Calling Home

by Janna McMahan

  22

  Kerry braced against the beams of the barn and leaned over to take a stick of tobacco from his father on the wagon below. He found his balance and hoisted the Burley up to Dave who was filling the third tier of the barn’s center section. Once they hung that tier and moved down to the second, they would be flanked on both sides by sheds of inverted limp plants and overhead by a roof of dangling leaf tips like thousands of green and yellow pendants.

  “Hold on,” Dave said. “I got to spread these last few out.” He scooted the tobacco along rails so that each row had air circulation. The plants had been field-cured for three days, but even wilted, the leaves were heavy with moisture. Thick stalks were skewered onto tobacco sticks driven into the ground, leaves fanned out from the center. As soon as the sun had burned away dew, they started housing. Marcia Sue rode the tractor in between rows. Dave and Kerry pulled the loaded sticks from the ground and carefully laid them on the flatbed. Kerry’s father arranged the tobacco neatly on the wagon, front to back. When they finished packing the barn there would be just enough room to pull the tractor in.

  “Ready,” Dave called to the wagon, his voice muffled against precious leaves that drooped like pelts toward the packed-dirt floor.

  “Wake up, son.” Kerry looked down to see his father, arms bulging, waiting to pass tobacco to him. Kerry had the hardest job, the farthest to reach, but he was determined to keep up. There was a silent competition among the men to work steadily and not ask for a break. The eighty-year-old barn was a four-tier, but they only hung the bottom three. They hadn’t had enough manpower to hang the rafters for years, not since the days when neighbors pitched in and barn hands weren’t hard to find.

  “Sorry, Pop,” Kerry croaked. His throat itched from the stagnant, tobacco-fuzz-filled air.

  “He’s thinking about that little Lemmons girl,” Marcia Sue teased. She was sweeping leaf litter into a pile. “Y’all going to get back together?”

  “She don’t have much time for me anymore. Homecoming parade and stuff.”

  “She got a big head now that she’s Junior Miss?” Marcia Sue put a hand on one hip and grinned up at her brother.

  “Why’re you so interested?”

  “Just checking up on my future sister-in-law.”

  Kerry snorted. “Why don’t you go in the house and cook something? Leave us men to do the real work.”

  She popped a middle finger at him.

  “Go on and start cooking. We’re almost finished here,” Bob said.

  “Half an hour,” she called back over her shoulder on her way to the house. When they had off-loaded the flatbed, the men stood inside the cool, dark barn. All light was blocked except for a tunnel from the front door to the back underneath the hanging plants.

  “Tell Marcia Sue I’ll be in directly,” Kerry said, tossing his cigarette butt into a rusted milk can with black circles of ash caked around the opening. “I’m going to sweep out Papaw’s house.” He flung the barn broom in his truck.

  “Mind if I ride with you?” his father asked. “I want to fix that spot on the fence.”

  Kerry drove slowly, a line of dust boiling down the road behind them. The main road wound around the farm to the back acres where his grandfather’s old house stood on a rise under a hearty walnut tree just beginning to show an edge of yellow and red. Kerry had stacked a pile of firewood against the leeward side of the house.

  “It would of tickled your papaw that you’re going to live here,” Bob told his son. “How the pumps look?”

  “I primed that old hand pump last week and she works, but the electric one’s got to be fixed. Maybe replaced.”

  “That’ll run you a couple hundred.”

  “Electricity works, but I don’t trust the wiring. When did you say was the last time somebody lived here?”

  “Maybe twenty years ago. My brother lived here before he went off to Korea.”

  “None of the windows are broke and the roof looks pretty good, considering.”

  “You’ll need weather stripping. Insulation. Got to fix those rotten steps in front. Fireplace work?”

  “Ain’t tried it yet. I figure to clean out the flue.”

  “You take that hook rug and the bed in the guest room and bring it over here. A man don’t sleep in a twin. There’s an old aluminum table and a couple of chairs somewhere in the meat house. I think your mother has a box of cooking stuff out there, too. Take whatever you find.”

