by Matt Zachary
“Name’s Bob, and its Marchetta. I don’t know why in the hell your dang-nabbit father changed his name,” Billy’s uncle told him in a thick, raspy voice that reminded Billy of gravel. “You can either call me, Uncle Bob, or Sir.”
Billy stared, shocked. The man before him definitely wasn’t happy to see him, and obviously had a lot of resentment or something towards his brother, Billy’s dad. “Yes, Sir,” Billy quickly replied when he realized he was staring. “I just need to get my suitcase,” he added and headed towards the carousel.
He didn’t have to wait long, as soon as the baggage started coming out, his suitcase was the fourth one. “Let’s get on, then,” Billy’s uncle told him
Billy’s face dropped a bit more when he saw his uncle’s mode of transportation. It was a beat up old blue pickup truck. With the area of town he was from, he rarely saw a beat up old anything, let alone a pickup. But, what really scared him was the condition of the truck’s inside.
As Billy hopped inside the old pickup, he had to kick aside empty beer cans that lay across the floor. He didn’t even know where to put his hands. In the center of the console was what he assumed was an old Gatorade jug, but it was now being used as a spittoon. He grimaced as he looked at the brown liquid inside.
“Why have I never met you before?” Billy asked, partly to find out a little bit more about his family and party as a way of sidetracking him from his poor surroundings.
“I suppose, it’s ‘cause yer dad was ashamed of his roots,” Billy’s Uncle Bob answered before shoving a wad of chewing tobacco under his lip.
“Do you have a wife?” Billy asked.
His uncle laughed hysterically at that. “Of course, I have a wife, boy. Been married twenty nine years this December.”
Billy jumped at the sound of his uncle’s cackling but at least he was smiling. As he did, Billy could see a mouth full of tobacco stained and rotted teeth. He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to kiss that. As he thought about it, Billy even threw up a little in his mouth.
“What’s that?” his uncle asked.
“I’m just getting a bit car sick,” Billy lied. In the past he may have been the type who would’ve been honest whether it hurt anyone’s feelings or not, but since meeting Stuart, he liked to think he had matured. Besides, he couldn’t risk offending the only family he had left. He had nowhere else to go.
“Ya better hold it in, boy,” his uncle warned, “we still got a lot of road left to cover!”
Billy wondered how far away from the city he would actually be living. From the look of his uncle’s clothes and truck, he imagined it would be very far from civilization.
To pass the time, he kept asking his uncle questions. At some point he hoped his uncle would just volunteer some information rather than have to have it pried out of him. That didn’t seem to be the case, though. If he had minded Billy’s questions, he didn’t let on. So, Billy went right on asking them.
“So, what do you do...for work, I mean?”
“The same thing you’ll be doing, starting tomorrow,” his uncle answered. “I work the farm!”
Billy was at a loss for words. He couldn’t even wrap his head around what he had just heard. His uncle expected him to work a far? That was insane! He started to protest, not because he felt he was above work or farming, but because he didn’t know anything about farms, or farming. Besides that, he didn’t like being forced into working. “I can’t work a farm,” he started.
“Look, boy,” his uncle replied, turning to face him with a serious, hard look. “There are no free meals at the Marchetta house. You will work, and you’ll work til I says yer done. Got it?!”
Billy swallowed hard. “Got it,” he answered back, though it was barely audible. He just had to remind himself that it was only for six months or so. After that, he’d be eighteen and could go off on his own. Six months, though, seemed like an eternity when he considered he’d be living with strangers, doing manual labor from sunup to sundown.
Just about an hour and a half after they left the airport, Uncle Bob announced that they were approaching the farm. Billy looked out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of it, but it was too dark to see anything. Once they turned onto the farms main driveway, he did see the tiny lights of the house ahead. He couldn’t tell, though how far away the place was yet. For all he knew it could be a mansion. Or, it could be a shack. He just didn’t know. Before he knew it, the pickup came to a stop and Billy could see the moderately sized white house.
