Grabbing a towel from the rack, I coax it around my waist; it’s still pretty stiff from drying on the line. I shuffle down the hall to my room. Besides the thick black garbage bags taped up over the windows and the pill bottles cluttering my bedside table, it looks just like it did before. At first, the garbage bags were just a way to keep out the light, but then it became this weird thing, almost like I wanted to preserve everything inside. Sometimes I think about taking it all down—the mementos, the posters, the football trophies—but I can’t bring myself to do it. Dad took me to every practice, stood on the sidelines for every game. Outside this room, people can say whatever they want about him, but in here, he’s still just my dad.
Peeling back a corner of one of the garbage bags, I peer out over the crops. Hammy’s out there pacing the perimeter of the wheat. For a second, I wonder if he somehow got to the calf and dragged it out into the field, but that mutt hasn’t set foot in the wheat since Dad died, almost like he’s scared of it.
We’ve run over plenty of animals in the fields. It’s awful, but that’s life on the farm. One time we even found a black bear. We figured he must’ve tried to make a den out there. But seeing the newborn calf rattled me. With good fucking reason.
I try not to read too much into it. Noodle says that’s the trouble with me: I keep trying to make sense out of everything.
“Clay?” Mom hollers up the stairs. “Five minutes, okay, hon?” The sound of her voice makes me wince. She tries so hard to keep it light and sunny, but it just reeks of desperation, like she’s one step away from being sent to Oakmoor.
I pull on some boxers and a T-shirt. For the millionth time, I think about selling the farm. Mr. Neely offered a while back, enough to get us out of town. But it feels like I’d be betraying Dad, betraying our entire family history. We weren’t Sooners like some of the other families in neighboring counties. We didn’t steal the land by camping out before the land rush and hiding in the brush like little assholes. My family started at the roundup and fought it out with the best of them. We got the best parcel, too. Dad always used to joke around that our family used up all their luck getting this land. Either that or they made some kind of deal with the Devil. Besides, Noodle’d be crushed if I sold. She has this crazy idea she wants to run the farm someday. It’s not that she can’t do it; when she puts her mind to it, Noodle can do anything. I just want something better for her.
“Clay?” Mom hollers.
“Coming.” I pull on some fresh jeans and a flannel and grab my backpack. No time for breakfast so I snatch a handful of bacon, kiss Mom on the cheek, and give Noodle a high five as I head out to the truck.
I open the driver’s-side door to find Jess scrunched down in the cab with her army surplus boots pressing up against the dash. I slap her feet down. “No way, Jess. Take the bus with Noodle.”
“I’m sick of the bus.” She sighs as she settles into the seat. “Please, Clay.” She bats her thickly coated eyelashes. They’re all clumped together like black sticky webs.
I want to tell her to get lost. The drive into town is the only peace I get, when I can turn up the radio and pretend nothing ever happened. But I hold my tongue. Maybe this one time, she’ll talk … open up.
“Fine.” I shoot her a sideways glance and rev Old Blue to life. “But you’re not wearing that to school.” I take off my flannel and toss it onto her lap.
She puts it on over her tank top and too-short skirt like it’s the most exhausting thing she’ll do all day.
“You need a haircut.” She pops her gum. “Unless you’re trying to look like a surfer girl.”
I grab my cap from the dash, pulling it down low. I used to keep my hair buzzed for football season. Haven’t cut it in over a year. It’s not some dramatic protest or anything, just haven’t gotten around to it. No need.
We reach the end of the long dirt drive, and a guy in a brand-new F-150 with tricked-out radials drives by, giving me the reverent head nod. Townie. Most people look at our farm and get all nostalgic. They don’t see the termites eating up the barn or the endless crops I’ll have to work. They see the American flag and apple pie and John fucking Mellencamp.
As we pull onto Route 17, Jess fiddles with the radio dial.
“We both know you’re never going to find a song you like, so what’s the point?”
“Because it bugs the crap out of you?” she snaps, and then turns off the radio. She knows I hate the silence.
Instead of kicking her out on the side of the road, I try to think of our time together like POW training. If I’m ever captured behind enemy lines, I’ll be immune to certain forms of torture.
Just as I’m working up the nerve to ask her how she’s doing with everything, she rolls down her window and closes her eyes. I wonder what she’s thinking, but I don’t ask.