  “All right.”

  Kerry drove the truck under the walnut tree.

  “I’m going to go look at that new calf. You come on out and help me with the fence when you get done inside,” his father said.

  “Sure, Pop.”

  The front door stuck and dragged across the floor. Kerry made a mental note to plane the bottom. He cleared spiderwebs and swept out acorns and hickory nuts that squirrels had brought inside. Kerry heard the rattling of barn swallows in the crawl space above his head and realized that he would have to see what critters had made a home up there. He planned on being in here by spring. He hadn’t told Shannon about this, but tonight, after he took her to Coretta’s Place for supper, he’d bring her here and tell her everything he planned to do to the place. How he was going to build a screened-in back porch so he could sit and look down at the pond. How he planned to refinish the floors and maybe build a big bathroom off his bedroom. He was even going to get a satellite dish as soon as he could afford it. Kerry took a lightbulb from a package he’d brought with him. He screwed it into a socket and it glowed brightly and immediately became hot under his fingers, and he let go. He smiled. That lightbulb reminded him of Shannon in a lot of ways—cold and dark one second and bright and burning the next. She looked down on how kids around here always moved in on their parents, so hopefully she wouldn’t think that was what he was doing. This was his land, his house; he even had a separate road into town from his family. What he liked most about the place was probably what Shannon liked least—there wasn’t a neighbor within earshot. He’d never have to see a living soul if he didn’t want to.

  Kerry reached into his pocket and took out the jewelry box he’d given Shannon on prom night. The tiny diamond set in the gold heart sparkled under the shine of the bare bulb. Tonight he’d try to give her the necklace again. This time she couldn’t turn him down—it was a birthday present. He could say it didn’t mean anything and she’d accept it then. A couple of times he’d gotten the feeling that if he’d just ask, she would put his ring back on, but he didn’t want to take advantage of her when she was still so raw from losing Will.

  His father wanted him to give college a try, said he might learn something that would help make the farm more productive, but Kerry didn’t want to move to a city where he didn’t know anybody and talk about farming while he walked around on concrete; so instead of signing a check for tuition, his dad had signed over this parcel of land. When Kerry got finished with this place, Shannon would see what he could accomplish. She thought she was working toward something, but really she was just running away. Maybe one day she’d realize that her people were land grubbers and factory workers and that that was nothing to be ashamed of. If you couldn’t get the dirt out from under you, then you put down roots and grow. This rich Kentucky soil was a better place than most.

  Kerry heard his name called and opened the back door to see his father in a field next to a Hereford and her calf. He raised a hand and Kerry started toward him. At some point, they would drive these cows to another field so Kerry could start preparing this one for soybeans. It was a hard decision to break up good pasture, but Kerry wasn’t interested in keeping cattle. Weeds crunched under his boots and grasshoppers zinged away from his steps. Come spring, he’d have to disk up this pasture and spray it to keep down weeds, a prospect he looked forward to. He loved the powerful vibration of farm machinery under him and the heady smell of newly turned dirt. Kerry reminded himself to go to the extension office to get the results of his soil samples. He’d need to get
a lime truck out if the pH was low.

  “Ready to work on that fence, Pop?”

  “Let’s do it and get on back. I’m hungry.” They both took long strides toward a bowed pressure-wire fence topped with drooping barbed wire. Cows were dumb creatures, and even though there was plenty to eat on their side of the fence, they always found a spot to lean over to get something on the other side. “You pull her tight and I’ll staple.”

  They put on their work gloves and Kerry stretched the wire taut. His father squinted against the sun, long lines radiating from his eyes beneath his green John Deere cap. When they had finished, the fence was upright and stable, and they stood for a minute surveying the field.

  “You put pencil to paper and figure what your yield will be on the beans?” his father asked.

  “Yes, sir. I should do good. It’s that grain header for the combine that’s going to put me in the hole.”

