nests in the drainpipes with beakfuls of hay until one day a dead pink baby bird drops to the feet of one of the ladies, who screams and clutches her hair. You scoop it up and toss it on the manure pile, and Curt comes out with the long ladder and pours boiling water down the pipe, and that is the end of the sparrows. Curt laughs at the lady, and rolls his eyes behind her back, and winks at us. We wink back. There is a fly strip in the corner that quivers with dying flies. When it is black with bodies and bits of wing, it is our job to replace it, and we hold our breath when we take it down, praying it wonât catch in our hair. And then there are the rats, so many rats that we rip from glue boards and smash with shovels, or pull from snap traps and fling into the woods, or find floating in water troughs where theyâve dragged themselves, bellies distended with poison and dying of thirst.
In the basement is the workbench where Curt never works; above it, rusty nails sit in a line of baby food jars with lids screwed into a low beam. The manure spreader is parked down there in the dark, like a massive shamed beast. When we open the trap door in the floor above to dump loads from our wheelbarrows, a rectangle of light illuminates the mound of dirty shavings and manure, and we see mice scurry over itlike currents of electricity. The ladies never go down to the basement. It is there that we sometimes sit to discuss them, comparing their hair, their mouths, the size of their breasts. Did you see that one throw up behind the barn Friday afternoon? Did you see this oneâs diamond ring? Did you see that one slip those pills into Curtâs shirt pocket, smiling at him? What were they?
We hear them call their husbandsâ offices on the barn telephone and say they are calling from home. We watch two or three go into the little house together, shutting the door behind them. We see Curt stagger from the house and fall over in the yard and stay where he falls, very still, until one of the ladies comes out and helps him up, laughing, and takes him back inside. The ladies hang around when the farrier comes, a friend of Curtâs with blond hair and a cowboy hat, watching as he beats a shoe to the shape of a hoof with his hammer. He swears as he works and we stand in the shadows by the grain room and listen carefully, cataloguing every new word. When he leaves, one or two ladies ride off with him in his truck and return an hour or so later and go back to what they had been doing, as if they had never left. They lock themselves in the tack room and fill it with strange-smelling smoke. When we sit in the hayloft we hear their voices below us, high and excited, like small children. The ladies wear lipstick in the morning that is gone by the afternoon. They wear their sunglasses on cloudy days. Some mornings we see that the oil drum we use for empty grain bags is filled to the top with beer bottles. We watch them, and the rules that have been strung in our heads like thick cables fray and unravel in adazzling arc of sparks. Then we climb on the poniesâ backs and ride away down the hill.
One afternoon Curt gives us each a cigarette, and laughs as we try to inhale. Look, g irls! he says, striking a match on the sole of his boot and lighting his own. Like this. We watch his face as he takes a drag, his jaw shadowed with a three-day beard. Later we steal two more from his pack and ride into the woods to practice, watching each other and saying, No, like this! Like this! We put Epsom salts in Curtâs coffee and lock the tack room door from the inside. We steal his baseball cap and manage to get it hooked on the weathervane. Ha! we say, and spit on the ground. Take that! He throws one of his flip-flops at us. He drags us shrieking to the courtyard and sprays us with the hose. He tells us we stink. We tell him we donât care.
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There is one horse worth more money than the rest put togetherâit was brought over on
In the basement is the workbench where Curt never works; above it, rusty nails sit in a line of baby food jars with lids screwed into a low beam. The manure spreader is parked down there in the dark, like a massive shamed beast. When we open the trap door in the floor above to dump loads from our wheelbarrows, a rectangle of light illuminates the mound of dirty shavings and manure, and we see mice scurry over itlike currents of electricity. The ladies never go down to the basement. It is there that we sometimes sit to discuss them, comparing their hair, their mouths, the size of their breasts. Did you see that one throw up behind the barn Friday afternoon? Did you see this oneâs diamond ring? Did you see that one slip those pills into Curtâs shirt pocket, smiling at him? What were they?
We hear them call their husbandsâ offices on the barn telephone and say they are calling from home. We watch two or three go into the little house together, shutting the door behind them. We see Curt stagger from the house and fall over in the yard and stay where he falls, very still, until one of the ladies comes out and helps him up, laughing, and takes him back inside. The ladies hang around when the farrier comes, a friend of Curtâs with blond hair and a cowboy hat, watching as he beats a shoe to the shape of a hoof with his hammer. He swears as he works and we stand in the shadows by the grain room and listen carefully, cataloguing every new word. When he leaves, one or two ladies ride off with him in his truck and return an hour or so later and go back to what they had been doing, as if they had never left. They lock themselves in the tack room and fill it with strange-smelling smoke. When we sit in the hayloft we hear their voices below us, high and excited, like small children. The ladies wear lipstick in the morning that is gone by the afternoon. They wear their sunglasses on cloudy days. Some mornings we see that the oil drum we use for empty grain bags is filled to the top with beer bottles. We watch them, and the rules that have been strung in our heads like thick cables fray and unravel in adazzling arc of sparks. Then we climb on the poniesâ backs and ride away down the hill.
One afternoon Curt gives us each a cigarette, and laughs as we try to inhale. Look, g irls! he says, striking a match on the sole of his boot and lighting his own. Like this. We watch his face as he takes a drag, his jaw shadowed with a three-day beard. Later we steal two more from his pack and ride into the woods to practice, watching each other and saying, No, like this! Like this! We put Epsom salts in Curtâs coffee and lock the tack room door from the inside. We steal his baseball cap and manage to get it hooked on the weathervane. Ha! we say, and spit on the ground. Take that! He throws one of his flip-flops at us. He drags us shrieking to the courtyard and sprays us with the hose. He tells us we stink. We tell him we donât care.
Â
There is one horse worth more money than the rest put togetherâit was brought over on
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