by Johnny Shaw
The skin on my right arm was almost completely scraped off on one side. I had speckled bruises and cuts here and there. But it was when I took off my shirt to get in the shower that I almost cried. My chest and stomach had so many dark bruises I looked like a Dalmatian. It didn’t look real. It looked like some teenage Fangoria magazine fan’s first attempt at gore makeup. Little spots, big spots. I was an Appaloosa. And my legs weren’t any better, my thighs patched dark purple. I poked my right quad because I’m an idiot. It felt soft like a bad apple and hurt like hell.
The cold shower would have felt a lot better if there had been any kind of water pressure. The light drip was more frustrating than soothing. It took me forever to get the blood out of my hair.
I dried my body, continually hitting spots that made me shriek, swear, and then breathe deeply. I doused my body in Bactine, the stinging so severe at one point I started laughing. Getting dressed was like playing Operation. I tried to get my clothes on without the clothes actually touching me. Unfortunately my nose kept lighting up red.
Before I left the house, I chewed on three aspirins with two shots of tequila as a chaser. The tequila almost came up, but through concentration and practice I kept it down. The warmth in my stomach took some of the edge off. I thought about bringing the bottle with me for medicinal reasons, but decided against it. Two shots were helpful. The whole bottle would be twelve steps in the wrong direction. Besides, I was meeting Mike, and he might have frowned on it.
Mike Egger is my cousin. His mother is my mother’s sister. Here’s the thing. I never knew my mother, so I never got close to that side of the family. I knew Mike enough to say hi to him on the street or if I saw him in J&M’s, but we didn’t spend holidays together or even exchange Christmas cards. The most I could say is that we were aware of each other.
But apparently marriage was as good as blood. Because when Pop got sick, Mike immediately offered his help. I spoke to him before I drove down and asked him why. He just said, “That’s what family does—what family is for.”
Mike had been farming Pop’s land for the last year and a half. For anyone else, taking over the land would have been a big deal, but Mike farmed close to six thousand acres. So he just absorbed it into his workload and massive workforce. He made sure that the alfalfa was irrigated, mowed, and the hay stored and sold.
I didn’t ask him why he hadn’t called me when Pop first got sick. I assumed it was because he had promised not to.
There are people who say that they’ll do anything for you. And there’s the people who actually do. Mike had stepped up when he knew he could help, and as much as I would like to believe that’s common, my experience was that it was a rare gesture.
The simplistic way in which the media portrays people would suggest that Mike and I shouldn’t like each other. He was a Red Stater. I was True Blue. As usual, the media was full of shit. Nothing is black and white. People can be different and get along.
Mike was an easy guy to like. Two hundred and fifty pounds of burly, big guy. Bear hugs and slaps on the back that knocked you five feet forward. A family man and a good Catholic, Mike had four kids, never thought about cheating on his wife, donated time and money to the church, rarely complained, and never judged the people around him. He believed in what he believed and wasn’t afraid to express it, but he never thought I was stupid because I didn’t agree with him.
I drove my pickup down a dirt road toward Mike’s shed, an enormous corrugated tin barn visible in the distance. The deep tractor ruts made my truck bounce and swerve, mocking my day-after agony. I drove as slowly as I could without stalling. Each bump felt like someone was hitting me in the head with a shovel. Dust blew into the slit in the window meant to let my cigarette smoke out. I was forced to stub out my smoke when I started having a coughing fit that made my ribs burn.
I pulled my Mazda next to the more manly pickups next to the shed. The Dodge Rams and Ford F-150s made my four-banger look like a child’s toy. They were bigger, badder, and filthier. Mud spatters shot up the sides of every fender.
Walking into the shed, I gave a wave or head nod to the couple of familiar faces that I recognized. Guys who had done some work for my father or guys I had worked alongside in the fields when I was a teenager. There were no titles in farming. No managers. No foremen. Just guys.
