At first over at the Cargill’s feed depot, when there was the school
still, the kids at the school would say Momma was a cow and we was
cowshit, living over at the Cargill’s feed depot. Sometimes they said
we was bullshit, because of Daddy, like he was a bull and all, meaning
a man-cow. We asked Momma how come all the other kids got to live
in a house and us in the Cargill’s and when she asked how come we
asked we said I don’t want to be cowshit, Momma. We thought she’d
get mad, first for the cowshit and second for then she was the cow
but all she did was put the beef-on-weck down in her lap real dainty,
suck at her teeth a second, and say with her eyes all rolling wobbly
in her head, “Your daddy,” she said. “Your daddy is a man of vision.”
It started out we had a big house with trees in the front but the
bank owned a piece of it and we couldn’t give back our piece once
Daddy lost his job so we sold our piece back to the bank and bought
the whole of a little house with no trees nowhere but the river close
by at least, like riverfront or something. The train tracks were close
by too but we couldn’t play by them or by the river neither and when
we walked to the school we had to have someone to walk with us over
the tracks because once a kid got his foot caught underneath the rail
and lucky for him the trains don’t run too often, but he got so awful
cold, the kid, his ears fell off. That’s why we wore hats too.
At first Momma used to walk us over the tracks even though she was
never much for walking and in fact never did no walking at all once
Daddy got her that electro-scooter when the Wal-Mart got burnt, and
she sure didn’t used to like it to go tripping through the weeds and
stones and glass talking all how we used to have a big house all to
ourselves with the trees and all. But then Daddy, he lost his even
worse job so we didn’t have to walk with Momma no more.
So then at first we used to walk with Daddy and Daddy didn’t mind
it much because he had his friends down by the river after no time
at all and they were all real nice to us kids on account of none of
them had no kids to themselves even though they was all ladies themselves
and when Daddy used to stop and talk to them all grownup and we said,
“C’mon, Daddy,” we heard them saying they was always making babies
all day long and all night long and nothing to show for, but I guess
that’s why Daddy had to talk grownup with them in the mornings, them
being busy all day and night, even without no babies to show for it.
So when it got so we was late to the school each and every time, Daddy
taught us to wait by the tracks for Miss Felicia or Miss Lorraine
because they had old men to go home to, mornings. They were some of
his friends down by the river. Daddy said if Miss Felicia or Miss
Lorraine didn’t come by to make sure we was over the tracks in time
to suit us, then we could ask pretty much any of the men we seen passing
by because just about everybody’s all friends with Miss Felicia or
Miss Lorraine on account of they was so nice. We picked it up in no
time.
One time
some kids from the school saw us crossing the tracks with Miss Felicia
and they said how she dirty-bad and we said no she Daddy’s friend
and they said how come our Daddy don’t love Momma to be out with them
dirty-bad folks, them ladies, probably on account of Momma being a
cow and all. So we asked Daddy just that, and he said how Miss Felicia
she was only dirty-bad sometimes but that didn’t have nothing to do
with him and, besides, all them dirty-bad folks was done with the
being dirty-bad by morning-time and was in fact drinking down all
the dirty-badness because they didn’t like it much, them all being
so nice and all, and that’s where he came in, Daddy. I guess he meant
nice.
We told
the kids at the school and they said well how come your daddy don’t
drive you then or maybe how come he don’t have your momma pull you
in a cart like a cow, so we asked Momma just that. This time Momma
got real mad but not about the cow and the cart part like we thought
but about the car part and about Daddy. She said we kids was real
smart and how any bohemian she’d ever seen living in a crappy little
house had one of the European cars and if Daddy thought she was gonna
live all bohemian in a crappy little house like Daddy said we was
without she had no European car well then Daddy he had another thing
coming.
So
when Daddy met us at the tracks after school that day he had a newspaper
under his arm and we asked him how come because Daddy never was much
for the reading, and he told us that Momma was gonna get herself a
real European car like a regular bohemian and he was gonna find her
one, on the cheap. We told Momma and she said Daddy was real good
at finding stuff cheap, that’s how come we had so much nice stuff
all the time, like our crappy little house. Daddy took the newspaper
over to the cabinet under the sink and then took it upstairs with
him real serious-like and told us kids to pipe down and Momma told
us kids to pipe down but it was awful hard on account of we were excited
about having a real European car like a bunch of real bohemians. Daddy
sure was up there a long time, even counting it was the Sunday paper,
so long that Momma had to take us on over the tracks the day after.
Once we got to the tracks we showed her what Daddy taught us so we
didn’t have to wait for Miss
Daddy had the paper under his arm again when he met us at the tracks
after we got out of the school, and he must have been working at the
reading real hard because the newspaper was all rumpled and creased
and folded, whole pages hanging out flapping, more even than a regular
Sunday paper on Wednesday. Daddy’s eyes were all red but we thought
in a good way. We asked Daddy if he found Momma a car and he said,
“Yup,” so we was right.
We got real happy then because we didn’t have to pipe down no more
and happy to be getting a European car and be real bohemians after
a real long time of just being regular old poor. Daddy wouldn’t tell
us what kind of European car—there’s different kinds—he made us wait
so he could tell us and Momma together, but boy did we jump high over
them tracks then.
When we got home Daddy took his sweet time unfolding the paper and
spreading it out on the kitchen table, smoothing out the wrinkles
and arranging it, section by section, with the whole-world news first,
then the this-country news, the business news, and last the part with
cars. He called us all in all serious even though we were all right
there with him in the kitchen, but we still had to wait for Momma
to come down the stairs one by one because walking on stairs was even
worse than walking regular for Momma. In the meantime Daddy reached
into the cabinet under the sink and pulled out what Momma called the
dirty-bottle, looked in it all serious like it was the newspaper,
and offered us some. We didn’t take none. Then he said:
“Alright everyone.”
