Time went by, and promises were kept. First, the hay. Creaky did the mowing on his tractor while we were at school. Then came baling, with his tractor pulling this ancient baler machine that kept breaking down every fifty feet. It would make a hellacious grinding noise, and every single time in his raspy voice he’d yell: “Goddamn piece of Tazewell shit!” He must have bought it from somebody over there, while the dinosaurs still roamed in Tazewell County. He’d have to stop and shut everything down, and then he and Fast Forward, but mostly Fast Forward, would climb up on the baler and reach in and yank stuff around and then it would work again. The rest of us hauled and stacked the bales in the field, to get ready for loading them on the truck. These were the square bales a person can carry, not the giant round bales most farms went over to at that time, where tractors and forklifts do the work. No sir, Creaky had his slave boys, and we were a shit show. First of all, Tommy had his good points, but being strong, not one. He’d grab a bale with both hands on the twine, then stand there going red in the face like he’s constipated, until I could get over to help. And Swap-Out, Christ. One hay bale weighed as much or more than Swap-Out, and all this kid wants to do anyway is climb onto the piles we’re stacking, to where he ends up knocking things over and just general nonsense. We have to get all two hundred and some bales onto the flatbed, a load at a time, then unloaded and stacked in the barn, with more climbing, constipation faces, and nonsense. By then Creaky is cursing the fosters agency even worse than Tazewell County as far as trading in damaged goods.
That was my first weekend. Sunday night I never got to take a shower, due to Fast Forward taking his time in there. There was another bathroom downstairs with an old nasty tub, but the sewage backed up there on a routine basis, so I was not the only one scared of that tub. Even Creaky used the upstairs. It took all I had left in me to haul ass up into my bunk and lie there on fire, my whole body itching from getting scrubbed by two hundred Brillo pads of hay. I had three weeks to serve in this prison, and not one of them fully behind me yet. I wondered how Mom was doing. She always said drying out was the worst hell imaginable, and I felt sorry for that. Not now. Tell me about hell, I told her in my mind. All you had to do today is your moral goddamn inventory and a lot of lying around. On nice clean sheets.
Another promise kept: our Hillbilly Squadron farm party. Fast Forward had mentioned about getting supplies, and I’d thought maybe items from Aisle 19 of Walmart: Solo cups, paper plates. That’s the dumb kid I was.
First he brought out the snacks, which I was utterly thrilled about. At night in those days I’d get homesick and torn up just thinking of the Snickers Mom kept in the fridge. So now I’m all, Reese’s and cookies, yess! Thinking that’s what this party is about. Fast Forward though was patient with my education. Like a big brother, honestly. He said this was my initiation. We had the party in his room, which was amazing, getting to look around and even touch some of his stuff. Which is how I found out those gold sports trophies they give you in high school are actually plastic. But they looked amazing. We had the lights shut off and a candle burning that we got from the kitchen stash for the power outages. Creaky, gone to bed. After he’s taken his hearing aids out, they said, he’d just as well be a corpse.
Fast Forward’s room had a window where you could see trees outside. The moon was almost but not quite round. He had a rug that same shape that Mrs. Creaky had made for him by braiding up rags whenever she was dying of her cancer. As sick as she was and on drugs galore, all she’d wanted to do was make him a rug for his room. We sat in our little circle on that rug, thinking of the dead lady that wanted to be Fast Forward’s mom. We ate the candy and cookies. He passed around cigarettes and we smoked those. Creaky allowed smoking in the house, which was new to me. Mom always went outside. Mr. Peg same. Mrs. Peggot had rules about smoking, knowing of too many people that fell asleep in their recliners and burned a place down.
We didn’t burn anything down. Tommy smoked like a kid, taking little sips of smoke and coughing them out, whereas Swap-Out was a natural. I was somewhere in between, this being my first nonmenthols. Fast Forward said every member of our squadron had a secret name he alone could give them, including some kids that weren’t even here anymore. Now I was to get mine. Tommy was Bones, because of the skeleton doodles and also because underneath it all, Tommy had good bones. I could see that. And Swap-Out was Wild Man. So. What about the Demon.
He looked at me for the longest time. Head cocked back, the wild dark curly mane, his eyes squinted like he’s rummaging around in my skull closet. Finally he said, “Diamond. He’s bright and shiny and worth a lot. Harder than anything else there is.”
For a guy to talk like this or even look that hard at another guy was not at all the normal. A straight guy that liked girls, which Fast Forward definitely did. But Tommy and Swap-Out just nodded their heads, yes, excellent. Diamond. Not even awkward, it was just the magic of this guy. You took his word for the gospel, and felt like a bigger person for having him notice you.
I said okay, but I thought diamonds were for rich people, or girls getting engaged.
He said, “That too. What you’ve got, the girls are going to want.”
I was embarrassed of course and told him no way, but he said he was never wrong about such things. I would see. Just give it a few years.
We talked some then about movies we’d seen. Tommy told Fast Forward I had a talent of drawing superheroes, and he said Yeah? Let’s have a look. I went and got my notebook, and Fast Forward was impressed. I only showed him my better ones, like where I’d drawn Aunt June in the sexy Wonder Woman outfit. He wanted to know where Aunt June lived. He also asked if I had any sisters. Which reminded me of Mom’s story of old lady Copperhead coming to carry off the baby girl me. I wondered why people thought I would be better in the girl version.
Fast Forward meanwhile got on the subject of some of the hotter girls he’d screwed, which of course we were all ears to that. This one chick Melissa always gave him blow jobs in his truck after football practice. She stayed late for band practice, which was convenient, and she played the flute. Also convenient, he said. We didn’t get his meaning till he made his mouth in an O. That made Swap-Out go crazy, just screeching like an animal. I guess for all the misfortunate scramble of the little guy’s brains, somewhere deep in there dwelled the concept of the blow job. Whereas I was thinking more about her and Fast Forward being in that truck in the school parking lot, right out in broad daylight. Jesus, the guy was something. No fear.
From there we strayed onto weirder topics such as zombies. What if Mrs. Creaky was still lying in a back bedroom of that house somewhere. Which was nuts. I told them I’d had that exact same thought the first time I ever came in the house. And the other guys doubled over laughing and said, Dope, you just told us that a minute ago. Then I had to think extra hard about whether I was just thinking my thoughts or saying them. Because I was high. I’d been high before on many things such as hair spray, magic markers, and a typewriter duster borrowed from the main office at school, but this was another level. Each thing I looked at or thought about or ate was like a series of time bubbles popping, one by one. I asked Fast Forward what the heck, and he said the cookies were special. A girl named Rose that was auditioning to be his girlfriend had made the cookies, and what did we think, did Rose pass the test? We’re like, Well yeah. I looked at Swap-Out and Tommy, wondering if they were wise to all this, and the answer was yes, they were. Falling against each other, laughing like idiots, but also to me they looked like better versions of their everyday selves. More like a Bones, more like a Wild Man. You could see how even that cracked tiny kid had it in him one day to be a wild tiny man.
Fast Forward told us to close our eyes. I heard him digging around, a secret hiding place maybe, because after a minute he said, Booyah! And he was standing over us holding a hat. Just a regular green ball cap, but he’s holding it in both hands like the bowl of treasure. He sits back down—from standing, just drops into a cross-legged sit while holding that hat in both hands—and even in my messed-up state I’m impressed by the physical act of that. Exceptional motor skills. We all lean forward to look, and by the glow of the candle I can see it isn’t gold in the hat but little dots, which are pills. Not all the same. And I get what a pharm party is.