Working Men Box Set

by J. M. Snyder

  When I don’t stir, Jolene shoves my bed and hisses, “Jesse!” Then she shucks off her sneakers and clambers on top of my covers, nothing but pointy elbows and skinny legs that poke at me in unpleasant places. Rising to her feet, she stomps about my mattress, narrowly missing my hands and face. “Wake up,” she chants in time with her steps. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.” I curl into a fetal position and squeeze my eyes shut, but what’s the use? She’s won. Still, I hold out until she stops moving and threatens, “I’ll tell Pa.”

  Only then do I stretch awake. The last thing I need is my father in here, towering over my bed with his hard eyes, asking in that dangerously low voice of his how a hard-working man like him managed to sire a lazy do-nothing freeloader like me. I’ll never be good enough for him, I’ve learned that lesson over the last twenty years, but that’s never kept me from trying. As I kick Jolene off the bed, I yawn and tell her, “I’m up already.” I hate the triumphant grin on her face—little sisters sure know how to get under your skin. Running a hand through my close-cropped hair, I ask, “You load Missy up yet?”

  “She won’t go up the ramp for me,” Jolene admits. “I got the piglets boxed in but Pa said to come get you since it’s your truck. He’s got Mamma’s veggie crates already stacked up by the back tire, too, waiting for you.”

  Suddenly I feel the weight of the coming week heavy on my shoulders. Loading the truck, then driving slowly over back country roads for an hour to get to the fairgrounds, unloading the truck, uncrating the vegetables and the pigs and sitting in the bed of my pick-up for long, hot hours watching people pick over both. Six days of that shit. When I was little, the fair used to be as big as Christmas for me, but this early in the morning I don’t have the energy to get that worked up anymore. “God,” I moan, rubbing my face with both hands.

  Because I’m not moving fast enough for her, Jolene kicks me in the shin.

  * * * *

  By the time we get to the fairgrounds, there’s already a line of battered trucks edging the fence. My mother’s half-brother Gary stands at the open gate, waving vendors on through. He’s county administrator and since it’s an elected position, he makes sure that he’s seen. The day has begun to brighten, but the sky is white from a faint haze that hangs above the grounds like wet laundry. As I pull up to the gates, I lean out the window and holler, “Looks like rain.”

  “It’ll hold,” Gary tells me. With a glance at Jolene in the bed of my truck, he adds, “Pig sty’s in the back, you know the way.”

  I inch the truck along the main thoroughfare, one foot on the brake pedal as we crawl along behind other trucks between lines of vendors setting up their booths. There’s a tractor somewhere up ahead, I hear the ragged engine churn in the rising heat, and people dart across the strip, dodging between the trucks as they chase after children or livestock that have managed to get away. Twice I hit the steering wheel in frustration but I don’t bother to use the horn—wouldn’t do any good. Instead I glare out the window at anyone who dares to meet my gaze and egg the truck on in little jolts that make Jolene tap angrily against the cab’s back window. I’ve been up for hours and haven’t even eaten yet, it’s getting hot already, the stench of livestock permeates the air, I’m in a sour mood, and I’m thinking that next year there’s no way I’m doing this shit again—when for the first time in ages I see someone I don’t know.

  He’s a young man, about my age, shirt off to expose pale skin that hasn’t seen the sun all summer and a back that glistens with sweat as he hammers a couple of two by fours into a booth. Light hair the color of bailed hay falls to his shoulders, and I stare at his slender frame, memorizing the flex of thin muscles across narrow shoulder blades. It’s Mrs. Colton’s booth he’s working on—she stands to one side with her hands on her ample hips, cans of preserves around her feet. When she sees me looking, she calls out, “Y’all come by for some of my jelly, you hear? I got something new you’ll want to try.”

  “So I see,” I reply. That earns me a smirk from the stranger. Encouraged, I add, “What’s his name?”

  Mrs. Colton doesn’t get my drift, thank God. “This here’s Ruddy Johnson’s boy. Davis?” Instead of a sideways glance this time he turns to look at me, eyebrows arched and thin lips twisted in a suggestive grin. “Jesse Sadler, his sister Jolene. My, that Missy has some size to her.”

