On Brassard's Farm Read online

  “Okay,” he said as if I’d pressured him for information. “No big thing. Deputy sheriff. Name’s Dick Wilson—Puddin Head. Dick Head. Classic honky small-town sheriff. Got a bug up his butt about me.”

  “Why?”

  “Five, six years ago, we had a disagreement. He’s this great big guy, foot taller than me, ex-marine. I guess he thought he was tough. This was at a bar.”

  I could see where this was going. The thought of anyone fighting with Earnest—one finger under the rib cage would surely kill a man.

  “What’d he do?”

  “He made disparaging remarks and I reciprocated. He’s well known for his attitude around here. Plays he’s big stuff, gives everybody a hard time. He wanted to get physical with me.”

  “So …?”

  Earnest grinned.

  “Didn’t go his way, I take it,” I said.

  “Well. Everybody at the bar had a good laugh. Hurt his reputation. So whenever I’m up this way he magically appears, to pull me over and ticket me for whatever—speeding, inspection out of date, taillight not working. It’s like he’s got a sixth sense, knows when I’m within ten miles of him. Third time, I made a mildly unflattering comment and he told me he was going to kick my ass. That a bunch of other cops around here would help him. He wasn’t kidding. About six months ago, he pulls up behind me in the mall parking lot over on Suzy Wilson Drive. I can’t back out. Two other sheriff’s cruisers pull up, five guys in all. Dick introduces me to them and they give me the evil eye, just letting me know how it is. So now I try to stay out of their sight. They’ll get me legally—you can always find something wrong on an old truck like this. I can’t afford any more fines. Or they’ll gangbang me. That’s what Dick really wants, hands-on gratification. That’s a no-win for me because if I let them kick my ass, it hurts, and if I fight back, I go to the big house for assaulting an officer, breaking half a dozen necks.”

  “Wow,” was all I could say. Then: “Why didn’t he have you arrested after that first time?”

  “Drinking on duty—he didn’t dare call in. Plus, too many people heard him being provocative. Came over and pushed me off my stool. Plus, he needs a more personal kind of vengeance after his public humiliation.”

  We drove for a while before I thought to ask, “Provocative how?”

  He waved his hand dismissively. It was clear that he had enjoyed our adventure just now, Brer Rabbit outwitting his pursuers once again. He was humming, a totally non-sequitur tune like “Some Enchanted Evening.”

  “What’d he say to you?” I persisted. I figured it had to do with race.

  “Said I was fat.” Earnest barked a laugh. “Also that my girlfriend was ugly, that she was actually a guy.” He laughed some more, slapping his thigh. “She was ugly! Pancake makeup, bad dye job, three packs a day. But she wasn’t a guy. Anyway, you don’t talk like that. It’s rude.”

  It took us until sundown to drop the main trunk. Earnest had to walk all the way around it with his chainsaw to cut through the bole. The last segment of the blunt-shorn pillar dropped with a whump! that literally shook the earth. Earnest sawed it into slabs.

  “Just toss them on the truck while I finish,” he yelled. He was joking: on edge, the bigger bark-rimmed wheels stood as high as my chest and probably weighed three hundred pounds each. Instead, I raked and bagged the mounds of sawdust while he droned and roared on. When he was done cutting, he backed up the truck and, amazing me again, flipped the slices effortlessly onto the bed, one after another.

  He treated me to dinner at a steak house in a commercial district on the outskirts of Burlington, out of Deputy Dickhead’s jurisdiction. After so many weeks in the woods, it felt strange to be surrounded by built structures, shiny cars, signs, floodlights, modern architecture, flat masonry surfaces, asphalt-covered ground. The place bustled, festered with humans and their vehicles. It struck me as at once futuristic and atavistic.

  We sat at a booth in our honorable filth and dishevelment. He ordered the biggest piece of meat on the menu, I ordered a smaller version of the same, and we crammed food into our faces as he told me more about himself and the Brassards.

