Sulfur

I grasped the brass handle to my front door and waited. My watch read half past ten already, and I was more frustrated than when I left tonight. On more than one occasion, this time included, I left a committee meeting last. Tonight, we spent exactly 48 minutes trying to stop Margery Gerber’s incessant comments: Are you sure Frank had a triple bypass? and It is just a pity Luann left the church, she was always such a nice girl, but you know the ways of the world. It’s a good thing we have nice quiet, hardworking girls here still.
         Thankfully, I have an innate ability to navigate meetings with ease and a Type A personality to keep everyone on task, otherwise we’d never have left the church.  I prayed the members would have enough sense to do the jobs I separated out for them. I even put the description on notecards for each member to carry home with them.
         Behind me, three more 2x4s fell off the East Barn; Drew and I inherited the farm from my grandparents. The small blue farmhouse saw four generations of hardworking Kipfers. My family immigrated to America from Switzerland after the Anabaptist movement, in which my distant grandfather Ulrich Kipfer started our home church which had grown over a thousand members. I bet we have 4 generations of ghosts hanging in our upstairs closets. There’s a lot of history in this farm, and my grandparents were everything but thrilled to have it passed on to a woman in the family. Grandpa mumbled during the paper signing, “the name of our farm will forever be changed.”
         It was nights like these, I remembered the offer from Crowe, Chizek, and Co. By now I would have been working in my own office, where I could work with others who spent years perfecting the trade. I could just imagine men in Armani suits sitting in the chairs facing my desk asking for financial help.
         Sighing, I opened the door heavily then slumped my coat on the hall tree Grandpa Rich made for Grandma when they married. On the other side of the hallway, Drew hunched over numbers he couldn’t decipher. Manila folders covered the hand-me-down mahogany desk. “Hey,” his voice sounded like carbon monoxide escaping a tube, “I haven’t eaten, can you bring me something?”
         “It’s late, Drew. Do you want help with your spreadsheets?”
         I saw a look of annoyance before he returned to his work, ignoring my question, “I know. I got busy, tomorrow is our day.” He brightened, “we’ll make bank if all the gilts sell.”
         “If.” Drew already turned back to the charts in front of him. “We have leftover steak.”
         “Bring me soup and a sandwich instead.”
         Staring hard at him, I slipped into the cold kitchen. In this kitchen I remembered sitting at the kitchen table. Grandma Rose stirred her Swiss knopfli to make sure each dough piece stayed up from the bottom. She’d look at me hard and long before cackling, Lindsay, you’ll need to keep silent and let the man lead. You’re on your way to becoming a lonely spinster forever. Eve desired to rule men too, and God kicked her out of the garden. At this, she wagged the spoon in my direction before turning back to the pot of boiling dough. 
         Every floor was hardwood and felt bare beneath my shoes. The edges were chipped from years of wear. No one could see those, so we ignored repairing them. I opened the refrigerator and pulled out pork-vegetable soup as well as ham for the sandwich. Pork used to be my favorite meat, before I saw my first butchering.
         I grabbed the soup before the microwave dinged, while I slid it onto the serving tray. I padded back across the brown-black floor, down the hall, and into the double glass doors of the office. I turned to escape after the food was set on the only bare space, but Drew caught my elbow. He cradled it intimately in his big calloused hand. “They look great, the gilts.”
         I caught my breath, “I know.”
         “In fourteen hours, we’re going to make bank.” His smile looked like an idiot minor finding fool’s gold.
         “You said that already. You need to go to bed; we need to be up by three in order to get to the slaughter house by five.”
         “In a while, I’m going to make sure these numbers are right before we get going tomorrow.” He let go of my arm and I retreated for the door, “oh and close the door would ya?”

         Upstairs, the rain thudded the roof. Out the window, the powder blue school bus converted to hog trailer opened up to the butt of the barn. It’s back doors looked like a closed mouth waiting to take all the little piggies to school. When Drew insisted on buying the broken down school bus from the used dealer, I laughed about leaving the seats in the bus so the hogs could be comfortable on their way to being sold. I could imagine the pigs sitting by twos with seatbelts on, snorting childish jokes to one another. The rain streaked the windows out back and from this view, the bus was only a shadow against the black field. It looked more subtle than during the day when the blue bus sat stark against other crisp silver hog trailers at auction.
         I glanced at the closet and saw my brown Coach bag hidden under a trash bag of Christmas wrapping paper. Just glancing at the full bag made my hands clammy. The pressure to be someone I had no wish to become made my heart pound. I unzipped my Coach and started finishing my packing. I flung blouses and jeans into the bag, frantically I searched for other items to include. I grabbed a photo of Drew and I in the Caribbean.  The smile on his face made me pause for a moment. Soon he would understand, as soon as I found something to be invested in and feel fulfilled in I’d come back. It never occurred he may not accept me back.
         Each item of clothing seemed to make the burden of the farm and the family and the church decrease. If I left in the morning, I would abandon all my family’s expectations of a good domestic Christian woman.
