Family, Dilemmas, and Exploding Cows by Maeve Reed My father once told me that he had killed his girlfriend when he was seventeen. I won’t swear it’s the truth, because he’d been drinking at the time. But he said that he had driven through a fence and into the side of the barn. He’d been drunk enough that he came out of it with barely a scratch, but the girl died. Being that it was 1960, the judge gave him the "choice" of jail or the military. “Son,” he said to me, “when you only got two options, it’s not a choice, it’s a dilemma.” He wasn’t kidding. My little sister, Corrine, sat on the faded rust colored couch in the living room. I was sitting at the kitchen table, one of those cheap ones with the fake wood laminate top and aluminum legs that wobbled. She’d been nagging me for a few minutes to play musketeers with her. It was a game we’d been playing for years after seeing The Three Musketeers at the Millstone Drive-in when I was twelve. It had cost a dollar per person. My younger sisters, Corrine and Tonya, hid under blankets in the backseat floor, and my parents had me hide in the trunk. Dad paid for him and Mom, and it was five in for the price of two. Mind you, we hadn’t cared, my sisters and I—we imagined ourselves to be spies infiltrating a top-secret enemy camp, a real adventure. Tonya had fallen asleep about a quarter of the way through the movie, but Corrine and I were amazed at all the action and swordplay. We’d started pretending to be Musketeers as soon as we got home. We used curtain rods for swords and sliced the hell out of each other’s arms. Once, she got me good across the belly. I still have a thin white scar that trails across my ribs. Every now and then, we still play, but only when I get really bored. I miss being that young—that age where a scratch is the only thing you got to worry about. Corrine jumped on the couch, feet planted firmly in the middle cushion. “Hey Billy, you can be Porthos and I’ll be Aramis.” She began to bounce up and down and it was annoying the hell out of me. I mean, damn, I was having a crisis and she wanted to play a game. “Not right now.” She put her hands together, begging style. “Please.” “Not now, Cor, jeezus.” My girlfriend, Laura, had told me she was a couple weeks late for her period and that she was pretty sure she was pregnant. She also told me she was on the pill, but I was thinking that she’d lied. Shit, I wasn’t ready for no kid. Corrine started jumping up and down again on the sofa causing a squeaky racket. “Please, Billy!” she said. All the while jumping and squeaking. I couldn’t take it. “Goddamnit, Cor! You’re thirteen years old. Act it!” Her face dropped flat, like I’d kicked her hard in the stomach. She started to cry, which kind of pissed me off. Corrine never cried, not even when Mom would take the switch to her. “For fuck’s sake. Stop crying or I’m gonna knock the shit out of you.” I didn’t mean it, not really, but she was getting on my last nerve. I’d had enough and was fixing to head out when Dad walked in from feeding the chickens. Corrine was all red-eyed and blotchy. Dad put his hand out to stop me at the door. “What’d you do to your little sister?” “Nothing.” I tried to walk past him, but he was up on me quick and in my face. “Don’t sass me, son.” He poked his finger in my chest—the kind of poke that’d be red for a day and sore for a week. I’d put my hands up automatically. My fingers on both hands were curled almost like a fist, but not quite. Dad took them for fists. “So, boy.” He poked my chest again. “You think you’re tough?” He poked again. “You wanna fight me?” And again. Now, I ain’t ashamed to admit I was getting a little scared. Corrine ran over and tugged on Dad’s arm, the one he wasn’t poking me with. “He didn’t do anything, Dad. Honest!” He pushed off Corrine, which made me real scared. Corrine was his favorite, kind of a daddy’s girl. He poked me again. “You wanna fight me?” “You’re hurting him!” Corrine said. I could see Dad was getting worked up at both of us. I told her, “Stay out of this, Cor,” then turned back to Dad. “I don’t want to fight, sir. I didn’t mean to . . . ” And that’s when the punch landed square on my nose. It wasn’t a real hard hit, but it hurt and sent me stumbling back. My eyes were watering and through the blur I could see Dad coming towards me again, so I took off running. I knew I was taking a chance by running—a chance that when and if I got back home I’d get whooped good, but I was too scared not to run. Dad didn’t call after me to stay. I’d wandered around in the woods, even made it to Old Ed Stephens’ property. I couldn’t believe Dad hit me in the