by Ri, Xesin
“I’ve had an awful day,” she said with anger dripping into her voice, “so, please, just shut up and drive.”
“Alright, alright. Just saying, just saying.”
A few moments later, the light was green and the cabbie rolled off into the night.
Late-March
Growth: The New Money
From the walk up high between the two small towers that marked the far corners of his home, Martin Went looked down and out over his fields. The land that stretched out below had been his father’s and his grandfather’s before. The old wooden boards beneath his feet creaked with age. Cracked, pale green paint worn by rain and beaten by the sun gave way to brown wood that still had lots of life left. The corn in the fields was just popping up, new and green, just as it had been for nearly a century now. His father, his grandfather, and now he, each in his own day, could come up here and see where the crows might gather; where the dog might run to; where a predator might hide; and where the sun shone brightly at noon. This time he could see not only his healthy green corn that looked strong and appeared to have a good uptake of nutrients and proper watering but also the new, dark corn across the way. It was out there, just past the little watering hole surrounded by trees and soon-to-be tall grasses, that the high hydrocarbon corn grew. The h. h. looked good and healthy, in its own way. It grew up short and fat from the dark soil, but it too, stretched up out of the dirt reaching for the sun.
Just as promised by the surveyors, the grassy buffer between the crops had protected his good old green corn from the dark h. h. corn and the awful stuff it needed in order to grow. Spoilage was always on his mind, but as of yet, his fears and worries were just unfounded speculation rooted only in what he didn’t know. Now the stuff was there, growing nicely, and he might be a decently rich man if he switched all his land over to h. h. as the surveyor had suggested.
Martin breathed in the morning air. “How many lives will change because of this good stuff?” thought Martin Went. “How many people will it touch? God, I love this country!” Martin breathed deep again.
Martin looked out and imagined that on and on and on his land would go. He imagined it going far west and far east. He imagined it in a future where his own son, the next in line, would run things. He imagined walkways and a big garden—even bigger than Jo’s—for his son’s wife to grow her own special plants, maybe even flowers that she could keep so that the yard could be more colorful. It was all worth it, he thought. His heart was plenty warmed, so he thanked God and walked back into his home.
Martin moved back down into the house and down the stairs. He looked around the house, a house that had stood, been remodeled and fixed, been added on to, improved upon, and generally kept up almost as much as the soil was turned and prepared and watered. He thought about how people say nothing changes in the country and that in rural places, like farm country, things are the same year after year. As a kid he’d thought that. He’d believed that too when his teachers and friends all wanted out of flat, boring ol’ Indiana. But the changes were there, subtle though. Things that work better are the things that change the most on the farm. “Things that don’t work, don’t last at all,” he told his son again and again. His wife made money on the side buying and selling things in stores, or at thrift shops, or on-line. His mother had made quilts to sell to neighbors. All his aunts and cousins testified that his grandmother, on his father’s side, was the best seamstress in the county. Women would come from the next county over to have her work on their most difficult sewing, help them with a tricky pattern and the like. She taught even after Martin had gone to college. Now, with the internet and cheap ready-made items, it was just easier for people, cheaper too, to search the internet than make their own clothes or mend their own clothes. Shoes and boots were the same. Why fix a boot when you can get one for seventy dollars or more that will just about stand up to anything you throw at it for at least two or three seasons of rough wear. So, once there was the Sears catalog, he’d learned about it in history class, and now there was Amazon and Google. The impact of a store’s reach was an amazing thing to see. Maybe in a decade or two his grandchildren would learn about Amazon in school. Lists are lists, he thought, the world will always need good lists.
Out, through the front door, out onto his front porch, and down the porch steps, he walked. He was going to the old barn. It was old to him, but for his father, the barn had been new twice, once when his father was a boy and once again when his father was very old.
He went right to the place where that stray bitch gave birth to puppies between some bales of hay and an old tire when Martin was just a boy. A few weeks she stayed on the farm happily eating their food and drinking the water she was offered. He couldn’t forget that dog because it had been his father’s favorite. Martin’s dad had been old all of Martin’s life. His father had been near sixty when Martin had been born. A second wife hadn’t been what made the old man feel young. The Wents were men and women with great health and strength and a robust pride to be admired. Brothers and uncles and cousins could be counted on in a baseball game to hit a homerun or, playing football, smash through a defensive line. Sisters, aunts and cousins were known to outwork the men in the fields and then cook a dinner for the whole family without complaint. And fine dinners they were said to be by grandfathers and great uncles who were there to witness their wives and sisters’ feats. So, to Martin, it had been such an endearing moment to see his father of sixty-six grow so attached to just one of many, many dogs and cats and other pets to grace the Went farm with their brief existence.
Martin walked around the barn and saw Rus galloping out from behind the house like a little horse.
“Rus, old man, how are ya?”
Rus barked playfully at Martin ready for some action.
“What? I’m out here so that means it’s time to run?”
Rus barked again gleaming happiness from Martin’s tone.
“Alright, ol’ boy. Let’s give it a go.”
Martin jogged back towards the house with Rus running around him in circles, barking in happy-doggy excitement.
