“Or I could look into teaching again,” Ginny said.
Everyone agreed she could look. In the meantime, they kept their thinking caps on. Maybe they should take a hint from the hippies and start a bakery, Ginny said. Or what about a café? She liked that idea and tried to warm the men up to it.
“We could have it right here on the farm,” she said. “Call it the Farm Café. Everything would be fresh, or fresh-baked.”
She was practically writing the menu when the idea of a mower came up. ’Cause the tractor they’d gotten up and running like nothing, see. But the mower, now. The mower was something else. Rex and Everett had disassembled the mower. Adjusted stuff. Lubricated and sharpened. Fashioned replacements, seeing as how you couldn’t even get parts for the thing. They’d argued. What they remembered, what was plain common sense. What any jackass could tell. The moment of truth had come a couple of times.
The thing did not move.
“Looks to me like we need a new mower,” said Rex, readjusting his hat.
Everett laughed. “Well, why don’t we go order us one,” he said.
’Course, now, in an ideal world they could have rented a mower. In an ideal world, they could have called someone up and got put on a schedule. But in the real world, folks don’t rent their mowers, because mowers are too hard to move, see. They break too easy. And they’re finicky, now, just finicky. Persnickety.
Still Everett talked to the commune about renting theirs. Figuring that, neighbors being neighbors, the commune just might risk it. Neighbors being neighbors. But come to find out their mower was a troublesome thing, too.
“We call it the beast of beasts,” said Paxton, over pie. He pushed his chair back as if he felt crowded. “Hell, if I may say so, is a first cut with a temperamental mower.”
“We would die a thousand deaths to rent a mower ourselves,” said Belle. Her shirt had these little holes in the shoulder from the parrot claws. “We would. We’d die a thousand deaths.”
So what if they bought a mower and rented it out to the commune? Ginny and Everett had the same idea at the same time as they walked back. ’Course, they brought the matter up real careful with Rex. They brought it up expecting he might object. But he did not object. Instead he told them he had an old friend in farm equipment. Giles and him went way back, he said. Their wives used to be friends. He could give him a call.
G
iles turned out to be a little guy with a beard like rat hair. He wolfed down some cookies, saying there was something about them that reminded him of Ginny’s mother. And when Ginny said she used half milk chocolate and half semisweet, just like her mom, he clapped his hands.
“I knew it,” he said. “I knew there was something.”
And then because they were like family, he told them how they were on the right track. He told them how if they rented the mower, they could take out a loan but get the hippies to make the payments.
“The hippies’ll make the payments, but they won’t own the mower,” he said. “You’ll own it.” Giles looked at Ginny. “You’ll own it. As you probably figured out already, living with the King of Deals himself as you do. You know, your pa’s had a hand in every deal that’s gone down here for decades. He even made a dime on my divorce.” He winked. “Remember, Rex? When Diane and me split up and had to sell. Remember?”
“I do,” said Rex.
“Mind you, I’m not saying things have changed,” Giles told Ginny. “No, I’m not saying that at all. But your pa has always been the King of Deals. That’s why everyone called him Rex.” He looked off. “That’s why after a while no one but his ma called him Avery.”
Avery. Everett didn’t know until right then that Rex was not born Rex, but Avery.
What the heck.
Giles had been casual about the down payment, but Ginny and Everett were less casual. ’Cause even that was a lot of money for them, more money than they had. They were going to have to borrow even that from the bank. They checked the numbers again. Checked and rechecked.
“Think the commune’ll pay that?”
Ginny said she was happy to go ask Belle. Saw it as an excuse to go visiting, he guessed. And sure enough, she came back smiling.
“Belle says yes,” she said.
“What does Paxton say?”
She did not like that question.
“Why do you ask?” she said. “Don’t you think Belle knows?”
“I’m just asking.”
“Well, I didn’t ask and I’m not going to ask,” she said. “If you want to know what Paxton thinks you can go ask him yourself.”
And probably he should have, now. He should have. ’Cause when Belle told Paxton about the mower, he put two and two together, see, and called up Giles himself. And then Rex’s old friend, bless him, explained everything to Paxton, including how Ginny and Everett probably could have taught him a thing or two. Seeing as how they lived with the King of Deals himself. And seeing as how Rex had made a deal out of other people’s misery for about as long as anyone could remember.
