Steering Toward Normal

by Rebecca Petruck

  Pop hooked Mr. Graf’s arm, easily avoiding the hand Mr. Graf batted out, and hauled him to his feet. Mr. Graf stumbled toward the driver’s side of the truck, but Pop grabbed him again and steered him toward Pop’s own pickup. Once Mr. Graf was loaded into the passenger seat, Pop headed back to the house.

  “Oh, crap,” Diggy spurted, turning fast and smacking into Wayne. He shoved at Wayne to get him moving, but the guy was propped against the house, heavy as a bag of feed.

  Then Diggy heard a telltale shudder in Wayne’s breath, that sound like he was trying not to make any sound so no one would hear him cry.

  This time Diggy murmured, “Crap.”

  He kind of patted Wayne’s shoulder, feeling stupid, then stopped, feeling stupider. “We’ve got to get to the kitchen,” Diggy explained quietly. “Pop’s going to check on us.”

  Wayne sniffed hard and wiped his face.

  They sped to the kitchen, then walked more normally into the hall. Pop had already gone upstairs to look for them and was on his way back down. He scanned Diggy’s bare, dirty feet, then gave him the eye before searching Wayne’s face.

  “Your dad’s here.”

  Wayne nodded.

  “I’m taking him home. You know why?”

  Wayne nodded again, not looking at anyone.

  “He been like this for a while?” Pop asked.

  Wayne shrugged. Pop took his shoulder and waited until Wayne looked up. “It got a lot worse when she died,” he finally admitted.

  “For both of you,” Pop said.

  Wayne’s face crumpled suddenly, and he bit his lip hard, like the physical pain might hold back the other kind. But even Diggy could tell it didn’t work.

  Pop exhaled heavily. “He’s scared without her and not all that clear about what he’s doing. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. He’s lost.” Pop’s tone darkened. “But you don’t have to lie in the road while he finds his way.”

  He held on to Wayne’s shoulder until Wayne nodded he was okay, though no one believed it.

  Pop gave them both a long look before heading out the door. Diggy couldn’t help but think it was a look that was searching for something, and he tried not to think about what that something might be, especially not a resemblance.

  He glanced at Wayne, then did a double take. He had taken off his coat. His sweatshirt was pink and had a large pink and white flower with the words I’m a Minnesota state flower, too.

  “What?” Wayne said, sounding defensive enough to go at it again.

  Diggy held up his hands. “I won’t fight you with that shirt on. It’d be like hitting a girl.”

  Wayne glared at Diggy.

  Diggy made a show of raising his fists. “Oh, all right. But take it off first. Then we can do some business.” He hopped a bit on his toes, like a prize boxer. Even thumbed his nose.

  Wayne’s jaw was a hard-clenched square. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “No, Wayne. Really.” Diggy pointed at the shirt. “You’re a state flower, too. There’s probably a law about picking them.”

  “It’s an orchid,” Wayne snapped.

  “So?”

  “You don’t pick orchids.”

  Diggy stopped his antics. “Are we fighting about picking flowers?”

  Wayne stared at Diggy long enough for him to realize Wayne hadn’t looked down to check what shirt he was wearing. He knew exactly what was on it, and something in Diggy’s gut flopped like a fish on a riverbank.

  Then Wayne bit his cheek. “It’s a lady slipper orchid.”

  Diggy gratefully took his cue and laughed. “That’s perfect. I couldn’t have made up anything funnier.”

  Wayne grinned, too.

  “I hope you haven’t let anyone else see your PJs,” Diggy added, then wished he could shove his foot into his mouth.

  Wayne sighed. “This was my mom’s go-to shirt. When she got home from school, she put this on, and it really seemed like it made her feel better, no matter how bad her day had been.”

  Diggy sighed back. “Crap.”

  “Yeah.”

  Quiet settled in enough to make room for other noises—the house’s creakings, a scratching on the roof, the odd chirp of a confused bird.

  Wayne kind of smiled. Not a great one. Someone else might have thought he was in pain. “I feel better.”

  “Weirdo.”

  “Come on, you’ve gotten into fights. Don’t you feel better afterward?”

