The Woefield Poultry Collective (17 page)

Miss Sara took some popcorn and some chips and some licorice, but she put down the black kind after I said that thing about the toes. She didn’t smile or nothing, but she looked as happy as I’d seen her, so I laid off Chubnuts. I don’t think it’s right for a child to be so serious. I’ve known others was like that and they all had a good reason, if you know what I’m saying.

So the video starts up and Chubnuts asks us if we’re ready. I asked him where Prudence was and he got a helluva sour look on his face and said she was busy.

I said she should be watching because it was her sheep. Before I could say anything else, Chubnuts turned up the volume and we started watching.

The kid took a lot of notes in her little book and Chubnuts made all kind of remarks and wrote on his computer.

I guess I must of drifted off. The damn video was nearly as long as a feature-length movie, which makes it too long by half in my opinion. But I was thinking about old times so I guess I didn’t mind.

Remember Linda Hamilton in the first Terminator movie? How buff she was? Well, the girl in the sheep-shearing video was like that. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on her, except, you know, where you’d want it.

I’m not a fitness guy myself, but I can appreciate a toned physique.

Also, the way she handled that sheep and the clipper, which was this lethal-looking thing with these big spikes coming out of it, took my breath away. Her fashion sense was pretty much farmer in the dell, but I don’t mind that on a woman.

The shearer talked dirty, too, saying how you had to let the sheep empty out. At first I was so distracted by her pecs I didn’t even pick up on what that might mean. I thought it was either draining the poor sheep of blood when you cut its neck with those clippers or … I don’t know what.

Once she got shaving I was basically glued to my seat. The animal was almost as big as she was and she kept saying how she had to avoid its tits. I kid you not. Watching that video was like watching a slasher flick, only real and with sheep.

There was this huge blood spatter on the floor just to the left of the screen, probably left over from a previous shearing. Whoever was working the camera seemed to have a bit of the palsy or whatever because the camera swung around all over the place so you could see the blood sometimes. What must it be like to be a sheep and see what was practically a lake of blood off to the side when you’re getting your
annual haircut? It was enough to make me vegetarian, at least when it comes to sheep.

When the girl finished the first sheep, she moved right on to manhandling another huge brute. A ram, she called it. She went on about how you shouldn’t cut off its pizzle and you have to be careful around its scrotum. I was thinking sweet Jesus, not only is this like a horror movie, it’s also getting like a porno. And the whole time she was talking, she was throwing that massive sheep around like he was a sack of feathers. When he started kicking, probably because she was getting too close to his pizzle, she put a headlock on him and that was the end of him acting up. You know those shows on Spike with the guys who jump motorbikes over flaming school buses? And the little warning at the end not to try this at home? Well, that about sums up sheep shearing for me. Seriously. I could barely watch but I couldn’t tear my eyes away either. You can look at my archives if you want the full account. I live blogged the whole thing, the way some people do for the Academy Awards. I put it on this new blog I started called Farmer John. So far there haven’t been any comments because it hasn’t really caught on yet.

I couldn’t believe Sara thought we should shave Bertie ourselves. I’d only stopped drinking like a week before and I could barely shave myself, for fuck’s sake. The only consolation was that, since Bertie’s female, we weren’t going to be faced with a giant scrotum that we’d have to try not to cut off by accident. Personally, I’d be tempted to let that part stay hairy. I watched the video all the way until the credits so I could get the name of the sheep girl. I might try and look her up online.

Watching the video was really fun. It was nice to do something social with people who don’t need their mom to remind them to close their mouth.

Seth made it especially fun because he had snacks and stuff. I knew he wasn’t saved, like Bethany’s pastor says people should be, but he does have some good qualities and was getting more attractive, although obviously he’s quite old compared to me and I’m way too young to date anyone. I knew he’d get left behind when the Rapture came due to his swearing and probably also for having long hair and tight pants. Once we had Bertie fixed up, I thought I might talk to him about changing his ways.

We had popcorn and nachos and two kinds of pop and candy. It was great.

