Cave, Buzzy waved the notion away. “Got somethin better.” And off we’d go, breaknecking the hills and plundering the hollows where the compounded guilt and grief I felt would fall away like original sin at a baptismal.

  Chapter 6

  THE RIFLE-SHOT SLAP

  One thing you need to know about Lord of the Flies, it’s a classic study in human nature—not particularly flattering but accurate nonetheless,” Pops said as Thursday evening settled into one of the wicker chairs. He handed me the dusty volume, its jacket cover yellowed and cracked in places. “This is a first edition, mind you, so read it, enjoy it, but treat it with respect. There aren’t many out there. Golding only sold a few thousand copies in the States before it went out of print.”

  “What does it teach you about human nature?”

  “Almost everything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh… the tension between civilization and anarchy, between good and evil—and the fact that both can live within us. Understanding that will serve you well in this valley.” He chuckled shrewdly, took a sip of mash, and spun the ice clockwise slowly.

  “Is there evil around here? It seems pretty quiet.”

  “Evil doesn’t have to be loud, son. In fact, it reserves that for the merely boorish. Evil is quiet, stealthy—it sneaks up on you, smiles, and pats you on the back while pissing down your leg. Take Bubba Boyd, for example. He goes about his business of blowing up the mountains and destroying folks’ lives without so much as a raised voice. He throws around money at Christmas and Easter so people love him. He’s got a smile as wide as this valley, but the most soulless eyes I’ve ever seen. Owns most of the town but is content to keep us hobbled.”