Scowler

by Daniel Kraus

  To the right of the house was the vacant northeast pasture. It was in that field that the males had been castrated and dehorned. The former was somehow bearable: The calves had an underbelly doughiness that ceded testicles effortlessly. The removal of horns, though, was a feat of carnage that haunted Ry each day. Sometimes when the first blast of water hit him in the morning shower he mistook it for the jets of black blood that would strike his face during the dehornings. The steers knew what was coming; they lowered their heads as if trying to elude the holocaust stench. It did not help. A hired worker would pull the animal into position and Marvin would regrip his implements and take aim. It was Ry’s job to apply caustic to the deep and spurting wounds, and he’d do it pretending that he was merely reaching his hands into another womb, that this was the torture of birth, not the first stage of an ignominious death.

  Beyond the pasture stretched three hundred acres of dead farmland. Each field was ruthlessly named after the farmer from whom it had been purchased, a litany of conquest: the Costner Eighty, the Strickland Sixty, the Bowman Plot, the McCafferty Forty. And beyond that was Black Glade—the largest forest in the state, a place without light, the origin of a hundred schoolyard legends. Ry had only gone past its edges once and it wasn’t something he liked to think about, not ever.

  The only thing not pelted with dust or rust on the entire farm was the For Sale sign, which whistled sweetly in the breeze. Ry heard it, blinked himself awake, and hid his eyes so that he would not have to see it. This was the Burke farm, over four hundred acres of nothing, and he was terrified to leave it.

  14 HRS., 11 MINS. UNTIL IMPACT

  The screen door sounded like another angry bird. Jo Beth Burke’s shoulders dipped side to side as she walked into view, as if she were carrying an extra fifty pounds of weight, and her muscles, even those in her face, slouched toward the earth. But she had a good face—nothing could change that. Her eyes were heavily lidded and that was their burden, but in the rare moments that those lids fully withdrew, you became sure she was going to reach out and tickle you. And all throughout his youth she had done just that. It was yet another thing that Sarah was missing.

  “Why do you make me walk all the way down here?” Jo Beth’s arms hung slack at her sides; this was her most exasperated posture, as if even posturing were a wasted effort. “Just open the window so I can ask you. I can’t open it from my side—that’s the problem.”

  “I know what the problem is.” He looked away from her and across the yard. The doghouse next to the garage was empty; the coiled-up, never-used chain where the dog usually rested his muzzle sat undisturbed, as did the chain’s padlock, which had lain open since the key vanished a decade ago. Sniggety had never recovered from his master’s abandonment and was just riding out his time, sleeping for twenty hours a day, deaf and twitching in the shade. His absence was unusual.

  “And you’re going to fall,” Jo Beth said. “Look at you.”

  “You want to do this?” He bucked his back so that, for a moment, only his heels touched the ladder. It was a deliberate incitement and he saw Jo Beth draw back in fear. Instantly he regretted it and took a firm grip of the top step. “I’m not going to fall.”

  “If you could just raise it an inch,” she said. “Then I could grab it from the other side and we could try together.”

  “And then what? Have you thought this through? Then you’ll have a window that won’t close. The wood’s all warped. If I get it up, it’s not going to come back down. When it rains it’ll get all over your floor. You really want that?”

  She sighed and wiped hair back from her sweaty temples. She spoke quietly, perhaps to herself. “Yes.”

  He wondered if it was true. Because the more things went wrong around the farm, the more his presence was required. This was the terrible unarticulated truth. Jo Beth Burke was thirty-eight, which meant she had been Ry’s age when she gave birth to him. At nineteen she was married, living with her husband, feeding farmhands, keeping house, and nursing a child. He, on the other hand, was a year past graduating near the bottom of a class of forty kids, and he’d yet to make a single feint toward a life of his own. There were community colleges within a few hours’ drive. There were jobs holding road signs in Bloughton. There were other farms that, despite the hard times, would pay him hourly wages. They might keep a close eye on him for a while—the son of Marvin Burke, poor messed-up kid—but eventually his pedigree would be overlooked. His hand strayed from the ladder and touched the swelling of a new pimple alongside his nose. It seemed symbolic of the issue: Was he an oily-faced kid, or was he a man?

