wrote this little story. Enjoy: Three or four times during haying season we drove over to the only bar in town for drinks and shade. We’d be working in the fields and Albert would come over from wherever he was baling hay and tell me to shut down the tractor, get in the truck, and we would drive to the bar. Business seemed slow, but steady. I don’t have any reason to say that other than the fact that tractor work always was rushed and loud and hurried, and the bar wasn’t. Plywood signs out by the highway said, “Food” and “Beer.” Another sign was nothing but an arrow pointing toward the front door, and there was a red neon light that said “Open.” There were some low spots out front that were probably mud puddles when it rained, but they had been dry for weeks. Although the dried-out holes were deep, the edges were smoothed over from rigs coming and going. The truck rocked back and forth as we drove across them to find a place to park. When we stopped and got out, I looked at myself in the side mirror as I closed the door. I don’t know what I thought I was going to see, but I looked. Maybe I thought we would see some people and I was wondering what they were going to see when we walked in the door. Working the fields we didn’t ever see anybody else for any reason; it was just all day everyday on the tractor, going around and round in the dust and the noise. There was a steel boot scraper and a heavy mat to wipe the mud and manure off your feet and a spring-loaded screen door to keep the flies out. If you dithered in the doorway, somebody was likely to yell, “Close the damn door, you’re letting the flies inside.” They didn’t mean anything by it. They just figured you might not know, so they were telling you how things worked. Inside the lights were dim. There was an evaporative cooler or swamp cooler; the kind that goes on the roof and blows cool moist air down through the ceiling. The cool moist air hit you in the face with a wave of relief as soon as you walked through the door. Glare and heat and dust and noise were just part of haying, so having a place that was moist and cool and quiet and dim seemed like being in another world. The girl working behind the bar was named Barbara. She was from somewhere in California and had come here to work for the summer. You had to be twenty-one to tend bar, so she was at least four years older than me. She had black mascara around her big brown eyes and her light-brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was no beauty queen, but there were only 28 people in the whole town, and we lived seven miles out of town, so she was worth a look. There was a mirror behind her, stacks of clear glasses with heavy bottoms on a shelf, and a hole in the wall that connected the kitchen to the front so a person in the back could hand plates of food to the person behind the counter. There were half a dozen kinds of beer; on tap, in bottles or cans, and pretty much whatever else you wanted. The guy in the back was named Ken. He owned the place and worked at the grill. He was a big old barrel-chested guy that everybody called “Beardy.” He had black hair everywhere; full beard, arms, chest, and head. The skin of a black bear hanging in the room with the pool table looked like it could have been his cousin or little brother. Anyway, he ran the bar and café, rented out a few cabins to tourists in the summertime, and was an outfitter in the fall when it was hunting season. I looked up to see Barbara was looking at me like she must have said something. My chest would get tight when she would look at me whether she was talking or not. I wasn’t very good at this. I was alone most of the time. The tractor carried my body and my body carried my head. All day everyday I lived inside my head driving around the fields of hay. Nobody else was there. Outside of my head there was a world where yellow pollen rolled off the tops of the wild hay. The tractor noisily roared and bounced along in clouds of dust; one world inside another. You go inside your head because it’s the only place you can find any peace at all. When I went there, I could think whatever I thought. I could ask whatever I was wondering. I could answer myself or not. Barbara brought Albert a beer. He nodded. She smiled. She put a glass of Coke with ice in front of me. She must have asked and I must have answered. It was nice to have something cold in my hand. The ice made the glass sweaty. I raised the glass to my mouth. The dark brown liquid was cold and sweet and the ice was that soft crunchy kind. When I tipped the glass, beads of ice water flowed down the outside of the glass to the corners of my mouth, and down my chin. I wiped my face with the inside of my hand and wiped it on my pant leg. Everything about being here was good. I felt rested. It helped soothe you and give you some relief from the noise and heat and dust. It was a nice thing just to relax. Barbara moved back and forth behind the counter. She bent and reached, turned and stooped, leaned and stretched. We sat and said nothing. Her hands were small. Her arms were bare. Her face was pale and clean. She had on blue denim pants and a blue and white plaid cowboy shirt with white pearl snaps. The top few snaps on her shirt were undone and when she leaned forward it was hard not to look down the front. She looked at me and looked away. There wasn’t any music playing and you could hear the rattling sound of the cooler up on the roof. The sound somehow made the whole place seem even cooler. Somebody put a quarter in the juke box. Everybody listened and felt the same as the song that was being sung. The song was lonely. It made you long and hope and wish it had turned out better. If the words cut too close to the bone, somebody might crack a joke, or you might get a lump in your throat. Sometimes a guy with the quarters would play the same song over and over again. You might look into the mirror at somebody sitting behind you and off to one side, or you might look up to see who just walked in the door. You might see someone looking at you. If you sit around too long you won’t want to go back to work because all you’ll be thinking about is how much time you just wasted and how you’re going to have to bust your ass the rest of the day to pay for taking a break. Albert had it figured out. We stayed just the right amount of time. If you don’t ever take a break, what’s the point of working? If you sit around too much, what’s the point of even being alive? Too much sitting around and you become soft and worthless. Too much work and you might as well be dead. You need to stop in the middle of the day, get out of the dust and glare and noise, and have a drink. You need to feel a cold wet glass in your hand. You need to see a woman now and again. Then you need to get your ass back on the tractor. In case you haven’t noticed you’ve got to work for a living. Albert put a couple of dollars on the counter. We finished up and left. The sun was glaring down white and yellow as we walked across the dried-out gravel to the truck. Neither of us spoke as we went back to work. There was nothing to say that hadn’t been said before and there’s no point in talking when there’s nothing to say. The tractors were waiting when we got back to the field where we had left them. You don’t want to go there, but that’s where you belong. You’re not thinking as you straddle the transmission, press the clutch, turn the key, pull back on the throttle, ease up on the clutch, and position yourself in the field. It’s no different than scratching an itch. You could do it blindfolded. You already do it in your sleep. The diesel engine clattered. Blades on the sickle-bar chattered. Wild hay fell backward in a wide dead swath. I went back inside my head and drove around in circles.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 01:25:02 +0000
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