  Davis. His eyes challenge me to turn away but I can’t, I’m drawn to him like a moth to a flame and I imagine lying beneath him, pinned into submission under that steady gaze. In my mind I can see just how dusky my skin would look alongside his white flesh; I can taste his sweat, smell his scent, almost feel how firm his body would be against my hands. As I stare, he gives me a quick wink that makes my dick go from mildly interested to “Hello!” in one heartbeat. I’m so caught up in him that I don’t even realize the traffic has stopped moving until I bump into the truck in front of us. Jolene pounds on the glass behind me hard enough to rattle it in my ear.

  “Sorry!” I holler, cringing at the look the driver ahead gives me in his side-view mirror. God. Davis laughs, the sound boyish and so bright that it makes me want to sink down into my seat and die of embarrassment. As the line of trucks starts to move forward, I duck my head and hide the side of my face behind my hand so I won’t be tempted to look his way again.

  When we reach the pigsty, Jolene jumps down from the bed of the truck and wants to know, “What’d you run up on Bubba’s bumper for?”

  “You’re only eleven,” I tell her. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I’m twelve,” she counters. “I know more than you think.” I shrug her comment off, but she warns, “And you best hope Pa don’t see you making eyes at any boys.”

  All right, so maybe she is a bit more perceptive than I thought.

  * * * *

  Ruddy Johnson is the only person I know of who left the county and didn’t drop off the face of the Earth. He still comes back once a year for the county fair—he’s a contractor now, works out of the state capital, but he and Gary went to high school together and folks don’t mind him coming down, seeing as he was once one of their own. If I’d known Ruddy had a son like Davis, I might have let Gary talk me into hiring onto one of his work crews earlier this summer.

  As my sister goes about uncrating the pigs, I lean against the side of my truck and wonder how long I can stall putting our booth together in the hopes that Davis will eventually drift down this way to help. I squint back along the main strip, but I can’t pick him out from the people milling about. When Jolene tells me to get a move on, I flick the toothpick I’m chewing at her and haul one crate of tomatoes out of the truck, set it on the ground at my feet, then take another look around. Still no sign of Davis. I can’t believe he’s not somewhere thinking about me right now. Lord knows I wasn’t the only one staring.

  I pull out two more crates, these loaded with unshucked corn, and manage to make enough room to get Missy down. Maybe I was wrong about the guy, but just thinking about that wink he gave me sets my blood on fire. As I unload the truck, my mind is tucked in some fantasy world where Davis stretches above me like the sky, his smile the sun. My motions are automatic, my thoughts spun out in a whirl, and I don’t hear the approaching footsteps or sense I’m no longer alone until a voice behind me says, “I was beginning to wonder when you’d get to work.”

  The crate I’m holding falls from my hands and breaks when it hits the ground, spilling turnip greens across the muddy grass. It’s him, Davis, standing so close that the greens cover the tops of his sneakers. “Damn,” I sigh, nervous now that he’s right up on me. He’s thinner than I reckoned, wiry, with a strong jaw and light blue eyes that look almost see-through. His hair wisps in dry, sunburnt strands, the front of it pulled back in a tight ponytail to keep it off his face. There’s something randy about him, almost carnal, that hints at long afternoons twined together in the hayloft, strong fingers slipping into tight wet places, tongues hot on hidden flesh. Trying to push that thought out of my h
ead, I sink to my knees to gather up the turnip greens and find myself eye-level with his crotch. Oh my God.

  Davis raises one eyebrow in interest. “Jesse, is it?” he asks, shifting his weight from one foot to the other to thrust his hips out at me. “I came by to see if you wanted me for anything.”

  Right this moment, staring past the slight bulge in his jeans and up the smooth expanse of his taut, hairless chest, I can imagine half a dozen different ways I want him. But before I can answer, he squats beside me and starts to scoop up the greens I’m neglecting. “Sorry about this,” he says. “You need some help putting up your booth?” As if he’s been talking about that all along. The hands that rub over mine beneath the turnip greens say otherwise.