  “Equipment’ll eat you alive. Could be you borrow a header. You ought to check into it.” His father sighed and removed his cap to wipe his forehead with a bandana. “Farming is an act of faith, son. A good harvest just means that you’re in it for another year.”

  “I know that.”

  “Your momma didn’t want this life for you kids, but Marcia Sue and Dave’ll probably be here from now on. I imagine their boys’ll make farmers, too. You never have to worry about the land leaving the family. I can write my will that way.”

  “Shit, Pop. Don’t talk like that.”

  “Your great-great-granddaddy thought this was the prettiest land he’d ever seen. Brought the whole family here from Iowa, split up this piece of land among his kids. This county was built up by German and Irish folks like us. We’re farmers all the way back, but that don’t mean a thing if you can’t make a living at it.”

  Kerry thought things were screwy when a man couldn’t make a living doing an honest day’s work, but nowadays, family farms that couldn’t grow and get mechanized were failing.

  “I hear tell the government took Floyd Crabtree’s farm,” his father said. “Caught him growing mary-jo-wanna on his place.”

  Kerry shook his head. “They can take your farm for that?”

  “Times are hard. People take chances. Something’s wrong with a man losing his farm over growing weeds. Government ought to make it legal. Then farmers could grow it and the government could take their cut and the police could stop arresting everybody.”

  “You’d grow marijuana?”

  “Don’t mean I’d smoke the stuff, but I’d sure grow it if there was good money involved. No different than tobacco or alcohol. Just a different sort of Prohibition, and Prohibition don’t work. People are going to do what they’re going to do. Your papaw lived through Prohibition, but it never stopped him from running moonshine.”

  Kerry laughed. “That explains all those fruit jars I found under the house.”

  “The damn government’s always got one hand in your business telling you what you can and can’t grow, while the other hand’s out asking for money.”

  “I don’t know about growing marijuana, but I’d sure like to grow hemp. There’s about a million things you can make from hemp and it won’t tear up your land like tobacco does. George Washington was a hemp farmer.”

  “Really? Don’t that beat all. Anyways, let’s get on back and eat us a bite.”

  Kerry drove, the truck dipping into cooler spots where trees edged a creek that cut a band through his field and ran underneath the road. His father smoked silently, an elbow out the open window. The dry, crisp breeze slipped through the truck cab, heavy with the promise of turning leaves. A covey of quail rose out of weeds and flew alongside the truck for a short distance, wings flapping frantically against their bodies speckled the colors of fall.

  Kerry stopped the truck at the bottom of the drive to the farm. Little Davey, who straddled the lowest limb on a catalpa tree, soberly instructed his younger brother, Robert, to hold the lard can steady so he could drop worms inside. The small boy on the ground held the bucket as high as he could, but finally his brother tossed the fat green worms to the ground and said, “Just pick ’em up.”

  “What are y’all up to?” Kerry asked from the truck.

  “Uncle Kerry!” Robert said. “Can you see our worms we got?” He ran to the truck, his short legs barely past the toddling stage. He proudly held the bucket out so his uncle could see the writhing mass of larvae inside.

  “Lord have mercy. What are you two going to do with all those worms?”

  “Catch bluegill!” Davey said from the tree. “Will you take us to the creek?”

  “Pleeease!” Robert begged.

  “We got work to do,” Kerry said.

  “What about tomorrow?” Davey asked.

  “You put those things in the ’frigerator and I’ll take you two down to the creek tomorrow.”

  “Yeah!”

  “You boys want a ride on up to the house?”

  “Okay!” Davey flipped down out of the tree and helped his brother climb over the tailgate.

  “Hang on good,” Kerry said and drove toward the house.

  Kerry carefully clipped a few straggling nose hairs and shaved his sideburns even with the bottom of his ears. He splashed Old Spice in his hands and rubbed it on his cheeks and around the back of his neck. His chest and shoulders were so sore from hanging tobacco that he winced when he pulled on a freshly ironed shirt. He’d stopped wearing his FFA jacket as much since he graduated and instead wore a brown leather coat his mother had given him for Christmas a few years back.