  “Heck, no! There’s Pop. And grounding. And some form of personal torture, like cleaning the bathroom, or sugary eggs for breakfast.”

  Wayne snorted. “He doesn’t do that.”

  “Oh, yes, he does.” Diggy nodded, rather proud of Pop’s inventiveness. “Once he swapped the hot and cold water lines.”

  “He did not.”

  Diggy only nodded again.

  Wayne’s eyes got big. “That’s, like, medieval.”

  “I spend a lot of time planning for April Fools’ Day.”

  Wayne rubbed at his ear. Diggy rubbed at his hip, tested his knee.

  “I don’t think I can go back to sleep,” Wayne admitted.

  “You weren’t asleep.”

  “Neither were you.”

  Diggy thought about asking what Wayne had been doing out there in the dark, but he didn’t want to have to answer the same question.

  “This time of night we should be able to find a really terrible movie. Like with plastic toys for monsters,” Diggy said.

  The idea tantalized him so much, he didn’t pay attention to where he sat and ended up on the couch next to Wayne, both with their feet on the coffee table as Diggy zoomed through the usual channels.

  “What did you do that made Pop switch the water lines?”

  “We don’t discuss the noodle incident, Wayne.” Finally, he found a yeti.

  They settled in to watch as the yeti, supposedly hungry, dug out a heart but didn’t eat it or the body. The killing spree reached the epitome of D-movie perfection when the yeti tore off a rescue climber’s leg and beat him with it. The boys were still cackling by the time Pop got home and suggested they get to bed.

  DIGGY GOT MAYBE TWO HOURS OF SLEEP BEFORE JOKER STARTED IN ON SOME serious bawling and he had to drag himself out of bed. For some reason, Wayne waited for him in the kitchen, blond hair spiked in sleep-shaped angles and pale blue eyes wide with the shock of too-earliness.

  “Why are you up?” Diggy asked.

  Wayne shrugged. “I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

  It wasn’t true or an answer, but the guy was going home today, and that was big, after everything that had happened last night.

  Diggy walked outside into the early-morning cold, Wayne trailing him. The first thing they saw was Mr. Graf’s truck in the driveway.

  It sat like a rusted DANGER sign—old enough that the hazard probably wasn’t all that hazardous anymore but daring you to investigate just in case. Wayne pretended it wasn’t there, so Diggy walked on by, too, but the pickup might as well have been a yeti beating a guy with his own torn-off leg.

  Joker was aggravated about having to wait for his breakfast, so Diggy piled hay, then filled the water trough while the steer ate.

  “Pop seems okay,” Wayne said.

  “Why wouldn’t he be?” Pop wasn’t the one who had gotten drunk and turned crazy. Diggy winced and glanced at Wayne, not wanting him to guess what he’d been thinking. Mr. Graf was the kid’s dad; Wayne had to live with him.

  “I mean, like a good guy.” Wayne took a Scotch comb from its peg and fiddled with it. Diggy was about to tell him to put it back, when Wayne added, “A good father.”

  It was like a steer had rodeoed, and his bucking hooves had caught Diggy in the chest. A part of his brain tried to make him believe Wayne was just talking, that his words didn’t mean anything. But that animal part of his brain that warned him when a snake was poisonous or that he had just about climbed too high—that part screeched at him like every police cruiser, ambulance, and fire
truck in the county had careened into their driveway.

  Diggy clipped the lead to Joker’s halter and hotfooted it out of there. He tried for what would become their normal route through the pasture, but steers responded as much to feelings as actual commands. Joker dug his hooves in, and Diggy was distracted enough that he pulled. He looked like a greenhorn, hanging from the lead in a forty-five-degree tilt. No one won in a tug-of-war with a six-hundred-pound animal, even if it was still a calf.

  Wayne watched like he was at a show ring.

  Diggy let go of Joker’s lead and stomped away. The perverse cow followed him. Wayne trailed along perversely, too.

  Diggy ignored them so he could seethe. He was an experienced cattleman. He had raised three steers. He could and had gone through the motions half in his sleep hundreds of times. Even his first day with his first-ever steer, Diggy hadn’t acted so much like he was all hat and no cattle.

