by Ron Koertge
As I lay there, I felt completely sixteen. Nearly grown. Well, I’d sure had plenty of maturing experiences: my father had passed away, I’d been disappointed in love, my mother wasn’t the person I’d thought she was at all. (Oh, and I had a driver’s license and I’d been in a couple of really hairy fights.)
But I was still a virgin, so I felt like a picture of a man with a part missing.
Was Rachel going to be the one? Did she want to be? And what would I do if she did? God, no wonder I didn’t want the kissing to stop. I wouldn’t know what to do next.
Rachel might know, but would she want to show me? I was pretty sure girls wanted the guy to be in charge. And even if she didn’t mind being the leader, how would I go about asking, “Uh, pardon me, miss. But where exactly does this go?”
Then the next thing I knew, the alarm was going off. Pitch black: there must be some mistake.
At the end of the dark lanes that left the slopy tarmac, beyond the billboards advertising Jesus and fertilizer, I could see the lights in farmhouses, outbuildings, and barns.
When I pulled into the yard, the tractor was already sitting out. The screen door opened and Mr. Kramer waved at me.
“Coffee?”
I shook my head as he came and leaned in the window.
“You’re sure now? I’ve got fresh cream, and I mean fresh.” He gestured toward the barn. “Years ago my oldest boy raised a scramble calf to about half a ton, and got a second for fat and form the next spring at the Saint Charles Fair. Bossy here is a great-great-great-granddaughter.”
“Bossy?” I felt like I’d stepped into a coloring book.
“Maybe it’ll wake you up to drive. You climb on up there and take the lead. I’ll come along behind in the car so nobody smacks you in the rear end. No one’s up and around at this time of the morning but darn fools like you and me, anyway.”
The tractor didn’t seem so unfamiliar; I even found the switch for the headlamps and the fist-size tail-lights perched on top of the fenders right beside me.
I got started, killed the engine once, eased down the lane with ruts probably as old as I was, got onto the macadam, and gave it some gas.
I stood up to steer, like a sea captain. The sun was barely over the edge of the world; the air was cool, silky as a parachute, and it smelled wonderful.
Then we got to Paltry Acres. I sat, leaning on the dark, scarred wheel. Toward the edges — the road at my right, a fence and barrow ditch to the left — a few weeds had taken hold in a scaled-down version of plenty.
Mr. Kramer came up beside me, laying his hand on the smooth fender as if it were the solid rump of some animal. He held out his other hand palm-down, blessing-style, and sighted along it.
“It lays well enough,” he said, “but it does look peaked.”
“I’ll bet even pigs wouldn’t live here.”
“Pigs,” he said scornfully. “You even see a pig, kick it. It’s either out, been out, or thinking about getting out.”
“Well, what’s the plan?”
“First tractor I had,” he said softly, “came with high steel tires with lugs. I wasn’t allowed to take it on the county roads.”
I turned to look down at him. He was more at home then than now.
“Mattie and I had the sweetest little driving mare. She carried us all over the country.” He slapped the fender rhythmically. Maybe he was listening to that mare’s hooves or clucking to her. Maybe he was patting the slim thigh that lay beside his as he drove with one hand.
“Well, now,” he said abruptly. “Tell you what. Let’s start with a good-size piece but nothing too ambitious. Drive on up there to the line fence yonder, then come all the way back past me in a big circle. Go ahead and put the near side of the blade right up against where you’ve been. Then follow yourself around and around till you end up right in the center.”
“Just like a big bull’s-eye? I guess I imagined I’d just go back and forth.”
“If it ever rains good, straight plowing’s not the thing for this place, at least not right now. If you want, you could contour like so.” He snaked his hand through the air, which was warming up in a hurry.
“No, the circle appeals to me.”
“Then run on out there a ways and I’ll show you how to set this little plow.”
There was a long handle — the kind that I’d seen on cartoon steam shovels — that raised or lowered the staggered blades.
“Once you get the hang of it, set this about as low as she’ll go.”
“I guess I can’t do it wrong, huh?” The handle was already damp with anxiety.
“Not with this place, son. Not now, anyways. Remember, when you get a good bite, give her some throttle.”
“Okay.” I wiped both palms on my silly flowered shirt.
“Oh, and one more thing.” He stepped up beside me and took off his hat. “Get yourself one of these.”
“It’s still dark.”
“Not for long.”
I eased away, tugged on the handle, felt the blades go in, killed the engine. Mr. Kramer didn’t even bother to turn around.
It was sure different pulling something, and my first hundred yards ranged from a few inches deep to a few feet. Sweat ran in my eyes and stung as I half sat in the springy seat, turning this way and that to see where I was going, where I’d been, and what kind of trajectory I’d left behind.
But I got the hang of it, and I could tell as the morning wore on how the soil changed. The farther I got from the line fences and the more I closed in on the bull’s-eye, the easier it seemed, and I dismounted more and more often to let the blades down as far as they would go.
It was hot out there, even at eight A.M., and it was dirty. The wind just picked up the soil and plastered it to me, but I loved it, lost on an island of noise.