“Can you tell something’s happening, Rus? Huh? Huh?”
Rus barked once as Martin picked up Rus’s favorite ball.
“Guess who’s coming home. Come on, guess!” said Martin riling up the black and white mutt. Rus barked in response. “You just want the ball?” Rus barked again. “Okay, okay.”
Martin threw the ball, a grounder. Rus chased after it, easily following the bouncing, rolling thing like it were a squirrel running for its life. Rus caught it up in his jaws and without stopping made a sharp U-turn back to Martin.
“Great job,” said Martin as he patted Rus’s head and took the ball from the dog’s mouth.
Martin threw the ball again.
Way off, in a corner of Martin’s eye, a car was coming down the road. It was a blue car. A Ford, he thought, when he looked more directly at it.
Rus returned with the ball.
Martin threw the ball the moment Rus released it.
The car was a blue Ford.
“She’s back, Rus. Let’s go say, ‘hi,’ huh? You want to greet Meg?”
The dog barked up at Martin. Rus pushed the ball with his nose.
Martin moved his hand out towards the approaching car. Rus watched the hand through the air until he saw the vehicle. Rus went wild. He barked and bounced out to the car as it pulled into the long gravel driveway.
Martin watched the dog bound up to the car and bark at Meg as she rolled up the driveway towards the house. She tapped the window letting the dog know she could see him and she was fine. Then, she waved to her dad. Martin waved and greeted her return with a great big smile.
“Hey there, Meg. How’s my girl?”
“Great, dad.”
Martin walked with Meg to help her with her luggage.
“I see you still haven’t gotten any tattoos. I’m very happy that college life hasn’t corrupted you.”
Meg
laughed. “I’m a grad student now, dad. If I was going to get any tattoos, I’d have done it as a freshman. But, you keep asking me, and maybe, when I get my masters, I’ll go get one just to spite you, pop.”
Martin closed the trunk and picked up her navy blue bags. “That’s fine, just so long as it’s a cornstalk.”
“Oh, dad.”
“There’s our college girl,” said Jo. “You look just great, dear. I worried when you said you were staying up late studying so much this year.”
“It’s been a tough one, that’s for sure. I just turned in a very long and boring paper to Mr. Pickers. He is an absolute bear of a grader, like I told you on the phone; and he just makes the biggest deal over every little thing. But, all-in-all, it’s all pretty good.”
Martin put Meg’s bags on the floor next to the front door, out of the way.
“But enough about college,” said Meg. “How’s the farm? Dad’s dirty corn doing any good?”
“Everything is fine,” said Jo. “Just like you left it. And I think that high hydrocarbon corn is doing pretty well, don’t you Martin?”
“Just peaked out of the soil two weeks ago and growing nice and strong like it ought to. By next year, it is looking pretty good that the h. h. will be a surplus, and I’ll have a small fuel tank right here on the property to fill up the machines with and even the cars. And I’ll get it back at just above cost. We’ll get your car filled up next year for less than sixty percent of the pump, what do you think of that?
“Sounds pretty great. And if any of my classmates protest, I’ll be sure to let them know what I think.”
“What are they saying at your college?” asked Jo.
“They hear the hype and the rhetoric like everyone. That h. h. is supposed to be the future of liquid fuels, and that it also requires the ground be heavily polluted in order to grow.”
“Well, that isn’t strictly true,” said Martin. “It’s not the best stuff, but the law keeps the fields separated from each other; and the inspections and land surveys are designed to make sure it can be grown safely. Not to mention we’re going to make a whole heap of money and keep down costs and that will help the food side too. A lot of farmers are going to benefit. Why, I’d say that h. h. corn is just about the best thing to happen to the small farmer in decades. These people just don’t understand how—“
“I know, dad. I know. Let’s talk about it later. It was a long drive, and I really need to take a shower.”
“Then, we’ll argue politics,” said Martin with a smile.
“Yes, dad. Thanks.” Meg gave her father a kiss on the cheek. “Great to see you both,” she said as she hugged her mom.
Meg headed up the stairs.
“Martin,” said Jo.
“Yup,” answered Martin.
“I need to show you something before the kids’ bus gets here.”
“What is it, Jo?”
“Here,” Jo said as she led him back inside the house and to her office. She moved her mouse bringing the screen on.
The screen brightened up. Jo motioned that he should sit, so Martin sat down worrying a little that Meg had put something up on one of those social sites where young people posted pictures.
Martin didn’t love his wife standing over him and rereading most of the article in highlights as he read, but he was glad she did since he wasn’t so sure what had bothered her so much. Her loose shirt moved as she clicked and dragged the article. Certainly, he thought, “Crossbreeding Patterns in High Hydrocarbon Corn” could be a problem if the new seeds were drawn up in price to a point he couldn’t afford. The second document in the article was “Soil Spoilage: Environmental Damage Due to High Hydrocarbon Plants Grown in the Same Fields for More Than Three Consecutive Seasons.” That one, thought Martin, sounded really bad. The document seemed to suggest that there was serious environmental damage as the required “plant food” was essentially poisonous and could seep into the surrounding environment or food producing fields. Finally, there was “ADD’s Compliance with Future High Hydrocarbon Corn Industry Consolidations,” which only really mattered to the big h. h. corn companies that made the fuels from the plant matter. Really, the authors, to Martin, seemed to be trying to make a mountain of a molehill of some found documents.
