The Woefield Poultry Collective (32 page)

“There’s a hose on the side of the house. Campers can use that. Jesus, what do you hippies do when you camp out at Burning Man or whatever?”

Then I got worried that he might actually start talking to me about
camping, so I herded him outside before he could. This was threatening to get even worse than Woodstock. Instead of hippies doing drugs and wallowing in mud pits, we’d have them doing drugs and dying of thirst in the dust bowl of our field. Just then another thought occurred to me. I went to Travis’s room to check, and then ran outside to find Prudence.

She was talking to a short-haired woman who looked like a prison guard on her day off. The conversation looked pretty intense, but I had to get her attention.

“Excuse me, Prudence. I have to talk to you.”

“Can it wait?”

“I don’t think so.”

She turned to me. Her hair, which is normally so neat and shiny, like a little cap, was a bit messed up. That seemed like a bad sign.

I pulled her a few feet away from the prison lady.

“Toilets,” I said. “Where are the toilets?”

Prudence was all, “Seth, please. Stop joking around. The toilet is where it always is.”

“No man, I mean for the crowd. The campers. The audience. The four hundred plus people who bought tickets to see the music.”

She turned white. I knew I’d scored a big save then. Or had at least pointed out the net was empty.

“Oh my god,” she said.

“Did you forget to order any?”

But good old Prudence. She’s like a twenty-four-year-old girl, going on three-star general in the military. No hesitation at all.

“Please excuse me, Phyllis,” she said to the lady, who was staring all around her at the people, the ticket booth and the bandstand, like she’d woken up on another planet. “I’ll just be a minute.” Prudence pulled me by the arm until we were almost on the porch stairs.

As we stood there, two more trucks with campers on the back rumbled into the yard and headed uncertainly toward the eight or ten that were already parked in the field, like lost buffalo looking for the rest of the herd.

“Can you find us some toilets?” she asked. “I’m kind of busy.”

“How am I going to find outhouses on a Saturday morning? I don’t have a lot of connections in the portapotty business.”

“Seth—”

“Oh, okay. Just don’t let anyone into the beer garden until I find some or there’ll be piss all over everything.”

“We can let people go in the house.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No, Seth. This is a farm. I can’t have people using it as a toilet.” Her face grew thoughtful. “Well, maybe I can. I’m not entirely sure what kind of fertilizer is best for grass.”

Then, almost without pausing, she pivoted and strode over, sandals slapping against the bottoms of her dirty feet, to continue her conversation with the fierce-looking lady.

“As I was saying, Phyllis, our focus has changed somewhat,” I heard her say, before they moved out of my earshot.

That’s when I remembered my buddy Corey. I mean, we were friends before I dropped out of school. He called me a bunch of times afterward, tried to keep in touch or whatever, but I didn’t want to talk. I remembered my mom telling me he was driving a truck for some septic company.

I went to go and find a phone book, just as two gleaming gray tour buses pulled up the driveway. My first thought on seeing them was at least they probably had their own toilets.

I was trying to stay the hell out of the way, but when I saw the first shithouse fall off the truck, I thought, goddamn it, I’m going to have to get involved. No way around it.

That feller in the orange shirt with the palm trees on it, the one Prudence was teaching how to write, told Seth to pick it up, the shitter, I mean. And Seth told him no way, he wasn’t handling no toxic waste accident. For once, I had to agree with the little bastard. I guess I can’t call him Chubnuts no more since he’s skinny all the way down.

Then the guy driving the truck started telling us how he took the units off a construction worksite and his boss didn’t know and he could get fired if one got busted and on and on.

And Seth told him how much he appreciated it and the guy said, Man, I never thought this is what you’d ask for when you finally came out of hiding.

From what I could see, them shitters was well used. A couple of falls off a truck wouldn’t make a hell of a lot of difference.

So I said, Jesus Christ, and pulled a few guys together as well as that big lady from the writing group, the one with the shoulders and the bad attitude, and we got it standing upright again.