         As I continue to pack my small luggage bag, I remember a day years ago. In the mail, I received the acceptance letter for the university.
         “What are you expecting to get out of college?” She read through the pamphlet as I talked to her.
         “I want to get out, Grandma. I want to do something in life, I’m tired of this town.”
         “I don’t think you need to go to college to do something with your life. I didn’t, I got married right after high school. Do you think I haven’t done anything with my life? You are an Eve tricking men, trying to get authority where you shouldn’t.”
         I answered exasperated, “Grandma, I’m not going to do that. Don’t worry, I’m sure sometime I’ll come back and marry some guy from around here then I’ll be the woman I need to be.”
         My mind reeled with the expectations, what would Grandma think when she realized I’d left? I slipped the luggage back under the trash bag, when Drew took the blue bus to the auction, I’d take my car to the nearest city. I crawled under my covers and prepared myself for a fitful night.
         
One hour and thirty seven minutes later, I woke with a jolt. I woke up late and knew it. Staring at the  clock, the numbers seemed to mash together. Trying to remember what time I needed to wake up , I stared blankly at the clock. I patted the other side of the bed and figured Drew slept the night in his office again, the blanket was untouched. Dazed with sleepiness, I climbed down the stairs to the small kitchen to start coffee.
         The rain was falling in a sheet by now. The black drops flew sideways and made me feel like the world was turned on its side. The large oak tree swayed in the wind furiously like a scarecrow, with its straw arms fluttering against intruders. The aroma of coffee awoke me more, I noticed the time again. 12:04. I punched the cabinet. On the hardwood floor, I stomped a dance of frustration, jumping up then down and waving my arms furiously. My eyes stung as moisture begged a release. This was the fifth time in three weeks I’d woken in the middle of the night, hours before I needed to. Stress was causing me to get little sleep.
         I longed to go back to bed for those two delicious hours of sleep I could get in before another frustrating day. A bolt of lightning electrified the sky. A shadow caught my eyes. By the school bus, a figure stood on the edge of the barn. I held my elbows while tiptoeing to the window. In the dark I saw nothing, but I knew he was there. I waited patiently behind sheer curtains until another flash of lightning. The scarecrow tree beckoned to me from the yard.
         He stood next to the fence in the rain with his head bowed. He looked so serene in the storm. Thunder crashed on every side of the farm. The fields were lit by bright lights of white. I kept an eye on the figure while I laced my boots, I was going to find out who he was. Anyways, I did learn self defense in college, and I could land a solid punch. I knew I was just as capable of warding off strangers as anyone. For safe measures I grabbed the closest object, an electric hog prodder; that would do. The thought to ask Drew for help hadn’t crossed my mind since a year past after we married.
         The yard filled with puddles which covered my legs with brown muck. I treaded the gravel drive until I reached the first hog barn. Behind it, the man stood. His broad shoulders were hunched over as he stared in the pen. My pace slowed as I contemplated my actions, maybe I had been a little hasty in proving my abilities. I watched the man, his Carhart was soaked, which looked like the one I bought for Drew during the end of season sale last spring. His arms filled out the sleeves nicely. I advanced two feet from him slowly, as he turned sharply.
         I caught my breath, “Geez, Drew! You scared me. I couldn’t tell if that was you or not. What in the world are you doing out here?”
         “Looking.”
         “Looking?” I followed his gaze into the pen. The swine lay in lumps against the fence where they sleep. Their bristle pink skin quivered under the heavy rainfall. I reached to pet one of the beasts on the back, then stopped short. His eyes stared up at me, yet not me, beyond me. I run my hand across the bristles on the back, “Oh…oh my…what happened?” Each and every one of the animals lay in lumps by the rusted metal fence.
         Drew stood calmly by the fence, “Lightning from the storm hit the fence.”
         “But all of them?” I paced back and forth the length of the fence. How could every hog in this pen been killed? A lightning bolt hit the fence?
         “It would seem. They all slept near the fence for support.” The heaps rested against the fence like black garbage bags ready to be taken out. I started counting the money lost by each fleshy body that now lay dormant of life. On the eighth hog, I started losing my breath. This was more money than we actually had to lose. Shivering, I grappled for the fence to hold on to. I straightened automatically and played cool. “It’s ok, Drew, we can just butcher them ourselves tomorrow and get at least half of what they’re worth from neighbors. We’re good.”
         “No.” Drew walked away from me toward the barn front.
         “What do you mean ‘no’?” I did not mean for my voice to come out as a shrill, “we have to, there is no other chance. We’re still in debt for building the new barn. Are you really trying to drive my family farm into the ground?” He tightened his lips and I could see the white scar on his upper lip when he bit through it in an ice hockey game years ago. It looked like the lightning that flashed behind his head. His eyes were sad, and he turned without saying a word.
         Anger nipped at me. Huffing, I turned back toward the cornfield behind the pen. I started figuring in my mind the best way to butcher the 30 gilts in the pen. I thought through all the neighbors we could call to come out on a stormy day to pack the meat for sale. Perhaps Ed Kaehr would help out, he owed us for watching his animals every time he decided to get drunk and head off for a few days at the horse track. If not him, maybe Drew’s brothers would come out. I would set it up, this time we had no room for error. Simply put, my mind calculated better. We didn’t have the money for another failed attempt. I would just have to go behind Drew’s back.