face. Hell, he hadn’t taken the belt to me since I’d been eleven. He used to send us kids to our rooms for a few minutes before the belting began and he’d usually just put a couple of swipes across the ass. Used to say, “If I don’t wait to calm down, I’d probably kill you.” Dad was a drunk, not a beater, or as he liked to say, “a lover, not a fighter.” But my nose felt fairly beat. What the hell was I gonna do about Laura? After a good long while, I'd felt fairly certain that it was safe to go home. Dad, almost definitely, had gone out by then—or passed out. Dad had taken early retirement from the Marines when he was thirty-six. That was in 1978. He’d do odd jobs every now and then, but for the most part, he just hung at the bars, pissing away his retirement. The tavern he liked the best had a little sign that said, “We don’t have a town drunk. We all take turns.” That about summed it up. *** When I got home, the girls weren’t in the living room. They’d gone to bed—probably the safe choice. I was surprised to see Dad sitting on the couch, though not surprised to see that he had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He didn’t even look up when I walked in. Mom rushed over to me—worry on her face. “Baby! Are you okay?” I guessed my nose was already swollen and my eyes were getting dark. She wore a blue smock and her hair tied back loosely in a bun. It was after ten, and she was already late for her nightshift at the nursing home. She held my face and looked it over good. I flinched when she touched my nose. Dad turned and looked. He was unimpressed. “Boy shouldn’t have gotten uppity with me.” Then he was back to his beer. I knew that he must have felt bad, though, otherwise he’d have yelled at me for taking off. Dad didn’t like to apologize. Quiet was his way of saying sorry, which meant it was safe for me to go from scared to pissed off. Mom tried to put a piece of frozen poultry on my face, but I shoved it away and went back to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. My bedroom was the living room; the only place in the trailer with some privacy was the bathroom. Since there wasn’t a lock, I shoved the pail of water that sat next to the commode over in front of the door Some of it sloshed around on the floor. I pushed a little more gently. We didn’t have running water and I sure didn’t want to be trudging down to the well to draw some more to flush the toilet. A light knock sounded at the door. I knew it was Corrine, because I could hear Mom going at Dad in the other room, and Tonya goes to sleep early. “Go away,” I said to her. “You okay, Billy?” Her voice was quiet. Quiet so Dad wouldn’t hear. “I’m sorry.” “Go to bed, Cor.” I didn’t hear anything else out of her, so I supposed she did. Mom didn’t go to work that night. She was screaming at Dad, telling him what a lousy husband and father he was. “William, if you don’t change, I’m gonna pack up the kids and leave!” Dad came back with his usual, “Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you.” Mom didn’t say anything back. I could hear her crying, then the door slammed, and the truck started up outside. Dad had left, but I knew he’d be back in the morning. He almost always came back the next day. I looked in the mirror above the sink. My nose didn’t look as bad as it felt, a little swollen with some color around my eyes. I splashed some water from the bucket on my face. I knew, without having to be in the living room, that mom was now on her knees in the living room praying. I settled down on the bathroom floor to sleep—her prayers could go on all night. She believed her religion could save us all. Once, when I was little, I couldn’t have been more than eight, Dad had taken me with him to help a neighbor, Mr. Thomsen, work on a tractor. The old man pulled a pint of Kentucky bourbon from behind the tire. Him and Dad cozied up to a sip or four. They laid in the shade of the giant wheel, getting drunk in front of a field of soybeans. Mom dragged the girls along to witness, while she and her church group came trudging out into Thomsen’s field. Dad and the old man stood up. Thomsen looked a little freaked. “What the hell?” he asked Dad. But Dad just laughed, then settled back down by the tractor wheel. “Hand me the pint, Hank,” he said to the old man, who obliged Dad by joining him on the ground and passing him the bottle. My sisters and I watched the small army of Christians join hands and form a circle around them. Their combined voices formed a mumbled song of redemption as they prayed for lost souls. The sound built, slowly mounting its attack. It became louder and louder