I took a lot of notes during the video, but it was sort of hard to know exactly what was going on because the sheep was moving and kicking and the girl who did the shaving talked too much. When it was over she held up a single piece of wool in the shape of a sheep and the sheep ran away all happy and bald.

Obviously, we can’t do that with Bertie, since half her coat is already gone. I guess when Earl finishes he can hold up half a sheep. That will still be satisfying.

I think Prudence should have watched the video too, but she was too busy in the garden, which is a whole bunch of boxes full of dirt and really small greenhouses that she’s made of plastic tubes and white
plastic material and rocks. There is a lot growing in Prudence’s garden, but it’s all really small. Also, her potato patch isn’t working out. Seth and Earl could only dig down an inch or so before they hit bedrock. Seth said this was no country for metalheads and old men and he was starting a union, and Prudence said fine, she’d need five more raised beds to grow potatoes.

Prudence works harder than anyone I ever saw. Once my mom dropped me off at the farm at six-thirty and Prudence was already working. She was picking rocks in the field and moving them to her rock pile using the wheelbarrow. The pile of rocks was almost up to her knees. I don’t know what she’s going to do with all those rocks. Maybe sell them. Anyway, Prudence is quite thin and I think that’s why. Seth says she’s like the Energizer Bunny, only hot. I don’t agree because no matter how hard Prudence works, she never seems hot. Her face doesn’t even get sweaty. She looks nice all the time.

Anyway, after the sheep video was over and we were finishing our pop and chips, even Earl, who drinks root beer, which kind of surprised me but I don’t know why, Prudence came in and told us we had to go outside because she had some guests coming. She wasn’t mean about it, though, so I didn’t feel bad.

I decided that once I completely understood the Rapture and the risk of getting left behind, I would talk to Seth and Earl and Prudence about it. Prudence might seem like she would be saved because she works so hard and is nice and doesn’t swear, but she doesn’t go to church and that’s important. At least, that’s what the pastor says three or four times every service.

I hope that mean girl won’t be coming around again.

After I finished watering the raised beds and plotting out my rock garden, which would feature varieties of lavender, sage and thyme, I checked the radish crop. It wasn’t growing fast enough, making me nervous about the farmers’ market. I could only hope the radishes would have a sudden growth spurt over the next few days. With that in mind, I put five buckets of horse manure that I got from a farm nearby on them. I have no idea why people spend money buying compost when there’s manure all over the place. Sure, it’s a bit smelly, but you can’t beat free!

Anyway, when I’d top-dressed the radishes (being careful not to bury their little shoots) I reluctantly prepared for the writing group. Earl, Seth and even Sara were watching television in the living room and I had to ask them to clear out. It was a shame to see them wasting a beautiful afternoon with such a pointless activity, but the key to being an effective employer/landlord is to pick one’s battles. At least they were watching together and with luck they were building some team spirit. Also, I was distracted because I’d never taken a writing class in high school or in college and hadn’t had time to research how to teach one.

When I wrote my book, my writer friends told me to write about something that mattered to me, hence the global warming/personal responsibility theme in
The Sun Doesn’t Forgive
. The review I’d received made it clear that there was more to writing a successful YA novel than expressing passionate opinions. The reviewer said my book
had an “inauthentic air” and “one-dimensional characters who talked like particularly preachy mini-adults.” The book was set on a farm and my child characters were modeled on some of the kids I’d seen at the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene. I never got a chance to talk to any of those kids, but mine gave a lot of speeches on the need for government subsidies for sustainable agriculture practices and they talked knowledgably about the need for political change, similar to how I bet those Fort Greene Flea Market kids did. When drought sets in, my characters are forced to leave their farm to become nomad wanderers, similar to Cormac McCarthy’s
The Road
, but with a greatly simplified vocabulary and a stronger emphasis on vegetarianism. Unfortunately, my characters are made into slave laborers by an evil corporation named Monpanto, which apparently was funny only to me. After my experience here at Woefield, I’d write a different book, obviously. All in all, I wasn’t entirely confident about my ability to teach a writing class.

