large, hawk, Native nose (he’s part Chippewa) and his tiny black eyes rimmed with weary satchel bags bespeaking a tiredness and a sadness beyond his years. A FARMER’S CO-OP calendar is on the wall behind him—the month is April.
Fat Momma Simpson serves oatmeal from off the stove. Daddy Jack don’t want any—Daddy Jack don’t eat much, mostly just drinks beer. Sometimes when he gets hungry, say three in the morning, he hauls a big steak out from the freezer in the basement, fries it rare and eats it out of the pan, the blood sloshing ’round in the bottom of it.
Now from his bed comes Daddy Jack’s son Jack Junior whom they call Bud—his long black hair ruffled up and sticking out all over, tall and thin, his ribs like ladders. He sits down at the table and lights up a smoke. Momma Simpson is talking about the retarded kids again—she does volunteer work with the retarded kids—wants to bring them around to the farm for a day.
“We don’t want no fuckin’ retards around here!” scoffs Bud, and goes into a spastic impersonation of their motions that makes me laugh.
“You shut UP!” booms Momma Simpson. “Those kids got just as much right to be here as you do!”
Bud scowls and shakes his head, looking down at the end of his cigarette as he taps it out at the ashtray. Daddy Jack chuckles briefly. One time a local retarded boy came over and sat at the table, smiling and nodding all through dinner—after he left Daddy Jack said, “Well I’ll be goddamned if that boy ain’t the biggest halfwit I ever saw in my life!” And Momma Simpson had yelled, “For Christ’s sake Jack, the boy’s RETARDED!”
Now Daddy Jack is talking to Bud about farm matters and such, his low, deep voice remonstrating about the feeding of hogs. The combined smoke of their cigarettes chokes me as I eat the porridge. The floor is covered with newspapers stained with mud and pigshit.
Momma Simpson is sucking porridge from her spoon, her lips pursed with a pained expression. She has dreamed of better things, to be sure, a life of ease and decorum, but feared she was incapable of attaining them. Thus she married Daddy Jack, banishing both doubt and dream.
Now Bud and Jack are heatedly discussing the mending of an axle on the grain wagon. “Now goddamnit Bud I tol’ you to take that into town yesserday!”
“Ah, I’ll take the fuckin’ thing in tomorrow,” scoffs Bud, his eyes squinting and his lips curling into a sneer.
“Now where’s that lazy sonofabitch Harley?” Daddy Jack inquires, looking about. When he gets angry his eyes narrow into tiny slits and the corners of his mouth turn down, looking like he’s about to cry.
“Now Jack you leave that boy ALONE!” says Momma Simpson. “Stop givin’ him a hard time!”—Harley being Daddy Jack’s younger son, Momma Simpson’s darling.
“I’m not givin him a hard time…”
“You ride that boy’s ass every day of the week,” insists Momma Simpson, her voice muffled low and droning, coming from deep in her throat, all coated round and blanketed with fat like a bell ringing in a sock.
“Shit,” Daddy Jack says. “HARLEY!”
Out comes Harley, dreary and bleary, his hair sticking up like dry straw, his mouth agape, his fat bare belly sticking out. Saliva drips from his lower lip. “Goddamn…” he mumbles, all weary
“I was gonna throw a glass a water on ya!” Daddy Jack says.
Harley shakes his head like a horse. “Piss,” he murmurs.
Momma Simpson looks at Harley with loving eyes. “You gonna have some porridge?” she asks.
“I was gonna grab ya by the toe an’ pull ya flat on your ass outta that bed,” Daddy Jack says, chuckling.
Harley slams down in his chair and looks about with glazed uncomprehending eyes.
“You want some porridge?” Momma Simpson asks.
“No goddamn time!” Daddy Jack snaps. “We gotta get those chores done!”
Bud and Daddy Jack pull themselves up from the table. “C’mon Harley!”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Harley groans, his face buried in his hands.
“You come out now!” Daddy Jack shouts.
Bud adds, “You got outta doin’ chores yesterday!”
“Fuck,” moans Harley.
“Jack he just got UP!” Momma Simpson implores.
“Shit!” exclaims Daddy Jack, but he and Bud bend and pull their big black barn boots on by the door, caked with clumps of mud and shit. My brother and I follow them down the steps and out the back door.
“I’ll give that kid a tin ear one a’ these days,” mutters Daddy Jack as he hits the screen door open and it goes vibrating, jangling, springing back and forth on its hinges slamming against the wall and away and we step out to the cold sun rising over the cornfields in the grey, misty sky, the cold dew shining, the cold world sleeping, the cold warmth creeping over every breathing leaf. We walk through the tall grass of the yard past discarded automobile parts, farm equipment, a long unused plough, a big charred oil barrel they use to burn their garbage in. The grass is rustling and twinkling with the dew, the sun shining into the curls and corners of Daddy Jack’s leathery face.
“Best goddamned time a’ the day,” he says, squinting. He throws back his head and horks a big green blob that splatters onto an old, rusty hubcap on the ground, dribbling down and shining in the sun. The earth is frozen and smeared with snot, everything is speckled with dew. Even dreary pieces of lumber and cardboard garbage shine, and the swift breeze bites us all the more for the wiry warmth of the sun behind us. Make no mistake about it, the harsh elements sting the things of this world into awakening.
The clouds tremble in the sky above and we look over to the side and see Lady the Dog hopping her way through the wet grass. My brother and I, we run to greet her—and with a quick move she recoils from our touch and pads disinterestedly away.
“Hey! Don’t bother Lady,” Daddy Jack shouts. “Lady don’t wanna play no more.”
“What? How come?” we ask.
“Lady gettin’ old. She’s an old dog.” Lady walks away. Her eyes flash back, blinking, irritated—her grizzled black dog lips in a frazzled frown.
“So?” we ask.
“So! Old dogs don’t like to play. Try and she’s likely to bite ya. Old dogs just like to be off by themselves. They don’t like to piss around.”
“Why?”
“’Cause they wanna be alone; they’re tired and sick, they’re sick of it all.” As if hearing us, Lady hobbles over and creeps underneath a truck in the green dewy grass—puts her head down on her paws, her eyebrows twitching. “Yup—ol’ dogs, they just like to be off by themself—they get mean, cranky. Ya leave ’em alone—they don’t like to chase rabbits and they don’t like kids. They just wanna go off, off by themself, then one day… they go off and they don’t come back no more and that’s it.”
“Where do