Daniel Quihuis, an ageless Mexican man, was Mike’s main guy. Rail thin, Daniel had one of those faces that had always looked old. Deep laugh lines and leather skin. Now that he was old, it finally fit him. He ran the day-to-day that Mike didn’t handle himself. Daniel had worked for Mike’s father, my Uncle Frank, but I never saw him treat Mike like a kid.
“Jesus Christ, Jim. What the hell happened to your face? You get in a fight with your boyfriend?” Daniel asked as we shook hands. Years ago, the first time he had seen me with long hair was the beginning of a long series of jokes about how much of a girl I was. It never got old. At least for him.
I gave him a smile, acknowledging that I got his joke. “Mike around?”
He nodded toward the back. “How’s Big Jack doing? Marta brought some tamales by a couple days ago. Not sure if he was allowed to eat ’em, but at least he could smell ’em. She said he looked okay. Thinner.”
I shrugged. “Thank her for me. How you doing? You must be like a hundred years old by now, right?”
“Some days it feels like it.” He laughed. “But I’m just a seventy-three-year-old youngster.”
“You ever going to retire?”
“And give up all this?” he said, holding his hands out to his side.
One of his guys yelled his name from the other side of the shed.
“Good to see you, Daniel,” I said.
We shook hands.
“You too. Oh, do me a favor. Ask Jack something for me?”
“Sure. What?”
“Ask him if he wishes he had a son,” Daniel said, cracking himself up. I walked to the back, Daniel’s laughter trailing behind me. All I ever wanted to do was make people happy.
Behind the shed, rows and rows of heavy equipment filled the two acres of packed dirt. Tractors, caterpillars, threshers, plows, and other monsters with enormous, dirt-caked tires filled the yard. Some were operational, some antiques. In farming you never threw anything away. You never knew. There might yet be a need for that rusted-out horse-drawn plow.
I found Mike underneath a thresher. His boot heels pushed him further out of view as he tried to gain leverage in the dirt. I could hear the banging of metal on metal and the grunts that accompanied it. Two of his guys stood over him. An array of tools littered the ground.
Mike slid out and stood up, shaking the dust off his pants and shirt. He turned to his guys. “All right, I give. You were right. Bent to hell. I can’t fix it either.” He saw me out of the corner of his eye. “Hey, Jim, that you? I’ll be right there.”
I nodded, but he had already turned back to his guys. “I bring it to the shop, they charge me two grand. That ain’t happening. This ain’t a sports car. Don’t need to run fast. It don’t even need to run good. Just needs to run.”
“Qué quieres hacer?”
“Talk to the other guys. See if anyone has a brother, a cousin. Someone that’s a mechanic or a welder. In Mexicali or here. Tell them I’m offering five hundred to whoever fixes it. And a hundred for the guy who finds him. But only if it runs for at least six months. They do a good job, I’ll shoot them more business. No gypsies.”
The workers nodded and picked up the scattered tools off the ground. Mike walked to me and gave me a crushing, one-handed shoulder squeeze. “You want something cold to drink? A steak for that eye? Let’s go to my office. It’s cooler in there.”
It wasn’t. The small fan was overmatched. Its blades moved so slowly you could track them with your eye. It may even have been a little hotter inside, the air thick and stale. Mike’s wood-paneled office was all function, no frill. A desk, a water cooler, a mini-fridge, a filing cabinet, and a couple of chairs. An
d stacks and stacks of paper everywhere. Each stack with a different makeshift paperweight to keep the paper from blowing away. Although I doubted that the fan was capable of moving even a single sheet of paper.
As Mike took a seat, I moved a large stack of paper off the only other chair and set it at my feet. The stack had been held down by a box of shotgun shells, which I set on top of the stack. I didn’t want to mess up Mike’s system.
Mike grabbed a couple of bottles of Coke out of the mini-fridge. He handed me one and gave my face a squinting once-over. “You never learned how to fight? What’s the other guy look like?”
I felt the bruise on my jaw, immediately self-conscious. “I went down to Mexicali last night with Bobby Maves.”