Sue Ann Horn told them all of it later, see. When she and Randy Little were finally settled in, she told them. Back at the time, though, Belle did not exactly come running to report on what Paxton said. She did not let on that the commune’d gone and got a loan from their daddies and bought their own mower, either. Ginny and Everett knew nothing about nothing until their mower was signed for and sitting in their field. They knew nothing about nothing until there it was, all prepped and green and brandy-ass new.
Theirs.
T
he last days on the farm were sad. Rex’s bypass was scheduled, but most days he didn’t look as if he was going to make it to the operation. Ginny kept calling the doctor’s office. Terrible, she kept saying. He looks terrible. But the answer kept coming back the same. His condition wasn’t critical enough for him to jump the line. Sure he was tired. Sure he was keeping to bed. He had a bad heart, they said. That’s why he was having the bypass.
’Course, the funny thing when you thought about it was how clear Everett’s pa’s pipes were, thanks to his barely ever getting a bite of those steaks Rex was so used to. But Everett didn’t ever say that to Ginny, now. Nope. He didn’t say it. They were too busy trying to decide what to do. Trying to get used to the idea of some stranger handling the deal. A stranger selling the farm.
Jarvis and Bob came up to help out but made the mistake of asking how this could have happened. And then, well, if they really wanted to know they probably could have heard the story just fine in the city, and without even using the phone. Where the hell were you? Ginny kept saying. Where the hell were you? And, Did you ever think about the farm? Did you ever think what it meant? And, Would you look at Pa, now? Look at him! Look at him! Blasting. She was blasting. She was so mad she banged the truck into a couple of trees. Burnt up just about everything she cooked. She even had trouble with her shoelaces. Couldn’t calm down enough to tie them.
Rex took to praying. ’Course, he always was some kind of Christian. Congregationalist, maybe. Everett’d never seen him pick up a Bible before, though. Rex had never had time for that sort of thing. Wouldn’t have had the interest, either, unless there were passages in Paul about what the weather was going to do. But now he read as if the Good Book might tell him something. As if the Good Book could tell him how his old friend Giles could do him in for the commission on two mowers, for instance. Or whether Satan had gotten to his friend. He thought the Good Book could tell him that. His friend was in trouble, he’d say. He had to pray for him. Pray for his salvation.
Rex playing savior. That was something to see, all right.
“We’re going to have to start over,” Everett said, one day. Ginny was standing there in the kitchen door, smoking and giving him her back. But he talked anyway, now, see. Talked to her back. “Listen. We won’t move to the city, but how about we move across the lake? Into town. How about we move into town?”
A puff of smoke came out of her.
“Far enough to put this behind us but close enough we’ll still have our roots. You’ll see a doctor and have us some babies. I’ll find some work. Rex’ll live with us. What do you say?”
She smoked.
“Those cigarettes are going to kill you.” He didn’t dare bring up the eating. Figured he’d let her pants talk to her personal. But the smoking, now. He had to say something about the smoking. “You see what it says on the package? The surgeon general says so. Everyone says so. You’re going to get cancer.”
“Oh, yeah?” She lit up another cigarette.
They called the doctor’s office again. Said they wanted Rex looked at. ’Cause he looks terrible, they said. ’Cause there’s a lot of stress here. All they wanted was an appointment, they said. And they did get one in the end, see. They got one. It wasn’t for two months, though.
Ginny smoked.
It was Rex who brought up the subject of graves. Said they could try to save the family plot, now. They could try. He didn’t want to be buried there, though. Nope. Said if he was buried there he could not rest for missing his cows.
“I’d just be all the time thinking about them. What a herd we had. Escape artists.” He laughed. “Escape artists.”
Ginny swallowed.
“Remember when we sold the dairy herd? When your ma died?”
“I remember.”
“Thought that was the end of the world. Remember?” “I remember.”
“Thought there could never be as hard a time as that.” He laughed a kind of laugh. “Just goes to show what a man knows.”
He wanted to be buried in the Christian cemetery.
“Could be a mite lonely at first, but maybe we can buy up a couple of plots around mine. What do you say? See if anybody wants to join me. You. The boys. Everett. Improves your chances of going to heaven, you know.”
