Falling Backwards: A Memoir by Jann Arden

hair off it. (You learn something new every day in the country.)
    We’d use a long, sharp knife that had a handle at both ends, and as you pulled it towards you, you’d scrape off the hair. It was disgusting. That hair was tough to remove. You’d have to go over and over it with the blade. It made a strange sound as it ran across the pale pink skin that stuck with you when you’d lay your head down at night. It was worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. I’ll never forget that sound, or the pigs hanging there upside down over a bathtub full of warm, crimson-red blood.
    I think about those pigs a lot. I feel guilty that I didn’t save them from Dale’s dad. Some nights I’ll lie in bed and stare at the ceiling with my blankets pulled up underneath my chin, watching the pigs’ ghosts flit about the room. I am afraid to even have an arm outside of the covers. I hold my breath and stare at the shadows that seem to swoop down from the rafters to get me. It’s scary as hell. And it isn’t just pigs that float down from the ceiling, it’s the odd cow as well.
    One year, Dale’s family was heading out on a two-week summer holiday and thought it would be a great idea for me to look after their one and only milk cow. I had never milked a cow in my life, but Dale and his dad were going to teach me and I was going to milk that cow every day so it didn’t go dry. I couldn’t help but think of the twenty bucks I would make and what I would buy with it.
    I was an eager student. I carefully watched how Dale’s dad grabbed the teats and pulled on them in such a way that long streamsof milk magically squirted out of them into a big steel bucket. He made it look incredibly easy. Dale could do it as well.
    “See,” he’d say to me. “See what I’m doing?” He’d sit there on the little wooden stool with his head tucked into the cow’s side and squeeze those teats evenly and with just enough pressure so the warm milk flowed out of there like it was the easiest thing in the world.
    When it was my turn, no matter what I did, no matter how I squeezed and kneaded and pulled on that udder, not a single drop came out. Dale and his dad laughed at me for the first hour and then they were completely frustrated that I couldn’t figure it out. Finally, after the third or fourth day of lessons, I got it. Definitely a “ta-dah” moment! On one of my last futile tugs, a stream of milk trickled out of one of the teats and onto the ground. I didn’t hit the bucket, but I had at least gotten something to happen. The family would be able to go on their holiday after all and return home to a
not
dry milk cow. I can’t tell you how many times they told me that if I didn’t milk that cow every day it would go dry. Preventing that from happening was to be my sole purpose for living for those two weeks. Two really long and hot weeks.
    Off they drove, out of their dirt driveway, headed for some crystal-clear lake, and there I stood, ready and determined to complete my task. I have to admit that the first day was not great. My mom came with me for moral support and I know she thought that the Baldwins were extremely brave and a little crazy to give me this job. We managed to corral the poor cow (which, I have to say, did not look all that healthy to me), get her into the pen and place the little wooden stool underneath her. As I sat there and looked up at her side I noticed her skin was kind of coming off, but what did I know about healthy cows? Maybe the skin was supposed to do that. I didn’t have a clue. All I knew was that I was going to milk that cow, and that was that. My mom stood beside me as I painstakingly milked awayuntil I thought I’d pretty much emptied her out: I got only about a Mason jar’s worth. Dale’s dad told me that half a bucket was fine if that was all I could get. Three quarters of a bucket would be great, but I should just do the best I could.
    Every day I’d walk up the road to the Baldwins’ place, call