[ I told Hunter a long time ago I had a romance novella to write, so I'm finally doing it, people on occasion write short fiction here. I have my own reasons for it, they mean something to me, and there can be no harm in it.
Part I is here, part III here. This is about 40% done. Please be well. ]
Glenn Duey’s ancient Toyota pickup rattled unsteadily down Cornett road, forcing him to steady his coffee as he glanced at the directions and plain small map again.
Go down Cornett road until it dead-ends, there’s a short lane with a shack next to it. Please be there at seven a.m. to start your community service obligation, the directions said, which had arrived in the mail along with much other sterner official documents. Don’t be late! The directions had warned in bold font.
Shit, Glenn said to himself as his watch read 6:55. I was fine until I bought this coffee, those stupid lottery ticket buyers held me up. Well, I’m not late anyway.
The battered Toyota took a shallow dive near the end of the road, the cup of coffee saved from a splash only by being a quarter full. Glenn hauled the wheel west into a short rutted road and there was the shack, two cars and a pickup parked alongside. Three men stood in front of the vehicles, a slim woman in a Navy peacoat standing ten yards away.
Glenn felt their eyes as he eased out, telling himself there was still three minutes to go, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Walking up to the group of men he saw two white American guys roughly his age, while the third was a sad-looking thirty-something Latino, their breaths smoking in the cold September morning.
Glenn looked at the woman as she strode up, short muddy boots and faded jeans below the dark Navy coat, a tan knitted scarf coiled under a pretty face and big grey eyes. Wavy chestnut hair spilled over her shoulders, a clipboard and small pencil swinging determinedly in one hand. Glenn told himself it was absurd that forty grams of cedar could do any harm, but there was still something vaguely threatening in that swinging pencil as she strode up to the men.
She swung up the clipboard. “Hanlin,” she said loudly.
“Yeah,” one of the white guys said sadly, resignedly scratching his jaw while she marked name off. “Cooper,” she said in the same volume, his Caucasian partner raising a hand. “Martinez,” she continued, the Latino saying quietly “I’m here.”
She deliberately reached into an inner coat pocket and took out her phone, grimly taking in the displayed time. She looked right at Glenn.
“Duey,” she said with a faint dislike.
“Uh-huh,” Glenn replied, looking right back, squirming inwardly but managing to look plain by telling himself look, I wasn’t late.
She tucked the clipboard under an arm and thrust her hands into the coat pockets. “Good morning, gentlemen, I’m Stacy Wright, director of the Clark County food bank. Thank you, seriously, for your public service commitment performed here.” She spoke clearly and easily, looking at the unhappy men in turn. “It’s like this,” she said, taking her hands out of the pockets. “Work seven to noon today and the food bank counts that as ten hours of service.”
She glanced around at the men, all of who were relieved—except Glenn, who looked on impassively.
“So today and tomorrow equals twenty hours, work this weekend and your community service is over, Judge Briller thinks twenty hours is enough,” she said brightly. “However, for the first time I have someone due forty hours, Mr. Duey here will be with us for two weekends.”
She deliberately took in Glenn’s scuffed boots, torn khaki trousers and light denim jacket, eventually looking into his face with a calm intensity. “Shocking,” she said.
Eat me, A cup, Glenn said to himself, looking at his boots.
Razor female intuition plucked the phrase right out of midair, widening Stacy’s eyes and stiffening her back. She titled her head, glancing at her hands, then lightly shook her hair and looked at the men again.
“This potato field has already been tined,” she said, gesturing widely to the long rows stretching before them in the field, red potatoes peeking among the clumpy soil. “Just go along a row and fill up one of these plastic bags, full they’re about ten pounds.” She pointed to a bag of plastic clips. “Tie them off, and when you’ve done enough fill up one these carts here and stack the bags next to the shack.” Two heavily rusted Radio Flyer wagons waited at the ready, fat pneumatic tires incongruously new and shiny.
“I’ll pack up the truck at noon when I come back,” she said, striding away toward the pickup. “Work what you can, it’ll be enough.”
Suddenly she stopped and turned around. “Just be here at noon when I get back,” she said clearly, looking at each man in turn. “If Judge Briller gets a phone call from me to issue a bench warrant you’ll be in jail before sunset, that is a fact,” she said calmly.
She got in the truck, gunned the engine and popped the clutch as she darted down the lane. “Good luck, thanks!” she called out, waving an arm through the open window, the potato field suddenly very quiet as she was quickly gone.
The men looked at each other in the still cold morning, Glenn finally reaching down for a bag, kneeling along a row and plucking the potatoes into it. The Latino looked on, moving his lips silently, then got a bag, chose a row and got to work.
One the white Americans with dark hair disgustedly spat into the field. “Look at us, Steve, just look at us. We’re a couple of cons laboring in a fucking potato field!”
“All right, Tommy, all right,” his companion with sandy hair replied wearily. “We’ve been over it twenty times already.”
“I don’t care!” Tommy said with an angry incredulity. “I told you going to that party was a stupid idea, I told you crashing the night in that spare room was a lousy idea, I told you that girl with mongo tits had to have a boyfriend, but no. No no no, you listen to me for shit like always and here we are.” He gestured his arms widely in sarcastic grandeur. “We’ve ended up in this fucking potato field, Steve!”
“I know, Tommy,” Steve said resignedly, reaching for a plastic bag.
