DREAM JOURNAL

I ain’t never seen a dead man before, and I ain’t seen one since, and—honest truth told—it don’t bother me none to ever see one again because that weekend ruined me for good.

Friday night, things started out bad and went worse quick. I was sitting at the kitchen table as my old man was leaving. He set out some harsh terms for the chores.

“Gotta feed the pairs twenty bales morning and night. Don’t go feeding that moldy stuff—their teats will turn green.”

“Yep,” I said, looking down at my plate.

“Keep the goat tied up to the old car. Maybe it’ll get those thistles ate down.”

“Yep.”

He moved to the screen door, opened it halfway, and hesitated. He let it slam back, and turned square to me.

“And don’t go throwing no parties. None, hear? If I find out that there’s anybody in this house other than you and Vance, well,” he paused. “Well, just try me.”

He opened the screen door and left. I listened to him fire up the truck.

“Yep,” I said to no one, as soon as I heard the Ford race down the frontage road and out to the highway. I went to the phone. Bubba was probably still home, so I dialed.

“Bubba, call everybody. We’s gonna have us one hell of a party.”

We said the party was for Vance, since he made state wrestling two years in a row—that don’t happen everyday. And it was Vance who got us the beer. Even though he’s my little brother, once the clerk at the Lightning Nines saw him slamming some Arco dude on the second page of the Sports section, he didn’t even get carded.

By nine the stack-yard was full, trucks and cars pulled tight between the two haystacks. I still don’t know exactly who came; I cooked steaks until ten. Then I perused. Twenty people crammed in the hottub—boots, hats, and all. Vance stood in the middle with a beer in each hand, sporting a pink cowboy hat.

Girls—pretty ones—were trying to make pancakes in the oven. They’d stopped long enough for a batter fight. I stared at them through a drunken haze and tried to be mad, but a little red head named Cheryl escorted me to the couch and got me some longnecks.

Quite the gal, Cheryl. We talked for some time there on the green couch. I got to second base. It wasn’t until I heard Bubba screaming my name before I went back outside. She followed me. Most of the kids were outside, hanging in couples on the deck, peppered across the grass. A bunch were circled ten deep on the lawn. I barged through, no trouble. I’m a big boy as is.

The circle opened up into a space about twenty feet across. Fatty Mack was in the middle, on hands and knees, snorting and coughing. Five feet from him, Dolby Price and Ryan Farmer were holding Stan the billy goat taut on his chain, who was on hind legs, reering and bleating like crazy. Bubba stood there, yelling.

“Let him go, I’m ready!” screamed Fat Mack, head down and ready to take the hit from Stan.

Just as Dolby and Ryan lowered the chain, Stan charged forward, four hooves churning, horns down, and straight for Mack. He chortled and bit his tongue. It hung dead from his mouth.

Stan bore down for the collision. Mack closed his hazy eyes, still laughing. I stepped right in the line and took the hit. Stan came as fast as the 3:30 train, but I caught him by his horns and twisted. He came so hard that he threw me right on onto Mack’s head.

It ended up with me on Mack, Stan on me.

All three of us smelled like sweat and piss and beer, but no one could have sorted out who was what.

After that, we just laid on the grass a while.

Bubba cleaned up the mess and the crowd dispersed. I took Stan by the old car and Mack passed out.

“Hey, we’re out of beer,” Bubba said.

I sent him down to the Lightning Nines for me, telling him I’d go if I didn’t have a girl to see about. He understood that fine enough, and headed out to the stacks to find his car.

I didn’t see him again until about two in the morning. By that time me and Cheryl were doing fine. We were in the back of an old Chevy my old man kept around for parts. Bubba pulled in and started yelling again. This time, sober, I shot straight up, alert-like.

“Jarrett! Cops! Run!” Bubba yelled. Everyone bolted for the chest-high barley. I fell out of the bed, but offered a hand up to Cheryl. She jumped and ran for the house. I ran for Bubba.

He told me the story mid-sprint; a Marlboro hung from the corner of his mouth. “I hit me a dog!” he said. “I turned around, and some car was stopped in the middle of the road. Some lady called the cops. I seen them hit the lights a few miles back.”

The cops were coming, the dog was dead, and blood painted the front bumper of his Lincoln.

By the time the fuzz arrived, I had everyone either in the attic or the field. No fooling, when the cops shined their lights on sixty abandoned cars and a yard littered with cans and bottles, I just grinned.

“Buckett, where’s everybody?” asked the first cop.

“Who?”

“The people who drive these cars,” answered the partner.

“Cars? What cars?”

The cops looked over their shoulders at the abandoned vehicles.

“We’re going to have a look at the house,” the first one said.

