by J. D. Palmer
But I never got to play. Never got to dig a hole, or throw sticks, or climb in the trees.
The neighbor did have a dog, though. And would let me come say hi as long as one of my foster parents came too. He was a nervous guy with a ponytail. Nervous unless it came to his dog. Then it was a show of mastery. Jerks on the leash. Swats if he didn’t sit fast enough. His voice rising ever so slightly to threaten the poor thing with future retribution if it didn’t perform properly.
I remember being angry at the dog the first time it growled at me. I couldn’t understand it, not after I had shown it kindness. Brought it treats and petted it and given it love. I didn’t realize that the only time it got beat up was when I, or someone, came to visit.
It was sad at that place. The whole neighborhood was a show of attempted control. Mastery over a dog or mastery of a palatial yard. Putting order into their lives. I don’t know if it’s a thing only men do, or if women do it in their own ways. I assume they do. Perhaps women try to control what affects them, while men feel the need to control things. Dogs. Yards. People.
Me.
Perhaps that’s just the way a man’s brain works.
I don’t seek control over anything. I know that control, true control, doesn’t exist. The only thing that is in your realm to regulate is how you feel about things. How things affect you. There is no way to actually dominate, or master, chaos. Only how you feel about it.
For me, death happened. Killing happened. Stuart… happened. I wish some of those things, most events in my life, hadn’t transpired.
But it brought me here. A morning to throw a stick and watch Pike run and romp. He’s still uncertain sometimes. A yell, or someone backing out of their chair too quickly can send him seeking shelter. Or growling. Or doing both. He is unchained. Unmastered. Unfettered and free.
But still bound by the past. Hell, so am I.
I choose to be thankful that I learned these lessons. That I, we, are still alive.
It’s all how you look at things.
Winter is in decay. A harsh mistress grown tired of tormenting the land. Occasional bouts of petty snow, winds that lash us for a few hours. Maybe a day. But now the air has a warmth to it. The dismal grey skies evaporating to show chalky blue.
The end is near. A brightness to Harlan’s eyes as he moves about the ranch. The knowledge that, for good or ill, the time is quickly approaching that he will finally have the answers to his future.
It will be a relief for all of us. Closure, in a way.
For whom?
I throw the stick for Pike and watch him gallivant around the hill, a victory lap for him, and him only. Times like these remind of Dancing Ghost. A comfort in being in your own skin. The knowledge that these simple moments are the ones to be relished. I don’t know if he taught me that, or if Pike just made me realize it. Or maybe it’s just something everyone knows, and ignores.
It’s how you look at things.
Perspective might be my new favorite word.
Theo comes out of the house and sits next to me, large arms wrapped around himself and heavy, quick breaths as if he’d just plunged into a pool of cold water. We sit in silence for awhile, taking turns throwing the stick for Pike, who is now more interested in eating and rolling in snow than fetching.
“You okay?” He says. I turn to look at him in surprise, although I don’t say anything. I may have my voice back, but it’s hard not to use silence. It’s a different way of speaking, I guess.
“You just…” He waves his hand around. “My Mama always used to go sit outside. Just at night, right after we had dinner. She used to sit outside and we knew that she wanted to be alone. But it always bothered me, I guess.” He shifts uncomfortably, reaching out to push Pike around before continuing. “I asked her once. She said we spend so much time listening and seeing other people that sometimes we forget to listen to ourselves. She said she was out of practice, and it took her a long time to hear the little voice that told her what she needed to hear.”
I don’t know what to make of this. But I know I need to listen to my brother. I guess, sometimes, people ask you if you’re okay so they can check up on themselves.
“I didn’t know that she was suffering,” he says. “I didn’t know that she had been hooked on drugs for a long time. And that she quit cold turkey. I didn’t know because I didn’t listen.”
He pauses then, and I know the story isn’t over and he knows the story isn’t over, but we sit on a snowy hill watching a dog show off for awhile. And we both are cold and both pretend that we aren’t. Like siblings do, I would think. I don’t know how old he is. I think it doesn’t matter. He sees me as the younger sister and I am oh too happy to be that to him. Even feeling as old as I do.
“I ain’t a good noticer,” he finally says. “I never was. Unless someone shook something in front of me, I’d never notice. But I think I’m better at it now.”
And there is nothing to do after someone says that, but to take their hand and hold it and watch a creature run and jump and be the epitome of joy. Even with my voice back, even not cringing at a physical touch, as much… I would have nothing to say.
HARLAN | 34
MEMORY IS A funny thing. A blessing, in many ways. Practical. A way for us to evolve. To take a situation and adapt to make a different response. Really, all we are is a summation of our mistakes and how we handle them. Beryl says that I’m a leader because of this. Not because I’ve made the mistakes, but because I am so willing to make them again. I don’t understand her, really. But I know I trust people more than she does. Or I want to trust. So maybe that’s it. Because trust, if I’m being honest, is the most precious mineral ever mined, the raw ore that is used to form friendship, faith, love.