“Mental health is not a static thing,” Tommy said emphatically, watching Steve grab a handful of clips. “You’re either going forward or backward, it’s pretty goddamn plain to me this potato field represents some serious regression in my life,” he said, looking at Steve expectantly.
“I know, Tommy,” Steve said in the same tone, tucking plastic bags under an arm and sighing before he got on his knees into the rough dirt.
“If our health is in regression what’s in it for us for next year, the fucking penitentiary?” he asked aggressively, hands on hips.
Steve stood up and sighed, brushing his hands. “Tommy, I am sorry. Okay? For the fiftieth fucking time, I am sorry. We’re here now, so stand around or get to work, I could care the fuck less.” Steve looked his friend plain the face, gave a short nod and then kneeled in the row again.
Tommy stood in the still morning air, watching the three men crawl along the rows stuffing bags with potatoes. Eventually he threw up his hands in futile disgust, got some bags and chose a row.
As the minutes passed small dust moved among the men as they broke dirt apart, the only sounds their grunting breaths and the rustle of plastic. Glenn worked quickly and easily, not too fast, while the Latino dogged it, barely expending enough energy to look busy.
“Jesus Christ, my back is killing me,” Tommy said. “We’ve only been here twenty minutes.”
“Take a break, then, Tommy, no one gives a shit,” Steve said calmly.
“Fine,” Tommy said with a pleased defiance. He tossed his bag and sat in the dirt, hugging his knees. The Latino man glanced at him.
“Name’s Tommy,” he said to him. “How’d you get here?”
The Latino man looked at him steadily. “Ricardo,” he said, gesturing slightly to all the men and then gratefully sitting next to Steve.
“Got late on my divorce settlement payments, but not really,” he said with a small earnestness, looking at Steve and Tommy. Glenn was still bent over his row. “Payroll changed the pay day from Friday to Monday, everything was still the same, she just got the money four days later.”
Ricardo held his hands open, undulating the air in quick movements. “My ex wife, she doesn’t like it, she gets me before the judge for late payments and man, he was really pissed off. What’s the problem, she still gets the money, it’s not my fault, but that bastard got mad as hell.” He reached into a breast pocket for a cigarette, lit one with a Zippo lighter and looked resignedly into the distance.
“Said I should’ve cleared it with him and the court about the payment dates changing, far as he’s concerned he don’t care if Jesus gets a payroll change, it still has to be cleared through him.” He shook his head. “He said that, right in court, fined my ass and here I am.”
Steve worked doggedly, Glenn moved smoothly along while Tommy and Ricardo sat, the rising sun warming their backs and the rows. “Why are you here?“ Ricardo asked Tommy.
“Oh god, don’t get him started,” Steve said wearily.
“Shut up, Steve, I could jaw you for twenty years and not make up for the shit you’ve got us into.” He rubbed his forearm along his sweaty temple. “Numb nuts here convinced me to go this party way the hell out in Clarence, it’ll be fun and he won’t be drinking ‘cause of the drive.”
Tommy opened his hands helplessly. “How stupid could I get? How could I ever think homie over here could stay at a party sober? He says there’s a spare bedroom if he drinks too much, starts chugging beers and then hits on this stacked hottie I told you to leave the fuck alone, but no, he goes ahead and does it.”
Tommy angrily shook his head. “He’s not scared of that wimp boyfriend, nope, but the son of a bitch has friends and it’s gonna get ugly if we don’t get the hell outta there. We’re drunk, we try to sleep it off on the side of the road and we get busted.”
“Bad luck there,” Steve said defiantly.
“I said shut up, Steve!” Tommy replied angrily. “You got us the hell into this mess, plain and simple, and I have never been so humiliated in my life than when were before that judge. Jesus Christ, what a son of a bitch!” He said wonderingly.
Steve wearily stood up, clutched at his back, and then plopped down beside Tommy and Ricardo. They watched the moving form of Glenn crawl along a row.
“Why’re you here? Tommy asked eventually.
“Same thing, I pissed off that judge really bad,” Glenn said, his dirty hands not stopping. He said nothing more, and the other men didn’t press him.
After an hour of fitful work Steve and Tommy quit for a long nap in their car, while Ricardo found a stick and some shade, whittling away hours with his pocketknife. They returned to the rows halfheartedly as the sun rose steadily up the sky, while Glenn never quit except for a 15 minute break at ten. Right at noon Stacy Wright rattled and bounced up to the shack in her truck, pea coat gone and soiled work gloves stuffed into her jeans.
“That’s it, guys, see you tomorrow,” she called out. The three men waved and immediately went to their cars, while Glenn lugged up a load of potatoes in a cart. His pile had ninety bags, 900 pounds, while the three other men had chugged in 24.
She looked at pile of stuffed bags impassively and then at Glenn’s sweat-stained clothes. “Well, you certainly know how to work hard,” she said plainly.
“I didn’t work hard, just never stopped working,” Glenn said quietly, tossing bags out of the cart. He straightened up and looked at her. “I can help you load up the truck,” he said.
She looked back at him, slightly amused with the chivalry. “You’ve done enough for the day, hotshot, I can handle it.”
Glenn’s lips twitched at the word hotshot. He returned her gaze, saying nothing, then shrugged.
“Suit yourself,” he said plainly, then abruptly turned and strode away toward his Toyota.
Stacy watched him walk away, then quickly shook her head and grabbed some potato bags. What in the hell would I tell my mother? she thought, that I met him on work furlough in a potato field?
She nodded as she tossed potato bags into the truck. Life in social service, she thought.