  I manage to find my voice. “Sure,” I tell him, then thinking maybe I should say something more, I add, “Davis. That’s an odd name. Ruddy’s your pa?”

  With a nod, he admits, “Davis is my middle name.” He gathers up the greens, my hands stuck in the bundle, so I stand when he does to keep him from letting go. “It’s better than Jeff, let me tell you. I used to be J.D. when I was younger. Some people still call me that. You any relation to that race car driver?”

  He means Elliott Sadler—I get asked that a lot. The truth is no, but I shrug like maybe. He thrusts the greens into my arms and then wipes his hands on his hips, a move that pulls his jeans tight across his groin. “You don’t talk much, do you?” he asks, bending down again to pick out two boards from the nearby stack. “My dad couldn’t make it this year, so I’m stuck constructing all these booths. How about a hand?” He’s moving too fast for me, running from one thought to the next with the quickness of a silverfish, but when he holds out one of the boards, I drop the turnip greens onto the open tailgate and take it, eager to keep up. “You hold it steady,” Davis tells me, “and I’ll hammer it in. What do you say?”

  “Are we talking about the booth?” I ask.

  Davis leers at me over his shoulder. “We’re talking about wood. Where do you want me to put it?”

  My mouth goes dry with lust and when I speak, my voice barely makes it above a whisper. “Put what?” The booth? The wood he’s holding? His dick? I don’t know about the first two but I’ve got an idea where I’d like that last one to go. “You mean the booth, right?”

  Davis just laughs, a delicious sound that washes over me like a summer breeze. “What do you think I mean?” he asks.

  I’d really love to find out.

  * * * *

  After our booth is up and Davis has moved onto the next vendor, leaving me with aching balls and a promise to return when he gets the chance, I set out as much of the vegetables as I can and stack the empty crates in the back of my truck. The gates open at ten, and for the first two hours, I’m on my feet haggling with customers, trading the crops for cans of jam or preserves, pocketing payments and making change. I keep an eye on Jolene but she’s better at this than me, and by the time noon rolls around, she’s sold all of her piglets and gained two baby chicks in addition to a fistful of dollars. Her fat sow Missy wallows half-hidden in hot mud, but she’s the biggest pig at the fair and it looks like she might bring home another ribbon this year. When Jolene’s piglets are gone, she climbs into the back of my truck and starts up a steady stream of chatter that I tune out while I work. When the first rush finally ebbs away, I plop down on the tailgate with a sigh. “You could help out here a bit,” I tell her.

  Jolene shakes her ponytail back with a haughty air. “Pa said—”

  I cut her off. “Pa ain’t here.” To keep her from arguing further, I pull one foot up on the tailgate, wrap my arms around my knee, and hide my face in my arms. Sweat drips down the back of my neck, behind my ears, under my arms, tracing intimate lines across my body. For the first time since he left, I let myself think of Davis. My own breath sounds close and harsh in the scant darkness created by my crossed arms, but I close my eyes and there he is, that suggestive smile toying around the edges of his mouth. I recall the way he moved as he set up my booth, but in my mind I’m bold this time and when his back is to me, I step up behind him, ease my arms around his narrow waist, slip my hands into the front pockets of his jeans and rub against the hardness I find there. I press my face against his moist, hot back and breathe in his heady scent, a manly mix of musk and soap and sweat that turns me on something fierce. He backs up, ass arched into my crotch as I hug him to me, my lips trailing tiny kisses around his neck and along the rigid shelf of his collarbone. One of my hands encircles his erection through the pocket—in my fantasy he doesn’t have on underwear. My kisses move lower, down his back now, over his shoulder blades and along the nubs of his spine, my hands pushing into his pockets until his pants start to slide down out of the way. I’m licking along the small of his back, where he has a tiny Chinese character tattooed at the base of his spine, and my tongue barely eases between the mounds of his fleshy buttocks…Jolene calls my name. I replay that daydream over again, starting at the spot where his tailbone ends, licking down the crevice of his ass, and she calls me again. A customer or something, I don’t know, but my jeans cut across the start of my own erection with a sweet pain and I’m not ready to get back to the real world just yet, so I tell her, “Handle it, will you?”

