jugwriting-blog

[jugwriting-blog]

The Only Son

The young man stood on the edge of his porch in the paling daylight, looking down the long drive at the approaching lights. Dust coated the gravel drive and revealed the tracks of the cars as they pulled up, engines puttering before silencing. He watched, eyes washing over the scene lazily, as the vehicle doors eased open with nearly-perfect synchrony, watched as the men in neat suits and polished shoes stepped out, watched as the doors were snapped shut again with one unanimous, resounding slam that echoed through the otherwise empty air. He noted, with no small amount of amusement, that not even their cautious steps could keep the dust down, and the men’s shoes kicked up clouds of it. Not so polished now, are they? It was dusty land, yes, a dirty, stubborn land, but it was his, and he wouldn’t part with it for all the money in the world. He braced an arm on the porch railing as the men approached, teeth digging into the inside of his cheek, hard and sharp, the only sign he gave of any nervousness. He knew what they were there for.

They were here for the father.

Oh, but the father was gone. He was gone, just like all the others were gone. The father had left him. The father had taken his truck, taken it out right under his nose, and the father was never coming back. The father had left him with the land, the land that the father had started to hate so much, the land that gave no crops, that yielded no profit. The father had left him in the deadlands.  

They wanted to look around. Judge the property.

That was fine.

And it was fine. The father could have taken him when he left. The father could have torn out the last roots planted on their land, the last crop that could grow in the dry dust. But the father had left without him, and he was glad. He wouldn’t leave his land. These men would not take it from him. They would be like the father. They would leave, and they would never come back.

How was everything?

Never better.

He was fine. But they wanted him to be broken, didn’t they? They wanted him to be in pain. They wanted him to be weak, because a weak boy does what he’s told. He was alone, don’t you know. He was abandoned on a barren ground. But he had his courage. He had collected it with the morning sun, had filled his pockets with it, and he was not broken. He was not afraid.  He was not weak. He pushed off the railing as the men walked past him, following them through the ragged screen door, eyes on them the whole way. It was almost predatory, the way he watched them, the same way they watched the house; judging and sizing up and putting a price to what he saw. There was an alien feeling rising up, a guilt, disconnected from a cause, that settled first in the pit of his stomach, and then rose to clench around his heart, sending a choking pain rippling through him. It tortured him like that as the men trailed through the house, shoes leaving prints in the settled dust layers on the hardwood, heals clacking as they went. He followed, and the feeling finally rose up, rose straight up to his head, where it suddenly faded.

The men stepped out from the bedroom, the dark one that the father had frequented on the nights when he stumbled and slurred; the one that belonged to no one. Don’t you go in there, son. Don’t you lay one god-- finger on that door. Don’t you ever go in there. They exchanged their comments, passed their judgment back and forth, and then they looked at him expectantly.

Outside. The back. Show them the back. They’re going to love the back, aren’t they?

It smiled, a brief thing, horribly stretched and foreign on its face, and led them back through the house and out the screen, letting them pass it on the porch and guiding them from the back around the side of the house. It followed their gazes as they looked up with judgmental expressions, following the lines of the weeds that grew along the brick-and-board, lip curling as it looked back down.

It’s a stubborn land, gents.

The men chortled lowly among themselves, and when they rounded to the back, it diverged, settling itself by one of the stacked crates and slipping its hand under the burlap piled up on top. Keep it there. Keep it there and only use it if you have to. It pulled it back just as slowly, shifting its body slightly to shield its arm, the remnants of its falsified amusement melting from its expression.

Collect your courage.

- good price - enough money - hope left in it -

Collect your courage.

- sell - good price - too young -

Collect your courage.

- truck?

It stepped away from the crates, then, making its way across the browning grass, heavy boots thumping, clouds of dust mushrooming up to cover the legs of its jeans in a layer of blood-dirt, and the men turned to look at it. They took in its face. They took in the fire in its eyes. They took in the savage curl of its lip, listened to the snarl rising from its throat, and felt the first shot of lead.

Yes, sir.

