Boy on the Edge

by Fridrik Erlings

  The Brute had arrived to brand the lambs.

  About half the boys were in the dormitory, packing their bags, for they were leaving on the afternoon bus. Some were going back home, others to new foster parents in another part of the country.

  The rest of the boys sat in a row upon the fence inside the sheep shed, unaware of the horror that was about to take place. Henry stood by the door that opened into the barn and watched.

  The Brute moved quickly, seizing a lamb in his large hands, kneeling on the slatted floor, holding the trembling animal in his crotch with one hand and brandishing a pair of rusty shears in the other, stroking the white velvet ear with its sharp blade. Then he glanced at the boys on the fence with a murky grin.

  “Now I’ll teach you how to do this,” he said. “The brand mark for this farm is: tip-cut left; slant-cut right. Now, how am I to do that?”

  The boys had no idea what he was talking about.

  The Brute held the lamb tightly, placing the velvet ear between the rusty blades of the shears, cutting the tip of the left ear in a quick move.

  The lamb jumped up, screaming, shaking its head wildly, as the blood ran down its curly cheeks. Its mother bleated loudly on the other side of the fence, furiously trying to climb over to protect her little one. The boys’ faces turned pale. Some covered their ears because of the lamb’s high-pitched screams of pain. Or perhaps they just felt for the little thing, rubbing their own ears to try to soothe those of the lamb.

  The Brute grinned and squinted through the cigarette smoke, assessing the boys.

  “Here,” he said, pointing the shears to one of the boys. “You’ll do the other ear.”

  But the boy shook his head. The Brute shrugged, dug his strong fingers into the curly wool, held the lamb firmly between his thighs, and made a slant-cut to the right ear of the screaming little lamb. Then he ordered the boys to bring him another lamb.

  “And keep them coming,” he growled. “We haven’t got all day.”

  That afternoon, when all the lambs had been branded this way, the Brute told the boys to herd the flock toward the low mountains in the north. The lambs ran beside their mothers, red blood on their thin little necks, crying with their soft, bright voices.

  Henry stayed in the yard and watched the flock go up the road. As they crossed, he saw the bus appear. It had to stop and wait while the sheep crossed, but then it turned toward the farm and eased across the yard, the large wheels crunching the gravel.

  Reverend Oswald and Emily were saying farewell to the boys who were leaving. Henry wondered if any of them would return in the autumn, perhaps a little harder in the face, their eyes a little colder.

  All of them shook hands with the reverend, but when they turned to Emily she embraced them tightly and they started to cry. Emily was having a hard time saying good-bye as well, Henry noticed, wiping tears from her eyes.

  When the bus finally drove off, Henry saw a tall, thin boy standing alone in the yard. He spat through his teeth and threw back his long black hair with a sudden jerk of the head. His thumbs were hooked in the pockets of his tight jeans, and he looked around with an arrogant air.

  Emily and the reverend approached him, but Henry noticed that when the reverend offered him his hand, the boy didn’t take it. Emily took the reverend aside and they talked for a while in low voices.

  Henry sat on the Cairn of Christ and watched the boy. He seemed to be about the same age as himself, but he was handsome. His face was lean, with a strong jaw, straight nose, thick black eyebrows, and long shiny black hair. He stood, relaxed, right next to his duffel bag, like he didn’t care about a thing in the world, dressed in a thin T-shirt and a short, worn leather jacket, and old cowboy boots.

  There was something about him that made Henry curious, perhaps his boldness at refusing to shake hands with the reverend. If only Henry knew the words to start a conversation with him. If only he could somehow show him that they were perhaps of the same mind, that he too wanted nothing more than to give the reverend as much hell as possible, that perhaps the two of them could find a way to make it happen, that the two of them could, perhaps, become friends.

  He felt a strong urge to make the boy notice him, so he might, somehow, indicate to him that he wasn’t just an ugly cripple, but someone to be respected, a person with serious responsibilities on the farm, and therefore someone to rely on, to trust.