  The kitchen was steamy from boiling potatoes and corn. His sister eyed him and said, “Oh my, don’t you look handsome. What are you two doing tonight?”

  “I’m taking her out to eat. That’s all.”

  “Here.” Marcia Sue wiped her hands on a dish rag and pulled out a junk drawer. “Order her a piece of cake and have them put this candle in it. She’ll like that.”

  “Aw, that’s too cheesy.”

  “No it’s not. Girls like that sort of thing.”

  Laughter floated from the TV room where Dave and the boys were watching “The Muppet Show.” Marcia Sue’s family lived in a house trailer just a few yards down the road, but she cooked nearly every meal here. Kerry was appreciative of how Marcia Sue had taken up cooking for the whole family when their mother died. She had assumed a lot of responsibility, like keeping up the house and doing laundry for their father and for him. He would have to learn to cook once he moved. It wouldn’t be right for him to be running over here to eat all the time. Kerry leaned against the kitchen counter and watched his father jotting figures on the pale blue lines of a notebook. “How’s things look, Pop?”

  “Corn didn’t meet the payments on the combine and new crib last year.” The children laughed from the other room again and his father took a sip of coffee and slowly set his mug down on the table.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “I’m just scribbling.”

  “He’ll probably stay up all night working on those damn books,” Marcia Sue said.

  “You’d do good to pay a little more attention to what I’m doing,” their father said. “We’re not in as bad a shape as some folks right now, but if interest rates keep going up we’ll be in a pickle. Damned inflation.”

  Marcia Sue placed a platter of country fried steak on the table along with bowls of corn, mashed potatoes, and milk gravy. She took a cookie sheet out of the oven and slid biscuits onto the five plates around the table. “Soup’s on,” she yelled. The boys clamored into the kitchen, but she sent them away saying, “Go wash up.”

  Bob gathered his papers and flipped the notebook shut and put everything in a drawer in the hutch behind him. “I tell you what, I never thought I’d say it, but this might be my first year to vote Republican.”

  “Papaw’ll roll in his grave,” Marcia Sue said.

  “That might be, but we can’t take four more years of this.”

  Dave pulled out a
chair and the boys rushed back into the kitchen and took their places at the table. Kerry grabbed a biscuit from the sheet and shoved it in his mouth.

  “Don’t wait up,” he said around a wad of bread.

  “Yeah, right,” Marcia Sue said.

  His father began the blessing before Kerry pulled the kitchen door shut. He looked back inside to see his family, heads bowed, holding hands around the table. On his way to the truck, Kerry searched the scaly, spotted trunks of the shade trees in the yard to see how long before he would be raking leaves. They kept their farm trimmed, painted, and organized, not like some farms choked with weeds and half the buildings falling down. If Shannon had known the financial situation they were in, she would wonder why he stayed with it, but farming was a challenge, a gamble, a way of life. Shannon thought she knew so much, could spend all day talking about why there were fewer butterflies each year, but she didn’t understand the reasons farmers had to use pesticides, how butterflies were just another unfortunate victim of a larger struggle. She thought Kerry was stupid for turning down a free ride to college, but Kerry was needed here. His father couldn’t do it with just Dave and Marcia Sue. Like today, they couldn’t have worked tobacco with him off at school.

  A cow bawled and Kerry looked in a far pasture to find her. The land was breathing, inhaling long and steady as if it were tired from the abundance of green produced in the summer. This was the best time of year, when the air was dry and just right to curl leaves, and light fell crystal clear. He touched the jewelry box and candle in his coat pocket. He’d stop in town and spray the dust off his truck at the car wash before he went to pick up Shannon. He’d been playing the friend card a long time now. If she took the necklace tonight, he’d know he still stood a chance.