Rick trudged down the stairs earlier than he was used to. He’d been awakened by
the sound of someone moving around downstairs. Half asleep, it took a few moments for
him to remember that someone else was in the house. He didn’t know why Dan might be
up so early, but it was his first morning in a new house, on a new job, and Rick thought
maybe he should check on him.
Dan had built a fire in the woodstove and was sitting in the overstuffed chair in front of it. The kitchen island was cleared of its mess, empty wrappers thrown out, newspapers neatly stacked on one end, and all of the dishes were out of the sink, clean and drying in the dish rack.
“You’re up kind of early, aren’t you?” Rick asked.
“Morning Rick. Sorry if I woke you up.”
“It’s barely four am. Do you always get up this early?”
Dan shrugged and thought about it. “Depends on what time I go to bed...join me for breakfast? Got some granola in the fridge.”
Rick mentally debated whether it was worth the trudge back up the ancient staircase for forty-five more minutes of sleep. It wasn’t. “Sure, thanks.” He went into the kitchen. The granola was in a big jar in the refrigerator. “Is this homemade?”
“Yep, all natural, not one preservative or artificial anything...I hope it’s okay I built a fire. It was cold in here.”
“Sure, that’s fine.” Rick brought his granola back to the couch to eat it. Long dormant social skills started to come back to life in him. “So, you never worked on a dairy farm before?”
“Naah, I worked a lot of other jobs though. Department stores, a couple gardening stores, a bakery, an insurance company, a couple banks...”
“What is that? A different job every year since you were eighteen?”
“Basically, yeah.”
“So, what kind of cows are these?” It was Dan’s second time at milking. He was
still cold, but no longer cared that there was a two inch layer of muck - no, he couldn’t
deny it, it was manure - on his boots.
“Holsteins.” They were a herd of solidly built black and white cows. Dan thought that their skinny legs would be too scrawny to support their bulk but they seemed to do okay.
“All black and white?”
“We’ve got some red and white too.” They walked the row of stalls, carrying the milking machines to the cows. They each carried enough lines to milk four cows at a time. The milking barn was well lit just by natural light. The cows filed in and each found a stall and waited their turn patiently.
The barn was old, used only for milking and not housing the cows. The wood that separated the stalls looked more like painted wainscoting than anything else, topped with decoratively turned spindles. The water bowls attached to the stalls, where a cow got her water by pushing a flat lever with her nose, had long ago rusted useless.
“How come you ain’t milking that one?” Dan asked as he plugged a line into the overhead pipe. It was a cow with scruffy fur and an udder wider and more pendulous than any of the other cows. But Rick bypassed her.
“She’s dry right now. She’s due to give birth in another six weeks.” The cow turned her head to the sound of Rick’s voice and he rubbed the heel of his hand up and down her nose. “This is my girl. This is Sidewinder. Her mother had twins when Sidewinder was born, one bull calf, one heifer. Usually when that happens the heifer is sterile and won’t produce milk. But she had such a good pedigree the Wards decided to take a chance on her. She turned out to be one of our best producers.”
“How come a cow don’t give milk if she’s sterile?” Dan asked a little while later. He was getting the hang of sticking the cups on the teats, but he wasn’t as smooth at it as Rick.
“A cow has to become pregnant and give birth to produce milk.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. I thought they just gave milk all the time.”
“like a faucet?”
“I guess...”
Rick looked back at Sidewinder. “No, not like a faucet. That’s why it’s so important to keep track of their heats so we can inseminate them. But I take Sidewinder to a farm on Two Rod Road that has a bull. She’s an old girl, I like to give her a little special care.”
Rick took an early lunch to go to Mass with Mrs. Ward. Later, Dan stopped
briefly at the farmhouse to get a cheese sandwich then went to the schoolhouse to make a
phone call.
“Banks Photography.”
“Hi Brian. It’s me.”
“Bunches! How are you doing? Why didn’t you call last night? How’s the job going?”
“It’s okay. I ain’t quit yet and I ain’t run anybody down with farm machinery. So far, I’m batting a thousand.” As he talked, Dan automatically filled the sink to soak the breakfast dishes. “...’course, I’ll never drink milk again now that I seen where it comes from.”
“How’s the guy you’re working with?”
“Nice. His name is Rick. There’s another guy, Russ. He’s part time. He don’t live here though.”
“Think you’ll like working there?”
“Hey, I liked everywhere I worked.” Dan looked down at his hands. “Of course, my back hurts, my legs hurt, I have blisters on my hands and I’m cold most of the time. But it’s the best job I’ve had in a long time.”
“Yes Danny. Just keep the key to my house handy, we have the spare room waiting for you.”
“You inspire no confidence Brian, no confidence. Just tell Mom and Dad they can go to Toronto now. I got a job and a place to live, they can stop worrying.”
“They will be exceedingly happy.”
Mrs. Ward brought a cup of tea out to Rick who was changing the spark plugs in
the truck. “Your fingers must be frozen stiff.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s the truck?” She folded her arms against the wind and looked under the hood.
“She’ll outlive us all. It’s been misfiring, one plug was cracked is all.”
“We ought to break down and get a new truck, maybe one from this decade...” She picked up the offending spark plug. “Have you talked to your mother lately?
Rick shrugged. “Wednesday. I spent most of the time talking to Merrill though.”
“Are they coming out for Easter?”
“Umm, no. They just bought that farmland, across the road. They’re going to be plowing, y’know. They got that new milking parlor built...”