until the soldiers of God climaxed with crying and collapsing while speaking in tongues. Dad and the old man finished the pint and waited for them to be still, then stepped over the sprawled bodies and headed to Thomsen’s farmhouse for another. Dad just did what he wanted to do, everyone else be damned. Sometimes, I admire that part of him. Laura had called me two days after the punch in the nose. She wanted me to meet her at the swinging bridge. I told her I’d go. I didn’t. My face felt better. My nose was still a bit swollen and the skin around my eyes was starting to yellow. I started talking to Corrine shortly after. I mean, hell, we lived way out in the boon-docks, as Dad would say, or BFE, bum fucking Egypt, as I like to put it, and she was the only person I could talk to. Most of the time, Cor was as good as a little brother—an honest to God tomboy. *** Corrine had a screwdriver and was tracing her name in the gravel drive. She kept going over the C until it was a good two inches thick. She wasn’t wearing any shoes, as usual. The girl had cowhide calluses on the bottom of her feet. Tonya, our youngest sister, was sitting in the grass next to the drive playing stick people—two bigger ones made up the mom and dad, and two little ones for the kids. She had gathered a few white puffball mushrooms to make chairs and a red elephant ear for a bed. Tonya had began to take rocks from the drive to outline a home for her little people, but any time she got to close to Corrine she’d get a rap on the knuckles with the plastic end of the flat-head. I smiled. “Hey Cor, let’s go for a walk.” Corrine didn’t look at me, just kept tracing the C, but Tonya’s head nearly snapped up. “Can I go, Billy?” I tousled Tonya’s blond curls. “Not this time, Squirt.” “You’re messing up my hair!” I grinned at her. “I know.” I looked back over to Corrine. “What do you say?” She put the screwdriver down, stood up, dusted her shorts off, and said, “Okay.” We headed out into the woods, neither of us saying much. Wooded hills made up most our property—a small forty acres Dad had inherited from his father—except for a large pond, a small trailer, and a long gravel drive. I loved the woods best. When I wandered the thick stretch of hickory, black walnut, and oak trees, it felt like I was in another world. No other reality existed—a nice place to just be. Corrine jumped over a prickly bush and looked mighty proud because she’d cleared it easily. I walked around it. Corrine stood in calf deep weeds and slapped at her ankle. “Damn chiggers!” “That’s why I wear shoes and long pants,” I told her, all sage and wise. She just nodded. We walked on down to a creek that ran through the property. It was fed by a fresh spring and even during these dog days of summer, it ran clear. Corrine picked up a rock and threw it in. “I’m really sorry, Billy. About the other day, that is.” I shrugged. “Not your fault.” She picked up a bigger rock and dropped it in. It splashed. “I shouldn’t have acted like a baby. I was just mad,” she said. “You know it’s the only time I cry.” “I’m over it,” I told her. She turned around and looked me in the eye. It was the first time since the poke in the nose. I guess it must have satisfied her, because she smiled. “What next?” I grinned at her. “You ever smoke grapevine?” She grinned back. “Nope.” I jumped the creek and Corrine followed after me. We dashed through the woods dodging low hanging branches and whatever else got in the way, until we came out on the backside of the forty. Wild grapes grew all over the Ozarks. Our property was no exception. They just looped themselves in tangles over the smaller trees and up the sides of the big ones. Sometimes you could find them growing on the barbed wire fences. I wondered how those bastards managed to migrate all over the place. The little clusters of purple fruit were sour, not worth eating, but I did make some wine with them once. I had to add a lot of sugar to make it drinkable. I picked over the vines, avoiding the ones that had poison ivy next to them. I was deathly allergic. I’d had enough steroid shots in the past to know I didn’t want another. I’d found a gray vine that didn’t have any of those big heart-shaped leaves on it. I snapped off a two-foot segment, then broke it down into finger length sections. The soft white core was completely dried. I lit up two of them with a Zippo lighter I’d taken from Dad, one for me and one for Corrine. She put it to her lips and inhaled a small amount, just enough to brighten the red cherry outside layer. She coughed when she exhaled and barely managed a “that’s smooth.” I laughed. It took a