         Drew returned through the barn door into the hog pen. He carried a feed sack that now looked soaked from the leaks in the barn’s ceiling which also creaked in the wind. He laid the sack near the farthest hog from the barn. The gilt’s fat bulged against her bones, her head pressed against the ground under the fence looking like a mole trying to escape. Her snout was curled in a snarl as it stared at me, she died knowing they wanted her dead, like a last chance buck against the ways of the farm. I respected her look of rebellion.
         Drew opened the gate before he started rolling the hog onto the feed sack. I yelled across the pen, “What are you doing?”
         He continued to work with his head bent toward the beast. When the animal lay on the Co-Op sack, he jerked it and started pulling it toward the pile of wood and garbage next to the pen. I ran to cut him off before he threw the hog on top, “Wait, what are you doing? Drew I’ll fix this for us, let me make some calls. We’ll get some people out to help tomorrow, I’ll fix this.”
         “No.”
         I twitched from lack of sleep and frustration, “Don’t you understand? We need this money. We need to get back in the green. In all the spreadsheets, haven’t you began to understand that yet?”
         His eyes flashed hurt before glossing over with stone barriers. “It won’t help, not anymore.”
         “I can figure out a way. Just let me do it.”
         He turned back to the hog. Lugging the speckled pink hog, he lobbed it onto the pit. I began to shiver, “Drew, please. We need this. I know you don’t care, but this farm is important to me, it is me. This is my farm and you are making decisions I’m not comfortable with.” He continued walking, while I stopped to throw the knife at him. “I didn’t realize how insensitive you are. Don’t you want to have a family here, we can’t if we’re always in debt.”
         At this he whipped his head around. Taking three full strides, he reached me in half a second. Fear made me stop quick, “You don’t  even know who I am. You don’t appreciate the hard work that happens back in these barns. You don’t know anything.”
         I seethed. “I have six years of accounting at one of the highest acclaimed universities in the nation. You have what: A four year high school diploma and two years at the community college? I think I win.”
         He deflated. I caught half a glimpse of vulnerability before he turned away. I knew the argument was over. I never won. I never had the heart to truly win. I couldn’t beat him down then keep kicking him. This time, I won. I gouged out the issue that stung the most. The one I knew would hurt the most. I threw the knife I knew would hurt the worst and stabbed again with it. His shoulders stooped the way only a defeated but resolved man can have. He trudged back to the pen, laid the sack on the ground and rolled the hog onto it.
         This time, the pig was heavier. He grunted when he threw the hog on top of the other. Again and again he went back into the pen hardly glancing at me. With each hog on the pile, another couple hundred of our savings was dissipated. The veins in his arms looked like rivers flowing upstream to his heart. If I asked, his brother John would come to my aid. I would be able to fix this, John and I would take the plump 260-275 pound hogs out of the pile and cut a knife through them each. We’d need to work on it today, by tomorrow they’d be spoiled too much to worry with.
         The barn had a phone in the office. His number was in our address book hanging by the phone. I could pick it up, dial the area code and get a hold of him. It would take him literally 5 minutes to reach our farm. He would pick Drew off the gilts, talk sense to him. Tell him that I was the right one, we should think critically of the situation and then after Drew nodded his approval of the plan. John would signal me back over to the barn where we’d start slicing the livestock. One after another until all were packed into nice butcher paper ready to sell. They’d never get near what we’d get at the slaughter house or auction, but maybe something. For the work, it would be nothing.
         Drew started his fifth hog. His dedication astounded me. I sat on the wet grass watching him take off his coat and return to work. The ground had started to dry around the fire heap. His blue eyes looked hard with perseverance and his brow was already glossing over with sweat. His back was straight as he lifted the hogs with massive arms. Even though he only measured a couple inches taller than me, he held 30 pounds of muscle on me. I waited and watched as he started the fire. The sun was just beginning to peak over the fields.
         The sulfur burnt my nose. The smoke stung my eyes. I never smelled burning flesh before, and the stench was more than I could handle. The faces of the animals stared at me gauntly. Nothing for them changed. They lived with the same pigs their entire lives and died with the same pigs.
         I stared at the farmhouse blankly. If I didn’t leave today, I never would have the strength again. I felt pulled between two destinations. As I continued to stare, apathy washed over me like a tarp, and I slumped back to the pen where the hogs were dragged away one by one to their new fiery home. 
         Drew looked up surprised when I stood over him, “What can I do?” He pulled the hog onto the feed sack and I pushed with all the strength I had. The animal flopped with legs flailing over. We pulled and pushed and yanked until every piece of meat was in the fire pile.
         The smoke looked dark against the gray cloudy sky. It twirled toward the tops of the trees. The fire blazed bright orange with ash of bone and meat. The sulfur still consumed me and soaked into my skin, mingled with the sweat I shared with Drew.