Mike laughed, explanation enough. “I thought Bobby got married. Settled down.”
“Didn’t take.”
“That’s too bad. Hate to hear that. He has a daughter, right?”
“Two. They’re with their mothers. Not in the Valley no more. He sees them when he can.” I didn’t know why, but I felt the need to defend Bobby.
“He’ll settle down. Has to eventually realize he’s a grown man. Act like it. Did he start the trouble last night?”
“Trouble found us.”
He nodded, taking a big drink of his Coke. “So, what can I do for you?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Pop’s land. Make sure it’s cool. Not giving you too much extra work. It’s a big load.”
Mike interrupted me with an embarrassed wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s nothing.”
“So. I’m down here for a while now. I don’t think I’m ready to take over the farming completely. I don’t know if I’ll ever be. But if you tell me what needs to be done, I’m sure I can do some work. I can irrigate, mow, you know, bale. I know how to do the stuff I did in high school. I’m ready to work, but I ain’t really ready to take charge.”
Mike smiled and nodded. “It’s all alfalfa now. Just been mowed, I think. I’ll check. But next time I need an irrigator, I’ll call you.”
“I hope you’re not paying for anything yourself. You’re keeping track of all the expenses, right? Take it out of the hay sales.”
“Labor’s on me. No way I’m charging Uncle Jack for my work or my guys. But real expenses, I keep track, got it all figured. It’s in one of these stacks. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
“How you doing for money?”
“I’m okay. I got a little. Hadn’t really thought about it, you know. I just knew I had to be down here,” I said.
“I can always use a hard worker. If it ain’t an insult to a college boy like you.” He smiled. “When do you usually see Jack?”
“I’m going to try to see him every day. From like ten to three or four. But I’ll take work if you got it.”
“All right. I’ll see about some irrigating, mowing, digging, whatever. If not, maybe some work here, around the shed. During the summer, we’re not in the fields midday, so your schedule fits.” He sat up in his chair and looked for a spot on his desk to set down his empty Coke bottle. Failing, he settled on the ground.
“I don’t want to step out of line or get personal or nothing, Jim. If I do, you tell me. But do you have any kind of plan? I don’t mean now. Now you spend time with Uncle Jack. That’s important. I mean later, you know. Do you know what you’re going to do?”
“You ain’t out of line, Mike. I haven’t thought about any of that. I know I should plan stuff, but I can’t or haven’t or I don’t know. Like if I start, I’ve made a turn I’m not ready for. And I don’t care if it’s smart or not. Pop’s still alive. That’s my focus.”
Mike nodded. “Good enough. When you coming over to the house, get yourself a home-cooked meal? Annie and the kids would love to see you.”
“Soon. Still getting settled. Only been back a day. After my face heals a little. How about next time she makes that thing with the Fritos in it, you call me?”
“Everything she makes has Fritos in it.” Mike shook his head. “She likes Fritos.”
“I’ll come by soon,” I said, getting up. “Thanks for the Coke. Thanks for everything.”
“Tell Uncle Jack not to worry. He’s got family.”
“Jesus Christ, Jimmy. What happened to you?” Angie said, her hand instinctively going to the bruise on the side of my face.
Considering how our last encounter had gone, I was a little surprised to receive any sympathy. But I hadn’t made it ten feet inside the door before she was on me. More than a foot shorter, she simultaneously pulled my head down and tilted it back to angle better light onto my battered face.
“Hey, that hurts,” I said, but bent to her will.
“What did you do?”
“Why is it I had to do something? Couldn’t this just have happened?” I said, immediately defensive.
“Yeah, it was an accident. You had nothing to do with it. You accidentally hit your face on someone’s shoe. The bruise on your forehead is shaped like a boot heel.”
I hadn’t noticed that when I had looked at myself in the mirror. It made me want to take another look, curious if it was that sharply defined.
“Face doesn’t hurt like my body, just looks worse.”