Then we helped the truck driver, who was some friend of Seth’s with the same long, greasy hair and scary bastards on his T-shirt, to get the other five crappers off the truck. If we hadn’t been so rushed, we might not of set them up right in front of the house the way we did, but there was already a lineup of people waiting to use them. That was about
the time when I noticed Merle’s big bus parked over to the side of the house. I’m not a vain man, but I didn’t want to be wrassling plastic shithouses the first time my brother laid eyes on me after fifty plus years. I apologized to Travis the reporter for swearing at him the way I had. My nerves was on edge. It was too bad about his hand. Getting it slammed in the door of that last shithouse was bad luck. It’s a good thing Travis was holding onto his microphone or it would have been a hell of a lot worse.

I headed back to my cabin after that. The smell of them toilets mixed up with the reek of the rendering plant down the way started making my stomach kick up a fuss. I had half a mind to ask the kid for a dose of whatever it is she takes.

I don’t think it was a very good idea to put the bathrooms so close to the house. But in one way it was good, because Prudence gave me the job of closing and opening the doors because two of the latches got broken when the potties fell off the truck. She is paying me twenty dollars an hour, which the guy who stole the toilets from his job site told Seth is practically a union wage, which is what I hope to get when I grow up. Anyway, because the potties were so close to the house, I could sit on the porch and watch to see if anyone wanted to use them. I sent people to the ones with the handles that worked first. If those ones were busy, I told them to go in one of the broken ones and when they were inside, I put a piece of wood through the latch and hung one of the “Occupied” signs I made on it. The sign’s pretty nice for a toilet. I used metallic ink. When the person was done, they had to knock and I’d let them out.

Seth said it was a job with “plenty of room for error” and he was right. I don’t think anyone with less maturity than me could have done it. When Bethany came over from where she was handing out Rapture pamphlets at the ticket booth with her parents, I said she could help, but I wouldn’t leave her in charge by herself because sometimes she forgets what she’s doing. At first I made some mistakes, like when I forgot to tell this girl that I was going to lock her in and when she heard the wood go through the latch, she screamed. But I explained what was happening and she calmed down.

One guy gave me money when he came out. He was dressed sort of
fancy, almost like a cowboy. He said that ours was the first bluegrass festival he’d ever been to with a bathroom attendant. I looked over at Bethany so he wouldn’t forget to give her money. He corrected himself and said two bathroom attendants and gave her a tip, too.

It was pretty busy working at the potties. There were strange people everywhere and they seemed really happy, like maybe they were on drugs or something. Not to be mean, but you don’t usually see people that happy just walking around. Some of the people looked like farmers and some of them looked like the people you see in music videos, like they were young and had old clothes and interesting haircuts. Some were old and some were more Prudence’s age and younger. They sat all over the place in little groups with their lawn chairs and they played guitars and banjos and harmonicas and other instruments, such as mandolins, which are like guitars. And while they did that, some of the professional musicians started setting up on the bandstand so they could do “sound checks,” which didn’t sound very good. The sound checks were annoying because the musicians would just start a song and then quit almost right away. Quite a few of the musicians came up and complained to Seth about different things, like “artist accommodations” and “backstage facilities” and stuff like that. I think they complained to Seth because he kind of looks like a musician and Reporter Travis was busy fixing equipment and cables and other things.

It was all pretty fun, especially when Prudence asked me and Bethany to sell muffins until the concessions were ready. Prudence made them at about three in the morning the night before, so they were really fresh. She also hired a truck to sell hot dogs and hamburgers and another one to sell pierogies and other food like that but they weren’t due to start until one o’clock. When they showed up, they started arguing over who got to park where and they told Prudence she shouldn’t have hired them both and they threatened to leave until she said they could park across from one another and promised to announce both their names between the acts.

Because there was no other food while the concession stands were getting set up, people didn’t seem to mind spending three dollars on a
muffin and most bought one from me as soon as they came out of the bathroom.

