Tires crunching over gravel, the rattling shudder of wheels bouncing over frost boils and potholes a welcome break from the monotony of smooth asphalt and endless rows of soybeans and corn. Jenson had lost the last semi-clear rock station the hour before and was steadily skimming through country songs, seeking out a new one at the first mention of tears, heartache, death, or pickup trucks, which meant it rarely remained on a station long. Just as he was beginning to think he needed to add bars to that list, the mailbox he'd been searching for came into view.
When Mr. Dailey had told him it would be unmistakable, Jenson had scoffed to himself, willing to indulge the older man as long as it meant he
could get on the road sooner rather than later. Now, paused beside the black
and white metal cow with the old school milk jug on its shoulder to collect the
mail, all he could do was chuckle. The man clearly loved his cows, which was
alright by him. He’d rather work for someone with their imprint on everything
going on around their place than one of those weekend cowboys who thought
owning some buildings and a bunch of critters gave them the right to call
themselves running a farm. The livestock sure as hell deserved better than that and so
did their employees. For as many inquiries as Mr. Preston Dailey had made into
his past and reputation, Jenson had made as many into the man known around these
parts as Mr. Dairy.
In the end, it had been a no-brainer. Jenson had signed the contract, faxed it back, and started packing the moment he’d gotten confirmation it was received. Rolling green fields lay on both sides of the quarter-mile driveway leading up to the house, Jersey cows grazing on one side, dairy goats on the other, and up closer to the house, Holsteins, the prize of the old man’s spread.
Windows down, he breathed in the sweet scent of damp
grass and manure, the lingering traces of last night’s storm evident in the way
the creek still overflowed its banks and left a low-lying field flooded in
several spots. Not a single cow stood in the standing water, but deer did, at
least twelve of them drinking as calm and completely at ease as if they were
used to having the run of the place. Hell, for all he knew they probably were.
He couldn’t see Mr. Dailey allowing hunting on his place, not even far from the
fields where his cattle grazed.
Mooing cattle, tweeting birds, and rushing water mingled
with the soft hum of a nearby wind turbine, and Jenson took a deep breath as he
stepped from his truck, well aware of the irony of driving the very damn thing
so many of those country songs were singing about.
He was still humming one as he walked up the steps to ring
the bell, notes dying on his lips a few seconds later when it was abruptly
yanked open to reveal a glaring man wearing lopsided glasses too big for his
face.”
“Can’t you read?” The man barked.
Not even a hello. Who the fuck had he come all of this
way to work for?
“Huh?” Jenson remarked, staring at the man who’d answered
the door. Stormy gray eyes continued to glared at him as Jenson followed the
line of the man’s fingertip to the sign beside the door.
I don’t like cookies
Got all the religion I can handle
Ain’t got time for magazines
And would be more inclined to shoot a politition than
vote for one
If you be family or friend, feel free to knock,
All others kindly go away
“Yes sir, I can read,” Jenson replied.
“Then get the hell off my old man’s poarch,” the man replied,
starting to shove the door closed in Jenson’s face when he jammed the toe of
his boot in the crack to stop it.
Now that was beyond rude!
Inside, Jenson was fuming, but knowing this wasn’t the man
who’d hired him helped him tuck some of his fury away. He was proud of the fact
that his voice was steady when he addressed the man. “Sorry. Can’t do that.
Your old man’s who I drove all this way to see.”
“Guess you’re shit outta luck then, because the old man had
a stroke the other night. He’s up at Mercy, will be for a while. He’s not
seeing anyone but family, so whatever you need, it’ll have to wait indefinitely.”
“He hired me on as farm manager, said he needed someone who
could be hands on out here and take some of the weight off his shoulders for a
while. I’m guessing he knew he was sick.”
“No clue, I haven’t lived out here for years. My siblings
and I don’t keep up with farm matters, have no interest in the place
whatsoever, which is why we’ll be selling it off. The old man can’t run it
anymore and I’ll be damned if I leave the city to come back here.”
Jenson took in the rant with dawning realization, that
he’d come all the way out here for nothing.
“If you’ll excuse me, we’ve got a lot of preparations to
make,” the man remarked, and to Jenson’s surprise, managed to shove the door
hard enough to dislodge his boot. For a moment Jenson simply stood there
blinking and trying to work out his next move, ‘cause damn, this was
unexpected. Hell, he didn’t factor in any sort of contingency plan for this
trip. His only focus had been on getting the hell away from the memories and
guilt that had plagued him since Doug’s accident. Turning away from the door, Jenson
trudged back to his truck and took a moment to check the ropes keeping the
tarps tied down. Still tight, which was good because there was no way of
telling when he’d be unpacking it.
