Alden, NY
Established 1947
The farm stood alone on a road of new housing developments. Naked trees stood protectively between the house and road; great maples, remnant of an earlier way of marking property lines. The house faced away from the road and trees, keeping watch over the fields and outbuildings, and the herd of cows being guided from barn to pasture. Two men stood in the relative shelter of the side porch of the old house, out of the rain but not out of the wind. They waited for a third man to join them. He came, limping, up the steps.
“Mr. Connally, I’d like you to meet Mr. Barnes.” Mr. Ward introduced them, old farmhand to new. “He’ll be starting with us today. Mr. Barnes, this is Mr. Connally. He’ll get you settled in and show you the ropes.” Mr. Ward was in his sixties. A compact man who would be mistaken for Santa Claus if he ever chose to grow a beard.
“Nice to meet you.” Mr. Barnes offered. He stood just shy of 5’11. He had dark hair and had recently grown a beard and mustache. He was twenty-seven.
“Howdy.” The two men shook hands uneasily but politely. Mr. Connally was twenty-four, just over 5’11. His longish hair curled where it rested against his jacket collar. A forked scar split his lower lip and tugged at the left corner.
“Mr. Connally, you appear to be limping.” Mr. Ward commented.
“Yeah, Sidewinder kicked me again.” He bent down to rub his left ankle. The bottoms of his jeans were tattered and splashed with mud. “I was just going down to the schoolhouse to put some ice on it.”
“Then you can take Mr.. Barnes down and get him settled before you overwhelm him.”
“Okay Mr. Ward.” It was apparently a joke.
“I’m going to look at some replacement heifers, I’ll be gone till this afternoon. When I get back Mr. Barnes, we can see how much you like dairy farming.”
“Sure thing.”
“I’ll see you two later.” Mr. Ward left the porch and got into the farm’s rusted green pick up . He pulled onto the road, splashing through the potholes that had filled with rain and melting snow in the gravel driveway. When he was gone and there was nothing left for the two men to do but actually start a conversation, Mr. Barnes offered his hand again.
“Dan actually.”
“My name’s Rick.” They shook hands again, more relaxed. “He calls everybody by their last name.” He could see that Dan was looking at the scar on his face, and he turned to head down the porch steps. “Schoolhouse is this way. Just down the road.”
“You live in a school?” Dan asked as he followed Rick off the porch. Every piece of Dan’s clothing, from his shiny boots to his stiff corduroy jacket were brand spanking new. Only his baseball cap, sporting the logo “Banks Photography” looked previously lived in.
“You’re about to live there too...watch the steps, they’re slippery.” Rick put his hand into his jeans pocket. He carried a rosary with him and whenever he was worried or anxious, he rubbed his thumb over the crucifix. It always made him feel better, but Christ’s features were wearing away.
The wind blew hard. It whistled around the corners of the farmhouse and badgered them toward Dan’s car. Dan took the keys out of his pocket, walking slower than normal to keep pace with Rick who still limped. “You okay on that leg?”
“Oh yeah, no problem. It’s not bleeding.”
“Who’s Sidewinder anyway?”
“The old lady of the herd.” Rick told him. “Going on thirteen but she still puts out 100 pounds of milk a day and that’s good for any cow, let alone an old girl like her...just try to stay away from her hindquarters.” Rick brushed the hair back off his forehead. He had no hat to come between him and the weather, only a denim jacket with holes in the elbows and the breast pocket torn off.
“I guess I’ll learn what you’re talking about?” Dan asked.
“Oh yeah. No problem.”
They got to Dan’s car, a dark blue Chevy Biscayne. A ten speed bike hung on a rack on the back of the trunk. For having driven all the way from Buffalo through slush, the car was remarkably clean. The inside was immaculate; Rick hated putting his muddy boots on the shiny floor mats.
“Boy I’m glad to be outta that wind.” Dan said. “Is it always this cold?” He turned his wipers on to push the accumulated slush off the windshield.
“In March, yeah. You get used to it though.” Dan turned his car around and drove to the quarter mile or so down Sullivan Road to the schoolhouse. There was an awkward silence and he tried: “So you - we - live in a schoolhouse?”
“Yeah, it’s an old one-room building that came with the property when Mr. Ward and his father bought it way back. They remodeled it into a little house.”
“Is it warm?”
“You bet.” They approached the house. It was a small red building, built on a slight hill, towered over by a black walnut tree. It had a wooden staircase up to the only door, and a deck was built off the left side, overhanging the driveway. “You can pull in the driveway, under the deck. The garage is under there.” They parked and got out. “I’ll help you carry your stuff in.” Rick offered. Water dripped through the floor of the deck, tapping the roof of the car and pinging the spokes on the bike wheels. A damp face cord of wood blocked the door into the garage.