The kitchen table was too small, so I put all the furniture I could find in the living room. A long, lumpy gray couch, a small, stiff loveseat upholstered in something brown and scratchy, and assorted chairs, one of which had a rattan seat that looked like it could have been used as a weapon in
The Deer Hunter
. I decided to take that one out, for insurance reasons, and added “Look online for attractive, reasonably priced used furniture when funds permit” to my To Do list.

Presumably, people would want to write during the writing class, so I put hardcover books at each place. The writers could use those to balance their paper on. I felt bad about the seating arrangements but also hoped that the discomfort might cause people to leave early.

At 6:55 there was a knock on the door.

I opened it to find Brady and his entire writing group standing on the porch.

“We’re early,” said Brady. “I hope that’s okay.”

He wore a short-sleeved shirt with a palm tree pattern in sunset yellow and orange. I tore my gaze away to look at the rest of the group. There were four of them. A man in his shirtsleeves, a wide-shouldered
woman wearing a pilled black sweater, and, to my surprise, Laureen and Verna.

“Oh,” I said, when I saw them.

“This is the gang,” said Brady. “We’ve recently picked up a couple of new members. When Verna heard we were coming here for writing class, she and Laureen wanted to join us.”

I opened the door for the group and stood back to let them in. As Verna passed, she whispered, “When I saw Brady at the grocery store and he told me you were running this group, we were sure you wouldn’t mind. You know, since it’s open to the public.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” I said, even though I did. The basic rules of civility require that one deal with the unexpected in a gracious way. I wondered whether she’d told Brady and the rest of the writing group that this was a treatment center. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. There was nothing to be done about it now. Even if she had told them, what would it matter? Some prisons hold writing classes. Why wouldn’t treatment centers?

The group stood awkwardly between the kitchen and the living room.

I gestured them over to the area I’d set up. “I thought we could work in here.”

“Super!” enthused Brady.

The rest of the class nodded. Except Laureen. Was she on drugs? I hoped not but I couldn’t tell. At least she wasn’t trying to pick bugs out of her arm, which is something that serious addicts do according to my reading in the addiction memoir field.

After quickly checking my notes, I asked everyone to introduce themselves and to talk about what kind of writing they wanted to do. Brady interrupted.

“Novelists!” he said. “We’re all aspiring novelists! That’s why we’re here. We’ve gone beyond the short story into the long form. The big business. The real thing. And we’ve come to learn from the master.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “Let’s do introductions and you can tell me what kinds of novel you’re working on. Perhaps we could start
with you.” I turned to the man in the dress shirt. He wore tasseled loafers. I hadn’t seen a pair of loafers since I left New York.

“I’m Marvin,” he said. “You can call me Marv. I’m working on a tale of intrigue and high finance involving the capital markets. Hedge funds. High rollers with big appetites. Dark markets.”

“Wow,” I said. “That sounds great.”

“Just today, I was at a seminar. Heard a guy speaking about a new fund out of Calgary. High risk, high rewards. Damned exciting.”

“Wow,” I said again, then realized that as a master novelist, I should have a larger store of expletives to express myself. I thought of what one of my YA writer friends might say. “Holy cow,” I added. Marv didn’t notice.

“They’ve got all these new financial instruments coming out. Lot of ‘em created after the meltdown of the subprime market. They’re never going to regulate those boys. They’re too smart. Betting on the losses. Now that takes some guts.”

“For god’s sake, Marv,” said the big woman in the seen-better-days sweater. “Why don’t you tell us what you had for lunch, too? It’d be as interesting.”

Marv looked confused for a moment.

“Smoked salmon on those little croissants,” he said finally. “At a mutual fund lunch.”

She rolled her eyes.

“How about you?” I asked her.

“Me? I’m writing a tell-all about my fuckhead ex. It’s gonna be a ball breaker. I just want to know how to get it published.” She cast a quick look over at Laureen, who was studying her bitten fingernails. “Sorry.”