4:30AM
This is going to be the last day of my life. I know this when I wake up, how it will end. This is what it’s all been building up to. This blessed day. Despite the itch in the back of my mind knowing what’s to come, I do what I do every morning and get out of bed. I don’t stretch over the mattress. I don’t yawn. I refuse to be a sloth. I can’t hear the siren’s call of the warm sheets. I became deaf to it years ago. I am alone. The house is freezing. The late October chill of a Southern Missouri fall easily bombards the thin farm house walls around me. Even still, I take a cold shower to wake up. It don’t hurt standing under a stream of ice. I’m used to it by now. It makes me keen, tells my body to prepare for the day ahead. There will be no rest for you, Calem Dewayne Honeycutt.
I shave because I have to. I’m hairy all over just like my pop and his pop before him, and being clean shaven means you’re a gentleman according to my mom. All this hair is because — also according to her — we’re Irish. Dark, black Irish. I looked up Ireland one time on a map. All I know is it’s fucking far from this place.
Dixie, my ol’ hound dog is sleeping next to the kitchen door as I dress and fix the coffee pot. While I pour food into her bowl, I run through the list of what needs done this morning: milk the cows, help Pop string up new barbwire down by the crick, take that trailer full of walnuts over to Kells', swing by InterCounty Bank to pay my mortgage. Suddenly, I stop. I clinch my stomach, double over in pain. Shit.
Dixie helps herself to breakfast while I eat a half-dozen antacid tablets and wash ‘em down with a cup of Folgers. I stare out at the bruised hue of the morning sky trying to forget the pain in my gut. Doctor says I need to stop drinking coffee. I should try tea instead. Guess I could guzzle Mountain Dew like my best friend Miles, but I’d probably gain two-hundred pounds like he did, too.
Just as the last stars in the sky begin to vanish, I grab a handful of the jerky I dried from the backstrap of an eight-point buck I shot last fall, throw a cap on my head, and exit the house without locking up. If anybody bothers to come this far out — a good twenty minutes from town off Z Highway — they can have whatever they find. Besides, the only real thing of value we got out here you can’t easily steal, hills and hollers choked full of alfalfa and oak trees and Holsteins, — seventy-nine last count.
Pop is already in the milk barn when I arrive, and that makes me feel like shit. His hips is bad and his knees are worse. The way his knuckles have swelled up like ticks over the last few years don’t help neither. I always try to be the one to turn on the lights, even though I know he don’t like that. He don’t like being advanced in his years. I don’t blame him. I hate being thirty-two. I’m too old to not know better and too young to know enough. We don’t say a word when we see each other — him checking a hose in the milking stage that might’ve been leaking yesterday — but he knows I’m here. I grab a gas jug to fill the four-wheelers so we can bring up the cows.
The girls are all standing around waiting in the bottom of the back forty when Pop and I arrive on our four-wheelers to lead ‘em up to the barn. They know us, can tell us apart. And I know each one of them, every spot — black and white. I know when they’re tired or in pain or feeling good. They’re my babies. I’ve even named a few of ‘em. Frieda reminds me of the gossipy postmaster in town, always chewing her cud and making trouble. Mandy is named after my high school girlfriend. She’s one of the prettiest heifers I’ve ever seen, dark face with a clean white collar ‘round her neck and a trim body that sways like the breeze when she walks. Donna is the fattest cow we have. Bert is the ugliest. The rest of ‘em fall somewhere in between, and I’ve probably given ‘em all a name here or there like Burger, Steak, Prime Rib, or Fuck You.
They don’t need encouraging once I open the gate for them to follow Pop up the hill to the milk barn. They fall right in line. Bert is always at the front, and Frieda is always at the tail end. After Frieda is through the gate, I close it back up and hop on my idling four-wheeler to trail after ‘em, making sure no one decides to cut loose from the rest of the herd and wander off. Not that they would. They wait for their milking’s morning and evening, wanting to get rid of the heavy cream in their udders something awful. I know some folks say it’s unnatural for us to milk cows, that they ain't happy about it or some crazy notion, but those folks ain't ever been to a milk barn or met a real Holstein happy to have a purpose in this life.
I like the sweet smell of cows, of bitter trampled grass, of tangy wet manure, and burning four-wheeler exhaust. I like the sound of bovine hooves falling heavy on the ground and their breathing as their large barrel bodies push forward. When we cut the ignitions on our four-wheelers back up at the barn, you can hear the morning song of a thrush echoing off the dew of the front field. That’s something I like, too, being able to hear the world — really hear it — without the sizzle of electricity moving along power lines or cars crashing down highways or airplanes thundering overhead.