“Is that right?”
“Starts you out one step closer. And let’s face it. Some of us need the boost.”
“I hear you, Pa,” Ginny said. “I don’t think we’ll be burying you anytime soon, but I hear you.”
“Pre-need, isn’t that what they say?” he said. “It’s good to decide on things pre-need.”
“I guess,” said Ginny.
Seeing as they were on the subject, she asked if he wanted her mother moved over there, too, to join him. Keep him company. “Not that we’re planning on burying you anytime soon,” she said again.
“Nah. Let the dead rest,” he said. “Though I will miss her. What a good woman she was, your mother. I never did think I could manage without her.”
They listed the farm with a big-name agency. Folks with an office in the city and brochures. And they did talk great. They did. They talked great. But they sent morons to show the place. Showed it to morons, too. It was morons walking around with morons. Ginny kept the place perfect as a magazine, but that wasn’t enough, now, see. That wasn’t enough. The morons would stop and say, loud enough for Ginny and Everett to hear, They prettied it up, but did they insulate the place? They prettied it up, but did they update the wiring?
Everett would’ve freed the cows to get Ginny out of there. Spare her the ordeal. But once, just going out for a walk, they’d come back to dead quiet.
“Pa! Pa!” Steep as those old stairs was, Ginny ran up them by twos. “Pa!”
Rex was asleep. He had pulled down his window shade so as not to see any more morons. In fact, so as not to be looking at the farm at all.
“I always used to tell Celia,” he said, “that a family farm is a soap opera. I just plain don’t want to watch.”
’Course, they had their hopes even then, but what a sorry lot of hopes they was. Everett hoped never to see Giles again, now. That was one hope. He hoped never to see Belle or Paxton either. That was another. And Paxton he never did see again, luckily. Giles, neither.
But one day he looked out the window and saw company, and it wasn’t a moron bringing a moron. It was Belle with her bare feet and that torn-up clothes. Never mind it was fall. Warm for fall, but still fall. She was wearing cutoffs so you could see the hair on her legs. A T-shirt with no sleeves so you could see her underarm hair, too. Luckily, she kept her arms more or less by her sides as she swung them. Not swinging them one back and one forward, the way most folks did, but both forward and then both back, so you could see her tits squeeze. Squeeze and hang, squeeze and hang, like they were being milked.
He intercepted her on the walk. Asked what she’d come for.
“I came to say I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize, I guess. I mean, I just had no idea. That all this would happen. I had no idea.”
She was still swinging her arms. When he didn’t answer right off, though, she stopped.
“Well, that’s fine,” he said. “But I don’t think you should go in there.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause you might get yourself killed,” he said.
“Rex might kill me?”
“Ginny,” he said. “Ginny might kill you.”
“She’s mad, huh.” Belle cracked her knuckles.
“I’d say so. Yeah. She’s mad, all right.”
“This is so like high school,” Belle said. “Except that it ain’t.”
He laughed then—the first laugh he’d laughed in a while. “Nope,” he said. “You got that right, now. It ain’t.”
“Maybe I’ll write a note,” she said. “Get some nice stationery. You know, with flowers in it. Think so? Think I should write a note?”
“That’d be safer,” he said.
And two days later, here comes Belle’s note in the general delivery. It’s on stationery with flower petals, sure enough. The address was in purple ink and all around it there were designs. Scrolls and leaves. A parrot. He handed the thing to Ginny.
“A note for you,” he said. “I think it’s from Belle.”
He did think Ginny would at least read it, now. He thought she’d read it and go blasting. But she did not read it and she did not blast. Instead she stabbed it with a steak knife and held it up over the kitchen sink. Then she took a lighter and lit it. Held it careful so the ashes wouldn’t mess up the magazine look.
“I saw Belle the other day,” he said. “She told me to tell you she’s sorry.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, if you see her again, tell her I’m fixing to jab out her eyes with a pitchfork,” Ginny said.
One night, Rex woke up shouting, “They’re out! They’re out!” and leapt out of bed to go rescue the cows—thought they’d broke out of the barn. Ginny took off after him only to hear him fall clear down the stairs.