  Worse, he couldn’t pretend his discomposure had anything to do with the calf.

  Mr. Graf was Wayne’s dad. He’d been there when Wayne was born and changed his diapers and burped him and whatever else people did with babies. He’d probably taught him to ride a bike and helped with homework—well, maybe not, that would have been Mrs. Graf’s territory. But still, Mr. Graf was Wayne’s dad. Whether Wayne liked it or not.

  The man had come to their house and howled.

  Wayne didn’t have any business thinking about Pop being a good father.

  “He’s going now,” Wayne said. “That’s what you wanted him to do, right?”

  Diggy looked back, saw Joker’s lead trailing in the grass, and snatched it up, lucky the steer hadn’t stepped on it and tripped. The wrong kind of fall could be a very, very bad thing for an animal like Joker.

  Heck, the wrong kind of fall could be a bad thing for anybody.

  Diggy made himself concentrate on Joker. Not even here a full day and already the calf had had to suffer several instances of bad treatment—stuck on the fence rail when Wayne arrived, awakened in the middle of the night by man and dogs barking, and pulled at like he was a goat and not a prize crossbred steer. July would be so disappointed if she saw Diggy now.

  He led Joker into the pasture, trying to focus on its beauty, even though Wayne trailed behind. The rising sun made magnifying glasses of the morning’s damp. The grass seemed taller because of it. A slope led down to the woods that Pop left thick between his and Kubat’s land. The sun wouldn’t light the trees until it was full up, so walking toward them was like walking to the night. The turn was borderland, the light growing brighter on one side, the woods keeping its secrets on the other. Then came the next turn, the one he never looked at until it was made. His favorite tree lit up like the Fourth of July. The colorful burst of autumn leaves was backlit by the sun, and walking changed the shape of the light shining through, so every footstep created a new set of fireworks. He walked toward the special tree, not blinking, not wanting to miss a thing.

  “It’s so pretty out here,” Wayne said.

  He had spoken softly, but it still annoyed the crap out of Diggy. “Why don’t you go inside and wait for your dad to get here?”

  “What are you so mad about?”

  “Jeez, Wayne, what do you think?”

  “You don’t have to worry about my problems.”

  Diggy shot Wayne a dirty look. “Where’s a yeti when you need one?”

  Wayne marched ahead, then stopped.

  “You know what he did when he got home?” Wayne said without turning around. “He passed out on the couch. He won’t even remember he was out here. Will be freaked that the truck’s gone. But it won’t be his fault. He’ll make excuses, apologize for the wrong things. Act like everything’s fine now and I’m the jerk if I’m upset too long.”

  Wayne kicked hard at the grass. Then did it again.

  “But you don’t hate him,” Diggy said.

  “He’s my dad. You know?”

  Diggy nodded.

  “But Pop—he was there for us last night. When we needed him.”

  All Diggy really heard was that “us” and “we” business, and knew he had to put a stop to it ASAP.

  “My dad’s a good guy,” Diggy said. “He always stops to help people stuck in the road, even if he doesn’t know them.”

  Maybe he’d used a little too much emphasis on the “my” part and the implication that Wayne’s dad wasn’t a good guy, but push Diggy, and he’d always push back.

  He tugged Joker’s lead, eased up when the steer started moving, and made a good walk back to the barn. He didn’t pay any attention to whether or not Wayne followed them.

  Diggy tied the lead so Joker’s head was at middle height. It would be weeks before they’d work their way up to show height. The calf didn’t like the halter breaking—everybody had something they didn’t like to deal with this morning—but at least he could soothe the steer with lavish attention and hair brushing.

  Wayne wandered around the barn. He inspected the tractor that was currently outfitted with the grass-cutting attachment. Another month or two, and Diggy and Pop would unhitch it and attach the snowplow to the front.

  “Did your mom really leave town on a tractor?” Wayne asked.

  Diggy wished he could cut sentences out of his head the way he could cut them out of a book, then cut them in half and word by word and letter by letter until they were bits of nothing that drifted from the scissors’ edges, gravity not even interested enough to pull them down.