I could see Mr. Kramer leaning against a tree, and every third or fourth time around he’d lift a finger in acknowledgment. Then I’d pass him, swing up over a tiny rise, and I’d be alone with the baked earth in front of me, and behind me the huge doodles I’d drawn.
High school is just amazing. The government should copy its communications system, completely wireless and completely foolproof. What I mean is that everybody knew that Rachel and I liked each other. When I found her in the hall, she was talking to a bunch of kids, and they just melted away like ice on an iron. Only Sully stayed, but he was my best friend, so that was okay. The rules are complicated, but everybody knows them. Even Rachel, and she hadn’t been at my school for more than two weeks. It must be somewhere in the gene pool or the DNA. Someday some scientist is going to discover it under his ultrapowerful microscope, a micro-teensy pamphlet right there in the smallest nucleus of the smallest atom: How to Act in High School.
“Walker,” she said, shaking her head in mild exasperation. “Look at your hands.”
They were a little dirty in places. “I guess I was in a hurry.”
Rachel shifted her enormous bag with her initials sewn on it, came up with a perfumed towelette wrapped in foil, and began to rub at my fingers and palms. “You’re worse than my father,” she said happily.
Sully said he had to take a test. We watched him walk away. Rachel turned to me, smiling.
“What happened to your eyes?” I asked. “They’re green today.”
One hand went up to cover them, like a little girl who was “it” and counting to a hundred.
“I’ve got these different-colored contacts, is all; I change to match my outfits.”
“You wear glasses?”
“Does it matter?”
“Well, I just didn’t know the girl I like can’t see her feet without prescription lenses.”
“I was pretty sure you liked me,” she said softly.
“I thought about you a lot while I was plowing this morning. It’s magical out there, Rachel. I’m just all by myself, and when the sun comes up, it’s like it’s for only me. Except that I wish you were there.”
“On your tractor?”
/> “I know our language is new to you, but in Bradleyville we call it a lap.”
She blushed and looked delighted.
“Let’s go out tonight, okay?”
“Walker, these accelerated classes are killing me. How about Friday?”
“Gee,” I said seriously. “I’m busy Friday.” I meant it as a joke but she looked so disappointed I couldn’t finish. “No, I’m not. I was just kidding. Friday’s fine.”
“Really? You aren’t just saying that?”
Rachel was wearing an enormous cardigan. Somehow when she leaned toward me, one of the books she held against her chest slipped down into it.
“Oh, God. There goes The Great Gatsby.”
She lifted one leg gracefully, trying to shift the other books back into a stack.
“Could you… ?” She gestured with her head toward her chest. “It’s in there somewhere.”
Gingerly I put my hand inside. I could feel some ribs. Under her blouse her body was warm and firm.
“Down more, I think.”
“You city girls are shameless.”
“Did you find it?” she whispered.
We were very close together and my blood was starting to percolate.
“Unfortunately.”
She stepped back, flushed. “If you really are busy,” she said, “don’t change any —”
“I’m not. And Mom said I could have the car for things that were really important.”
“It would be okay if you were.”
“I know.”
“Really.”
“I believe you,” I said firmly.
“So we’ll call each other about Friday? I have to do about a million things with my dad, so just leave a message on the machine.”
“I liked finding your book for you.”
She grinned at me. “I’ve got a whole library at home,” she said. “Bye.”
Gym was the last class of the day, and I hung around afterward watching Tommy Thompson and his friends play a little pick-up game of basketball.
I knew most of those guys smoked and drank beer like crazy, but they still looked great. There were a lot of girls standing around talking, leaning toward one another as they whispered, looking out at the polished floor, leaning again, their hair falling together. Boy, sometimes I stand in front of the mirror naked and just hate my body. I don’t seem to understand it at all. I feel like I’m the only resident of this big, ugly hotel, but I didn’t choose it — somebody checked me in while I was unconscious and now I can’t get out.
Anyway, I came out the side door of the gym and there was Sully. “Hey, let’s go for a ride or something,” he said.
“I thought you always studied right after school.”
“I think I need to talk.”
“Want to go out to my place?”
“I thought your mom was home until six.”
“I mean my land.”
He turned to me abruptly. “Want to know what’s really bothering me?”
“Sure, I —”
“I think I like Peggy.”
“So?”
“I think she likes me.”
“The United Nations should have problems like that.”
“I was over there the other night listening to music when my folks thought I was at the library, and I asked her if she thought I looked like Sideshow Bob.”
“And?”
“She said no.”
“So far so good, unless she likes little weird cartoon clowns.”
“Walker, it was really nice. I mean, she made something to eat and there was nobody around, but…” He left the sentence sticking out like that. “But when I left, she only kissed me on the forehead.”
“My aunt does that.”
“I know, I know. What do you think it means? Does she like me or not? Or does she just like my forehead?”
“Look,” I said, shaking him by the shoulder like he was asleep. “Just relax. Whatever’s going to happen will happen. You don’t have to do anything.”
“Do you really think so? I’ve read all about this. I even went back and looked up courtship rituals in my dad’s anthropology books.”