lot of practice to smoke dried grapevine and barely notice the burn. I’d been doing it for five years now—-started when I was twelve. Her throat and lungs would get used to it, mine did. Besides, it was a hell of lot cheaper than cigarettes and less risky than pinching Dad’s Camels. “The secret," I said, "is to make sure it’s completely dried. A little green will kill you.” I took a long drag and blew it out slowly. I didn’t actually know if green vine would kill you. Hell, I didn’t even think you could smoke it—too wet to keep a fire, but it was great to see her scared eyes really look at what she was puffing on. “Hey, I only pick the good stuff.” I lightly punched her arm. “You’ll be fine.” She half smiled, like she wasn’t too sure I could be trusted. “Yeah, Billy. I knew that.” She held the three-inch gray stick of vine like it was a joint, between the pointer finger and the thumb, but didn’t take another drag. I’m not certain how she had learned that move. I mean, I don’t think she’d ever smoked pot. Maybe it was just natural. Who knows, maybe we’re all born with the ability to get high. “You going to smoke it, or just let it burn?” Yeah, I was baiting her, but what fun is life if you can’t mess with your little sister? Besides, being the only boy in a family full of girls, it was pure self-defense. She took another drag, deeper this time and I thought she was going to hack up a lung. We both laughed when she finally got her wind back. “Laura’s pregnant,” I said. I knew it was a lot to put on a thirteen-year-old, but I didn’t have any one else I could talk to. “How?” she asked, then changed her question to, “For sure?” “Hell, I don’t know.” I sighed and plopped down in the grass near a wide oak. I leaned back and took another drag from the vine. Corrine came over and joined me on the ground. She put her back on my shoulder and leaned against me. “What you gonna do?” “I don’t know. It’s probably not even mine. The girl’s easy.” I knew that wasn’t true. There’d been blood the first time we did it, so I was pretty sure I’d popped her cherry. But I’d learned from Dad that in desperate times you always CYA, cover your ass. “What’ll you do if it’s yours?” “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.” “But . . .” “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore, Cor.” “You brought it up.” “Yeah, well, I’m un-bringing it up.” “But . . .” she started. “Stop . . .” “But . . .” “Enough, Cor.” She settled into my shoulder with a deep “hrrmmppft.” The sun was getting down. Corrine and me just sat there in the quiet for a while. The crickets and tree frogs must’ve thought they were alone because it started to get noisy with chirping and trilling. It began with one or two, then after a few minutes it was like we were completely surrounded by thousands of them. I still didn’t know what I was going to do about Laura. Laura was what most people call a nice girl, or at least she was before she met me. She was a small boned and skinny girl, not like my mom and older sisters, who were large women. Now, they weren’t fat, but they definitely had what Dad called “child bearing hips.” In other words, they were all ass. We started seeing each other at the beginning of my junior year. Her dad was the banker in town and I’m sure most people wondered what the hell she was doing hanging out with poor white trash. Her Daddy bought her an apple red 72’ Cutlass Oldsmobile for her sixteenth birthday. It was in cherry condition with black pinstripes down the sides. Hell, I think I would have dated her for the car alone. “Billy, do you love me?” she asked me about four or five months after we started going out. She had her shirt off, with only her bra covering her small, but nice, tits. Her pants were unzipped and I’d had my hand down in them for a few minutes. “Yes,” I’d told her, and I’d meant it. The sex was not as good for her as it was for me—I came, she didn’t—but we got better over the next couple of months. It’s amazing how easy it is to be in love, when you don’t have to think about the future. Yeah, the future. What kind of future could I have now? Corrine seemed wise beyond her years, sitting there next to me against that tree. My three older sisters made their own choices about boys and men, but Corrine would be different. I wouldn’t let her fall for poor white trash—some one like Dad, like me. She deserved better. She stopped staring off into the distance and looked at me. “You gonna tell Mom and Dad?” The crickets and tree frogs went silent. “I don’t know.” Telling Mom and Dad would be the last thing I’d want to do. I could see them both. Dad telling me what a