  Because, yes, his mom had left town on a tractor. And he had learned to smile about it like it was no big deal.

  Everyone knew the story. How his mom had left him on Pop’s doorstep. How she couldn’t get her car started again, and, not having the keys to Pop’s truck, ended up riding out of town on the field tractor. That’s what people liked to talk about, a girl running away on a John Deere. Like it was cute.

  Wayne’s question—it wasn’t like Diggy hadn’t heard it a thousand times before and thought it a million times more than that. No one really left town on a tractor.

  Unless she really, really, really wanted to get away.

  From him.

  “You and me,” Diggy said, “we’re not friends.”

  Wayne’s jaw clenched in the echo of Pop’s, firming Diggy’s attitude.

  Wayne walked over to Joker’s stall, eyeing him as if he stank. “You enter it in contests and stuff, right?”

  His disdainful tone prompted Joker to turn his rump Wayne’s way. Diggy patted his approval.

  “Joker’s not an it. He’s a he,” Diggy said. “And no. We compete in the show ring. At the State Fair.” He hoped they’d compete. “It’s a big deal.”

  “You get a crown and roses? Wave to the crowd, crying you’re so happy?”

  “I get twelve thousand dollars.”

  Wayne blinked so fast, his eyelids could have flown away.

  Diggy dragged over the blow-dryer and, scratching Joker near the tailhead, turned it on. The calf mooed, but his alarm at the commotion quickly waned. Diggy kept scratching Joker, pleased at how quickly the calf had settled. He needed to get used to the sound—before too long he’d get a daily wash and blow-dry—and Diggy needed the noise now to hide his unease that he had jinxed himself, talking like the State Fair was already his.

  He wanted the win for a lot of reasons—for his steer, for Pop and himself, for July. He would not let this kid screw him up.

  The blower wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out Wayne when he repeated, “Twelve thousand?” Diggy went ahead and turned off the machine before Wayne asked, “Even if you don’t win, you could make out pretty good just by placing, couldn’t you?”

  “It’s not a horse show, where there are, like, ten different ribbons for fancy riding and stuff. With steers, it’s the two purples for Grand Champion and Reserve. That’s it. The rest are blues for good work and reds for showing up.”

  The steers sold at auction for $25,000 to sponsors who wanted to support 4-H, and a
dvertise themselves. It wasn’t like any steer was truly worth that amount—they weren’t bulls, and Hartley’s could only jack up the price of a Grand Champion steak so high. The person who showed Grand Champ cleared about $12,000—the other half of the auction money raised went straight into a 4-H scholarship fund—and the Reserve Champ got half that. The rest of the steers, even after having made it through their county fairs to get to State, would only sell for their $1,000 market value.

  Like Diggy’s had the last three years.

  One thousand was a lot less than twelve, and a lot of it went to repaying the Farm Bureau loan he took out to buy and feed his steer. Not that Diggy cared much about the money. What he wanted—heart, gut, and soul—was the win, to be chosen over everybody else.

  Last year, Diggy had made it to the final lineup with July, when she took the win for their weight division. He had been really proud of that blue. But this year he was determined to get the purple of Grand Champ. He worked hard. Knew that he could earn it. By next year would deserve it.

  “I could leave,” Wayne said. “Go away somewhere else.”

  “And now would be good. An hour ago even better.”

  “I mean twelve-thousand-dollars away.”

  Diggy rolled his eyes. “Yeah. ’Cause thirteen is so old, you can do whatever you want.”

  “I’m fourteen.”

  Diggy glared. He knew Wayne was older than him. Because Diggy had been born so late in the year, everyone in their class was older than him. But did Wayne have to be so much bigger, too? It wasn’t fair.

  “You’re not going anywhere but back to your house. And you’re definitely not winning the State Fair. You don’t even know what kind of calf Joker is.”

  “I know you plan to do it, so it can’t be that hard.”

  Diggy lunged, but Wayne sidestepped, and Diggy ended up on his knees with a hand squished into cow poop.

  “Do you ever think first?” Wayne asked.

  Diggy lobbed a handful of poop at Wayne’s head, but being on all fours messed with his aim. The clump smacked into Wayne’s chest.