We're in the middle of "the talk"--father and son, the first big one after the news story hit: Gary got a girl from the lake pregnant. It would have been impossible for me to know how my dad would have reacted had I been Gary Dirkse, but the point of my writing the story was to see where the story itself would take me. What my parents would have trouble understanding is that imaginative literature--an imagined short story--explores what just might happen. A sermon preaches the truth in my heritage, but this--the story--is something different, an exploration by the creation on paper of something approximating "real life."
_______________________________
Little Jesse was loading the bales on the elevator that poked its nose into a square door maybe twenty feet off the ground. Trillian was helping him. We were putting hay up in the corners of the east loft, and the air was hot, full of chaff and dust, even though it wasn’t past ten or eleven in the morning.
“We’re all capable of it,” he said. “I’m not throwing the first stone either.”
He pointed me over to the place where he’d been packing. “Watch out for those kittens there,” he said. His stacking had uprooted four of them, gray ones--farm cats--certainly no more than a month old, from their nest, so he’d put them up beside a rafter that he likely didn’t mean to cover. The end of the yellow elevator, anchored with twine down to the wall, protruded from the open door behind him, sunlight cutting through the maze of dust in perfect geometric shafts.
“You know you shouldn’t have done it,” he said, not meaning it as a question.
I nodded.
When he didn’t hear me reply, he looked straight up at me.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Our bodies are the temple of the Lord,” he said.
I really didn’t feel any less healthy having made love eight times. It didn’t seem somehow like a desecration.
When a bale came up the elevator, it fell, end first, down to the floor where it grazed off the edge of another set deliberately below, then flipped over completely, landing flat, strings up, four, maybe five feet closer to the spot where we were trying to fill in the last of the holes in that corner of the mow. He’d grab them from the spot where they’d finally come to rest and heave them at me. Jesse was sending them up plenty fast.
“I’ve been thinking for hours,” he said, “and I just don’t know what to say to you that you don’t already know.”
I didn’t talk back. I was sorry for letting them down the way I did, but Cassie wasn’t really a girl I’d marry anyway, I thought. I’d miss her. I knew I would. But I didn’t love her, not love like you’re supposed to, I thought. Besides, she really wasn’t even of us. She was “lake people.” And she was leaving.
“Slow down, Jesse,” he yelled down the open hole. “We’re finishing up up here.”
He motioned with his arm for me to climb up and take the bales from him when he picked them off the floor. His was the heavy work; mine was simply tedious: fitting them into what spaces remained.
“The church calls it a sin,” he said.
“I know it,” I told him.
“I don’t know if it’s a bigger sin if it happened a hundred times, or a little one if it happened just once,” he said, “but you and this girl, how often did you do it?”
I don’t know why I said what I did, but I told him it had happened four times. “But she let me do it, Dad,” I told him. “Every time. She told me that it was okay, that nothing would happen.”
“You and Adam,” he said. He picked up a bale and heaved it up to me off his knee. I was standing on a ledge of bales maybe four feet above him.
“Well, you saw her,” I told him.
“Sure I did.”
“She let me.”
“Slow down, Jesse,” he yelled again. Bales were piling up after flipping over the end as if they were riding a waterfall.
He pulled his handkerchief out and wiped his face. “So you just go and do whatever that thing you got in your pants says?--is that it?” He stopped and stared at me, bales still falling heavily to the floor.
I threw one in a hole without looking up at all. But I didn’t talk.
“Does it say somewhere in the Bible that it’s all just fine and dandy if the girl says yes? Is that a verse you read somewhere?”
I was up high, I remember. I reached up and scraped away cobwebs so thick with dust that they could have passed for yarn. But he stayed there at my feet, staring. I wouldn’t look at him.
He turned around and grabbed for another bale. That’s when I said, “Any guy would have done it, and you know it.”
“Does that make it right?” he said, shoving another one up at me.
I twisted around, keeping my feet straight beneath me as I picked up the bale and swung it into a hole at the corner of the roof line.
“What’s the big deal?” I said. “By football season it’ll be all over anyway.”
“I don’t know if it’s a bigger sin if it happened a hundred times, or a little one if it happened just once,” he said, “but you and this girl, how often did you do it?”
I don’t know why I said what I did, but I told him it had happened four times. “But she let me do it, Dad,” I told him. “Every time. She told me that it was okay, that nothing would happen.”
“You and Adam,” he said. He picked up a bale and heaved it up to me off his knee. I was standing on a ledge of bales maybe four feet above him.
“Well, you saw her,” I told him.
“Sure I did.”
“She let me.”
“Slow down, Jesse,” he yelled again. Bales were piling up after flipping over the end as if they were riding a waterfall.
He pulled his handkerchief out and wiped his face. “So you just go and do whatever that thing you got in your pants says?--is that it?” He stopped and stared at me, bales still falling heavily to the floor.
I threw one in a hole without looking up at all. But I didn’t talk.
“Does it say somewhere in the Bible that it’s all just fine and dandy if the girl says yes? Is that a verse you read somewhere?”
I was up high, I remember. I reached up and scraped away cobwebs so thick with dust that they could have passed for yarn. But he stayed there at my feet, staring. I wouldn’t look at him.
He turned around and grabbed for another bale. That’s when I said, “Any guy would have done it, and you know it.”
“Does that make it right?” he said, shoving another one up at me.
I twisted around, keeping my feet straight beneath me as I picked up the bale and swung it into a hole at the corner of the roof line.
“What’s the big deal?” I said. “By football season it’ll be all over anyway.”
I’m not sure where that came from.
“'Football season,'” my father said, in a tone without emotion, as if he were repeating it in order to get me to verify that what I’d said actually came from my lips.
“That’s what I said,” I told him.
His face turned suddenly into some fierce mask. “It’ll all be over, will it?” he said, laughing in a biting, mature way that I’d never heard him laugh before, as if I wasn’t his own boy.
______________________
Tomorrow: the denouement.