screw-up I am, and Mom wondering where she went wrong. Hell, she’d probably go on a week’s fast to get closer to God. Once she fasted so long she hallucinated. She still swears that an angel came to her—who knows, maybe one did. I could’ve used an angel. Corrine shifted a little. “Laura going to keep the baby?” “I don’t know, Cor.” “When you going to talk to her again?” she said. I grabbed her in a headlock and she squirmed around trying to get free. “I. Don’t. Know!” I tightened my hold. She lightly bit my side, not hard enough to break the skin, but enough that I let go. Corrine jumped up and took off running. I went after her and grabbed her arms from behind. She jumped up and landed on both my feet then slid down out of my hold—laughing the whole time. We wrestled around for a while. Cor’s a scrapper and held her own for awhile, until I got her pinned down by the shoulders. She tried to bite my hands, but I kept moving her arms farther apart so she couldn’t reach. “Say Uncle.” “No.” “Say Uncle.” She kicked her feet out, trying to buck me off, but I wasn’t budging. “Say Uncle.” “Uncle,” she said through clenched teeth. I smiled. “Good. Now say, Billy is the king.” “No way!” I held both her arms above her head with one hand and flicked her forehead with the other. “Come on, now. Billy is the king. Say it.” I flicked her again. “Billy is the king,” she said through gritted teeth. I let her up. She ran about ten feet away and yelled, “Billy is the king asshole!” I ran after, grabbed her in another headlock, and we fell against a tree. We were both laughing, and then she got a strange look on her face. “Uh, Billy,” she said, pointing at the tree we were leaning against. “Poison Ivy.” “Shit!” I jerked my back off the trunk. Sure enough, a three-leafed vine of poison ivy snaked right up the side. “Shit! Shit! Shit! I got to get home!” I took off running like hornets were chasing me. Corrine followed right after. I knew if I didn’t get washed up quick with some gasoline, I’d be in a world of hurt later. When we got home, Dad’s truck was gone, probably at the bar. We saw Tonya down at the coop playing with the chickens. I ran and got Dad’s gasoline bucket from the shed. I took out the carburetor that’d been soaking in it. Corrine grabbed an old sock from the rag bucket. I stripped off my shirt, grabbed the sock from her, and dipped it in the dirty gas. I scrubbed my arms until they were completely covered in the black and grit. Corrine wiped my back down after I was done with the arms. We both went into the house smelling like a diesel. Mom was asleep on the couch. We snuck past her. She’d worked the night before and could get pretty grouchy if she didn’t get enough rest. Corrine walked over to her, real quiet like, and leaned down. “Hey Mom,” she whispered. “What time is it?” Mom, still sleeping, mumbled “It’s ten o’clock. Time to go to bed.” Corrine giggled and I grabbed her arm, pulling her into the kitchen area. “You trying to wake her?” She gave me a “whatever” look and rolled her eyes. “It’d take more than that to wake her.” Mom had heated some water to do dishes and it was still warm in the kitchen sink. I washed up in it best I could, then Corrine washed her hands. Gravel crunched outside as a car pulled up the drive. I looked out the kitchen window. “Shit,” I whispered. Mom would have thumped me for cussing. Corrine came over next to me. “Who is it?” “Shhh. It’s Laura and she’s got someone with her.” All sorts of horrible things were going through my mind. Had she told her parents? Was the other person in the car her mom or dad? Was I fixing to get an ass whipping? “Cor, go and check who she’s with. If it’s her parents, tell her I went off with Dad.” “I think you should go . . .” “Quit thinking, and do what I tell you to do!” Through the dusty window, I watched Corrine walk over to the car. She leaned into the driver side window. They talked for a few moments, then Laura got out. A friend of hers, Jillian, stepped out of the passenger door. Corrine looked at the window I was staring from and motioned me to come out. I walked outside and stood in front of the door. Laura joined me. “We need to talk,” she said. Sweat started leaking from every pore and my body was shaking and all of a sudden, my swollen nose cleared, and I could smell the musty smoke from the grapevine over the gasoline. I started feeling dizzy and sick to my stomach. “My God, Billy. You look like shit,” Laura said. “And stink.” I manage to sit on the edge of the porch. I put my head between my knees, because it just felt better. When things got clearer and I could look at Laura without my head