“Well, don’t just sit there! Get out and grab yer bag!” his uncle ordered.
“It’s only six months...only six months,” Billy whispered to himself as he pictured Stuart’s face.
Chapter 4
Billy expected the worst as he walked up the steps to the front door. As the door swung open, though, he got the unexpected.
“Well, get in here, honey child,” a robust woman with curly gray hair and rosy cheeks said as she practically pulled Billy in single-handedly. She gave his a tight embrace, almost knocking the wind out of him. “We’re so sorry to hear about your pa, but very welcome to get the chance to meet you,” she rambled through the hug.
“Barbara June, let the boy be...I can’t even get in the door and yer letting all the skitos in,” Uncle Bob growled.
“Oh my,” Barbara June exclaimed and moved aside so they could enter and close the door.
“Well, I see you’ve done met your Aunt,” Uncle Bob explained.
“Thank you so much for taking me in, Aunt Barbara,” Billy offered quizzically to his aunt, hoping what he had called her was acceptable.
“Now, you call me Aunt BJ...everyone does,” she replied as she held her hands to her cheeks. She seemed so overwhelmed with excitement and emotion.
Billy tried to smile back but he was quite overwhelmed. “Okay,” he agreed as he looked around the room. He was surprised at how neat and tidy everything was. From what he could tell without an in depth inspection, there wasn’t a speck of dust or dirt anywhere. He smiled slightly as he wondered how the house and his aunt could be so different compared to his uncle, who was a complete slob as far as Billy could tell.
“Sarah and Sonya, get down here...he’s here,” Aunt BJ yelled up the stairs, startling Billy.
“Sarah and Sonya? Are those your kids?” he asked, feeling guilty as soon as he did so. He felt rude for not knowing anything about his aunt or uncle or their family. It wasn’t his fault though, and he hoped they knew and understood that.
“They’s our grandkids!” Uncle Bob said before spitting tobacco juice into his plastic container.
“Now I told you...get that filthy jar out of this house!” Aunt BJ yelled at Uncle Bob before turning her attention back to Billy. “Yes, Sarah and Sonya are our son, Buck’s, children. They live with us,” she added before getting a glassy look in her eyes and looking towards her feet.
Billy sensed there was more to the story, but he knew better than to ask. Fortunately, before things got any more tense, two twin girls bounced down the stairs. His best guess was that they were eleven or twelve.
“Are you our cousin?” one of them asked.
“That’s not very polite,” the second one whispered to her sister.
It was clear from looking at the two girls that they each had their own personalities. Though they shared a face, they each wore their hair different and their style in clothing was definitely different. The one who asked Billy if he was their cousin wore shorts and a t-shirt, more the attire of a tom-boy, while the other one wore a frilly, lace dress.
“I suppose I’m your Great Uncle, I think,” Billy answered, not sure if he got the math right.
Each girl took a moment to introduce themselves before Billy’s Uncle Bob ran them off and told them to get upstairs and ready for bed. “Now I don’t want you getting too close to them girls,” he warned Billy as he showed him to his room, which appeared to be a room previously used as a sewing room. “Cousins or not, a boy your age has no business a
round girls their age.”
Billy wanted to correct his uncle and say that he was their Great Uncle, but he knew it would be pointless...the man seemed to be set in his ways and nothing Billy could say was going to change that. Besides, now that he was in a room, he just wanted to be left alone.
Once the door was closed and he heard his uncle walk away, Billy tried to call Stuart. The phone rang but when Stuart answered, Billy just heard a scrambled jumble of sounds. “Hello? Can you hear me?” he whispered loudly into the phone, but again, he was presented with sounds that were undecipherable.
He checked the reading on his phone and saw it was barely getting a signal. “Stupid farm!’ he cursed under his breath. He attempted texting Stuart, and waited anxiously for a reply.
A few seconds late a reply came: R U ALRIGHT? I COULD HEAR YOU BUT THE CONNECTION WAS BAD.