“Fuck!” Growling, he slammed his hand onto the steering
wheel until his palm ached and he’d accidently sounded the horn twice.
Judging from the look on the face of the man stalking
towards the truck, he was none too impressed. Firing up the truck, Jenson tore
out of there in a spray of gravel. By the time he reached the blacktop he was
marginally calmer. Space Lord blared from the radio, a merciful break from all
the damned honky-tonk bullshit, and he cranked that shit up until the beat thumbed
through his body and his fingers on the steering wheel began a rapid race to
keep up. Windows down, he ignored the crispness of the breeze rushing in, to
savor the rush of the wind against his face.
“I bet this is what flying feels like.”
The memory of Doug’s words echoed in his mind, and he smiled
as he pictured Doug’s smile and the feel of his arms wrapped around Jenson’s
torso, face pressed to Jenson’s leather jacket covered shoulder. It was
something Jenson had never given any consideration to, one way or the other.
All the bike had ever been to him was a backup way to get from one place to the
other when weather was good. Newer model or not, big ‘ol trucks like his
weren’t the best on gas mileage. Besides, the old KZ750 had been given to him
in trade for work he’d done when the guy who was supposed to be paying him
found himself short on cash and overwhelmed with a ton of bills. It was in
pieces now in the bed of the truck, wrapped and tarped tightly so he wouldn’t
have to look at it until he was ready to, if he would ever be ready for that.
Doug’s blood still stained the paint and chrome in places and it was going to
take more than a change in scenery before he was in the right headspace to
clean it off.
Hanging a right on to Main Street, he looked for an empty
space to park, cursing whatever city planners had a hand in deciding to go with
parallel parking on all their streets. He cruised Main Street four times before
finding a spot he could pull into, ‘cause damn if he needed to cause a fender
bender just trying to park. Parrell parking had never been a strength, in fact,
Pacey had called it everything from a disaster to a dumpster fire, with train
wreck sprinkled in more times than he could count. His three-point turns were
worse, but his twin couldn’t back up straight to save his life and Pacey had a
lead foot that had left him with enough speeding tickets to wallpaper half the
living room back home.
Of course, their mom’s tickets could paper the other half.
When he hopped down from the truck he was smiling at the memory of his father’s
exasperated face the day both his mother and Pacey had gotten tickets within
hours of one another. It was almost odd, standing on that quaint street,
watching a few cars rumble past, traces of conversations echoing down the block
instead of the horns and jack breaks.
Smelled a whole lot different from the city too, more like
fall leaves and cinnamon rolls than three competing dumpsters waiting for
pickup day. Maybe it was just that he’d grown jaded and disillusioned with city
life over a year before he’d decided on leaving and staying too long had soured
him on the place. Twelve months was a long time to live somewhere you’d truly
grown to hate. If it hadn’t been for Doug, he’d have given notice and
hightailed it out of there before last Christmas.
Standing there on Main Street, looking up and down the
block, Jenson toyed with the idea of just climbing back up into his truck and
heading home, letting his mom fuss over him a bit and fix all his favorite
foods, spend time with Pacey catching up and diminishing the surplus population
of fish in the pond on the edge of the property. Thing was, that would also
lead to a conversation about Doug, the accident, and no way in hell was he
ready for that. Pacey already knew too much about the shit storm that
relationship had been disintegrating into. Add in the twin thing and Pacey was
likely to tell him a few things about the situation he’d never even noticed.
Best leave that as a last resort for now, though depending on what else the
town had to offer, it might move up on that list.
Damn, something smelled good. Halfway down the block from
his truck he caught a whiff of the most tantalizing odor he’d smelled in a very
long time. Detouring through the doors, he grabbed a seat in the nearest booth
and didn’t even bother with the menu, just asked the waitress what smelled so
good and happily ordered the special of beer battered chicken fingers, corn on
the cob, mashed potatoes with gravy and warm caramel apple pie with a scoop of
vanilla ice cream on top.