Memory. A good thing. A way to adapt. And a censor. We say time heals all things. Heals. We find ways to forget. Or to dismiss. Or to regulate. Our memory protects us. It stitches a story together that makes everything worthwhile. And it’s not always the truth. I can dredge up memories with my father that aren’t wholesome. With my mother, too. My sister. With Jessica. But those fragments quickly erode after a short time. The pieces that stick are those that have something positive to them. Or you die, I suppose. Crawl into a bottle or work yourself to death. I wonder if I had been headed that way.
There was a question floating around on social media for awhile, back before all this. A weekly poll asking what your choice would be given two distinct situations. They were always ludicrous, but then again, ludicrous is the only thing we had time for.
The one that stuck with me was ‘would you rather… live forever… or know everything?’
I had always thought living forever was the best answer. You could learn everything that was worth learning. What I didn’t understand at the time was just how horrible it would be to never die. Which is funny, because we fear death so much. But I’ve wanted to die, and I’m in my twenties. How could I possibly stay sane for a millennium?
Perhaps I’m a step closer to the latter part of the question.
Memory…
So I remember all that has happened to me. Too well. But more than ever Beryl is featured at the forefront. And I remember Jessica. And there is nothing bad, though I know there was. I remember the fights. I remember not understanding what was wrong, and I remember being mad for no reason at all. Hell, I remember hating working for her dad. I remember long hours and shitty jobs. But now, looking back, it was the simplest, most honest time in my life. It was a job that I did, and I did well. It was a time that was simple. And wonderful.
That’s it. Everything else is just words.
Childlike, in remembering it that way. But maybe we put too much pressure on ourselves to alter our state of being. Maybe we feel that if we aren’t progressing we are failing. Some people get it. Some people get depressed.
I wish I was the former.
Ranch work, even in the dead of winter, is invigorating. Physical labor does something that eases the soul. Maybe it’s
just progress that is seen and felt. Maybe it’s the exhaustion afterwards. Maybe it’s a connection formed with other men, or with beasts, or with the land itself.
I remember working with Jessica’s dad. Content to work his ranch, to farm and trade his crops and his hay for other goods. I don’t think the man would ever have actually dealt with money if he could have avoided it. And it was quite the transgression to bring up taxes.
He knew my dad, in the way that dads know other dads of kids their age. Nods and smiles and maybe a handshake. The profession. Nothing important. He said something about respecting my father, and that he was sorry to hear about his passing.
He said those things, but it was plain he didn’t like me. Though he was kind to me out of respect. He probably figured Jessica had brought home a wounded bird. He probably figured that after a little time I’d fly away.
Definitely not build a nest.
Funny to think of myself through his eyes. Especially now.
Especially now.
I asked for a job helping him out. Baling hay. Hauling goods. Whatever he needed. His daughter made him say yes. His distaste for me made him work me to the bone in an effort to get me to quit.
He didn’t know how stubborn I could be.
Especially then. I relished it. I wasn’t afraid of failure. And I wanted, more than anything, to outlast him. To win this little game. And then rub his nose in it for disliking me.
Broken blisters. Long days. It turned into respect. On both sides, I think.
Which didn’t mean he wanted me for his daughter. But he liked me otherwise. Always inviting me to stay for dinner then running me off before dessert.
He liked whiskey, that man. Didn’t touch anything else. And at the time I marveled at what I thought was discipline. He’d drink half a bottle with me some nights, the days we had put in sixteen hours. And then he’d be up four hours later and would work another day.
It wasn’t discipline. It was love.
He loved his land. He loved what it gave him. Not prosperity. Not food on his table.
Peace. A purpose. He always equated working his land to the first cow he milked. “You don’t neglect her, you don’t rush her, but you club her when she’s stubborn.”
Love.
The man was happy with his life. Had probably always been happy. I marveled at that more than anything. I didn’t know, then, that there were people like that. People who didn’t question or wonder or second guess every last thing. That were content to be.
I chop wood this cold morning. We are running low, and for the last week we’ve let the fire burn out at night. Pain in the ass to get it started in the morning, and we’re already out of kindling.
Thwack.
It’s soft, the tarp had been pulled back by the wind to let a swath of snow make a home. My axe sinks into the wood and sticks, taking four or five swings to finally break it apart. Fucking wet wood. It’ll still burn, given time inside. Just sucks to chop. But I relish it. The work. The hardship. The sweat and toil and the blocks laid out in front of me.
I think I get him now. Jessica’s dad. A life where you get to see what you work for. Where the job makes food and you make children and you teach them that same craft. A cycle.
It bothers me now to think about how many jobs people had where they never got to see the results. Never got to hold a product in their hand that they knew was integral to survival. Instead it was money you didn’t see made for faceless bosses.
No wonder we were so depressed.
For the first time I wonder if Jessica’s father survived. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss at first, he was always content to be alone on his land. He would definitely be prepared, though. Food stocked and a backup generator in the shed. And guns. The man was an avid hunter. A fisherman. The quintessential Montana conservative.
Funny to think about those labels. Those divisions that we created amongst ourselves. My mother was a democrat. But I don’t think she’d struggle any more than Jessica’s dad in this new environment.