  Sarah’s head poked out from under her mother’s arm. A faint pinkness of eye was all that betrayed her earlier crying. One thing was clear: She had gotten paid. It glittered all over her.

  “Mom’s got stuff for the Crowleys,” she taunted. “Don’t you want to go to the Crowleys’?”

  Four miles was a long way to go for your nearest neighbor, but that was the distance to the Crowley farm. Sarah had somehow gotten it into her head that Ry was in love with Esther Crowley, the eighteen-year-old daughter with a mane of black hair that sometimes caught under her ass when she sat down. He was not, in fact, in love with her, but he had, in fact, nearly had sex with her two years ago, a traumatic incident that marked the only attempt at physical relations he’d ever had with a girl. He refused to think of it, ever—he’d think of algebra, baseball statistics, anything to keep the memory away. How Sarah suspected the truth was beyond him, but he was pretty sure Jo Beth had never picked up on it. He’d like to keep it that way.

  “We do have some mending for them. A nightgown. A beautiful nightgown.” Jo Beth paused. “But I can drive it over if you want.”

  That pause—did she suspect after all? His mother imagining him putting his clumsy hands to a girl’s bare skin made his ears boil. He took the hammer from his belt loop. “I’ll do it. It’s fine. It’ll take me like twenty minutes.”

  “You should take longer,” Sarah suggested. “You and Esther could watch the Jaekel Belt together. It’s very romantic.”

  Ry sighed. “But I can’t do it tonight.”

  “Then I’ll have to do it myself,” Jo Beth said.

  “Well, enjoy the walk.”

  Her face fell. “The car? Oh, Ry.”

  He gripped the hammer more tightly. “Don’t give me that. The car what? The car is not my fault.”

  “But you said you’d have it done.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Grow spark plugs next to the strawberry patch? I put the order in with Phinny and he’ll be here.”

  “When? I just feel so bad about that nightgown; she must be wearing something of Kevin’s—”

  “Tonight? Tomorrow? He’ll be here when he gets the part.”

  “Ry, how many times is this going to happen?”

  “That depends on how many times you plan on incinerating the spark plugs.”

  “Can we order more than one box?”

  “Can we get a new car?”

  “Ry.” She shielded her eyes even though the falling sun was behind her. “Can we order more than one? Is it too late?”

  “Will you calm down? Phinny’s bringing a bunch. The Crowleys can wait for their damn pajamas. I’ll install the plug and drive over there tomorrow morning, end of story.”

  Ry chanced a look at his mother and saw both resignation and gratitude. He should have felt good about that, about solving yet another of the farm’s myriad problems, but instead felt only the sensation of further sinking. He was six foot three and shaved every day; his continued presence here was becoming a mockery. He mashed his lips and told himself that he deserved an extra year of childhood—a year at the very least—for all those months stolen by doctors, psychiatrists, and the Unnamed Three.

  “Fine,” Jo Beth said with hushed complacency. Beside her Sarah had twisted so that she could stare at the sky again, and her mother’s arm supported her weight with offhand expertise. “Sarah lost another tooth. Didn�
�t you, Sarah?”

  “I know,” Ry said.

  “I’m worried it’s infected somehow. She’s all snotty.”

  “You don’t want me to stay up!” Sarah accused. “You want me to miss the Jaekel Belt!”

  But Ry heard it too, the nasal buzz that presaged a sore throat and cough. It seemed that for every two weeks Sarah spent bursting with energy she spent another throwing up into a bowl.

  “She’s going to have perfect teeth,” Jo Beth said. This slide into dreamy prognostication announced a temporary cease-fire. She pressed Sarah’s head into her side and began waddling back around the corner of the house. Ry felt snubbed. He swung himself back toward the window and regarded his misshapen reflection in the aged glass.

