I sit on the decrepit, rickety deck of my father's ramshackle house, looking out over a field of dead corn. Dead as he is, dead as the surface of the moon. A slight breeze loans that grim view a rustling rattle and the setting sun paints skeletal rows the color of rust and ruin.
I lean on his shotgun like a cripple would a crutch, clutch a cool bottle of sweating Bud Light in my left fist. I flick an ear back to shoo away a fly buzzing around my head and glance up.
The first stars are already up there, glinting like ice in the deep purple of the stratosphere that masks eternity, and I think back to a time when this place had life.
It was great then, the field was green, the barn still stood bright and red and a tall, proud tractor gleamed in the summer sun. Out back there was a sycamore, a pond long since dried up now, a grill and a tire swing. Everyone was still alive, happy. The future seemed an open road under a clear blue sky, full of promise.
Strange, isn't it, how a single swing of a scythe wielded by a higher power fells the soul so cruelly, more efficiently than any thresh can bring down rows of corn. Circumstance can shuck the soul, leave it bare and ready and buttered for the jaws of fate.
I look askance at the shotgun. It was washed thoroughly after his suicide, the sheriff assured. Yet there upon the bore I could swear that reddish patch isn't rust.
I hear pawfalls behind me, the warped wood creaking under weight. I turn.
My sister's gaze meets mine.Stella the vixen is thin and sad looking, wrapped in a threadbare green dress. The scar on her otherwise pretty face that runs from her left ear to nape of her neck, given to her by the crazy boyfriend who tried to murder her, glows a lurid pink in the last rays of day. "Going to follow him?" she asks, ears flat and the ghost of a snarl on her muzzle as her eyes go from the gun to the Bud Light. "I'm sure he'd love some company."
I chuckle mirthlessly. "I think he'd prefer mom, don't you?"
She's silent. And sure, why not? The big D was part of the reason, and the irony is now Mom's the proud overweight queen of a junk king 10x60 out in Dry Creek, drowning in cheap wine and breathing vinyl offgas so thick the few times I've dared to enter I damned near threw up.
Winning scratcher and social security, the match made in welfare, alcoholic hell.
"You're an asshole, Brett," she snarled finally. She turned her head to the side and spat.
I took a shallow bow. It was awkward because I sitting. I spilled beer on my jeans and laughed a hollow laugh. Immediately I felt bad, like I'd just proved what she said. "Sis I'm sorry I-"
"Just don't. We're here for the realtor and because Mom can't wipe her ass without help. We're selling this place, no matter the offer. Right?"
"Well..."
"Brett, don't fuck this up. This farm is cursed. It always has been, since Logan died. Fuck it. Let's unload it. Then you can go back to Detroit and play hero and I can go home to Vermont and raise my son. We can put it all behind us."
I scowled, set the shotgun against the porch railing and took a huge swig of beer.
She waited for several seconds. I said nothing, and that seemed to be enough for her. She nodded, spun on her heel and vanished inside.
I really don't understand how she could stand it in there, all those old things and old memories. The dust was an inch thick and the place was full of spiders.
Maybe it was better than a field of dead dreams, though. Maybe. What the fuck do I know?
-
His name was Marmon Wellsworth, a badger with a list of credentials that included civil litigator, amateur astronomer and bird watcher, aside from his realtor's license. He showed up in a big black lincoln just before sunset. The windshield had a huge crack in the glass, jagged and severe, like a bolt of lightning. I suspect, because he was a man of means, that he'd acquired it on his journey to meet us.
He looked pissed. The road out to the farm was dirt and full of ruts, hadn't been graded in a decade. It was pretty rough in places, and the scenery was far from pleasant unless drought scorched scrublands and miles of sagging barbed wire were your thing.
It went bad right away. He didn't offer his paw. He took one look at the house and growled, bared his teeth, whispered under his breath the word 'shit heap'.
"Pleased to meet you, sir," my sister said with forced cheer, tried out her most charming smile. The scar ruined it. It always did.
Still, he looked at her face and his anger faded a little. He tried to hide his pity, looked down at his three piece and swept away imaginary dust. "Mrs. Grayson, thank you. I wish I could say I'm glad to be here yet...this is worse than I expected."
She waited, and so did I. The silence grew. The badger cleared his throat, the last of his anger giving way to awkward frustration. "I thought that maybe the drive would be worth it, but I was already beginning to suspect that the property's worth would be less than anticipated. Now that I'm here..." he paused, looked over at the house again and cringed. "I'm afraid that has no value. It would have to be torn down. Worse, the state of the climate over the past few years makes the property nearly worthless from an agricultural perspective."
"So what exactly are you saying?" I asked.
More dusting off. He wouldn't meet my eyes. "The data in my firm's database was in error, based on outdated records and sight unseen..." he seemed to snap out of a fugue, his eyes met mine as he found his spine. "Frankly put, Mr. Grayson, this place is a backwater shithole now that the jet stream has shifted. Blame the Man Wars or God or Lady Luck, it's a fact. I know it has a well, yet that doesn't count for much. Unless you find gems or oil somewhere on these acres it's a badland. The best offer I can make is a thousand dollars."
My sister started to cry.
"Two," I snapped.
Wellsworth frowned. "Fifteen."
"Seventeen or no deal."
The badger growled angrily. "Fine. Done."
"Brett no! This was our home. It's worth more than-"
"Stella, either we sign and get what we can or it sits here and rots. It's the middle of nowhere, and unless you and your son want the place for picnics and vacations why keep it?"
She bit her lip, turned away and looked out over the acres of dead corn. They rattled in the wind like bones.
Wellsworth seemed to suffer an attack of conscience. "Two. It has a...world's end sort of charm I suppose." His voice faltered. "I'm sorry Mrs. Grayson. I truly am."
-
At the motel that night we sat in the thrum of the air conditioner at the round table by the window, teal curtains rippling and the soft light of a lamp casting its glow on the papers we were supposed to sign. They required both our signatures, a lot like the nukes that had nearly destroyed the world two centuries ago had required to keys.
We both had to agree to end an era, wraithlike and hollow as it already was at least while we still possessed joint ownership of the deed we could pretend it lived.
She held her face in her paws, so beautiful yet so marred. I listened to the beat of her heart and mine broke. This was a lot harder for her than it was for me.
I'd always hated the place, wanted the wider world. For my sister the farm had been the world.
Suddenly, on impulse it seemed, she picked up the black pen and scribbled her signature. "Fuck it," she hissed. "I'm the one who said whatever the offer. Let's just get it done and go home Brett. Two thousand is better than zero."
I picked up my pen, hesitated. "You know...he could be wrong. He means well but if the weather ever changed..."
She looked up at me, puzzled and angry. "You? Of all people, you? I know you hate it."
I let the pen slip from my grasp. It hit the table with a clack, rolled off the edge and vanished somewhere in the beshadowed below.
"We'll hire some prospectors. Who knows? Maybe like Mom we'll hit the jackpot. Maybe the jet stream will change again. Not another war, gods forbid, yet just because. I think we should wait."
For the first time in a long time when our gazes locked I didn't see hurt or anger in hers. Just puzzled wonder and one other thing: hope.
For me, that was enough.