To be liberal in Montana was to be a moderate conservative in every other state. A liberal in Montana most likely still believed in guns… Just not assault rifles. A liberal in Montana probably still supported the death penalty. A liberal in Montana really didn’t mean anything much because it meant something different everywhere else. Which was so… liberal of it.
My mother was…
Is…
The most caring, loving person I know.
I made friends with stragglers. With kids who didn’t know if dinner was going to be there when they got home. One step above riffraff, but well-spoken and courteous, too. I’ll always remember them throwing rocks, or snowballs, at my window to get me to sneak out. I’ll also remember my father painstakingly setting up a volleyball court in our yard for a family reunion. Measuring angles, painting lines, trimming the lilac bush. We were a competitive bunch… I remember my friends coming over and, upon seeing it, demanding to play. I remember two of them that would keep spiking the ball down the hill and into the garden. And the ten minutes it would take them to retrieve the ball and come back.
That was their dinner.
Only a week later my mother was making stews and casseroles and lamenting the fact that she’d have to throw this out if no one stayed and ate it.
I wonder if she’s taken in any other survivors.
Share if you can share. An ideal never spoken, just done.
And it was ever present in our lives. I remember being embarrassed by our compost heap. Egg shells and coffee grounds and leftover food. Gathered and put into our garden to help next years seedlings. For some reason it was worse than hanging our laundry out to dry by the road, my underwear a banner for every passing person to laugh at.
How I miss it now.
I imagine my mother, gun in hand, hanging clothes. Fertilizing the garden. I imagine, when I’m in a good place, that nothing has really changed at my home.
But there I go again. Whenever I picture my home, it’s the fall. The best part of the year. Cool temperatures and days slowly getting shorter. Restful. Peaceful. I always see it like that. Perhaps because I can’t bear to imagine my loved ones locked in this winter. A dark path, worrying if they had enough heat, or food, and if…
Better to see it like this.
Better to be hopeful.
Especially now that the sun has cracked through the cheerless grey layer. The stranglehold of cold broken. It’s still winter, but it has lost its power. Every day is a day closer to us leaving. The snowy tide ebbing, receding slowly from windows and doors.
I’m packed. Beryl is packed. I don’t know about the others. But I’m not surprised when Josey seeks me out. The slight limp that gives him a swagger. As if he’s been riding that horse for too long.
“You’re not coming.”
He exhales a held in breath. “No. I’m sorry.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “Why are you sorry? I’m happy for you. I am. And you’re close. We might still see each other again.”
I’m gladdened to find that I’m not lying. Weird, having optimism.
“It’s just, they can really use me here. There’s so many animals. And—”
“Josey. I understand.”
He nods and looks at his hands. “You guys saved my life. You ever need anything… If you don’t… If things don’t… Just come here if you need help. Or a place.”
I know what he means and what he’s afraid to say. It makes our handshake that much more firm, and that much more sad.
Sheila roundly cusses Josey out for staying. Loudly wondering how he can stay with a bunch of “flat-chested twats chasing cows all day.” That he had been spending time alone with Jacqueline isn’t brought up. That he’s happy here isn’t brought up. That, though they had only sought comfort with each other, at least as far as I knew, this could seem like another man deserting her… isn’t brought up.
They get drunk together that night and are fine the
next day. Well, Sheila seems fine. I’ve never seen a man so hungover as Josey.
Theo cries. Just a bit. Loudly professing, “I didn’t use to be a crier.” Then he crushes Josey in a hug that, in his hungover state, looks like it could prove messy for the both of them.
“We aren’t leaving yet,” I say. And I grimace at how subdued my voice sounds. That I have to try to put a damper on things.
Truth is, I’m scared to leave. Scared to leave this haven where I gave up control. Where I could live day by day. Where Beryl and I…
I trudge down the hall to Momma Kay’s office. I rap twice and then enter. She’s writing on a piece of paper, so I wait to let her finish. She’s always tallying, always making plans. Preparing for the future. Always a caretaker. A camp for kids in years before, a ranch for survivors the next.
“What can I do for you, Har?”
It’s a genuine question, not a way of opening up a conversation. She wants to know how she can help. How she can give more.
“Karen—”
“Momma Kay. How many times I got to remind you?”
I can’t help but smile. “Momma Kay, you’ve given us so much. I want to know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Before you leave?”
“Before we leave.”
She eyes me, and I’m surprised to think that she seems sad. “You’re doing better than you were. You’ve even put on a few pounds.”
Ever the mother.
“Yes. I… I’m sorry about… How I was when I got here.”
“Don’t be.” She pulls the papers from her desk and puts them in a drawer before coming over to sit on the bench next to me. “I wouldn’t have let you stay if you hadn’t been the way you were.”
“What do you mean?”
She pats my hand and then holds it, the way that some people, the real givers in life, can do. A physical touch that is just comfort, nothing else. “You did bad things. Not hard to tell. If you weren’t wrecked some way or another then you wouldn’t have been someone I’d have wanted wintering with us.”