Then the mean girls from the store showed up and everything stopped being fun.

The day was spectacular. Warm, but not stifling. Soft blue skies, silky breezes. Maybe that’s why Phyllis was so reasonable. She didn’t threaten me with fraud charges or anything. But she said she was disappointed and was going to have to report the change in our status to her manager. I reassured her that even though we aren’t a treatment facility anymore, we are still in business.

“Doing what?” she asked, looking around.

“Well, first we’re putting on a bluegrass festival. According to my projections, that should bring in enough to get us up and running. Financially speaking.”

Phyllis smiled wryly.

“Prudence, I don’t want to tell you the dire financial situation of most arts organizations I deal with. I can promise you putting on small concerts is no way to make money.”

“But we’re different. We’ve got a secret weapon.”

She looked hot and a little uncomfortable in her boxy suit and I had to resist the urge to find someone to get her something to drink.

“Our foreman. Earl.”

“I know Earl,” she said. “He’s lived around here a long time. He doesn’t get out much.”

“His last name’s Clemente.”

She stared, waiting.

“His brother is
Merle
Clemente.”

She squinted a bit. Perspiration shone at her temples.

“Is he a curler on the national team?”

“No. Merle Clemente is a world-famous bluegrass musician. He performed at the Oscars a few years ago? After that black and white movie came out?”

Phyllis was clearly not a music or movie fan. No matter. I knew I could convince her.

“Our foreman Earl is Merle Clemente’s brother. They had a band called the High Lonesome Boys in the early fifties.”

She showed no sign of recognition.

“It’s a legendary bluegrass band, especially the early lineup. And this”—I waved an arm around the farm, which was now packed with people and campers and RVs, as well as a steady trickle of backpackers coming in on foot and bicycles—”is going to be their reunion. I’ve been taking calls about this from all over North America. I even got a call from a bluegrass fan magazine in Japan. We have a reporter staying here to document the whole thing. It’s a very big deal.”

“Have you got a permit?” she asked, doubtfully.

“Of course!” I said. I could see she was impressed and once again I was so glad that Travis told me how to secure the permits quickly.

“Come and see me Monday, please,” said Phyllis.

“Absolutely. I think you’re going to be amazed. This concert is going to put us firmly in the black. And when it’s done, we’ll get farming. I hope you saw my raised beds over there. We’re doing well at the local farmers’ market with our specialty greens and I’ve got lots of writing students.”

“I still don’t understand how a treatment center can just turn into a music festival overnight.”

I could see Eustace over by the bandstand. He was talking to Seth.

“I think the key is to remain flexible,” I said. “Adaptable. And to marshal your human resources effectively.”

“If you say so,” she said. She’d just walked away when Seth came up. He also got his feet run over when we moved the ticket booth, so he was walking kind of gingerly. I’d had a moment of worrying that some
of the people who got mashed feet would decide to file workers’ comp claims against me, but Marvin, the business guy in the Mighty Pens, said volunteers have no rights. So that was a relief!

Seth came up and was starting to speak to me when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Eustace was now talking to a girl. She was slim and blonde and, from a distance, looked as though she might be attractive. I didn’t like to see that, but jealousy is never an acceptable response to competition.

“Prudence!” said Seth, raising his voice near to a yell. “Did you hear anything I said?”

“I’m sorry. Who’s that over there?”

He shot an irritated glance in Eustace’s direction.

“I don’t know. Look, I think we have a problem.”

I saw the girl walk away and felt myself take a deep breath. Then Eustace looked over and caught me staring. He waved. I waved back.

It was all very awkward.

“Earl won’t leave his cabin,” said Seth. “And your main attraction said a reunion is the whole reason he’s here.”

“Main attraction,” I repeated, distracted. I had to tear my gaze away from Eustace. I’ve never apologized to anyone and I wasn’t going to start now.

“Merle Clemente! The whole reason all these people have paid forty dollars to be here.”

That caught my attention.