hogs in it.
Before they leave the barn the boy notices that there are two C’s hanging above the shelf of jars—the shelf itself is one of the horizontal joints in the barn’s frame, and the nails the C’s hang off poke through from the other side, meaning they’re part of the barn itself, not nailed into the wall for the sole purpose of holding them up. But he cannot imagine what use the C’s once had, or will have again. Perhaps they’re remnants of a sign that once spelled WALLACE PECK ? The C’s are carved from wood in Gothic style and painted gold, most of which has long since flaked off, and the boy is about to ask his uncle about them when he hears the tractor pulling up outside. It turns out to be Donnie, hauling a cube of hay bales piled on the two-wheeled trailer behind his uncle’s old John Deere. Donnie waves to the boy’s uncle with his cap even as he whirls the tractor around and backs the trailer up to the hay barn. He pilots the tractor smoothly, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gearshift, and the boy watches his performance intently, but it isn’t until Donnie shuts off the tractor that the boy remembers the ease with which the old man used to back out of the alley behind the Jew’s pharmacy. There is something else that links their activities—something about the finesse that the truly impoverished bring to behavior in lieu of property—but the thought is half formed, finds its only expression in one of the boy’s bare feet, which lifts off the ground and scratches the top of the other; and then a backfire makes the air between the barns and the house vibrate like a fly buzzing too close to his ear; and there is Donnie, hopping off the tractor and running his fingers through sweat-wet hair to separate it from his scalp.
The boy’s uncle pulls off his own cap and scratches his headas Donnie puts his back on. A thick red line rings the older man’s nearly hairless scalp like the orbit of a moon.
Thought I gave you weekends off.
Donnie looks without blinking into the boy’s uncle’s eyes.
Just happened to be driving by that field on 81 and noticed it was ready to mow. Thought I might as well get on it.
Donnie continues to stare at the boy’s uncle for another moment, and then his eyes drop and he traces a circle in the dirt with his boot. The boy’s uncle rubs at the red line circling his head and then puts his cap back on.
Guess we best unload it then.
The cube is rectangular actually, its shape a magnification of the bales that compose it—ten bales wide, ten long, ten high. It takes a good hour to loft it into the hay barn, and on three separate occasions Donnie calls out Hey Amos! and throws a bale of hay at him. The first two times the fifty-pound bales knock the hundred-and-thirty-pound boy down, but the third time he manages to catch it and remain on his feet—at which point Donnie throws him another bale and knocks him to the floor. When they’ve finished the boy’s uncle invites Donnie to take the noon meal at Aunt Bessie’s house in town, and after they’re gone the boy eats a few slices of cheddar and a couple of last year’s apples—a tart Granny Smith, a sweet Macoun—and changes into his running shoes and sets off for his first eight-mile run.
The route he’s planned will take him up and around the Alcove Reservoir, which he drives past when he goes to church with Aunt Bessie. It’s almost ten miles roundtrip in the car, but he figures the back roads he’ll take will shave a couple miles off that. Still, eight miles is a big jump up from four and he tellshimself before setting out that it’s okay if he has to stop and walk part of it. But Coach Baldwin has also said he wants the boy to compete in the half marathon next year—thirteen miles—and the boy looks on this run as a test of his mettle.
He starts out east at an easy trot. Thirty-eight is a broad dirt road with no shoulder, just two shallow ditches that are mowed twice a year to keep the
Before they leave the barn the boy notices that there are two C’s hanging above the shelf of jars—the shelf itself is one of the horizontal joints in the barn’s frame, and the nails the C’s hang off poke through from the other side, meaning they’re part of the barn itself, not nailed into the wall for the sole purpose of holding them up. But he cannot imagine what use the C’s once had, or will have again. Perhaps they’re remnants of a sign that once spelled WALLACE PECK ? The C’s are carved from wood in Gothic style and painted gold, most of which has long since flaked off, and the boy is about to ask his uncle about them when he hears the tractor pulling up outside. It turns out to be Donnie, hauling a cube of hay bales piled on the two-wheeled trailer behind his uncle’s old John Deere. Donnie waves to the boy’s uncle with his cap even as he whirls the tractor around and backs the trailer up to the hay barn. He pilots the tractor smoothly, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gearshift, and the boy watches his performance intently, but it isn’t until Donnie shuts off the tractor that the boy remembers the ease with which the old man used to back out of the alley behind the Jew’s pharmacy. There is something else that links their activities—something about the finesse that the truly impoverished bring to behavior in lieu of property—but the thought is half formed, finds its only expression in one of the boy’s bare feet, which lifts off the ground and scratches the top of the other; and then a backfire makes the air between the barns and the house vibrate like a fly buzzing too close to his ear; and there is Donnie, hopping off the tractor and running his fingers through sweat-wet hair to separate it from his scalp.
The boy’s uncle pulls off his own cap and scratches his headas Donnie puts his back on. A thick red line rings the older man’s nearly hairless scalp like the orbit of a moon.
Thought I gave you weekends off.
Donnie looks without blinking into the boy’s uncle’s eyes.
Just happened to be driving by that field on 81 and noticed it was ready to mow. Thought I might as well get on it.
Donnie continues to stare at the boy’s uncle for another moment, and then his eyes drop and he traces a circle in the dirt with his boot. The boy’s uncle rubs at the red line circling his head and then puts his cap back on.
Guess we best unload it then.
The cube is rectangular actually, its shape a magnification of the bales that compose it—ten bales wide, ten long, ten high. It takes a good hour to loft it into the hay barn, and on three separate occasions Donnie calls out Hey Amos! and throws a bale of hay at him. The first two times the fifty-pound bales knock the hundred-and-thirty-pound boy down, but the third time he manages to catch it and remain on his feet—at which point Donnie throws him another bale and knocks him to the floor. When they’ve finished the boy’s uncle invites Donnie to take the noon meal at Aunt Bessie’s house in town, and after they’re gone the boy eats a few slices of cheddar and a couple of last year’s apples—a tart Granny Smith, a sweet Macoun—and changes into his running shoes and sets off for his first eight-mile run.
The route he’s planned will take him up and around the Alcove Reservoir, which he drives past when he goes to church with Aunt Bessie. It’s almost ten miles roundtrip in the car, but he figures the back roads he’ll take will shave a couple miles off that. Still, eight miles is a big jump up from four and he tellshimself before setting out that it’s okay if he has to stop and walk part of it. But Coach Baldwin has also said he wants the boy to compete in the half marathon next year—thirteen miles—and the boy looks on this run as a test of his mettle.
He starts out east at an easy trot. Thirty-eight is a broad dirt road with no shoulder, just two shallow ditches that are mowed twice a year to keep the
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