  He had no idea how to put his thoughts into words, and since the boy didn’t even seem to notice him sitting there, Henry began to worry that in a short while Emily would take the boy inside, and he would miss his chance.

  Finally he cleared his throat loudly and spat on the gravel.

  But the boy didn’t turn around to look. He just stood there, waiting, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.

  Emily and the reverend finished their conversation, and Emily walked to the house. The reverend told the boy sternly to follow him. The boy picked up his duffel bag and walked behind the reverend toward the dormitory in the old sheep shed. Henry didn’t see him at dinner and wondered if the reverend had locked him up already for refusing to shake hands with him.

  Early next morning, the boys crowded around the breakfast table as Emily introduced the new boy.

  “This is John,” she said. “Our new farmhand. You will show him respect and courtesy.”

  “Welcome, John,” said Reverend Oswald, and the boys murmured: “Welcome, John!”

  Then everybody sat down, clasped their hands, and bowed their heads. Except for John. He glanced over the table, his eyes a shimmering green, a faint hint of mockery on his lips. Reverend Oswald had hardly begun the prayer when John stretched out his arm and started to scoop porridge into his bowl. The reverend fell silent and looked up. Everyone froze. John continued like nothing had happened, poured milk over the porridge, and began to eat.

  “There are rules here, which you will have to follow like everyone else,” the reverend said. “Put that spoon down.”

  “But I’m hungry,” John replied.

  “We’re all hungry, John,” the reverend said. “But before eating, we give our thanks to God.”

  “I don’t believe in God,” John said dryly, and continued eating.

  There was a moment of silence, and the little boys sank in their seats. Finally the reverend spoke, obviously trying hard to restrain his anger.

  “But we do. So perhaps you would be so kind as to show us some respect and courtesy by not eating while we pray.”

  The words were polite enough, but the tone of his voice was not. John shrugged and put the spoon in his bowl with a loud clank.

  “Sure,” he said, and leaned back in his chair, smiling, folding his arms on his chest.

  Reverend Oswald began the prayer again, his voice trembling a little.

  Henry felt a surge of joy; finally here was someone brave enough to challenge the reverend. Finally! Henry couldn’t wait for the chance to talk to John, to let him know that they could be in this together, that he wasn’t on the reverend’s side, but on John’s side.

  But he had to be careful so the reverend wouldn’t suspect anything. And Henry had to choose his words carefully, form a clear sentence in his mind before speaking to John. If he started to stutter or forget what he wanted to say, then John might think he was a retard after all, a stupid, worthless cripple.

  But the days went by and Henry never found a chance to approach John. He continued to behave stubbornly at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; he even stormed out of the garage in the middle of a Sunday service. The reverend stopped the service and followed him outside. While Emily, Henry, and the rest of the boys sat quietly inside the garage, the two of them had a heated argument out in the yard. The reverend came back alone, said a short prayer, and then left, while Emily played the organ and the boys sang.

  For a whole week John was nowhere to be seen: he had been locked up in the Boiler Room.

  When he appeared again at breakfast he was pale in the face and his green eyes didn’t shimmer a
nymore. Now he clasped his hands like everyone else and murmured “Amen” after the reverend’s prayer. Henry knew the power of the reverend’s words. He could well imagine that their influence was even stronger when one was locked up in a small room while the reverend gave thundering speeches, demanding that one should say one’s prayers out loud, the prayers that the reverend had ordered one to learn by heart. John looked tired and worn out. The reverend, on the other hand, had regained his confidence as well as his oratory skills, beaming with energy and power at the head of the table.

  That morning, the Brute arrived after breakfast, for the day had come to clean out the sheep sheds. The reverend and the Brute had a short conversation in the yard before the reverend got in his car, an old yellow Volvo with freckles of rust on the paint. The Volvo disappeared in a cloud of dust on the road, and the Brute took John with him to the sheep sheds.

