The Woefield Poultry Collective (21 page)

Then the man in the truck showed up.

I was just planning a drip irrigation system for the raised beds so Seth wouldn’t have to stand out there with a hose for a couple of hours every evening, when the knock came. I was feeling very pleased because my research told me that I’d be able to put in a drip system for a fraction of what some other options, such as automatic sprinklers, would cost. I could get used hoses and prepare them myself. People think you need a lot of money to farm. I think what you really need is a lot of help.

Back to the knock. When I heard it, I thought it might be Seth. He’d come to the door four times that afternoon muttering that Earl was trying to maim him. Seth lacks the stoicism I associate with the agricultural world.

“What is it?” I called out.

I couldn’t hear the reply, so I got up and opened the door. I had to jerk it because the doorjamb is a bit sticky, and the old but now clean flowered curtain fluttered into my face.

A man stood on the porch. He wore jeans, a plaid shirt and a modified cowboy hat. His belt buckle featured a large cow head with horns on it. His boots were brown and scuffed. His lips were heavy and nicely curved. I found myself blinking at him because he was so good-looking.

“Yes?” I said, trying to smooth my composure and my hair at the same time. “Hello?”

He didn’t say anything. I wondered if he was also under the impression that we were a treatment center. I would have been more than happy to sign him up.

“My name is Eustace Smith. I’m a vet. I have a clinic down the way.” His voice was low and serious. “Do you have an animal in need of medical attention here? A sheep?”

I felt myself stiffen, despite my conviction that we were completely innocent of any wrongdoing. One of the Mighty Pens must have called the vet about Bertie. I wondered if that was the same as calling the SPCA. Maybe it was worse. I thought of Bertie: bald, scratched, feet encased in maxipads and duct-tape booties. Her belly cinched up with masking tape and lined with still more feminine hygiene products. She looked like one of those unfortunate creatures you see on the animal abuse websites. This handsome man wouldn’t understand and it wouldn’t do for us to get arrested. We’d end up in the papers, exposed as false treatment center operators and animal cruelty practitioners.

Subterfuge was called for.

“Sheep?” I said.

His perfect lips formed a funny little half smile.

“That’s right,” he said.

Bertie was still on Earl’s porch, eating the expensive Washington meadow grass hay I got for her at the feed store and drinking the healing spring water I bought for her at the health food store. I didn’t want her roaming around until she’d recovered from her shearing and had a fenced pasture to go into.

I shook my head.

He stared into my face. “No sheep?” he asked, as though trying to lip-read.

“We have some very nice chickens, though. Would you like to have a look at them?”

“I saw them as I came in.”

“Oh. Right. Of course you did. They’re right there.”

“But you don’t have any sheep,” he repeated.

“No. No sheep.”

“What’s going in the little corral out there?”

Time for more quick thinking in aid of sustainability and viability.

“We were thinking of getting a mule.” I’d been reading about mules in one of my self-sufficiency books.

“Is that right?”

I nodded. “They are supposed to be good for plowing,” I said, nodding again. “They’re stronger than horses.”

“No tractor?”

“We are interested in sustainable farming practices.”

Another smile. He looked right in my eyes.

“Right,” he said. “I can see that.”

“Did someone lose one?” I asked.

“A tractor?”

“No, a sheep.”

“We got a call. Something about a sheep in distress. I thought I’d check it out. My receptionist must have misunderstood.”

“That happens a lot with receptionists.” I spoke as though I’d had many receptionists over the years. In fact, I’d been a receptionist for a music producer in Williamsburg once. After two days the producer told me it wasn’t working out because my clothes weren’t tight enough. Just as well. He had terrible energy and was messy.

Dr. Eustace Smith took his hat off, revealing a full head of short-cropped curly hair, similar to that found on a young Greek god. His forearms were very brown and muscular. He continued staring at me.

“You know,” he said, “you look familiar.”

“Well. Farm women probably all look alike after a while.”