Billy lay back on the bed and typed back: I’M ON A FARM, OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. I MISS YOU THOUGH.
I MISS YOU TOO - Stuart wrote back.
The two spent the next thirty minutes typing back and forth, and even sending a picture message or two to one another, before Billy said he needed to get some sleep. Stuart couldn’t believe that Billy had to wake up early to work on a farm, but understood he would need his sleep.
SLEEP TIGHT - he told Billy before making him promise to text the next day.
I WILL. NOT SURE WHEN, BUT I WILL. I LOVE YOU. - While they were texting, Billy had felt almost like he was home. But, typing that final text, he felt the deep sadness return.
I LOVE YOU TOO - came Stuart’s reply and Billy shut off his phone. After unpacking and plugging in his charger so the phone could re-power itself overnight, Billy stripped down to his boxer briefs and climbed into bed. Within fifteen minutes he was out like a light.
Chapter 5
Billy wasn’t sure what time it was, but sometime, shortly after he had fallen asleep, he woke up. He had to use the bathroom badly. For a second, in the dark, he thought he was back on the cruise and half expected to feel Stuart beside him. It wasn’t until he stood up, crossed the room and fumbled to flip on the lights that he remembered all that had happened and where he was.
He opened the door softly, but it still made a creaking sound. He looked down the hall, but had no idea where the bathroom even was. He tiptoed lightly, hoping the floors didn’t also creek as he searched for an open doorway. He found one but as he pushed the door open, and stepped inside, his feet felt carpeting. He assumed it was likely a bedroom, so he quickly retreated and headed downstairs. He remembered seeing a bathroom there as he scanned the house upon his arrival.
After using the bathroom to relieve himself, Billy quickly made his way back to his room. He glanced at his phone before going back to bed. It was just before four thirty.
Just a little over an hour later, he was startled from his sleep with a pounding on his door. “Wake up, boy!” his uncle growled.
“What time is it?” Billy asked after stumbling to the door in his boxer briefs.
“It’s time to get to work!” his Uncle Bob answered and then looked him up and down. “And, git some clothes on. This is a Christian house!”
Billy wanted more than anything to just go back to bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been up at five thirty in the morning, voluntarily, without it involving still being up from a party the night before. For a second, he even laid his head back down but then thought better of it.
By the time he made it downstairs, his aunt was waiting in the kitchen with a hot breakfast. “Good morning, sugar,” he cheerfully said as she placed patted the table indicating Billy should sit down. “You have to eat a good breakfast to keep your strength up.”
Billy’s uncle made a disapproving sound but Billy sat down anyways and the smell of the sizzling bacon and fluffy eggs did perk him up a little.
By six o’ clock, he and his uncle were headed out to the farm. “Well, what do you need me to do?” Billy asked. He still wasn’t even sure what kind of a farm he was on. It could’ve been a pig farm, or a produce farm...he had no idea.
“Put these gloves on!” his uncle yelled as he threw a pair of work gloves at Billy. “Yer gonna be starting off by feeding the pigs.”
Billy figured he could do that. “That ain’t so bad,” he smiled, but again his uncle uttered a grunt that signaled maybe Billy would be eating those words.
Billy camped out in the barn, slinging buckets of pig food into the troughs. Within an hour, his arms and back were killing him. He was in good shape, but farming used muscles he wasn’t really used to using. It took a few sit down breaks, but Billy finished in a little over two hours and then went to find his uncle. As he wandered the farm in the daylight, he could see they had animals and crops.
“You finally done?” his uncle asked in a rude tone when Billy approached. Billy wanted to say something back about how his uncle could at least be grateful for the free help, but bit his tongue. He knew his uncle saw it as though they were doing a favor for Billy and if he complained he would just seem ungrateful himself.
“Yeah,” Billy answered with forced cheer, “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
“Took you four times as long as it should’ve,” his uncle replied, unable to ever say a kind word to Billy. “Now you need to go over to that field and pick the ripe tomatoes, do you think you can do that?” The question came out less like a question and more like an insult.