  He was born in Wisconsin to an Oneida Indian father and a half-Menominee, half-white mother. His father had fought in the army during World War II, then returned and used the training he’d received to work as an electrician. They lived near the tribal lands but not on them, so Earnest grew up going to public school. Their small house was about twenty miles west of Green Bay, where the smoke from the Fort Howard paper mills blanketed the flat farmlands for days at a time. It stank like rotten cabbage, and because his mother hung the laundry outside to dry, he often smelled it on his pillowcases and sheets even when the air had cleared. He rather liked it.

  I was a bit loopy with exhaustion, and Earnest was an easy guy to goof with. “You mean you’re … you’re part white?” I asked, appalled.

  “Yeah. You wanna see which part?”

  We laughed and he went on: Most of the kids at his school were “of German and Scandinavian extraction” and there were a few fights, but he didn’t think it was any worse than what white kids faced when they went to the mainly Indian schools. It helped that he was both “hardy,” which I took to mean tough, and “one of the eggheads,” the smart kids, in advanced placement classes. He had a younger brother, who died while driving drunk when he was around twenty, and a younger sister, who lived in Milwaukee and had a couple of kids.

  “Married a white guy!” Earnest said, keeping the joke going.

  I shook my head, saddened at the state of things.

  Earnest pulled a bad number in the draft lottery when he turned nineteen, “joined” the services, showed talent, got a year of special training, and went to Vietnam in 1973.

  When his tale got that far, he moved along briskly, mostly skipping two years and revealing nothing about what he did in the war. Met Brassard there. Came back to the States in 1975 as the USA ingloriously folded up its Vietnam tent, and spent some time on base as an MP, left the army. He went back to the Midwest to deal with his brother’s death, then moved east to get the hell away from there. Meanwhile, Brassard had returned from service and taken over his family’s farm and he needed help and Earnest was available. Earnest moved to Vermont, worked for him for a few years, then quit and made his money doing tree surgery.

  “How come you keep working for Brassard?”

  He chewed and swallowed before answering, taking his time as if the answer required some consideration. At last, he said, “Jim needs work done. Couldn’t afford to keep the farm if he had to pay somebody. Plus, I owe him. And I do 90 percent of my tree work in town and I get sick of it. I feel more at home out in the boonies. I’ve got my own bedroom at the house. Diz is a good cook.”

  Earnest had made an even thousand dollars bringing the big tree down, and he’d given me two hundred for the day. His appearance at my campsite that morning had rescued me from a day of difficult second-guessing myself. I hadn’t had time to think about anything other than the work all day, and his good mood was still buoying me along.

  “What do you owe him for?”

  He looked at me soberly. “Nothing all that interesting.”

  “So why are you reluctant to talk about it?”

  “It’s nothing heroic, if that’s what you’re thinking. No battlefield dramas, Ann. In fact, it’s not flattering to either of us.” “Now I’m dying to hear it.” I put my chin on my hand and leaned forward across the table.

  He shifted uncomfortably, irritated. “Is this why you’re still single?”

  I was enjoying myself too much to feel hurt. “Come on. Fess up.”

  I could tell he was genuinely peeved with my persistence, but he indulged me. I promised Earnest then that I’d never tell, so I won’t reveal all the details—and I’m sure he didn’t tell me all the details—but it had to do with a brothel where E
arnest did something that got him into trouble with the management. Brassard, also a patron that night, saved his bacon and got his ear sliced almost off for his efforts.

  I choked down my laughter and tried to remember whether I’d seen anything strange about Brassard’s ears.

  “I was eighteen years old, okay? And a virgin when I first got to Vietnam.”

  “Did I say anything? Any comment at all?”

  “At that age, a guy—”

  “I’m not judging!”

  “You’re the one who brought it up.”

  I chuckled into a forkful of mashed potatoes, and Earnest went back to eating in a huff.

  After a couple of minutes of silence, he added, “And don’t tell Diz about it. And don’t mention it to Jim. Or anybody.”

  I swore I wouldn’t, and I never have until now.