He grinned, and dimples creased his lean cheeks.

“I wouldn’t say that exactly.”

We stood like that for a long moment.

“Well, I’d better be going. I hate to interrupt a farm woman during her busy day.”

Something about the way he said “farm woman” made me look down at myself. I had on a T-shirt from The Moth and a skirt printed with
antique airplanes I’d purchased in SoHo and my tall French rubber boots.

“I’m new to farming,” I said.

“You and your husband?”

“Married? No. I’m on my own,” I told him.

His grin widened.

“Huh,” he said. “Okay then.” He replaced the hat, which was made of some kind of leather or oiled canvas. He turned and stepped down the stairs. He was on the third step when he turned back to me.

“This is probably inappropriate,” he said. “And I hope you won’t call the cops or the veterinary board. But would you like to go out sometime?”

I felt the blush rush through my cheeks and down the rest of my body.

“Yes, I would.”

Straight white teeth gleamed against his tanned face.

“How about tonight? Seven o’clock? I’ll take you to dinner.”

“That would be nice,” I said.

“See you then,” he said and touched the brim of his hat. Then he disappeared around the side of the house. I was left staring after Eustace Smith, the world’s handsomest vet. A minute or so later I heard a vehicle start up out back.

When I focused again I saw Earl, Seth and Sara all staring at me from where they stood a few yards away in the midst of a jumble of fencing.

When I realized she was going on a date, I felt maimed. Like somebody chopped my leg off or something. It’s not like I thought we had anything going. I’m not delusional. It was just, I don’t know, a trigger.

I was in the living room resting my feet after a demanding day, and I noticed she was bustling around even more than normal, which is some serious bustling, I can tell you.

She probably saw me noticing, because on about her fortieth pass by the living room she stopped and told me she wouldn’t be home for dinner.

I asked her if she could order a pizza. Normally she cooks brown rice and beans and vegetables and stuff like that, but there was no way I was going to put that in my mouth if I didn’t have to.

Look at the situation from my perspective. I’d been sober for quite a few days. I wasn’t shaky at all. I was as detoxed as I was going to get. I was beginning to feel like a clean-living, hardworking man. A little pizza wasn’t out of the question. I deserved something.

Right away she said she would call for pizza, and that was so unexpected that I looked at her closer. That’s when I noticed she was all sparkling and clean and dressed up nice. All of a sudden I didn’t feel so wholesome anymore. You know how some people can have that effect on you? Maybe you don’t.

I asked her where she was going. I tried to put a don’t-give-a-fuck spin on the question, but I’m not sure it came across.

She just smiled and I knew. Knew who it was, too.

“Got a date?” I asked.

“Sort of.”

“With that big dude who came by here this afternoon?”

She nodded and smiled some more.

I wanted to say something then. I wanted to say lots of things. Every one of them was totally wrong. Instead I just asked if she could remember to order the pizza before she went.

She said she was running late and would I mind ordering it myself. She’d leave out some money.

The way she said it really got me. Like I was a kid and a useless deadbeat one, at that. I was essentially doing everything around the place. Holding fence posts and nearly getting knocked out by uncoordinated hammer-wielding ancients. Consulting with local youth on their competition chickens. Having the shit kicked out of me by sick sheep. Painting. Cleaning. Not drinking so people would think this hellhole was some kind of treatment center. And I was being given no credit for any of it. At least that’s how it felt.

I’ve never been good at disappointment. Seriously. I don’t know what my parents did to make me this way. They sure as hell didn’t spoil me. The last time I felt that ripped off was with the drama teacher. Anyway, the next time Prudence went upstairs, I just got up and left. My time as a farmhand was over.

It started when my dad asked where I was all day. I didn’t answer because I didn’t think he wanted to know. Usually, he just likes asking questions but never listens to the answers. Then he asked my mom where she was all day. She said she was running errands. And he said, well, she sure as sh#*^ wasn’t grocery shopping.