“Just don’t go upsetting the rugs. My old man would be real mad,” I said.

They asked me about the beer cans and the cars. They searched the living room and the garage. Somehow everyone stayed quiet until they left.

“We might come back,” the partner said.

“If ya hurry ya can help with the milking,” I said.

When everyone surfaced they went for their cars. It was around three-thirty in the morning. Soon, it was just us: Vance, stripped to his waist and still wearing the pink hat; Bubba, passed out; Cheryl, left by friends who had to make curfew; and me. I talked Bubba into driving us to town and waiting for someone to come back for Cheryl. We headed out to the Towncar.

He had parked it up on the root cellar, so Cheryl drove while me and Bubba lifted it off. By then, dawn was just coming up over the hills. It was still dark, for the most part, and me and Cheryl got in the back seat and tried to ignore Bubba.

Cheryl was good. She got right to kissing my neck while I made small talk. Bubba told me he wanted to show me the dead dog. He took us the long way, out past the river. Finally, he shut up long enough that I could return Cheryl’s generosity. On occasion I peeked at Bubba. He’d smile at me and wink in the rear-view.

Just when things were getting good in the backseat, Bubba started yelling. Cheryl screamed right in my ear. Out the front window I saw the headlights reach the animal—all I could see was a pale hand reaching out in the road from the gutter. No dog.

“Bubba, don’t hit it!” I screamed. Bubba cranked the car to the left and brought it to a stop fifty feet past the hand. I fumbled with the door handle, opened it, and ran back.

Sure enough, there was a hand in the road, connected to an arm. The arm was connected to Ben Homer—my neighbor, the Vietnam Vet who used to sic his dogs on us when we rode too close to his mailbox. He was waxy, cold, gray, and dead. I took a pulse anyway. Cheryl and Bubba ran up.

We stood in silence. Cheryl looked once, sniffled, and walked back to the Lincoln.

“Bubba, is this the dog you hit?” I asked after a while. Bubba didn’t answer. Ben Homer stared up at us with glossy eyes and a pursed mouth.

“Bubba, you do this?” I asked again.

That’s about when he got to laughing. He stumbled backwards he was laughing so hard. It was a deep, stupid laugh, and he kept saying “whoa, man, whoa.” He nudged Ben Homer’s stiff hand with the toe of his boot. “This dead hippie is creepy, man, whoa.” He laughed so much he snorted.

It took all I had to keep from walking over and knocking Bubba’s teeth out. I grabbed him by his shirt collar and held him still.

“Bubba, you better be damn sure it was a dog you hit, or you might be going to jail for a long time.”

I looked him straight in his eyes—they were as dead and glossy as poor Ben Homer’s.

<>

Turned out that Bubba didn’t hit Ben that night. Ms. Dwight’s prize poodle was plastered to the road another mile ahead. Bubba had to pay top dollar for it, too.

Ben had died a somewhat natural death—suffered a heart attack while walking to his son’s. The son said Ben had threatened to shoot out his windows in a fight. The cops found a pellet gun in the gutter. Either way, Ben and Bubba were about crazy as pine hens, and both had some disaster coming any way around it.

But no matter. Those two cops were waiting in our living room on Sunday when my old man got back. They busted us wide open—told him about me finding Ben’s body, and about the cars, the bottles, and the hot tub. The old man grunted through most of the interrogation.

Once the cops left, me and Vance got worked over, to say the least. Once for disobeying, and another for feeding the pairs the moldy bales. All the cows and calves had a rotten case of green teat.

Vance was assigned to scraping batter off the kitchen walls. The old man sent me out to scrub the hot tub with a narrow brush. I got in some cut-offs and ended up sitting down in there, with a fat lip and dried-up bloody nose—thanks to a stiff right from Pops—scrubbing with some Ajax and luke-warm water. After a while my hands got gray and clammy. I started feeling sick and thinking about Ben Homer.

The old man brought me out some wax to finish. About when I poured that over the gray, cold hot tub that I remembered my fingers on Ben Homer’s gray, cold, dead neck.

And that’s when I started puking. I puke there in the tub some, but pull myself up over the side for most of it. I puke all over the grass, and when I closed my eyes I see a dead arm on the side of the road, and Ben Homer’s cold, gloss eyes.

When I was reduced to dry heaves, I slid back down to the bottom of the tub. Bubba’s voice kept laughing in my head, and it pissed me off even more. I let my eyes fill up with tears. Safe in the bottom of the hottub—safe from Bubba and Ben Homer, from my old man and Vance and Cheryl—I cried.

It was good too, because I ain’t about to let nobody see Jarrett Buckett crying.