Issue 2, March 2009
Truth | previous next story |
Cousins
Michael Hyde
Now I am standing on the hay wagon, my arms throwing down one heavy bale. From the top of the wagon, stacked full like a pyramid, the bales fall twenty feet, into dust or waiting arms. The new barn makes a deep shadow of many sharp edges across the ground.
My cousin is a year younger than I am; I am eleven. He doesn't have a father. His father ran away with a woman of high hair and low values, and they live in a town whose mention conjures images of his father, piss drunk, reaching for his next beer.
My cousin is apparently better at lifting bales than I am. My father, face sweating, comments on how strong my cousin is. I throw harder, lift harder; I can toss down twenty bales in record time.
My cousin is plump for a boy and reminds me of a chipmunk; how unfortunate: everyone likes a chipmunk, his cheeks stuffed full.
The shadow of the barn fattens and lingers. My father is red-faced, and I am not thinking about the other men unloading the wagon, my uncles, my grandfather. I am only thinking about my cousin and my father, how they look at each other and linger with their stares. My father pats my cousin on his back. The sun is so hot—we've taken off our shirts.
Two cows force their heads and their large eyes through the barbed wire fence. Pasture grass no longer contents them. Secretly I shake handfuls of hay over the wagon's edge to the cows that roll out their fat pink tongues. The hay's still green, so freshly cut. A barn could burn.
By now my cousin is working so hard. “Look at him work,” and, “What a good job he is doing,” says my father. What a very good job. I cannot help it when from the top of the pile I release a bale and let it fall. I am prone to accidents. When the bale hits him, my cousin will be kicking around in the dirt and the shadow, and already I'll be saying, "Sorry, so sorry, I am," and already I can hear my father scolding me for being so skinny-armed, and I'll whisper to my friend the sky that my cousin should find his own father and stop trying to steal mine.
Michael Hyde
Now I am standing on the hay wagon, my arms throwing down one heavy bale. From the top of the wagon, stacked full like a pyramid, the bales fall twenty feet, into dust or waiting arms. The new barn makes a deep shadow of many sharp edges across the ground.
My cousin is a year younger than I am; I am eleven. He doesn't have a father. His father ran away with a woman of high hair and low values, and they live in a town whose mention conjures images of his father, piss drunk, reaching for his next beer.
My cousin is apparently better at lifting bales than I am. My father, face sweating, comments on how strong my cousin is. I throw harder, lift harder; I can toss down twenty bales in record time.
My cousin is plump for a boy and reminds me of a chipmunk; how unfortunate: everyone likes a chipmunk, his cheeks stuffed full.
The shadow of the barn fattens and lingers. My father is red-faced, and I am not thinking about the other men unloading the wagon, my uncles, my grandfather. I am only thinking about my cousin and my father, how they look at each other and linger with their stares. My father pats my cousin on his back. The sun is so hot—we've taken off our shirts.
Two cows force their heads and their large eyes through the barbed wire fence. Pasture grass no longer contents them. Secretly I shake handfuls of hay over the wagon's edge to the cows that roll out their fat pink tongues. The hay's still green, so freshly cut. A barn could burn.
By now my cousin is working so hard. “Look at him work,” and, “What a good job he is doing,” says my father. What a very good job. I cannot help it when from the top of the pile I release a bale and let it fall. I am prone to accidents. When the bale hits him, my cousin will be kicking around in the dirt and the shadow, and already I'll be saying, "Sorry, so sorry, I am," and already I can hear my father scolding me for being so skinny-armed, and I'll whisper to my friend the sky that my cousin should find his own father and stop trying to steal mine.
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