The Barn

The boy walks across the gravel drive and traverses a short, steep knoll of grass toward the barn. The sun coming over the horizon the color of blood. The outer shades a dark purple cascading into a bright orange hue. Smell of hay and dew on the breeze and the stench of pig pens in the distance. He carries a pail of water at his side and the contents slosh against the rusted tin sides in faint whispers. He casts his eyes over the rolling hills where some cows lay hunched and appearing legless, others grazed lazily.
He unlatches the deadbolt fastening the tall pine doors and pulls a door out with his free hand. Creak of rotting wood and the whine of rusted hinges.Dark and silent save for the light spilling in behind him casting a long and black silhouette over the uneven boards littered with hay shoots and mouse droppings. Smell of animal stink and mildew. He walks in breathing slow and deep, ambling along the long corridor among the dark horse stalls with the pail swaying lightly at his side and a little splash flows over the lip and soaks his jeans dark yet he doesn’t seem to mind. The stalls mostly empty, the ones not are dark and listless save for the faint breathing and clinking chains from uneasy slumber.
He stops at the stall at the farthest left. He sets the pail at his feet and undoes the latch, pulling the swinging gate toward him just enough to drop the water into the near corner. He picks up the pail by the curved handle and slides it into place. Shallow, uneven breathing within. A faint trinkle of the chain anchored to the far wall.
The boy enters uneasy. Inching forward, straining to see in the weak light. Its laying mostly still, huddled in the corner as a wounded animal will. It lays on its side, appendages spread forward. Eyes rolled upwards in the sockets like two eggs. Tongue hanging out. The ribs are wholly visible and rise and fall with no apparent rhythm. The boy steps forward and the noise seems to register and it snorts weakly twice and attempts to huddle backwards. One of the legs lying limp and bent unnatural. The boy wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Shit, he says. He takes a few steps backward facing it, before turning and exiting the stall. He grabs the pail and places it outside. He wanders out of the barn toward the house at a pace as brisk as his short legs can carry him.
A single story farm house, the paint chipping with age and weather. Frail window frames. Dark within. He opens the rickety screen door and calls for his pa to come out and take a look at this. He lets the door swing shut and it slaps against the old wooden frame once and twice. The field behind the house lined with endless rows of corn. A patch of fresh topsoil sprouting tomatoes and carrots. A stone under the umbrella of a large oak that bears his mother’s name.
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The father rocks on the balls of his feet hunched at the knees, examining the pathetic specimen before him. He licks the outside of his lips and sucks his teeth with a smack. He stands with his thumbs positioned at the straps of his overalls. Yep, he says.
What should we do, the boy asks from behind him.
Eh. This one aint gonna make it. Been sick for a while now. I was hopin it’d pass.
Howd it go and break its leg?
Eh. Cant really say. Musta got to kickin. It happens.
We goin to put ‘er down?
He sighs and rocks again. Yeah, he says. Aint really got a choice. Might as well not let it suffer needlessly. We’ll put ‘er out. Feed it to the pigs.
This sucks. I liked this one.
Getcha another. Dont worry, he says. He puts his hand on the boys shag hair and messes it. Go fetch that ballpeen.
The boy skips off. The father approaches again, leaning in and baring into the wide eyes gazing up from the cold wet floor. Eyes vertical and wide. Shame, he says.
The boy returns with the ballpeen in his hand. He walks into the stall and tugs at his father’s sleeve, holding the instrument out to him. The father shakes his head. Uh uh. This ones yours. You do it. Ima go feed the cows. He pats the boy on the head and smiles at him with reassurance. Youre a good boy, he says. He wanders out and leaves the boy to his chore. His voice grates from the stall door and seems to linger in the silence. Set that pail in another stall on your way out. Dont forget to latch that door again. Dont feel like goin on no chase today. The boy says he will. His footsteps echo lightly and the floorboards creak underneath him like sounds of sorrow and his shadow steeps across the trusses and angled boards of the barn ceiling. A crow caws in the rafters and beats it wings with a thrush. The boy steps forward slowly again and hunches down, sucking at his teeth like a miniature version of his papa. He raises the ballpeen in a sweeping arch over his shoulder and its pupils follow it the whole way, snuffing again and shifting weakly as the instrument makes the descent and collides with a sickening lurch atop the crown of its head. The last snort is exhausted and there is a crack where a fine red haze sweeps up and mists the boys face and shirt. A puddling of blood seeps from under the head where the eyes remain transfixed upwards into the darkness seeing nothing. The nerves dying and the carcass fidgets and even the broken leg twitches with erratic spasms.
By the time the boy pulled the carcass from the stall, down the walkway, and into the open floor of the barn he is huffing and dotted with sweat. His path marked with a wide sleared trail of blood globbed with gray bits and shoots of hay. Flies had already found it out and they buzzed noisily in that air that had started to grow warmer in the late morning. One walks with its wings hunched back across the cornea of the open left eye, bloodshot with splotch of red like a second pupil and thin veins like inked spider webs.
How you makin out, the father asks at the doorway.
Doin all right. Fuckin things already getting stiff on me. The boy drops his hands to his knees and puffs.
Watch yer language.
Sorry pop.
Its ok, the father says, admiring his little man. His chest swells with no small sense of pride. The boy kicks at a stiff leg as if to prove his point.
Yeah. It don’t take that long, the father says. The boy looks back at the trail of blood leading to the carcass and spits. The father steps through the threshold of the barn. He sighs. Cant feed it to the pigs like that. Gotta clean it. Divvy it up, he says and spits.
I’ll do it.
The father smiles. Atta boy. Ima get the shearin clips. Pigs wont eat all that hair. I’ll be back. See what you can do about them teeth. Pigs cant digest a tooth. Tear up their innards.