“Just don’t bring her a mirror and some beads.”
He turned toward me, his face knotted with concern. “You really think there’s nothing I should do?”
“Just be yourself. Peggy’s always liked you.”
“I have to ask somebody. I sure can’t ask my dad. All he wants me to do is study.” Then he frowned. “Let’s get out of here. I can never think in school.”
“So this is it?” Sully shaded his eyes like a sea captain. “Did you rip up the ground like that?”
“It’s called plowing.”
“And then what?”
“Some fertilizer; limestone, I think Mr. Kramer said. Then turn it over again probably, then we plant something and sit back and wait.”
“And it grows?”
“That’s the idea.”
He looked out at the tractor. “And you know how to drive that?”
“Sure.”
“Show me.”
I fired up the little Farmall, and with Sully holding on to my shoulders we made a round or two.
“This isn’t bad,” he said as we walked back to the car over the choppy earth.
“Rachel and I sat out here the other day,” I told him. “It was really nice.”
“You didn’t… ?”
“No, but we fooled around a little.”
“You touched her boobs?”
“No, Doctor.”
“God,” he said, twirling around in either enthusiasm or frustration. “Look at these hands. All they know how to do is turn the pages of a book. I’ll probably be in medical school before I touch a real mammary gland, and then it’ll probably be in an operating room. They’ll uncover it, and right in front of everybody I’ll start salivating. Maybe I should just come right out and ask Peggy if I can touch hers.” Then he added hurriedly, “Purely in the interest of science.”
“I’ll bet that’d be a first even for Peggy.”
“Don’t rag on Peggy,” he snapped.
“I didn’t mean —”
He held both hands up, palms out, hold-up style. “Sorry, I know you didn’t.” Then he exhaled, cheeks puffed out like those pictures of the North Wind. “I’m all screwed up, Walker. I used to think I knew everything. All of a sudden it seems like I don’t know beans.”
Sully was the first sign of trouble, if I’d been paying attention, but I was like a weatherman who feels a few drops, then goes ahead and forecasts fair and warmer.
That night my mom came in late from work. She was crying, and when I went to her room, she looked like she’d just run over Thumper.
“What’s —”
She just waved me away and closed the door in my face.
At school the next day, every teacher I had yelled at me for no reason, and, worse than that, Rachel didn’t show up at all.
Just about the only thing that hadn’t gone wrong was working with Mr. Kramer, so of course Friday afternoon the tractor broke down. All I could do was stand around and sweat while he swore and tried to fix it. When I told him that I had a date that night, he said it was just like today’s generation to quit when the going got the least bit tough, so like an idiot I decided to prove him wrong, and we didn’t finish until nearly eight o’clock.
There was no message from Rachel, and, naturally, no Mom. There wasn’t even dinner, just the empty oven ready for any passing suicide. I knew when I dialed that Rachel wouldn’t be home, and sure enough, she wasn’t. Even the machine was off, probably out with everything else in the world having a good time, everything but me, fanning out a losing hand of frozen dinners, choosing the least obnoxious, taking a shower while it cooked, and looking at my sloping body in the mirror. I was pale except for my arms and the back of my neck. My God, a real redneck. Probably I’d buy a hound dog and start listening to banjo records if I wasn’t careful.
The on
ly good thing was that I was so tired I couldn’t stay up and worry about Rachel. I went to bed at nine-thirty, and the next thing I knew, my mom was saying that Sully was on the phone.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this,” he began, “but Rachel was out with Thompson last night.”
“Oh, God. Are you sure?”
“Somebody who’s a busboy at the Embers saw them having dinner, and then they went for ice cream.”
“Who said?”
“They stopped for gas at the Chevron station; Mark saw them eating sundaes. Hot fudge, I think.”
Bradleyville’s like Cartoonland: news travels like those wavy lines that drift from house to house while the cartoon characters sleep, and in the morning everybody knows.
“Why don’t I come by later,” Sully said, “and we’ll drown our sorrows.”
“I think I ought to talk to Rachel.”
“Are you going to be home?”
“Kramer’s going to have that piece of mine watered down good and then probably I’ll have to turn it over again.”
“Well, I’ll find you.”
“Hello?” Rachel sounded exhausted. Had he kept her out all night? Or worse?
“It’s me,” I said coldly.
“Walker? How are you?”
“The question is, how are you?”
“Terrible. I’ve been in bed for two days.”
Oh, my God. With Tommy?
“Walker, are you there? When I get my period, I get these terrible cramps.”
“Oh,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief that would have propelled your average sailboat for hours. “You should have called me.”
“I tried, but there was nobody home; anyway, I’m not very good company when I’m like this.”
“Didn’t you get to go out at all?” Mr. District Attorney strikes again.
“Just once. Dinner with my dad the other night.”
“Damn it, Rachel. You went out with Tommy Thompson.”
“That’s right. My dad and I had dinner with his dad and him.”
“Is that all, just dinner?”
“Yes. What’s —”
I struck like I’d just caught her in the lie that would alter the course of history. I believe I even said Aha! “You had an ice cream with him afterward, just the two of you.”