With a happy sigh he dug into dessert first, and wished he’d
ordered a second piece, it was so damn good. Holy shit. A sudden thought popped
into his head, and he took a picture of the bowl and snap chatted it to Pacey,
nearly choking on a bit of crust when his brother quickly responded back with a
pouting cartoon panda gif captioned with the words ‘you suck’ adorning it.
Seconds later, Pacey sent a second photo, this time of him seated on the
tailgate of his pickup truck with the contents of todays sack lunch spread out
beside him. Double stacked sandwich, a wedge of chocolate cake, a peach and a 12
oz pop that looked to be unopened. Pacey’s hair was shorter than when he’d seen
his twin last, and red instead of the black it had been. While he was
contemplating the reason for this latest change, his phone emitted the tones
for Don’t fear the Reaper.
Jansen took a moment to lick the the caramel from his
fingers before answering to Pacey’s greeting of damn, that looks good, where
the fuck are you?
Bumblefuck, Wisconsin,” Jenson grumbled, “A little diner in
that town I was telling you about.”
“How’s the new job going?”
“It’s not, the guy had a stroke the other night and long
story short, his kids are planning to sell it so I gotta look for another place
to work.”
“There is that or you can just come home and work with me.”
“Soon, I promise. I just need to deal with some shit first.”
“best place to do that is here, with family, not strangers
who won’t recognize when you’re beating yourself up over something that was not
your fault to begin with.”
“Isn’t your current job temporary?”
“More like seasonal, but they’ll be plenty of work to have
come spring and dad’s got enough renovations planned to keep us busy all winter
long.”
Jenson laughed and brushed a lock of hair back so he didn’t
end up with any in his mouth along with his next bite of food.
“The house will never be finished, and you know it, I know
it and mom’s been saying it for years,” Jenson remarked.
“I don’t know, man, he swears this is the last batch of
things that needs to get done.”
“Uh-huh, which was exactly what he said when we were
thirteen and spent the whole summer installing tile, switching out bathroom
fixtures, removing wood paneling and learning how to put skylights in, which
was a minor disaster, considering we never could keep the damn things from
leaking,” Pacey reminded him.
“Yeah, well, he’s finally tired of mopping up the mess each
spring, so we’re supposed to be exchanging those out, though he and mom are
still going round and round about the coloring.”
“Which means it’ll end up some shade of brown, it always
does,” Pacey said. “I don’t know why she bothers, even the one time they agreed
on green he came home with that muddy brown shade claiming they must have given
him the wrong one.”
“Yeah, had to love his excuse when mom insisted on him
returning it too.”
“Remember how he tried to reason with her by saying that since
they were closed until Monday and we did have the weekend off to help, we might
as well get her done,” Pacey said.
“Yeah, and she let him have that one, eventually. I think it
was just because she was tired of tripping over shit and just wanted the whole mess
to be over,” Jensen said.
“Mom got back at him for that, finally,” Pacey remarked. “When
she went over to Sears to pick up a new washer and dryer, standard, of course,
none of the bells and whistles pops wanted her to get, you know how much she
hates that shit. Got home and told him that since the guys were scheduled to
arrive at three to hook it up, they might as well get ‘er done since there was
a ton of wash to do. I was helping out at Cass’ place so I only heard about it
afterwards when dad was grumbling during dinner. The shit-eating grin on mom’s
face was epic though.”
Jenson shook his head, laughing at the mental picture Pacey’s
words painted in his head. “I’ll bet.”
There’s a lot of things Jenson can fix. In fact, if it’s got
coils, springs, hoses or gears, it’s a surefire bet he can get it running
again. Too bad he’s never been able to say the same thing about his
relationships. Leaving the city was supposed to be about making a new start and
laying the ghosts of the past behind him, and yet, on a small Wisconsin Dairy
farm he finds ghosts of a different kind, and Luke.
Having to hire on someone when he could barely keep his head
above water was a bitter pill to swallow, and every repair Jenson makes only
serves as a reminder to Luke of the things he’ll never be able to do again.
Nightmares keep him up most nights, but it’s worry for the family farm, and
more importantly, what will happen to his mother and sister if it should fail,
that was a constant gnawing ache in the pit of his stomach. If having Jenson
there will save him from an ulcer, then he’s all for it, but what he’s not in
the mood for are the desires Jason’s presence is slowly making him feel.
With both stubbornly refusing to see what’s right in front of their faces, it just might take an ornery cow, a drunk cowboy, a sabotaged orchard, and some motherly intervention to get them to see that they could be stronger together than they’d ever be apart.
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