The boy nods. He follows the father out the barn door and for a moment the bright wave of sunlight on his face shocks his eyes and he holds out his hand to the sky to shadow his face and searches the ground. The air has grown humid and sticky and the ground dusts as he walks. Chickens cackle and their heads dip and rise sharply as they walk in erratic patterns around the grain silo picking up bits from the dirt and rusted debris surrounding it. The animal waste outside the pens bakes in the sun and the smell grows more pungent yet is familiar and almost comforting. More cows stand dotting the hills in the distance under motionless cumulus clouds. He eyes a flattened smooth stone the size of a baseball used to weigh down a ratted blue tarp over a mound of feed bags. It is smooth and warm in his hand.
The sound is a dull crunch like a log being split. He hammers the rock into its mouth in short violent strokes, his other hand clutching it over the eyes to hold it steady. The head sways only a few inches in either direction with each low crack at the side. Shards of teeth scatter out like pulp from a woodchipper. The protruding tongue has been flattened over the jawline and stuck by a tooth shard.
The father returns with the trimming shears and lays them on the floor with a small axe. Lemme know when yer finished. Im gonna fix one of them chickens for supper tonight.
Sounds good pop.
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The trimmer shears hum slow and steady and vibrate in his hand as he works. He sits at the floorboards indian style with the head of the carcass resting on his lap, the upper parts hanging rigid at a soft incline. He gives it all a once over with the shears and brushes the hair off of him as he goes and lets it pile about the floor. The army of flies has grown to an almost steady beating buzz and he swipes at them with his hand. When he finished he sets the trimmers to the side and stands and hefts the axe. The long wide handle cool and coarse in his tiny hands. The triangular metal head red in the flattened back and the rest black save for the tip of gleaming silver from a fresh sharpening.
It falls in heavy swoops and he exhales sharply with each turn. A short grunt on the upswings. Dull thuds and sharp snaps. The crunch of the floorboards as the blade strikes home. Stiff cracking as he pulls the blade free leaving thin splintered lines, pooling in coagulated sticky wet.
The boy spreads out the ratty tarp on the floor and the father walks in. They gather the separate entities strewn on the mess of the floor and drop them in a pile at the center. Six in all. They each take an end, pulling at the corners of the tarp until they meet and crumple them together to form a sort of thin hammock. The father manages easily with one hand. The boy must use both hands on the crumpled mass handle and he holds it to his chest. The father sticks his head out the door and scans the long gravel drive leading from the farm.
They walk in single file, the boys teeth clenched and he struggles in silence to keep up. His forearms burn and he drops his head, willing himself to go on, trusting his father at the point to guide him between the dirt laden paths between the silo and the chicken pens up a short rise toward the long rectangular pens of silver mesh where the pigs reside. They lay at their sides in the brown muck of mud and stool to keep cool. The ground trampled to a thick sludge and dotted with large mirroring puddles of wet. Some walk along with their soft pink snouts to the floor and snort on occasion. The pen is divided into five equal factions. Two fat, mudded pigs in each. A long trough runs the length of the outer wall of them all. The father and son lean at the x’ing wooden fence pillars outside the pen, the slumped bag resting at their feet.
They unravel the tarp. The boy sits on the cross of the x pillar, feet swinging softly, his eyes following his father. He walks along the row of pens, arms outstretched over the meshing, distributing food to the snorting pink and brown animals. The first four pens each get an appendage. The final pen contains a hefty and ornery old boar. It gets the torso and it lands with a sharp smack in the muck, splattering mud and waste on impact. The boar snorts in seeming appreciation. The father stands by the boy again at the corner of the pen and examines the last piece of carcass in his outstretched hands. He holds the bloodied head at arms length, gazing into the open mouth. Two rows of misshapen and toothless gum. A few shards stuck inside. He shakes it stiffly and the small fragments fall like crushed porcelain to the weeds below. He tosses it to the first pen and it lands in the muck with a familiar plop. The smaller pig waiting his turn at the first meal takes it in its large jaws and walks backward with it, dragging it through the waste. Muck collects in the mouth.
Good boy, the father says. He wipes his stained hands on his overalls and messes the boy’s hair again. The boy remains silent with his eyes transfixed on the pigs who consume the meal greedily. Bones snap in their powerful jaws yet they don’t seem to notice and they eat on. His eyes move slowly over the hilled scenery rich with dark green and plots of slow moving white cattle. A beautiful day. Sun shining down in the early afternoon warming the back of his neck and the cloth of the shirt on his body. A cool breeze. The smell of grass and flowers and pig slop.
You hungry, the father asks. The boy says he is. He picks him from the wood pillar and sets him to his feet. Lets get you fed.
They amble slowly, hands pocketed, past the pig pen and down the embankment and past the silo toward the house. The barn door ajar.
What did I tell you bout leaving that barn door open? Go close it.
Sorry pop. Okay.
I’ll be inside.
The boy goes at a slight jog. His boots trample softly at the dry earth. He breaths loudly though he is not tired. He pushes the door shut slowly, the rusted and ancient hinges whining as they travel. It shuts against the frame with a clack. The click of a deadbolt sliding home. The boy jogs toward the house.
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The plane of light vanishes to a singular ray and is gone. Enveloped in pure black. On the floorboards of the old barn the flies drone on, the blood long since soaked into the very fibers of the floorboards. At the trails end lay a large heap of long curly blond hair matted with blood and stuck with bits of grit and shoots of gold hay misted red. A small pile of shattered and uprooted teeth. A set of earrings.
In the dark annals, among the smell of dust and mildew and droppings, chains clink in the black. Light rustlings. A sob.



-    12/30/08