“Yes, Sir,” Billy answered, hoping that maybe if he showed some respect to his uncle, his uncle might return the kindness. “Just point me to the supplies I need.”
As Billy made his way from tomato plant to tomato plant, he thought he would never be done. He had never seen so many tomatoes before in his life. He took his time, though, making sure to only pick the ones his uncle had described. When he was only about halfway through, he heard someone call his name. He turned to see Sarah and Sonya running his way, carrying a picnic basket.
“Hey,” he smiled, hoping to at least win them over.
“Nana BJ told us to bring you lunch,” Sarah told Billy and handed him the basket.
“And I brought you some lemonade,” Sonya said proudly as she handed Billy a thermos.
“Well, thank you guys very much. Would you like to stay and eat lunch with me?” he asked, but then immediately remembered his uncle’s warning.
“We already ate,” both girls answered in unison before running off, giggling.
As Billy watched them, it occurred to him that they should’ve been at school at that time of the day. He wondered if maybe they were home-schooled. Deciding it was none of his business; he sat down and opened the picnic basket. Inside was a couple of pieces of fried chicken, some corn bread, a container of potato salad, and what looked to be peach cobbler. “Mmmmm,” Billy purred as he smelled everything. He didn’t know if his aunt was just the best cook ever or if he was just starved but, either way, he was ready to dig in.
It was a lot of food, but Billy ate every morsel and made a mental note to compliment his aunt once he got back to the house. After standing back up and taking the last few gulps of his lemonade, Billy sighed and returned to work.
The heat beat down on Billy as he picked the orange-red fleshy fruit. He could feel his forehead and shoulders already starting to burn. Luckily he had a decent tan already from his cruise, so he didn’t think it would be as painful the next day as it could’ve been.
By the time Billy’s uncle came to tell him they were quitting for the day, Billy had all the tomatoes in crates as instructed and even neatly stacked the crates in an effort to make his uncle happy.
“This all ya got?” his uncle looked around disapprovingly at the end of the day.
“Seems like a lot to me. I picked all the ones you told me to,” Billy tried to defend but his uncle just turned around and shot a long stream of tobacco spit out into the dirt.
Every muscle in Billy’s body ached as he showered and changed for dinner that night. As he looked in t
he mirror, he could tell that in spite of his tan he was still very burnt. He would make a point to ask his aunt if they had any aloe or at least sunscreen.
“Only six more months,” he just whispered over and over to the reflection he saw in the mirror, though he didn’t know how he would make it through a week, let alone six months!
Chapter 6
By the end of the week, Billy was super sore, but getting used to the work schedule. He worked all day, ate and spent a few hours texting Stuart before hitting the hay. It wasn’t much of an existence, but it was life as he knew it. That Friday, though, he got a surprise.
“Nana BJ, look!” Sonya shouted just as they were all about to sit down for dinner.
Everyone turned to look out the dining room window. “My jeep!” Billy yelled as he ran for the front door. He wanted to sit in it and even sleep in it, but he knew Aunt BJ had dinner ready.
“I don’t even know why you had that thing brought here,” Uncle Bob told Billy as he piled a second helping of collard greens onto his plate. “Not like yer gonna have time to go anywhere.”
“Now you leave that boy alone!” Aunt BJ chided. “I think you can let Billy have the weekends to himself. Besides, he needs to work on college applications.”
During the week, Billy had been helping her clean up the dishes. He mentioned that he would need to apply for scholarships if he was going to be able to go to college in the fall. Partly, he was just making conversation, but partly, he wanted to make it known that he was only going to be there until the end of summer.
“Ma, the work ain’t gonna git done on its own,” Uncle BJ started to reply but was cut off.
“It got done before Billy got here and it can get done without him on Saturday and Sunday!” she demanded back to which Uncle Bob offered no reply. He may have been tougher, but it was obvious to Billy that his aunt ran things.
Everyone ate in silence until Sonya spoke up and asked Billy if she could ride in his jeep.