  Swiftly he withdrew several nails from his pocket and transferred them to his lips. He made sure the sash was lodged solid against the frame and centered the first nail over the weatherboard. He raised the hammer, aimed, and with one mean blow sunk the nail. No matter how many times the bedroom window jammed, his mother insisted on trying to open it. Well, no more. He drove another nail and sad flakes of paint scattered. She would have to be more creative in her assignments of busywork. A third nail, a fourth, each like the sealing of a coffin.

  The detestable job done, he lifted the inside of his elbow to wipe at eyes so sweaty they felt full of tears. That was as far as he got. There between the brooder house and calf shed was Sniggety, winding his way around abandoned machine parts and the tractor wheel that had once housed a miniature rose garden. The dog moved with his trademark limp, but with hackles raised. It was the birds. Ry had forgotten them again, but there they were, still screaming.

  It was only because he was facing the doghouse that his gaze swept the front yard. He paused, blinked, and looked again. The long shadows thrown by the trees made it difficult to see, and the driveway itself was a quarter of a mile long. After a time, though, Ry became convinced. Standing on the road, next to their mailbox, was a man.

  13 HRS., 46 MINS. UNTIL IMPACT

  At first Ry was sure that it was Phinny Rochester. The man ran a shop out of his garage about twelve miles west. Phinny got a good price for his salvage and a fair commission from his special orders—at least, that was Ry’s impression. He had visited Phinny’s plenty of times with Marvin. The men loathed each other, and when Marvin loathed a man he visited him as often as possible, displaying his shaved scalp, flashing the gap in his teeth, talking uninterrupted for staggering amounts of time—thirty, sixty, ninety minutes. Phinny, to his credit, never backed down, and would nod as many times as was necessary. Most of these encounters would be scored a draw.

  The first time Ry visited the shop after Marvin’s incarceration, Phinny Rochester looked as if he had exhaled a long-held breath. He beckoned Ry with oil-stained fingers, grinning behind kaleidoscopic whiskers. He cut Ry no better deals than he had cut Marvin, which made Ry trust him; in fact, he had quickly become Ry’s only real confidant. Ry had plenty of secrets—the severity of the farm’s debt, his regretful sexual encounter with Esther Crowley, the untold lengths of his father’s depravity, the Unnamed Three—and if he were ever to tell anyone about them, he figured it would be Phinny.

  Ry had put in the order for two packs of spark plugs six days ago. Over the past two years Ry had grown increasingly embarrassed of the family car, a school-bus-yellow 1973 Volkswagen Beetle. Jo Beth was defensive of it; once the fate of the farm had calcified, she had wasted no time selling off the F-150 that exhaled Marvin’s odor each time you sat down in it. Ry’s long legs barely fit in the Beetle. He had to admit, though, that the vehicle would be right at home battling for parking spots in town.

  Ry jumped off the ladder, still four rungs from the bottom. He took a few steps toward the driveway, felt strangely vulnerable, and slapped his thigh to engage Sniggety. The dog scratched his muzzle but otherwise made no move. At least there was the weight of the hammer at his side. Ry wiped his palms on his shirt and began the walk around the eastern side of the house. The man waiting at the road did not move. Ry risked a wave. Still nothing. You did not live this far out in the country and not wave at others. Even Marvin Burke had done it.

  Twenty feet away features began to distinguish themselves. Ry slowed. The man was old, maybe in his seventies, and had gray hair crisscrossing his skull, thistles and bits of leaves caught within the wisps. His thin legs wore what looked like pajama pants, the shins fuzzy with burrs and striped with dried mud. His shoes were flimsy and had been all but cut to ribbons. The only pristine item on him was a black overcoat far too big for his skinny frame, zipped to the neck despite the heat. The man stood with his hands behind his back.

  Ry stopped ten feet away. He put on a smile. The man met his eyes only for a moment. His chest beat up and down and he breathed through an open mouth only half-stocked with teeth.

  “Howdy,” Ry said.

  The man nodded. He paused and nodded again.

  “Nice time for a walk.” Ry weighed this pleasantry and judged it sufficient. “What can I help you with?”

  The man parted his lips. They were trembling. Ry leaned away. There were red scratches on the man’s neck and face.

  Ry heard his sister’s cry far behind. “Mom! Ry’s talking to a man!”