Pop nudges Bert gently into the far milking stall barely avoiding a shit she decides to take as she’s settling her head between the stanchions. I release grain for her to eat and then make quick work of wiping each teat with disinfectant before attaching the cups to suck the pearly milk out of her udder. Mandy is up next. On and on we go for the next two hours until finally Frieda makes her way into her milking stall, and I know we’re almost done. Pop will take care of letting the rest of the cows back out to pasture, and I’ll get to work hosing everything down, cleaning up the spilled milk and shit and grain everywhere.
It has to be seven or so, as I’m pulling off my rubber boots and forcing on my work ones when Pop says his first words to me. “You comin’ up to the house for breakfast?”
“When did you wanna head down to the crick to fix that fence?” I ask.
“Soon as I’m done eatin’.”
“Sure then, I’ll come up. Won’t be able to make it into town for somethin’.”
Pop nods and heads for the house, the house I grew up in, the place where he and Mom still live. I can see it through the milk barn office door, a mishmash of red rusty brick, baby blue siding, and a black aluminum roof. The yard needs mowed. There’s a swing set out front that seems to be growing out of the weeds. It’s for my sister’s kids when they visit from the city, not that they’ve been here for a while. Back off to the side of the house is my mom’s garden, the vexation of her existence even though she plants it every damn year.
I know some people might think it’s odd I live only a mile down the road from my folks, and I do spend most of my time on their farm like I’ve never left the nest. But where else would I go? What else would I do? I like it here. Almost 713 acres all to myself. Best hunting in the county. Quiet. A girl I took out once told me I could do better. She said I ought to go to college and find a “real” job instead of spending all my time fingering cow teats and shoveling their shit. She laughed at me and asked me if I had some sort of fetish for cows and shit. I didn’t even know what the hell the word fetish meant at the time, but I looked it up after, and well, fuck her.
My family has never had a lot of money, and they never will. Still, we’ve managed. We eat pretty good, and we set our own schedules. Maybe we don’t got a fancy riding lawn mower or a swimming pool or nothing, but there are two cricks that run through our land, three ponds, and a waterfall that will leave a hell of an impression if you’re ever lucky enough to see it.
Mom is standing at the stove when I walk in the house. This is how I’ll always remember her in the mornings, back turned, eyes focused on something cooking in front of her. This morning it smells like bacon and eggs. I take off my work boots, leave ‘em by the door, and take my seat at the kitchen counter. Since I got out of my highchair I’ve been sitting in this same exact spot on this same exact stool Pop built for Mom out of old two-by-fours a long time ago.
“You wash your hands?” Mom asks, turning just slightly to see me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
“Ambulance was called over to the Mings’ place last night. Apparently Hatcher found Rhett and Shelly laid out in their barn cold to the touch. Overdose is what I heard.”
“No way. Not them, too.”
“Shot ‘em full of Narcan and sent ‘em up to Springfield.”
“Was it heroin?”
“I think it was prescription, but an overdose is an overdose. All I know is Rhett was out for longer than Shelly, and he’s been in a coma. They ain't sure he’s gonna make it.”
“They must’ve got hooked on that stuff after his car crash,” I say, shaking my head at the pity of it all.
“Way it gets passed around here, they coulda got hooked on it at church. Wouldn’t be the first time. You still talk to Hatcher?”
“I ain't seen him since he moved out to Rolla,” I sigh. “What was he doin’ home?”
“Apparently Rhett and Shelly had been actin’ odd, and he drove down to check on ‘em.”
“Lucky for them he did.”
“Well, lucky for Shelly at least,” Mom says. “You still goin’ giggin’ tonight with Miles?”
“Supposed to. Looks like it’s gonna be decent weather.”
Mom scrapes the fixings out of the cast iron skillet and splits ‘em between two plates already set with toast. On cue Pop walks in and takes his place at the counter. Mom slides the plates in front of us, then pours fresh milk into a couple beer mugs she always keeps chilled in the freezer. All that is followed by two steaming cups of Folgers black as tar and strong enough to just about set the world right.
“Mom tell you about Rhett Mings?” Pop asks. He grabs a bottle of Tabasco to douse his eggs and bacon then passes it on to me.
“Yeah.”
“If people spent half the time workin’ they do overdosin’, we’d all be a hell of a lot better off around these parts,” Pop says, with an exasperated huff.
“People is overdosin’ ‘cause they ain't got work, Roy. You know that,” Mom corrects.
