Bare Skin, Sheep, and Dead Crows Awaken Memories
I come into the office from the milkin’ parlor, and there was Shorty, settin’ in front of the wood stove readin’ that danged sports magazine again. The boy is plumb crazy over the football team down in Philly. He’s always readin’ the magazine ever time I turn my back.
“Git off yer dead rear end, son, and take the tractor down to the stack lot and bring some hay up,” I says. He didn’t say nothin’. Didn’t even twitch, he was so buried in that magazine. I stepped behind him to git somethin’ out of the cabinet and glanced down at his readin’ material.
Lord A’mighty! T’was a naked woman layin’ in the surf on some beach starin’ up at me. Not naked, naked. Her privates was covered, if you wanna split hairs about it. But she might as well not been wearin’ anything. I didn’t have no trouble figgerin’ out what the covered parts would look like if they weren’t covered.
“Shorty Johnson! Yer reading pornography,” I didn’t quite shout, but close.
He looked up at me with a puzzled frown, none too disturbed.
“This isn’t porn, Mr. Hake. This is the swimsuit issue.”
“Since when do naked women in swimsuits have anything to do with football?
“Every year, Sports Illustrated has a swimsuit issue. No big deal. It’s part of the magazine.”
“Them pictures come in the mail?”
The boy actually laughed at that. “Sure. Or just go to a store and buy it. Anyway, this is last year’s issue.”
“They do it ever year?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You git yer rear end onto that tractor!”
He tossed the magazine on the desk. In a moment or two I heard the tractor roar up. The noise reminded me that it’s getting’ close to needin’ a new muffler. Me and that tractor are in a race to see who dies first.
So there that magazine was layin’ on the desk. Seein’ as how the tractor ain’t won the race just yet, I went over and opened up the magazine. Lord A’mighty! I had to sit down.
There was women in there with no clothes on, but someone had painted their skin so it was like they had clothes on. Do they go swimmin’ like that? Don’t the paint wash off?
There was lots of women who had forgotten part of their swimsuit and had to hide part of themselves behind inner tubes, or — I ain’t makin’ this us — peekin’ around the corner of a barn just like this here barn of ours.
There was a woman with an alligator, and I swear to you that the alligator was touchin’ places no alligator should touch. Alligators don’t do that! Do they? Another woman in this skimpy little outfit was bein’ smelled by some sheep!
Now I know sheep are pretty dumb when it comes to bein’ an animal, but when have sheep ever gone around looking for a woman in a swimmin’ suit so they could smell her? What kind of woman would put on a swimmin’ suit, climb over a fence, and go into a field hopin’ sheep will come up and smell her? That ain’t a woman I want to spend too much time around.
Weirdest one by a long distance was this woman that was lettin’ a crow pull her bathing suit off. Well, sort of pull it off. Tell you the truth, I think it twas probably a stuffed crow. What was the point of that? The crow lady and the sheep lady should get together, but not at my barn.
Problem with things like all them naked women is you can only look at it for so long before it gets kind of boring. It’s numbs your brain. So ‘fore long I turned the magazine face down in my lap and put my feet up on the wood bin so the stove could warm ‘em some.
Got to thinkin’ about when my brothers and me were young. This was before the war with Germany and Japan, back in the Great Depression. You could buy things sorta like that swimsuit magazine if you knew the right people.
You’d go into a tobacco store and say you wanted some special brand of tobacco. Seems to me one of ‘em was named Red Cajun. It was a code. If the guy that owned the store knew you and the coast was clear, he’d reach down and come up with a magazine or two.
My brothers and me would read ‘em right here in this barn. Kept ‘em on top of a beam high up in the hayloft. Never showed ‘em to Pa. He would’ve gotten real mad at us for havin’ something like that.
I must’ve dozed for a spell, with the heat from the stove. Next thing I knew, Shorty was standing over me with that smart ass grin of his.
“I see you’ve been enjoying the scenery, Mr. Hake,” he said.
I stood up and tossed the magazine on the desk. “Come with me, boy. Let’s go up in the hay loft.”
He got a worried look on his face, but he followed behind as I climbed the stairs to the floor of the loft. It was dim up there, light filtering through cracks between the boards.
I pointed way up near the peak of the roof. “See that beam up there?”
“Yes sir.”
I could tell from his voice that I had him worried.
“I want you to use that ladder built into the wall and go up there and look on top of that beam.”
“That ladder doesn’t look very safe,” Shorty said.
“It’s perfectly safe. Climbed it a thousand times when I was yer age.”
He started up, then paused half way and looked back.
“Keep goin’, son.”
“Oh, Mr. Hake. I don’t know. These boards are loose.”
These kids nowadays. I’ll admit I was enjoying myself.
“O.K. Here I am,” he called down.
“Is there anything on the top of the beam?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“No magazines?”
He ran his hand along the beam, sending a shower of dust down through the streaks of light.
“No, sir. Nothing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
I didn’t say nothin’, just turned and went down the stairs and back into the office. I stood at the desk looking down at Shorty’s magazine. It wasn’t that I wanted to look at those Red Cajun magazines. I didn’t care about that. I just wanted them to still be there.
I know it was a plumb spiteful thing to do, but I picked up Shorty’s magazine, opened the door of the stove, and tossed it onto the coals. Then I went outside to see if he had stacked the hay right.