  Ry’s chest tingled. They had been spotted. Sarah would be on her way. He heard a screen door slam.

  “Everything all right, sir?” Ry asked.

  “Obliged,” the man said. “Your family.”

  Ry heard feet crunching through the gravel behind him. He took a half step forward to urge the conversation along. “Say again? Something about my family?”

  The man raised his face. His stubble was pure white and sprinkled his haggard cheeks like snow.

  “I been watching you,” he said.

  Sarah arrived panting at Ry’s side and on instinct he threw an arm around her. She slingshotted forward, then back.

  “Sarah, go inside—”

  “Hello,” she said. The man’s watery eyes lowered to Sarah’s level and his mouth hung agape. He leaned toward her, too close, within grabbing range, biting distance. His hands, though, remained clasped behind his back.

  “I’m Sarah.” She sounded stuffy.

  Back at the house the screen door slammed again. Jo Beth was coming.

  “Mister,” Ry said. “Maybe you better keep on.”

  “Are you here to see the meteors?” Sarah asked. “They’re easier to see in the country.”

  “I …”

  “Where were you hiding?” Sarah searched the road, the nearby trees, the ditch.

  “In plain sight,” the man said.

  “Mister,” Ry repeated.

  “You’re missing teeth,” Sarah continued. “I lost a tooth today. A front one. Well, sort of near the front. It got lost in the field but I got money anyway.”

  The man cocked his head as if mystified by this creature. He turned his attention back to Ry. “I saw you had a pretty little miss, a young sir like yourself, a lady, and a dog. It reminded me of kindness. I mean that it reminded me of my home. The home of myself. Where I’m from.” He winced and looked at the ground.

  There was the sudden disruption of gravel. The man’s eyes shifted upward.

  Jo Beth had arrived. She inserted a shoulder in front of Ry and wiped her hands on the apron she still wore. There were pockets in the apron; Ry wondered if they were big enough to conceal a knife.

  “How do you do? I’m Jo.”

  “Obliged,” the man said. “I am Jeremiah. I’m troubling you for water and food. I know I’m troubling you. But I’ve come some way and desire water and food. This is my request.”

  Jo Beth took in the entirety of Jeremiah’s appearance with a slowness that did not disguise itself. The man tipped his knees together like a child who needed to urinate. Ry, meanwhile, felt the shame of youth. He had danced around this man to no avail, while it had taken his mother six words to establish control.

  “I can give you water,” Jo Bet
h said at last. “Sarah, why don’t you go fill that red thermos on top of the fridge.”

  Sarah coughed but did not move.

  “And a bit of food?” Jeremiah’s eyes twinkled hopefully. “If it’s not too much trouble? To sit down to some food would be … It would be something I could not ever repay.”

  “Where are you from?” Jo Beth asked.

  Jeremiah looked pained and turned his head to gaze down the dusty road. “I come from Wisconsin way.”

  “That’s very far.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You came directly from there?”

  “No.” His eyes became dejected. “No, ma’am.”

  “Where did you come from, then? Today.”

  Jeremiah’s shoulders were shaking. “If I’ve bothered you, ma’am, I am sorry. I will be on my way—”

  “You haven’t bothered me.” There was a command to his mother’s voice that Ry hadn’t heard in a long time, as well as an undertone of sympathy. “But you’re on my property. I have a little girl.”

  “Eleven,” Sarah said. “That is my age.”

  “So.” Jo Beth stopped kneading the apron and let it drop. “Where did you come from today?”

  “The woods,” Jeremiah said.

  “Black Glade?” Her voice betrayed her surprise.

  The man looked confused.

  “That’s the forest over yonder,” Jo Beth said. “At the end of the property there. Goes for miles and miles. Was that the woods you were in?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She considered this. “Where else were you?”

  “Fields.”

  “Fields,” she repeated. “And where did you sleep?”

  “I did not.” Jeremiah was shaking his head in a miserable figure-eight pattern. “You are kind, ma’am, very kind.”

  Jo Beth laughed lightly. “Because I’m asking you questions?”