Mom don’t eat, don’t sit. She pulls on a pair of old yellow gloves and begins cleaning up the dishes while Pop and me shovel food down our gullets. She’ll have her coffee after we’re gone while she sorts coupons and balances the checkbook and goes through the paper to see what’s on sale at the supermarket. I think she likes it this way. I know some people would think it’s old-fashioned the way we are, but for the most part, none of us would change a thing. Well, no one except my sister, Caitlyn, who thinks she’s better than the rest of us — especially Mom — ‘cause Caitlyn lives in the city where “real things happen.” Caitlyn calls herself a feminist, which drives Mom nuts. She don’t clip coupons, and her husband, Dan, is the one who cooks for her and her kids. Last time Caitlyn was out here with the boys, she and Mom got into a whole screaming match about how Mom’s life ain't gonna add up to nothing ‘cause she’s only been out of the state twice and to Kansas City one time! Caitlyn has been to New York and Paris, and every year she and Dan take the kids down to Cozumel for summer vacation.
I can’t tell if it bothers Mom she’s never been much more than a homemaker. I guess that’s what you’d call her ‘cause out of nothing she’s made us — here around this farm — a home. Basically she had no choice if she was gonna be married to my pop. He told her back when they met, he was saving up to buy a dairy farm — someplace far away from the rest of the world — where he could stretch out, breath clean air, and watch the sunset unobstructed by so-called civilization. I don’t know if she realized then how tough it might get for them, especially when they had kids and their responsibilities extended past their own mouths and hearts to the fruit of their loins. No, I’m sure Mom had no idea what she was in for.
Mom was born Susie Lynn Felton to Thelma and Dewayne Felton of Mountain Grove, Missouri. My grandpa started Felton’s Sawmill and ran it all while Mom and her older sister Callie was growing up. Even though them Felton girls was basically reared on sawdust and tree bark, they was thought of as privileged — I guess as much as two girls flouncing around a podunk town could be considered privileged. Still, I can assure you Mom never let it get to her head that she was better than anyone else, and perhaps it’s ‘cause she never saw herself as such that she never aspired to some highfaluting life. In fact, after she met my pop in her senior year of high school, all she really aspired to after that was him.
Pop’s folks owned a gas pump and general store a few counties over in a place called Blue Moon. Their shack of an establishment was just off the Gasconade river and better known for selling quality fishing bait than just about anything. All while he was growing up Pop was responsible for making sure the bait tanks was full of minnows, crickets, grasshoppers, and earthworms. Keeping the stink bait stocked was up to my namesake, Pawpaw Honeycutt who cooked it from a special recipe that made use of turkey livers, deer blood, curdled cheese, flour, and cod liver oil. And it was known by folks all over the state to emit fumes noxious enough, it could knock a grown man right out of his boots.
Pop certainly wasn’t any better off growing up than Mom and Aunt Callie, but he weren’t much worse off neither. Still, a secondary education wasn’t in the cards, and if he wanted to do anything outside of working at the general store — like start himself a dairy farm — he’d have to figure out the means to do so on his own. That’s why, not long after finishing high school, he went to work at Felton’s Sawmill, ‘cause he knew he could make himself some good money there — certainly better than what his parents could pay him. And the way he figured it, if he kept his head on and all his fingers in place, in a few years he might have enough saved for a downpayment on a grange like he’d been dreaming about practically since he was in diapers.
Of course, working as a log hoist operator for Felton’s was when him and Mom started chasing each other around like two squirrels up the same tree. The way I’ve heard it, their love was about as pure and beautiful as the crystalline icicles that dripped off the rooftop of the sawmill the winter they met. And so, before the first signs of spring, they was married. And maybe if things had gone on the way they was going, those sparkly-eyed newlyweds never woulda had the money to start a proper dairy. But Mom’s parents died in an head-on car crash while driving too fast down Route 60, and she took what little they left her and gave it to Pop to secure his dream — a plot of land out in the middle of the boondocks with a milk barn, a couple grain silos, and a proper herd of cattle. In a way, the dairy was her dream by that time, too. Yessir, the truth of the matter is Mom chose dairy life when she chose Pop. And just like him, I’m pretty sure she’s been happy enough out here in their little corner of the world, her only reprieve being those romance novels she picks up from the library sale bin once a year. And the fact is, I’d say Caitlyn is the one who’s really unhappy what with all she and Dan’s clothes and cars and that house of theirs and even a gardener to mow their grass. Then again, who am I to throw stones? I’m the one who woke up this morning knowing today would be my last.