The young man stood on the edge of his porch, looking down the drive at the approaching vehicle, hands digging further into his pockets as his shoulders sank inward, weakening under the weight of what this visit would mean. He was young. He was young, and the father was gone, and he had no money, and he could not stay on his land. They were here to take him. They were here to relocate him. The hands in his pockets clenched, straining against the rough denim. He stepped off the porch as the car slowed to a stall, making his way over to the two men stepping out, already feeling tired. His boots kicked up the red dirt, clouds of it settling on the legs of his jeans, staining them a dark crimson. Yes, it was a hard land, a bleeding land, but he wouldn’t part with it. He held out his hand as he approached the men, shaking each of their hands in turn, noting the hard calluses and the rough skin. They were hard hands, worker’s hands, and he hoped that they could tell the same from his. His were callused with the strain of labor, of planting and sowing, hardened by dirt and heat. Bury it, son. Cover it completely. Don’t want the rain laying it bare. There you go, bury it. No, he would not part with his land. He could not. Not for all the world.

How was he?

Fine. Never better.

They asked to sit. He led them to the porch, three sets of boots thumping on the creaking wooden steps, urged them to the chairs that leaned against the brick. They sat, unconsciously mirroring each other - long-term partners, most likely - as they leaned forward to rest their elbows on their knees, hands clasping in front of them as they looked at him with a mixture of sternness and sympathy. He pushed himself up onto the railing, bracing himself as the old wood shifted under him, and looked down at his lap as they began to speak. He didn’t need to hear them. He knew what they were here for.

Where was the father?

He didn’t know.

The father had left without a goodbye, without warning, without an explanation, without a destination. The father was gone. We have to leave, boy. You’ve ruined us, do you understand? You’ve ruined us. We were supposed to do this carefully. The father was gone, and the son was not, and they couldn’t have that. They couldn’t have him living alone on the land. It was against the law. He had to leave. He had to leave, not like the father, not like the others, but leave all the same. It wasn’t his land. It had been the father’s land, and the father had left his land, had abandoned it, all they had worked to build, and now it belonged to the state. It was public property. It was the law’s. He bit his lip, looking up at the partners - still mirrored in their pity, their false empathy - and then turned to look over his shoulder at the dirt drive, at the gravel strewn along the side of it, at the dying grass and the rotting fields. It was the law’s drive. It was the law’s gravel. It was the law’s land. He turned back to the police, eyes stinging, and his stomach clenched around a sick, disconnected guilt.

Let me say goodbye. Please let me say goodbye.

The partners nodded - not at the same time, he noted, although when they stood it was in synchronized unity - and he slid off the railing, boots thudding hollowly on the rickety floor before he was turning off of the porch, the officials close behind.

They were making sure he didn’t run. They couldn’t stand to have him running on the law’s land.

His gut clenched, that strange, nagging wrongness that steadily moved from his stomach to his heart, forming a painful ache behind his ribs. That ache turned the burning behind his eyes to liquid, and the tears fell as he reached the edge of the drive, looking out over the faded asphalt of the road at the end of it.  They traced burning rivers down his dirty cheeks, turned him to mud, distorted him. No. It was his land. It was his. He looked out for a few long moments, and then turned abruptly, stiffly, and marched past the officials, shoulders bumping against them as he split through the small amount of space between them.

We have something to show them, before they left. In the back. Oh, they would love the back, wouldn’t they?

The men followed him obediently - like lambs to slaughter - and the act of it had the corner of his mouth quirking up, the clench in his chest moving up to pulse calmly in his temples. It led them around to the back of the house, pointing off a little ways in direction as it made its way across the lawn. It could hear them close behind it, and its mouth twitched further, baring the hint of teeth, and it stopped at the edge of the hill, pointing down into the ditch at the bottom with a sharp grin.

Isn’t that neat, boys? Isn’t that something?

The truck sat neatly embedded in dried mud, in piles of garbage, in crushed remnants of feed sacks and holding barrels.

Don’t they want to look closer? Don’t they want to see it? It’s real neat up close, isn’t it? Go on. 

It led the way down the hill, laughing boyishly and pausing periodically to look back at them, to urge them forward. Life-threatening curiosity was a part of their job. They couldn’t help sticking their noses into everything. Soon they were following after it again, although more warily, watching it with a slow-forming suspicion that passed from it to the truck almost as soon as they got within five feet of the old Chevy. It urged them on - look in the windows! Look in the windows, it’s real neat! We’re gonna miss it, you know, what a shame - and watched as they moved from the dirt-smudged, cracked windows to the dusty tarp flung sloppily over the truck bed. That’s the best part, fellas. Good idea. It stood back, watching as they lifted the edge and peered in, watched as they reeled back, watched as their hands shot instinctively to their belts ( I did it, boys, yes i did , the only son ), but it already had its own out, already in its hand, already aimed, and it was over with two pops, two flexes of a single finger.

