Diligence

City boys are dumb. City boys live in apartments, or two-story houses, or mansions even, if their daddy is rich. The only air them city boys ‘ll ever know is the musty air you can barely see through ‘cause of all of them cars and buildings. City boys won’t ever know what ’s like to get the hands dirty, to work anything besides their minds. City boys go to school, but mostly just because their momma makes them, or to see the pretty girls there. City boys go to parties, buy leather jackets, listen to rock with their friends, and of course walk only on paved sidewalks going to school.

I walk into cow manure.

Frankly, it was a regular day. I woke up early out o’ habit, ate a dwindling ration of eggs for breakfast, and now’s time for the field. The cool, crisp air of coming autumn feels real nice, and the clouds gathered above are beautiful. Dark clouds are on the horizon, with struggling beams of sunlight coming through. This always makes the barn look like it is protected by a halo of light clouds, which is nice to think. What’s more, the fruits and veggies have finally grown mouths, basically screaming to be harvested. Sometimes, it feels terrible to wake up so early. Others, it feels great to know that I’m up before the sun, to be whistling even before the birds, to be walking on grass still dewed over. Momma and Poppa are up too, but they gotta lot o’ work prepping for harvest an’ all that. We gotta make sure any stray weeds are pulled up, that the truck’s got gas, and especially that the old, hulking cows on the farm are ready for market, and of course it was my turn to tend to them.

Sweet creatures them hulking milk-makers are, even if they reek of something unholy. The flies in the barn are gathering as if it was Sunday mass, and the squelch of whatever I happen to step in just as I was starting work made my stomach lurch. No matter — these trusty boots make scrubbing, feeding, washing, and grooming the cows feel bearable, at the very least. Still, it was slow and gruesome work. I wonder to myself if I ever will have time to read my new book that’s almost due back at the small local library not far from here. I’m two chapters through.

City boys might call it a lonely life, but I think it is actually quite peaceful — if your definition of peaceful is working until you can’t. This entire life makes me feel productive, as if my work matters some. Sometimes, feeling the soft dirt under my feet is comforting. The grass seems greener when animals can graze it. It’s not much, but the work put in to get us here is enough. Plus, I mean, Momma and Poppa can use all of the help they can get, so I’ve gotta do whatever I can and put all my time in to helping them around.

Poppa’s been getting forehead wrinkles like a raisin, and I can’t seem to recall when Momma didn’t have bags under the eyes. The energy is even getting to me lately, and I don’t like it. I mean sure, the bank has been squeezing us pretty tight for the barn this year, but harvest is coming in just a few weeks. If we all keep on working at this pace, we might actually be able to sell the crops in time to keep the barn. But what do I know.

At the end of the day, my legs are aching, and my arms are throbbing. I am pretty sure my entire water supply has just been depleted through my skin, and my throat feels like a desert. I can’t wait to get back inside. I finish tidying the barn up, locking the animals safely away, and start to head back for dinner when a cold drop of liquid ice hits me right smack on the nose.

“Finally!” I think to myself. It has been almost two weeks since we’d gotten any rain, and Momma was starting to get fidgety. Poppa had been the one to reassure us that rain would come just in time, and sure enough, this rain should give our plants just the right amount of fuel to be perfect in time for the picking.

Thankfully, these farm-strengthened legs come in handy. I speed back to the small wooden farm we have, before I get absolutely drenched and sit down for dinner — or at least what we can salvage — with the fam. Sure it was necessary to keep our energy up for the work, but I could still see a bunch more productive activities that I could be doing instead.

Picking on the stale green beans and rice while the metal utensils scratch at the plate, I can only imagine what my parents had done all day. Poppa would’ve probably worked with the trucks and the business side of things, making sure that harvest day would go perfectly. Momma might’ve been clipping away any last stray weeds, or just stayed in the house, fixing up supper, doing the laundry, and all of that such. I understand that we can’t control a lot of things, but we can control most of it through tedious, diligent work.

Finishing my portion of rice for the night, I am surprised that I can hear the flicker of the light above us and the increasing pitter patter of the rain outside. It’s almost like we’re holding our breath.

I excuse myself early tonight, and get a start on washing my dish, which turns out to be hard to do by just the dining room light. It’s alright though. I head to my room and immediately flop onto my bed. Exhausted from today with legs throbbing and rain still on my clothes, it’s all I can do to wish for a better day to come tomorrow.

—————

I wake up sore from yesterday, but prepared to get in the final bits of work. I head down for a quick breakfast, feet sounding too loud on the steps. I can’t hear Momma and Poppa in the kitchen, which is weird. It is still raining now, even harder. Maybe they went — wait.

It is still raining.

I jolt at the thought of rain all night and immediately think the worst. I sloppily haul on a raincoat and my trusty boots and sprint outside. I sprint to what was yesterday a blooming field, ready for anything. I dash to what was yesterday a plan to live happily for another couple of months.

I head outside today to find that all of my dreams have been washed away.

“No!” My father growled. I see him and mom struggling to salvage what is left of our drowning and washing away crops, or any bags of seeds they could get their hands on. I run to help them, but at this point there is nothing we can do. The wind is picking up, and the rain is falling harder. I read about the monsoons in India once, but never thought that I would experience the feel one. All of the dirt under our feet has turned to sinking ground, and it is a struggle to even stay upright. City boys get a bad test grade and feel low. I am sinking to rock bottom — but even I am apparently not there yet.

The wind is howling even louder now, and the rain is just making it worse. Before I can even think about how bad this all is — crack! A loud snap fills the air, and I immediately think that it is the barn. But no, of course not. That would be too merciful of Mother Nature. She knew that we would lose the barn anyways with all of this to wash everything capable of making us money down the drain. She struck our only other asset.

The cows now start running loose, their pen broken by some horrific event. The same cows I felt dutiful tending to yesterday is gone. The same house that we lived and worked in will be gone. Even if we manage to keep it, the water must have done too much damage to the wood already. Everything is water, and my entire world has just gone under. I am paralyzed in place, watching my world crumble around me.

All of my — all of our work; gone, just like that, in a snap. The only thing we have left is a godforsaken barn that will be lost in a few days, and a truck that probably barely works now or has been thrown down a hill.

Of course, we have each other. But even so, we still have no choice now but to head into the city now and find some job nobody else wants. We’ll have no choice but to work minimum wage now, no choice but to do whatever we can to get by. We’ll be homeless! We’ll end up in some underground sewer begging for alms! We’ll lose everything! We’ll have to start from scratch! All of those years — gone! Just like that!

I start to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. I start to cry because I know this is not a dream. All of my hard work, for nothing. Everything, gone in an instant. All of those tedious hours in the fields and days thinking that someday we would earn enough to get out of this cycle.

Maybe, sometimes, hard work can’t get you everything you want. Maybe, sometimes, it is the work of the supernatural. Maybe, sometimes, it’s just out of my control. City boys might be dumb, but boy what I wouldn’t do to be one of them right now.

But enough of my moping. What can I do now but to simply… again… get to work?