“That new milking parlor ought to make it easier for your Mom and Dad to come visit.” She observed.
“Well...you know how hard it is to leave a farm, for a day much less a few.” He held the cup in both hands and sipped the tea, trying to not burn his mouth.
“We’ve got another full time man again.” Mrs. Ward tried. “Russ would fill in for you if you take a few days -”
“Oh no.” Rick didn’t even let her finish the sentence. “You can go right past that stall Aunt Marie - that cow is dry.”
“Well, every few months I like to try.” Mrs. Ward said, and it was true. Every few months for the four years Rick had lived there, she tried. And every time she was unsuccessful. “How’s Dan doing?”
“For a guy with no experience, he’s catching on fast. And for the first time in I don’t know how long, I can see the bottom of my sink and the entire counter.” And Rick suddenly remembered the clothes he had stuffed under the bathroom sink.
At the end of the day, Rick recovered his clothes from the cabinet and brought
them up to his room, the first door on the left at the top of the staircase. Like Dan’s, it
was knotty pine paneled, with a bed, dresser, and night table. His jeans were still damp so
he laid them out on the floor, the T-shirts he shoved into the dresser. In the corner of his
room a pile of paperback books was growing, the bed was unmade, and the curtains were
not only shut, they were safety pinned together. He kicked another pair of dirty jeans into
the closet and shut the door. There was a knock behind him.
“Is it okay if I hang a picture in my room?” Dan asked around the door. “You know, put a nail in the wall?”
“Sure, as long as it isn’t a spike.”
“That depends, you got a hammer and nail I can borrow?”
Rick got the hammer and some nails out of the kitchen drawer and brought them
up to Dan. As Dan tapped in a nail, Rick picked up the framed photograph. It was a group
of people: a man, very straight and tall, with gray hair but going bald, in his late sixties;
standing next to him a woman in her early fifties with dark hair. Sitting in front of them
was a younger man who could only be the other man’s son, next to him a Vietnamese
woman, and on their laps a boy and girl, both under the age of seven.
“Your family?” Rick asked.
“Mr. & Mrs. Banks, and Brian and his wife Bea, and their kids Dan and Genevieve.” He said it using the French pronunciation.
“His name is Dan?”
“Yeah, me and Mr. Banks and little Dan all got the same first name.”
“Banks as in ‘Photography’?” Rick indicated the cap that was now on Dan’s pillow.
“Brian owns that, in Buffalo.” Dan tossed the hammer on the bed and Rick handed him the picture.
“Not family?”
“Better than family - friends.” He centered the picture and stepped back to look at it. “Can I ask you something personal?”
The question took Rick by surprise. “I guess.” No. He looked down and automatically covered the scars on his face.
“Don’t you believe in eating anything? Anything at all?”
This surprised Rick even more. “I eat...I have...food...”
“You have exactly milk, Oreos, orange juice and macaroni and cheese. I don’t even want to contemplate that taste sensation.”
“Well, I mostly eat at Aunt Marie’s.” Mostly for the company.
“I like Aunt Marie -” It hadn’t taken Dan even twelve hours to be invited to call her that. “ - and I like Mr. Ward. And I like eating with them. But I don’t eat meat and I can’t see asking Aunt Marie to do any extra work on my behalf. I’se just thinking I could stock up. You got a supermarket around these parts?”
“There’s a Bells down on Broadway.”
“Great. Come with? I’ll treat for some ice cream.”
Rick pushed the basket. He put one foot on the bottom shelf and scuffed along on
the other foot, leaning his elbows on the handle. Dan filled the basket with as much
healthy food as he seemed able to get his hands on. They started in fresh vegetables,
bypassed meat and cruised dairy. As they turned down the canned food aisle, Dan asked:
“So, you’re not from here originally?”
“Ohio. How about you?”
Dan picked up a can of corn, pressed the ends and set it back. “Buffalo, born and raised.” Three cans of corn finally passed inspection and Dan put them in the basket. “You got family?”
“Oh yeah. Mom and Dad, two older brothers, one younger, one younger sister. Our dairy farm is just west of Cleveland.” Off the farm, just wandering around the grocery store, Rick seemed younger to Dan. He was definitely tired; he’d gotten up early, now he was up late.
“Y’all work it?”
“My oldest brother, Pat, he’s a computer programmer for a mortgage company in Cleveland.”
“Computers? Really? I took some computer programming classes after high school.”
“He’s good at it. You have any brothers or sisters?”
Dan seemed to think about it a few seconds and his expression became dark. “No. I’m all by myself genetically speaking...so, you go to church every Sunday?”
“Every Sunday.” Rick said.
“Can I come with?”
“Are you Roman Catholic?”
Dan shrugged. “I’m whatever’s convenient.
Somewhere, in the darkness, in Buffalo, two people argued. “He’s crying again.” The grandfather complained, loud enough for everyone in the house to hear. “I can’t sleep with that racket.”
“It’s not my fault.” The grandmother snapped. “I didn’t want him. I got enough kids already. He’s too much trouble.”
And out in the hallway, on a canvas cot next to a cardboard box that was his dresser, a boy lay trembling. He shoved his fist into his mouth to keep from crying anymore. He wished that somehow he could become part of the darkness and disappear. He wished that his stomach would stop hurting so that he could eat breakfast just once. He wished that somebody, his mother or his father or somebody, would come and make the pain and the fears go away and let him sleep.
He was five years old.