Yes, sir.

The father  was the first.

It was in the morning, with the sun burning hot on their backs, pulling the water from under their skin, drenching them in the stench of the earth. The son was the first one up. This was usual. He woke up early and would stand on the porch as the sun rose over the browning fields, making the dead grass look like dancing gold. He would wait until the effect ended, until the browning fields were browning fields again, and then he would move out back, gathering up an armful of tools and moving out into the bent stalks of the fields. He would set to work, sweating through his shirt within thirty minutes, wiping at his forehead and smearing dirt over his skin as his neck turned red under the sun’s gaze. Then the father would come out, and he would yell, and he would curse the dirt and curse the sun, and he would curse the son for being as stubborn as the land he tended, and he would slur and stumble over the wood of the porch.

You and that field, boy. You and that damned field. You and that red dirt. What are you doing, boy? Huh? What the hell are you doing? You’ll dig up the whole damn thing.

That morning went differently. It started the way it usually did. The son stood on the edge of the porch, and he watched the sun turn the fields to dancing gold, and he watched the gold fade again. He walked to the backyard, looked over the ridge of the hill, gathered up his armload of tools. He moved out into the bent stalks, and he dug the hoe into the hard, rocky earth, turning it as the sun beats down. He sweat through his shirt. His neck reddened under the sun’s gaze. The screen door slapped open, knocking against the wall of the house, and the father’s slurred yells drifted out into the dead corn. The father cursed the dirt, and cursed the sun, and cursed the young man’s stubbornness. He went on and on, and that’s where the morning changed. The father clumped across the porch in his heavy boots, the leather softened by wear but the soles as hard as they had been when they were new, and the father stepped off the porch - two louder thumbs and a muffled clomp at the end as he hit the dirt. Then the truck, the engine sputtering into life - need to leave, before they show up - and then another shout, and the son straightened up, lifting a hand up to shield his eyes against the glare, squinting.

You did it again. You did it, didn’t you?

The boy straightened further, the squint turning more confused than useful. A clenching had started in his gut, slowly spreading until it covered him completely, pulsing through veins and tearing through skin. It was familiar, oh so familiar, a ghost of something.

Didn’t you?

He looked down at the hoe in his hands, and then stooped down, squatting on his haunches to gather up the rest, jostling them into position in his arms. His fingers dug into the Arizona dirt, scraping through it as he gathered up his things, staining his skin a dark red. It stood back up, the movement stiff and mechanical, jostling the tools so it could wipe its forehead, smearing it with the dirt on its hands. It mingled with the sweat, turning muddy, dripping down its skin like blood. It ducked around the father, sneering, and walked with a lopsided gait - Step, shuffle. Step, shuffle. Shuffle, step. - around to the back, where it ducked into the shed. The father continued to yell.

Boy, I told you. Not again. Never again.

It let the shovel and the hoe and the rake and the bucket tumble onto the shed floor in a heap, the clatter lost to it.

You did it. You did it. Didn’t you? You disobeyed.

It moved - step, shuffle. Step, shuffle. Step, shuffle - to the back of the shed, reaching to the wall, fingers wrapping around its prize.

Do you want them to find out? Are you trying to get caught? All this that we’ve worked so damn hard for, are you trying to lose that? Do you want to destroy everything we’ve built here?

It stepped from the shed, eyes snapping to the father, who was still yelling, still cursing, still slurring, still stumbling across the dead grass. It stopped, toe digging into the dead dirt, eyes flickering down to track the movement.

This was its land. It would not part with it. Not ever.

It lifted his eyes, and its arm moved with it. The father let out one more slur - Oh, God, you did - and the pops came out fast, evenly spaced, purposeful. The father stopped yelling, stopped cursing, stopped slurring, stopped stumbling, stopped praying. The father fell, dead as the red dirt under him.

Yes, sir.

The young man stands on the edge of his porch. The days are short. The father is gone. No one lives in the town, and nothing lives in the fields. He stands in a dusty, barren land, and it had given all it could yield. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, there is a tiny voice, one he’s not even aware of, whispering: You haven’t met me; I’m the only son. When the sun rises, he will make his way out into the fields, and he will reap what he sowed, and he will join the dirt with a confession, gun in his hand.

Yes, sir.

Yes, it was me.

I know what I’ve done.