  Henry stood in the doorway, which opened into the barn, and watched as they picked up the slatted floorboards and dragged them out into the yard, where the little ones took over and began to scrape them clean.

  Below the boards, the cistern was full to the brim with coal-black, tightly packed manure. The stench was bitter and awful. The Brute stood on the firm slab with a cigarette in his mouth and a sharp shovel in his hands. He cut one clod of manure and threw it in the wheelbarrow.

  “There,” he said, and handed the shovel to John. “Keep doing that till there’s no shit left in there. And when that’s done, there’s the other shed to be cleaned out.”

  Then he walked out and drove away in his red pickup in a cloud of dust.

  John cut one clod after the other until he had filled the wheelbarrow. Then he pushed it over the threshold across a plank and emptied it on the heap behind the barn. When he came back inside, he glanced at Henry in the doorway but said nothing.

  John was already sweating, the back of his T-shirt drenched. Suddenly he turned around and gave Henry a sharp look and thrust his chin forward.

  “What do you want?” he asked brusquely.

  For a brief moment Henry was dumbstruck, for he hadn’t decided on his words, hadn’t found a way to say the things he wanted to say. So he said nothing, kept his mouth firmly shut, but his mind was spinning like mad, searching for the right words, for this was an important moment. And he knew he had to seize it.

  “Are you deaf?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “You live in the cowshed, right?”

  Henry nodded. He almost smiled. But he knew how his smile could be misunderstood as a mocking scowl, so he held back and bit on his lip.

  “Then you’re lost,” John said. “These are the sheep sheds.”

  He continued to shovel the shit and chuck the large chunks into the wheelbarrow.

  Henry felt that this was a beginning of a conversation, of a kind. If he could only come up with some reply, something easy, then John might perhaps continue talking, and he would have time to think of something else. The most important thing was to say something, anything, and not let the silence draw on for too long.

  Then suddenly he had an amusing thought. But how to put it into words, so John would understand the joke, was another matter.

  “I fed them,” he said.

  John looked up. “You fed who?”

  Henry pointed with his chin at the empty sheep shed. “Them,” he said.

  John looked at him pensively for a moment with his green eyes, perhaps wondering if he was retarded. Then he smirked and threw back his long black hair with a quick jerk.

  “Feed them less next time,” he said, and kept on working.

  Henry stood still in the doorway and couldn’t help but smile. John had actually understood the joke. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he just stood there for a while, with his hands deep in his pockets, a broad grin on his face.

  Somehow the sheep shit didn’t stink nearly as bad as before.

  He couldn’t fall asleep that night, wondering how his life would have turned out if he’d been like John. How easily he would have laughed off every opponent, how lightly he would have taken every insult, like it was nothing at all; how he would have enjoyed being the cool guy, shooting out short, sharp sentences that would make everyone gasp with admiration or shut up for good. How sweet to have been admired by the pretty boys, loved by the girls. How different everything would have been.

  He lay still for a long time, staring into the darkness around him, stroking his thick short fingers lightly across his ugly face.

  He was no John, and he never would be. But perhaps John might become a friend. If only he could find a way to make that happen. How happy he would be, having a friend like John. Just thinking about it made him feel good, made him feel strong, worthy.

  Right before he fell asleep he wondered why John had been sent to this place. Was he a criminal of some sort, a thief perhaps? He could imagine John as a Prince of Thieves. And he was relieved that the week in the Boiler Room had not broken John’s spirit: he had obviously just decided to play along, feign obedience to avoid further punishment.

  Henry smiled in the darkness, firmly resolved to try again to make contact with John as soon as possible. After all, today had not been that bad; he had made a joke, and John had understood it.

  In his whole life, that had never happened before.