He said that because she made the tuna casserole surprise again. Even after what happened last night.

My mom said she was going outside to get some air. Which is what she always says when she’s going outside to sit in the car.

But this time my dad wouldn’t let her. He said she could stay inside and cook him something he could actually eat and how he’d had a hard day at the construction site. She whispered something about “And whose fault is that?” and “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you bezzled from the bank,” and then she walked to the door and this time he threw his plate at her and hit her in the back. She screamed. Before I knew what was happening she picked it off the floor and threw it back in his face, only he put up his arm and blocked it.

That’s when I threw up my tuna surprise all over the table. I didn’t even get the sore stomach first.

My dad and mom kind of stood there and then he said some swears and told my mom it was her fault and she asked me if I was okay. I said I was and I just needed to go to my room. She said that was okay. I don’t know what they did after that.

I was too sick to even read
Left Behind
, never mind the Bible, which has very small type and pages that are easy to tear. Instead I read
The Standard of Perfection
because looking at chickens, especially the fancy ones, makes me feel better most times.

That’s when I got the idea to run away to the farm.

I packed my knapsack with some clothes and my homework and a toothbrush, and went out to where my mom was sitting in the car with her head leaning back and her eyes shut. I didn’t see my dad because I went out the back door.

I told my mom I wanted to go to Woefield and she looked at me. Her face was sort of puffy and red. She told me she thought that was maybe a good idea.

I got in and she drove me over there.

When we pulled in, I asked her if she wanted to come. I said it was a big house and there was probably room for both of us. But she said no.

When I knocked on the door there was no one home, so I waited.

Who the hell knows what could have happened to the kid if I didn’t come along when I did. It was black as pitch outside and I just come up to the house to get the
TV Guide
. They got that program guide on channel two but the goddamn words move so fast and are so scrunched together I don’t know who the hell could read it.

Anyway, I come up the porch and seen the house was dark. Figured Chubnuts and Prudence was out. That was okay with me. I’d already seen enough of them two that day to last a month. But when I reached the door I heard this little cough and I damned near jumped out a my pants. My suspenders was the only thing keeping them on.

Jesus Christ! I says. Once I caught hold of myself, I looked a little harder and I see the kid sitting way away in the corner of the porch. In the goddamn dark. And she’s got a hold of a chicken. It was that black bastard, Allan, or whatever Chubnuts calls him.

I told her she give me a shock, sitting in the dark like that.

The kid didn’t say nothing. There was something funny going on, I knew. She was too young to be sitting in the dark by herself.

So I asked her how she got here and she said her mom dropped her off.

I back up a few steps and look around the edge of the porch. I was damn sure I didn’t see no car in the driveway when I come up. I asked if the kid’s mom was coming back for her. The kid just shrugged her shoulders. I didn’t know what the hell that meant, but I was pretty sure it didn’t mean her mom was coming back any time soon.

That’s when I realized I was stuck there with her. Hell if I knew what to do with a kid. Jesus Christ, I thought. This place.

I asked if she’d knocked on the door and she said she did, but no one was home. So I asked how long she was waiting outside and she just give me another one of them shrugs.

Poor little gaffer. Sitting out there with her chicken.

I was torn up about what to do. I could let her in the house but then she’d be alone in there. Or I could bring her down to the cabin. But then she’d be alone with me. And to tell you the goddamn truth, I didn’t know which was worse for the kid. I really didn’t. An old man’s house is no place for a little girl. What the hell would I say to her?

I thought about Chubnuts and Prudence. There was no telling what time people like that might come home. People like them could be out all night.

I’ll tell you what, I says to the kid. How about you put the bird back in his chicken shed and you and me can go inside the house? You eat dinner?

She shook her head.

I tell her we better call up the pizza parlor then. Get them to deliver. We can eat while we watch the idiot box.

And she said, The idiot box?

I explain that’s the other name for the TV. There’s a hell of a lot kids don’t know.