“You’re kidding. It gets worse? Jesus, Jimmy.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” I said, attempting to sidestep her. “I’ll be honest. It kind of surprises me that you care. I thought you hated me.”
“Lift up your shirt,” Angie said. She stepped back and put her hands on her hips, blocking my path.
“What? No. I’m going to see my father.” I tried to walk past her.
Angie slapped my side. Right where my ribs were most likely cracked. I jumped back with a squeal.
“Okay, you’re coming with me.” She grabbed my wrist and pulled me down the hall. I didn’t try to resist, feeling like some ne’er-do-well being taken to the principal’s office.
Angie found a vacant room and pulled me in behind her. “Strip down to your underwear,” she demanded.
“No sweet talk? No dinner?”
“Don’t push your luck,” she said. “And I don’t hate you. I just don’t know you. You don’t know me.”
“Mr. Morales told me last night that people don’t change.”
“That doesn’t work in your favor.”
“What I’m saying is I’m still your friend. Even if I haven’t seen you. You never stopped being my friend. Whoever you are.”
“Okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. It’s not easy, but it’s fair. Now, get your fucking shirt off.”
Very slowly, I took off my shirt. I couldn’t really lift my arms high, so it awkwardly got stuck on my head.
Angie’s reaction sounded like a combination between a laugh and a shriek.
I got the shirt off. “Look, it’s all bruises and maybe a couple of cracked ribs. What’s a doctor going to do? Nothing. Tell me to get some rest.”
“And tell you to stop fighting until you learn how.”
“There were five of them. Winning is surviving when it’s five against one. Technically, I won. A doctor would probably prescribe me some pain pills, right?”
“Yeah, but then how would you learn your lesson?”
“I’ve learned it. Trust me.”
“Doesn’t look like there’s any permanent damage. Is there blood in your urine?”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
“I’ll take that as a no. Like you said, the only thing a doctor would do is give you something for the pain.”
“Exactly.”
“Pain is God’s way of telling people to stop being an idiot.”
“I’m not so up on the Bible, but I don’t think it says that anywhere. Unless of course it’s from the Book of Crazy. I’m serious. Can you score me some pills? It hurts.”
“I’ll rephrase. Pain is God’s way of telling me to tell you to stop being an idiot. Stop being an idiot.”
Angie insis
ted on disinfecting and stitching up the wound on the top of my head, which was probably a good idea as it was still oozing. She stopped scolding me after a while, but only because she ran out of clever and cruel things to say. I thanked her when we were done. And as we walked down the hall, I got a shake of the head, a corner of the mouth grin, and an honest chuckle.
I couldn’t help myself. “You want to grab some dinner sometime?”
“No.”
“It would be good to talk.”
“Probably, but not yet. I’m going to do my best to treat you like a human being. We’ll take it from there.”
Pop was asleep when I came into his room. I set the fingernail clippers and books I had brought from the house on his nightstand. I grabbed the chair, moved it close to the bed, and leafed through the book on top: Seven Slayers by Paul Cain. I had just finished reading the first short story when Pop stirred. He gave a weak stretch, pushing at the mattress with both hands and scooting himself up a few inches in the bed. He blinked himself awake and then turned to me, taking a second to register my face.
“You drop your left?” he asked nonchalantly, staring at my bruises.
I didn’t want to tell Pop it had anything to do with finding Yolanda. I didn’t want him to feel responsible. “And my right. It was a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding did that to your face?”
“No, I did. Made a mistake. Pretended I was someone I’m not anymore.”
Pop laughed. “Look at my boy getting poetic. Don’t worry, you don’t got to tell me. You’re a grown man. But can you take my objective opinion? You ain’t changed as much as you think you have. Nobody does.”
“How you feeling?” I asked.
“I feel about how you look,” he said.
“Yeah. Dumb question.”
“I’m just playing with you,” Pop said, reaching his hand out and weakly squeezing my shoulder. I acted like he hadn’t caught one of my bruises.