“Naah, thanks. All’s I got is this and the bike.” Dan pulled a noticeably new back pack out of the car. “The rest of my stuff is in storage in Buffalo.”
“Well, come on up and I’ll show you the place.” The dirt path to the wood steps sloped up. Rick dug in all of his pockets to produce a single key strung on a piece of orange baler twine. “Next time somebody goes by the hardware store, we’ll get you a key. So far this is the only copy.” With a little jostling, the door came open.
The house was dark, everything cast in gray until Rick switched on the overhead kitchen light. “It’s kind of messy...I was never any good at keeping house.” It was a small house, sparsely furnished: one sofa, one woodburning stove, one overstuffed chair, and one coffee table with a small black and white TV on it. There was a crucifix hanging on the wall over the sofa. The only other thing in the living room was a large pile of firewood erratically stacked near the woodstove.
“It’s a nice house.” Dan said. “I like it.”
“This is the kitchen.” Rick walked into the floor space bounded on three sides by a refrigerator, oven, and the island that separated the kitchen from the living room. The sink was full of dishes and the island was cluttered with newspapers, pop cans and a package of Oreo Cookies. “And that’s the front room, complete with working woodstove, sliding doors onto the deck. There’s a full bathroom over here past the basement door, and there’s a half bathroom upstairs. There’s a washer and dryer...”
“How come all the curtains are shut?”
“Oh - I never got around to opening them this morning...come on, I’ll show you the upstairs.”
“I can take myself up. You want to put some ice on your leg. Just tell me which room, I promise not to get lost.”
“Okay, the stairs are in the frontroom, just to the right of the couch. Your room is the first door on the right.”
“Thanks.” Dan slung his pack over his shoulder and headed into the frontroom.
“Would you like something to drink?” Rick asked. “I’ve got orange juice, soda, milk, water...”
“Got any hot chocolate?”
Rick thought for a minute. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. With mini marshmallows. I’ll make you some while you unpack.”
“And you put ice on your leg. Thanks.” Dan found the steep, narrow staircase hidden between the sofa and an empty room. The first and only door on the right opened onto a large bedroom, paneled with knotty pine and furnished with a bed, dresser, bedside table and lamp.
“Home Sweet Home.” Dan said and set his pack on the bed and emptied it: clothes, alarm clock, toothbrush. Among his possessions was cradled a shoe box. Dan lifted off the top to check the contents, then tucked it very precisely under the bed, next to the wall.
Downstairs, Rick was sitting on the counter next to the sink with a dishtowel full
of ice pressed against his ankle. His dirty boot was on the countertop next to him. His
mind rolled around the idea of sharing this house. He hadn’t had to share it all the time
he’d lived in it and he wondered what he was in for.
When the water boiled, he tossed the dishtowel on top of the dishes and got down. He poured the water into a cup of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate, then poured some orange juice for himself. As he drank it, he went to open the heavy curtains that kept sunlight from coming through the sliding glass doors and the window over the back of the sofa. After a moment’s consideration, he set the glass on the island and went into the downstairs bathroom to pull the damp jeans and T-shirts off the shower curtain rod, and he stuffed them in the cabinet under the sink. He was back at the island, putting his boot back on, when Dan came down the stairs.
“It’s cold in here.” Dan said.
“I never turn the thermostat up while I’m at work...your hot chocolate is here on the counter. When we get back tonight, I’ll build a fire in the woodstove.”
And there was silence again.
Dan leaned against the counter, diagonally across from Rick. “The hot chocolate is good.” He noticed that the curtains were open, but he didn’t mention it.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“Can I ask you a question?” “I guess.” Rick’s preferred answer was no. “Where’d you get the scar?” Rick looked down and with an automatic gesture covered his mouth with his hand. Dan was embarrassed. “I’m sorry for asking.”
“No, it’s nothing.” Rick rubbed the scars and pinched his lip. “I was stringing some fence and it snapped. Caught me in the mouth.”
“Must’ve been some nasty piece of wire.”
Rick nodded. “It had a mind of it’s own.”
The rain had stopped and the mist was burning off when they left the schoolhouse
and walked down the road. The farm was alone at the end where Sullivan Road turned a
corner and became Dersam Road. A sad, lone hold-out against the progress of modern
housing.
“How’s your leg doing?” Dan asked.
“I’ll survive. It’s not the first time she’s kicked me.” The limp was wearing off.
“We coulda drove my car over.”
“Naah...unless you wanted to.”
“Naah...”
A few yards later, Rick cast a few glances at Dan. They were coming close enough to the farm to smell the silage and manure. “Hope you aren’t going to mind getting mud and manure on your clothes.”
“You said you got a washer and dryer?”
“In the basement.”
Dan stopped walking. “How dirty do you get?”
Rick stopped briefly and looked at their surroundings. “In wet weather, in an unpaved yard, you get dirty.”
