by Joseph Biancalana
He has to get out of the house. Before the young man had even finished Helen was already crying, running upstairs to his old bedroom. He let the young man finish, asked questions, thanked him, closed the door. He could hear her crying, almost shrieking, in his old room until she probably buried her face in his pillow. He can’t bear her crying. He has to get out. There’s nothing he can do. He goes through the kitchen – dark wood cabinets, old French farmhouse table, new stone counters. In the mud room he grabs an old, frayed corduroy sports jacket without stopping. The wooden screen door slams behind him. He’s off the porch, heading down the gentle incline to the barn, putting on his jacket. The field of harvested corn, all yellow and brown stalks and stubble stretches into the distance on his left. He likes the bright autumnal emptiness. A large crow riding the steady cool air skims the stubble and stalks then rises and perches proud on the peak of the barn. He’ll plow the field under in the next few days, get the soil ready for spring. When snow comes, it will be smooth white. In the cool, sweet air he’s glad he grabbed his jacket.
The gravel, pebbles still damp from last night’s rain shine in the afternoon sun. To the left of the barn in their large coop, the white leghorns strut around, bobbing their heads forward. Was there ever a sillier creature? Not counting human, of course. Humans beat everything when it comes to silliness. Sunlight brightens the large crimson patches on the gray weather-beaten barn. More paint has flaked away than he realized. That job that can wait until spring. He slides open the large door on squeaky wheels and steps into the dark barn and the rich, somehow comforting, whiff of forty Jersey cows. The nearer cows turn their brown heads and look placidly with big brown eyes towards him and the open door. Bored, unimpressed, they turn back to the nothing they were doing. To the right is the milk room with the two large stainless-steel vats, one full and one more than half full. The milkman from the dairy company will come tomorrow morning and take away the milk.
Next to the milk room is his office, his sanctuary, his safe place of gray, pallet wood walls. An old wooden desk sits under the window that is divided into four pains. On the desk, account books, a lamp, and a landline he hasn’t used in years but hasn’t given up either. An old-fashioned wooden office chair with leather seat sits on the small oriental rug Helen got him years ago to cover some of the wide planked pine floor. Beside the desk a space heater. Next to a gray, four-drawer filing cabinet hangs the calendar the dairy company gives him every year. Below the calendar on a little table, pictures of Helen and Kevin and Jane and Toby. On the filing cabinet a radio, a CD player, and two stacks of CD’s, mostly Mozart and Beethoven symphonies.
He sits at his desk, his mind a blank, he stares out the window at the harvested hay field and in the far distance the curved, black roof of the Dirksens’ barn. Their Tommy will be here at five to help with the evening milking. He’s comfortable here. He’s safe here.
The young man had barely begun and Helen knew and he heard her crying, shrieking, felt her run away. He turned his head and a blue rush ran up the stairs. The young man, visibly shaken, blushing, glistening eyes, did his duty, rattled off the rest of his spiel, answered questions, then eager to get the hell out of there almost ran to his dark green Chevy.
What the hell is an IED? The young man said an IED. His laptop and his phone are back at the house. He’ll Google it later. And where the hell is Kirkuk? He’ll have to look that up, too. The military gives the country geography lessons. They make you look at maps. What the hell are American boys, and now girls, doing in those godforsaken places anyway? Da Nang, Khe Sanh, Hue. Kabul, Kandahar, Herat.
He’s watched history shows and documentaries on TV. Johnson spoke of “our boys.” Nixon talked of “troops.” There was the difference between them. Then, asshole, pseudo-tough-guy, bully Rumsfeld talked of “boots on the ground.” And nobody at the news conferences challenged him. “Sir, what are boots on the ground? Don’t you mean soldiers, our sons and daughters. As in “There’ll be no soldiers there.” or “We won’t need soldiers?”” No, the idiot reporters curry favor, think his crap phrase is macho so they, wanting to appear to be with it, mimic asshole, bully Rumsfeld and say “boots on the ground.” Even women reporters, feeling they have to keep up with the men, use the ugly macho phrase. Women, please leave the macho crap to third-rate males seeking to resemble men. “Boots on the ground!” Oh, yeah? He’s talking loudly now as if he has to be heard in a large hall without a mic. Tell me, please, tell me. How many goddamn “boots on the ground” fought at Saratoga, or were at Valley Forge, or died at Yorktown? How many died at Shiloh, Antietam. Gettysburg? How many goddamn “boots on the ground” died at Chateau-Thierry and the Somme, how many at D-Day and on Iwo Jima, how many at Pork Chop Hill and Heartbreak Ridge? “Boots on the ground,” as if they aren’t even human for Chrisake. He’s screaming now, losing control. It’s the stupid fucking lying politicians with their stupid, fucking wars who aren’t human. Politicians are profoundly dangerous lunatics., that’s what they are.