  It was a sunny day with a warm breeze coming in from the south, and the time had come to put the cows out to pasture. They had been growing more irritable with each day and wouldn’t lie down in their stalls. Their moos had acquired a different tone, agitated, impatient, demanding. They sniffed the air, breathed heavily, and frowned.

  Noah, on the other hand, had become sadder with each day, resting his head on the stall fence, rolling his eyes, whimpering like a puppy.

  After breakfast Emily had told the little ones with an excited smile that today would be great fun, but the boys froze with terror. Their love of the little lambs was directly proportionate to their terror of the big cows. They couldn’t understand why they had to be set free. Some ran straight to their rooms and locked the doors. Others stood tight together on a cart, trembling with fear and excitement.

  Henry limped from stall to stall and untied the cows’ collars one by one and watched as they stumbled to the door, toward the bright sunlight outside.

  Old Red, usually so calm, composed, and gentle, was the first to go. Her legs trembled as she staggered impatiently toward the door. She hesitated for a moment, expanding her nostrils and shuddering. Then she mooed and jumped over the threshold. One foot touched the soil, and the wet mud pressed up through her cloven hoof. It was as if the heavy burden of the long winter had rested on that one leg. She pulled it free from the mud with a long-drawn sucking sound — and summer had arrived.

  Old Red rushed out of the door, heaving heavily, with gawking eyes, her ears pricked up, saliva dripping from her mouth. She mooed again, galloped forward, raised her tail high in the air, and a fountain of shit streamed out, dotting her course.

  The others followed: Little Gray, Spotty with her large horns, Brandy and Belle, Jenny, Maggy, and Nelly. They all ran in surprised excitement, bumping into everything in their path, thrusting their backsides into the air, mooing and shitting. It was like watching a silly cartoon.

  Then, finally, the little ones laughed.

  But inside the dark cowshed, Noah kicked the fence and grumbled.

  Henry was scraping the shit off the stalls when John entered and looked around him. Outside, the cows were running wild and the boys screamed.

  “Why does he have to stay in?” John asked.

  Henry didn’t reply straightaway, because he didn’t want to stutter. He became a little shy, but also happy that John had entered his little world, the cowshed, to have a talk. And he didn’t seem to be in any hurry, but waited patiently while Henry gathered his thoughts.

  “He would kill,” he finally replied.

  John nodded and glanced at the bull. “Where do the cows go to pastu
re?” he asked.

  “East,” Henry said.

  “East? Where’s east?”

  “That way,” Henry said, pointing with the shovel.

  “And north?” John asked. “Which way is that?”

  “That way,” Henry replied after a while, pointing at the wall.

  Then John asked no more questions, but simply nodded and walked out.

  Henry fetched a whip that hung on a nail above the door, made from the broken wooden handle of a rake with a black nylon string attached to it. Wiping off dust and grime, he swung it in the air and cracked it at the floor a few times, just for fun. He had spoken with John, and it hadn’t been that difficult; no, not at all.

  When Henry left the cowshed, Noah growled and banged his head against the fence in protest. Emily had given him directions where to herd the cows but told him not to worry; they’d know the way, she’d said.

  The cows had finished their happy running around and stood panting at the gate. Old Red had calmed herself and rolled her tongue around the fresh green straws by the roadside. She led the group through the gate, and the others pushed behind her, rolling their eyes and butting one another in the belly from sheer happiness.

  Little by little, the group found its easy pace, following the old path beside the road, breathing in the scent of summer. They nodded their heavy heads in a steady rhythm, pricking up their ears when a bird chirped close by and sniffing the fresh streams that trickled down the low hills.

  Henry limped behind, thinking about John, who had spoken to him like he was a normal person. He felt good to have answered back correctly. It also felt good to know something that John didn’t know; he had asked Henry the question as if it was a secret they shared between them, Henry and John.

  He led the cows by the path that lay between the road and the mountainside, all the way until he was past the slopes with the red pumice gravel, where a small valley opened up inside the fence-enclosed pasture, just as Emily had described that morning.