“What do you think about that consolidation one?” asked Jo.
“What about it?”
“It sounds like they want to do with h. h. what has already happened to the slaughterhouses, that is, they want it to be all under one roof. And it won’t be our roof.”
Martin sat back. “I didn’t see that. It didn’t say anything about the growers. It doesn’t seem to affect us the way the environmental one might. If one of those studies was done by the government and it was fluffed up by the media then that might be something. They might tax us more for the land, tax h. h. more, even water and power—maybe. That would be real bad. Might even be able to shut us down, Jo. We’ll just have to really think about what to do. Maybe write to some of our state representatives and some of the farmer’s groups who do the lobbying in Washington.”
“The writers seem to think like you do. They seem focused on the environmental stuff. I just don’t know, Martin. It worries me.”
“Fanatics. Hippies. They get all worked up—trying to—make a difference, feel good about what they did. The government men who surveyed and sampled and thoroughly checked out our fields sure weren’t just here playing at work. Four years to get our license to grow h. h. and two years before that the land was sectioned off and properly prepared. There has been more than enough time and energy put into this work to make positive we aren’t destroying the land, our land; so, no—no I don’t think this is a problem for us, Jo.”
“Okay,” said Jo looking at her watch. “I’m glad you saw that. It’s definitely important, whatever shakes out.”
“No, no—I agree. We need to be prepared. It just won’t feel right until the environmental people with all their ‘green’ talk are satisfied. They can cost us a lot of money. It is a good thing we didn’t go full-h. h. though.”
“I agree,” said Jo. “We’ve got kids in school and a daughter in college. If some new law or some unknowable thing happens, we’ll be in a lot of trouble.”
“Hey, Jo, baby, baby, baby,” said Martin standing to hold his wife. “What are you worried about? They’ll kick us off our land? That’s never going to happen. This is government licensed. And we are producing a government subsidized product. Capitalism loves a producer. America helps out the producers. No matter what, I promise we’ll be okay.”
“But we just can’t know…”
“Sometimes the Lord is all we can really trust in. We will think and pray and act. We will trust in the Lord and do our best to listen to God and what He wants for us; everything is in God’s hands.”
“So, you don’t think that God has let it happen that we saw that article today?” asked Jo hugging her husband tight.
“No,” he said as she released him from the hug. “But we know it and it may be important still.”
“What if we just aren’t smart enough?”
Martin thought about this. “Well, Meg does need to hurry up and get working, same with all the kids.”
“We’ll live with Meg in her studio at college?” asked Jo.
“That’s right. The whole family right there, seven hundred square feet of home. We’ll grow corn from the windows.”
“I’m sure I could teach potheads a trick or two about growing weed indoors. They’ll love my green thumb,” said Jo.
Martin chuckled.
Jo smiled. “We could be just like the farmers in Mexico or Afghanistan and just give up on food. Grow poppies and pot. Be druggie farmers. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Martin could see the kids walking in from the road. The bus was already gone.
“But what would we thank God for then? The money we make by misery?” said Martin.
“We could be druggie pharmacy farmers. Maybe we could grow Va
lium when they crack that code.”
Martin kissed Jo real quick.
The door opened.
Martin and Jo went to greet their children coming home from school.
“Mom!” shouted Tina the second she opened the door. “Mom!”
“I’m right here,” said Jo standing just inside her office door by the front door.
“Mom, now that Meg is back does that mean I’m going to have to share my bathroom again?”
“Of course it does,” said Jo. “Why would you think we would make Meg go all the way down the hall when there’s a bathroom right there?”
“But I’ve got all my things all set up, and she never listens. It’ll all get dirty again like last year!” Tina stamped her foot hard on the floor.
Martin decided the kitchen was the place for him and to let his wife handle Tina’s newest complaint.
“Dad! Mom is being unfair.”
Jo didn’t let Martin get dragged in. “Tina,” said Jo, “this is our home. We all have to share whether there are five here or six. And that bathroom was Meg’s before you were even born, Tina, so don’t get into this act with me. You can either share that bathroom or go down the hall and share with Paul and Hazel, so what do you want to do?”
“Fine,” said Tina, dropping her book bag to the floor at the side of the front door not occupied with Meg’s luggage.
Tina huffed and puffed as she went upstairs.
Martin was in the kitchen looking at the mail on the counter away from Tina and the argument in the hall, but the twins had followed him into the kitchen having their own argument, a more civil argument, but an argument nonetheless.
“Hazel, Hazel, old lady Hazel—“ said Paul trying to upset his sister as he grabbed a soda from the refrigerator.
“Okay, Uriah,” tried Hazel.
“Hey,” said Martin, “cool it. You two know Uriah is a family name just as Hazel is. I don’t want to hear that.”