Stop! Stop! Stop! You’ll disturb the cows. Who are you yelling at anyway? Okay, ranting feels good but anger’s a distraction, a useless waste of energy. A waste of stress. He chuckles to himself. We want only useful, productive misery. And don’t cry. Don’t be pathetic. He can’t be still, wants to go somewhere but doesn’t know where. He goes into the barn and its solid floor and walks slowly up and down between the two lines of twenty warm, odorous cows. Gathering himself together, he feels better, calmer. Munching away, the cows exude a stupid tranquility. In my next life, he thinks, I want to come back as a well-cared-for Illinois cow. A peaceful and productive life. After a while he goes back into his office, sits in his chair, and stares out the window, at the empty hayfield, at the Dirksens’ barn. He keeps his mind a blank. Memories would torture him.
Someone’s coming toward the office. He turns around. Helen is in the doorway, eyes red in a pale face, brown hair mussed, she wears her blue house dress with the large pockets and her brown work shoes.
“I thought you might be here,” she says.
“Yeah, pretty predictable.”
“I ran away. I couldn’t stand it. I’m sorry.”
“For what? Being sane?” He goes over to her and holds her and kisses her on the lips and she sighs. “Did you have a good cry?”
“I don’t think there ever is a good cry. But I know what you mean. Yes. … Did he say anything more.”
“Only that they’ll notify us when he’ll be at O’Hare. We’ll pick him up there.”
“Should we call Frank Stevenson?”
“He’ll give us a good deal and he’ll take care of things first rate. He’ll help us meet him at O’Hare.”
She sits in a rickety wooden chair up against the wall opposite the desk.
“We have to call Jane and Kevin tonight,” she says.
“That’s going to be hard. It’ll be hard on them, too.”
“Jane will take it especially hard.”
Yes, she will,” he says. “But we have to do it.”
“We have to be gentle and strong for them.”
“We’ll be gentle and strong. We’ll call together. We’ll use the landline so we can both talk.”
“Right. … Good.”
A bicycle presses the gravel in front of the barn. A few minutes later a high school kid, tall, bulky, with unruly brown hair and pimples on his forehead stands in the doorway. He wears a blue down vest, a red plaid flannel shirt that shows his undershirt at the neck, jeans, and scuffed brown work boots.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Long. Good to see you.”
“Hi, Tommy. It’s good to see you, too.”
“God, is it already five?” Henry says.
“’Fraid so, Mr. Long.”
Helen gives Henry a look which he knows is asking him whether they should tell Tom. He gives his head a quick shake, which he hopes Tom doesn’t notice, telling her, no, that’s not a good idea. She smiles and he smiles back: her smile was both agreeing with him and liking that they could talk without words.
“I’ll let you two get to work,” she says and moves toward the door. Tom stands aside to let her through.
They go into the milk room, set up the pasteurizer and the cooler, and drag the two, old milking machines into the barn. Starting with cows at the back of the barn, they attach the nozzles of the machines to the udders. They each go down a row of cows. When the milking machine is full, they take the milk to the pasteurizer in the milk room. From the pasteurizer the milk goes into the cooler then into a large, stainless steel storage vat. Then they go back to the barn and do more cows. They repeat this routine until all the cows are milked and their milk is stored in the large vats. It feels good to do something he can do by habit, without thinking, yet requiring attention and care. It keeps his mind off other things. Memories would torture him. Tom’s a good worker, knows what he’s doing, careful, accurate, agile, working at a good, steady pace. Henry pays him double the minimum wage and he’s worth every penny, besides he’s the son of a friend. When they’re done, it’s dark out. They clean the milking machine, the pasteurizer, and the cooler, and put them away.
“Thanks,” Henry says. “Tomorrow morning?”
“Sure.”
“Safe home.”
“Thanks.”
Henry watches him go out the barn door. Going back to his office, he hears the bicycle press the gravel as Tom rides away. He sits in the dark in his office. The young man, trim and tanned, had a gap between his front teeth, a sturdy jaw, and bright blue eyes under amazingly thick eyebrows. He was nervous and stiff until Helen started crying, screaming, then he nearly lost it. Maybe he hadn’t done many of these things before. Must be hard every time. How many times do you have to do it before they let you do something else? Or do some get hardened to it? Rather milk cows any day. Someone’s coming.
“Henry? Are you here? Why are you sitting in the dark?”
He flips on the lamp on his desk. “I’m here. What’s up?”
She’s changed into jeans and her thick maroon sweater over a white blouse. Her face no longer looks so bleached out and her eyes don’t look as red as before. She’s fixed her hair.
“Nothing. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Of course not. Let’s go up to the house.”
He turns off the lamp and they go into the barn. They step out of the barn onto the gravel and he rolls the large door shut. They walk slowly to the house in the light on the barn, the light on the garage, the light over the back door.
As they walk, she says, “The milkman comes tomorrow morning.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Early. He usually gets here around six. The vats are pretty full.”
After a couple of minutes, she says, “What would you like for dinner?”
“I don’t know. Not much. I’m not that hungry.”
“I know. But we have to eat something.”
“What do you want?” he says.
“I don’t know. We’ll think of something.”
He puts his arm around her waist and she puts hers around his. They haven’t walked that way in a while. It feels good. They walk towards the empty house. She stops, making him stop with her. She pecks him on the cheek. They start again for the house.
Category: Featured, Short Story