  He drove me back to the park-and-ride, dropped me off, and I drove back to Brassard’s. My muscles were sore and stiffening, but I felt better. Maybe I’d stay with this project, this choice, a little longer. There were good people here, there was a lot to learn, and it all felt new and refreshing.

  Chapter 11

  But that was just another zig or zag, dip or bounce, of the cosmic roller coaster. By the next day, I had relapsed into indecision once again, and by sunset had more or less resolved to bail out, despite the forest’s being so very lovely.

  In any case, unbeknownst to me, it had become a moot question. The dimensions of the choice changed radically only a week after Cat’s visit.

  Brassard and the lawyer and I had all felt safe with my delaying payment of ten thousand dollars until Aunt Theresa’s broker sold some remaining stocks. We had reviewed the papers; we all knew it was just a matter of a few technicalities required to liquidate and release the funds. Brassard had kindly given me ten weeks to hand him the last of what I owed him.

  But there was a little glitch in the plan: the great recession, that deep malfunction in the machinery of the American economy. Of course, I knew about the financial markets’ collapse and the bank bailouts and the suddenly obvious divide between Main Street and Wall Street. But it had never occurred to me that it would affect me personally. I’d never had any money to lose, no mortgage to get into over my head.

  But those vibrations in the machine, those grinding bearings and blown head gaskets (Earnest’s way of expressing it) affected my inheritance. My aunt’s canny local broker had invested some of her money in funds that paid extraordinary dividends. Turned out they were packages of subprime mortgages or some financial instrument associated with them. That’s why he’d had a hard time liquidating the last of her stock assets.

  All this had been metastasizing while I was blissfully and miserably toughing out life on the hill. The end result was that not long after Cat’s visit, six days before my final payment to Brassard was due, the cosmic magician whipped aside his handkerchief to show that—ta-dah!—the ten thousand dollars had all but disappeared. Less than two thousand remained.

  By then my own savings had dwindled to about three thousand. I knew I needed some pittance to live on, at least some transition money to move back to Boston.

  It appeared that the string of disasters of the past few years had followed me even here. What had I been thinking? That putting some geography between me and the site of my mistakes would put them behind me? I would suddenly get less stupid? My penitential hardships in the woods would atone for past sins? Of course this stuff doesn’t shake off that easily. I was a fuckup, and here was the proof. Again.

  All that was hard. But the toughest part was still ahead: telling Brassard. I had gotten the definitive word from my lawyer while sitting unbelieving in my car at the top of the ridge, where my phone could get a signal. No, no, no, I argued, for sure? Yes, sorry, yes, my lawyer said, final word, sorry.

  So there it was. Six days. Brassard would need to know as soon as possible, because he’d built his own plans around my payment. It would be unconscionable to delay telling him. The shame I felt is indescribable. Here was another terror: the thought of facing the Brassards. I postponed the moment. Parked my car, walked back up to camp, numb and empty.

  Beautiful day. Birds raucous in the trees like a crazy orchestra tuning up. A benevolent wind gently tossing the leaves so that sunlight and leaf shadows swam like fish, light and dark, schooling on the forest floor. My campsite looked lovely and dear. There it was: the sum total of my feeble and misguided attempt at making a home. A little era of my life, for whatever it was worth, past and gone. I cried at the imminent awfulness of telling Brassard. I figured I could give him two thousand and then let him decide whether to take the land back and sell it to someone else, or maybe agree to a new payment schedule despite the fact that I had no income. Or he’d sue me. Or whatever happened in cases like this.

  I washed my red face in my bucket and marched down the hill. Cruelly, that magical clarity had returned, and the forest was unbearably beautiful, a rich embroidery in perfect focus. It was surreally divorced from my state of mind.

  Down the hill. A new stab of terror as the house came into view. Across the ragged strip of scrub field, across the road. Late morning. Didn’t see anybody, and Brassard’s truck wasn’t there. So I’d have to start by telling Diz.