  With an exasperated huff, she jumps down from the truck, one small foot catching me in the hip as she passes by. I don’t have the energy to fight with her right now. Where was I? Oh yes, tasting my way down damp flesh to the trembling, puckered prize beneath—

  Something icy presses against the back of my neck, so cold that it takes my breath away. I jerk my head up, ready to lay into Jolene for messing with me, only to see that Davis has found me again. He holds a can of Coke out to me, still wet from the cooler. “Thirsty?” he asks. I take the soda without comment, not trusting myself to speak. It’s hard to mesh the naked image of him in my mind’s eye with the living, breathing boy beside me. He leans against the side of my truck, so nonchalant, as if he has no clue what I’m thinking when I look his way. “So,” he asks, “what do you guys do around here for fun?”

  I take a swallow from the can and shrug. “This is about it,” I admit. A look around at the fair in full swing and I see just how lame it must appear to someone like him. “Sorry if it’s got you bored stiff.”

  “Oh, I’m stiff alright.” Maybe he’s thinking the same as me after all. But he’ll probably try to play that off somehow, pretend he’s not talking about what I think he’s talking about, and I’m waiting for that laugh of his to ease the tension between us when he reaches out and smoothes one finger down the length of my arm. His touch is light, ticklish, and he watches the tip of his finger as it curves around my elbow and swings up to dust under the short sleeve of my T-shirt. I watch too, waiting, my lower lip caught bloodless between my teeth. His finger feels like a feather on my skin, barely there, but then he presses hard against a freckle and when I glance up at him, he’s looking back. “Let’s go somewhere,” he whispers. My sister’s busy with a customer at the front of the booth and can’t overhear us, but Davis keeps his voice low and intimate. “Just you and me. What do you say?”

  I want to say yes, I want to shout it out at the top of my lungs, but this isn’t my folks’ barn in the lower field, this is the county fair, and with Jolene around, there’s nowhere we can be alone. Unsure, I start, “Where…”

  Davis nods towards the front of the truck, and for a moment I think he means for us to get in the cab. How private is that? But then I see the split rail fence and the wave of tall grass growing beyond the edges of the fairgrounds. “Out there?” I want to know.

  In lieu of a reply he takes my wrist, his hand slipping easily into mine as he helps me off the tailgate. Over my shoulder I call out, “Hold down the fort, Jo. I’ll be back.”

  We only take two steps towards the fence before my sister cuts in front of me, blocking the way. “Oh, no, mister,” she says with an angry shake of her head. “My job was the pigs and they’re all gone so don’t try
to dump the crops on me, too. Where y’all going anyway? Don’t you dare run off and leave me here. I’ll tell Pa.”

  “Listen,” I say, leaning down to look her in the eye. Davis tugs on my hand but I hold him back. “You might not believe me now, Jolene, but one day you’re going to bring home a boy that Pa’s not going to like.” I don’t mention that our father won’t like any boy she brings home—let her find that out for herself. She gives me a wounded look, lip pooched out like she thinks I might be lying, but she’s giving me a chance. “Trust me, once you get a little older, there will be plenty of times when you’re gonna want to get away with someone and you’re gonna be like Jesse, can you cover for me here? And what do you think I’m gonna say?”

  “Where are you going?” she asks again, petulant.

  I point out past the fence and tell her, “Just over there, I promise. If you need me, just holler. But you did a bang-up job with those piggies, Jo, and I know you can sell the hell out of some vegetables if you want to. What do you say?”

  Jolene glares at the field as if hoping it’ll burst into flame. Davis’ hand is starting to sweat against mine, and he gives me a pleading look that she doesn’t see. I’m just about to say fine, she wins, I’ll ache for this boy for the rest of my life just because she’s too damn stubborn to cut me some slack, when she sighs. “Fine,” she grumbles. She pouts at me, then at Davis, then whips her ponytail back with a defiant shake of her head, but she steps aside to let me pass. Without waiting for her to change her mind, I let Davis pull me towards the fence. As I’m climbing over, I glance back but Jolene’s already at the booth again, weighing out a bag of butter beans for another customer.