spinning, I agreed to talk. Jillian and Corrine stayed out by the car. “What do you want to do about this?” she asked me. “I don’t know. What do you want me to do?” She looked away. “I love you.” I grabbed her hand and I couldn’t tell if she was trembling or if it was just me. She looked beautiful. “I think you’re great, Laura,” I told her. “But I’m too young to have a wife and baby.” I was trying for sincere, but all I sounded was scared. “How do I know this baby is even mine?” I wanted to take it back, soon as I said it. She yanked her hand out of mine. “Billy Allister Johnson! You know damned well any baby of mine would be yours too!” She was crying. I cared about her, I did. But I couldn’t handle this. Not now. I put my arm around her and she let me. “I know. It was a stupid thing for me to say. I’m just scared.” She put her head on my chest. “I’m scared, too,” she said. “I really need to know what you want to do.” I knew my words would hurt her, but I forced them out any ways. “I think we should get an abortion.” “I do. I did, or at least I thought I did.” I knew I was digging a hole deeper than our well, but I was only seventeen. I didn’t want a baby. Laura walked to the car. She shoved past Corrine and got in behind the wheel. I followed her and leaned towards the window. Jillian stared at me something hateful. “You’re an asshole, Billy,” she said, then got in on the other side. I gave the prissy bitch the bird, and she returned the favor. “What are you going to do about being pregnant?” I asked Laura. She shook her head. “There’s no pregnancy, Billy.” “What?” “It was a false alarm.” I couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Not pregnant?” Jillian piped in, “Not pregnant, dick head. You got a hearing problem?” “Fuck off,” I said to Jillian, while looking at Laura. “What was all this shit about then? “After the way you acted when I told you I might be,” she said. “I had to know if I could trust you.” “You lying bitch.” I punched the roof of her car. “Trust me? Trust me!” Laura, a little mad and scared, started the engine. “Don’t bother calling me, talking to me, or even looking in my direction, Billy Johnson. We’re through!” Rocks flew out from her tires as she peeled out of the drive way and up the gravel road. I threw more rocks after her, screaming and yelling the whole time. Corrine grabbed me by the arm. “Billy! You’re going to wake up Mom.” I froze. The dust settled on the road. My eyes started to water and I wiped at them. Corrine put her arm around my waist. “You okay?” she asked. I wasn’t sure if I was or not, but I said, “yeah, just got some dust in them.” She squeezed my waist a little tighter. “All right.” “You okay?” I asked. “I think the reason I cried the other day, “ she said, “was because I’d started my period.” I rubbed her back. “Oh,” I said. “First one?” Hell, I had three older sisters—periods were nothing new. She looked up at me and nodded. I tried to smile, but I couldn’t force one, not even a little. “You growing up on me, kid?” “I’m not ready, yet,” she said. “You tell Mom?” “Yeah. She made a whole deal out of it. Went on about how I was becoming a woman. She even wanted to give me the sex talk. Eck! ” She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and shivered. “I told her to save it.” “Hmm.” I nodded and my right arm started to itch with the first signs of rash. When I was eleven, Dad had given me a Holstein calf to fatten up and sell as I saw fit. His soft fur was brown-black and I named him Bully. That little cow loved to eat. If I didn’t get the bottle to him quick enough, he’d nearly bowl me over by ramming his thick head between my legs. It didn’t take long for him to start eating grass and grain. After about six months, it became obvious that something was wrong with Bully. He was getting real fat, real fast, but he wasn’t getting any taller. Dad told me that Bully had some sort of rare cow illness that had stunted his growth. He’d never be a fully-grown bull. Three months after that, I found Bully on his side in the pasture. His tongue was lolling out of his mouth, all horrible and blue, with a chewed up wad of grass swollen in his cheek, and his intestines were hanging out of his ass. He'd exploded. Dad helped me haul his bloated dead body over the hill and dump him in the woods. After we got home, Dad put his hand on my shoulder and said, “these things happen, son.” At times, he is the master of understatements. Maeve Reed's short fiction has appeared in earlier issues of Sweetgum Notes. She currently lives in Knob Noster, Missouri. Copyright © 2007. Do not reproduce without permission. Home Contents