  Pigeons cooed and warbled as they courted in the barn. A sweet breeze tugged at my hair, and a cow lowed contentedly far out across the pasture. I was crossing the yard to the back door when Earnest pulled up in his truck. The parking brake ratcheted and he stepped out grinning.

  “What a day!” he called to me. “This is what you live for up here. Makes it all worthwhile.” He went around to the tailgate to rummage in the bed.

  When he pulled in, I had stopped, paralyzed, unable even to say hello. Still smiling, Earnest turned and started toward me carrying a pair of red toolboxes. “So how’re you doing up there, Pilgrim?”

  At the sight of his broad smiling face and solid, square body, I burst into tears. In my pursuit of self-punishment, I had never let his simple kindness and camaraderie fully penetrate, I’d kept them out because they were at odds with my goal of feeling rejected by the world, suffering universal disapproval. Another shameful thing. I exploded now. Tears sprayed from my eyes, I coughed on sobs. And crying was yet another shameful thing. I was a cliché, the classic fragile woman with no recourse besides emotional breakdown.

  Earnest looked alarmed. “Is everything all right? Is Diz okay? Where’s Jim? Jesus, Ann, what—”

  “I have to leave. I’ve totally screwed up. Shit, shit, fuck! I’ve screwed everybody up!” Choked out between wrenching sobs.

  “Whoa! How?” He set down his toolboxes but didn’t come any closer, as if I had something that might be catching.

  “By doing everything! By being who I am! By being stupid my whole life.”

  Earnest looked toward the house, then came forward and took me by the arm and led me back to the other side of his truck. He propelled me toward the rear fender, where I leaned, moaning and burbling.

  Eventually, I got to the money stuff.

  “Oh, man.” He peered over the hood at the back door again, and I realized he was worried that Diz would see all this. “Jesus.”

  He hovered uneasily while I cried and snarled at myself and leaked. After a bit, he opened the cab door and found a rag and gave it to me. I blew my nose in it and smeared my eyes with the oil on it. I was nearing empty, moving beyond caring what happened next.

  “I don’t know if anybody can totally fuck up,” he said. “Not totally. Even me, and I’ve done a better job than most.”

  “Well, you’ve met someone now.” I looked up at him and felt suddenly impatient with him. “I’ve just screwed your best friend! You should be mad at me! What’s the matter with you?”

  “I guess I must be fucking up again.” His face became impassive for a moment, but then his eyes widened suddenly. “Here’
s Diz,” he said. And there she was, coming out of the barn. Not in the house after all. We were in full view. My heart began to pound, my terror instantly renewed.

  “Earnest! What are you doing to that poor woman?” she called. She chuckled and came toward us. When she got closer and could really see what a mess I was, she gave a resigned sigh and lifted her eyes heavenward. Still being sardonically funny.

  “What now?” she asked.

  That was a hard day.

  When I told Diz, she was speechless, aghast, before the fury hit. Rage filled her face. She spun away, then turned back: “How could you? How dare you! When we went out on a limb to give you your little exercise in self-pity? Your little masochistic haven? I told Jim we shouldn’t do it! I told him you were a narcissistic twit without the character, the sand, to follow through on anything in your whole spoiled yuppie life! But I never, never dreamed it would be our money—our money!—you’d flake out on.”

  “Diz—” Earnest began.

  “No! She needs to hear it! Who does she think she is? We’re running a farm here, not a rehab spa for troubled orphan girls! We need the damn money! That’s why we sold the goddamned property. It wasn’t optional!”

  She stopped there, literally sputtering, unable to find words adequate to the task.

  I didn’t say anything. First, I deserved it. Second, I was stunned at how well Diz had scoped me.

  Earnest took Diz’s arm, and though she tried to jerk it out of his grip, he forcibly turned her around and led her back toward the barn. He didn’t let go as he bent his head toward hers and made her listen. Eventually, she answered back. They conferred, Diz vehement, Earnest steadfastly calm, determined.

  After a minute or two, Diz went over to the pasture fence, kicked it, then leaned on the topmost rail and looked out over the fields.