But then Daddy he just stood there in the kitchen real quiet looking
at all the crumpled pages all spread out like that on the table, got
real sleepy looking for a minute, and then started again.
“Alright everyone, my wife right here, you kids’ Momma, she a damn
good wife and a damn good bohemian wife, the best even one might say,
and you know what they say about birds of the feather and all that,
meaning how same goes to same, so I decided we gonna get the very
finest of all them European cars, the best they got.”
He picked up the whole-world news part and the this-country part and
put ‘em down, brushed aside business, and grabbed up the last part,
the car part. He held it far away from him like he did whenever he
got to read stuff and pulled it real close like a teddy bear and held
it out again, this time facing us.
“What that say, kids?”
“S, S600, Daddy. Mercedes-Benz.”
And then Daddy didn’t look sleepy no more.
We didn’t say nothing. Momma didn’t say nothing neither, she just
looked at Daddy all sideways and at the cabinet under the sink, which
was open. Daddy was smiling real big and tapping himself on the chest
with his fingers like when Momma says he thinks he’s real smart, looking
over to the kitchen table with the newspaper all spread out all over
it. Then Momma said:
“How you figger we gonna get one of those? Lord knows you ain’t got
no job.”
But
Daddy, he didn’t even stop smiling. He looked at Momma real serious
and said he didn’t need no job just to put his ever-lovin’ wife in
the very finest European automobile. Momma didn’t say nothing then,
but she looked at Daddy real quiet like he was stupid until Daddy
got real quiet, then sleepy again, then real excited, jumping around
the kitchen table all full of Lookey-here’s.
“See this, Momma, my darlin’ wife? This here says we going to war,
not you and me, but that army sure is, and don’t nobody like it neither,
nobody. Know why? Because ain’t no one can pay for it. Aint’nobody
got a job, ain’t nobody getting a job, ain’t nobody got no money,
and them big Texas banks is going to war with them towel-heads for
to get the oil, so they could get more money, only we don’t get no
more money neither way and in fact gonna get even less money even
before goddamn Texas gets more. And they ain’t gonna give us none
since they gonna give it all to the army, and if we don’t go over
to the army since it’s the only job they got for us then they gonna
take our house and that house over there and every damn house.
“But see us right here, we’re what you calls Americans, and even if
they don’t like it in
He was looking at us kids then because Momma was staring all sideways
like when Daddy comes home from down by the river, but we didn’t know
nothing about war and Texas and all that, I guess because they ain’t
got to that stuff yet at school. Pretty soon Daddy he ran out of steam
and went upstairs with the bottle and we kids went outside to the
sidewalk on account of Momma she was real mad-looking and all, and
we couldn’t go down by the tracks or the river. But when we came back
inside Daddy was on the phone with the
When we came home that next day Daddy wouldn’t even let us look underneath
the old plastic tarp for a second until we finished our homework and
the other homework Daddy called special homework as he was bouncing
all around the kitchen like he just come home from down by the river.
“Now what you
call it, kids?”
“S600 See-dan, Daddy.”
“That’s right, kids. Now what the engine like?”
“5.8 liters, 36 valves, and a Vee-12.”
“Now what that mean, kids?”
“We fancy, Daddy, we fancy!”
“You goddamn right we fancy, a bunch of regular old bohemians we are.”
Now we sure do love Daddy, and we love that fancy S600 most of all,
but when it came time to move out of our little house we sure didn’t
feel all that fancy. Daddy said it weren’t no fault of his and it
weren’t no fault of the S600 neither, but rather the Atkinses and
the Hutchinsonses and all them for being so goddamn lily-livered,
and the fault of them damn Texas banks most of all.
But he never did say it was the fault of Momma, which we thought he’d
say right quick, and we sure thought it was at the time. See, Daddy
always means well and all, like Momma says, but he never could get
right the timing, on account of all those years on the line at the
plant he always had the bell to tell him lunch-time and quit-time
and all that. But when the bank man came along asking how come we
ain’t paid off even a little piece of the car Momma said she didn’t
know nothing about no car, and the bank man said OK. But when he came
back a while later he had with him a whole mess of sheriffs and deputies
and more guys with suits, and he said we had to either get out quick
or give up the car, one or the other. But Momma said no car and Daddy
said no car to the bank man, who didn’t look like no cowboy to me.
So when the
bank man left and the sheriffs left with all them deputies, Momma
pulled the S600 up to the front of our little crappy bohemian house
and Daddy brought out the dishes, packed all carefully in boxes and
separated from each other by crumpled-up Sunday paper. Then came the
furniture, and then the clothes. Then we said goodbye to our little
house by the river sitting backward turned around in them fancy leather
seats, peering through the crack of light between the top of the window
and the tied-open trunk, with the roof of the S600 piled high.
Daddy he didn’t mind it all so much moving after all because he was
even closer to his friends down by the river, since now we were right
on the river ourselves, but Momma she didn’t think the old Cargill’s
Agricultural Feeds Main Grain Elevator Complex Number One was a good
place to for a nice bunch of bohemians with a real fancy car to be
raising no kids. But that’s how we all wound up at the Cargill’s,
like it or lump it, and the rest of us didn’t much like it for a while
with the rust and the dust and the drafts and the kids at the school
talking cowshit.
But, like Daddy said, it had its advantages.
First was that we didn’t have no kitchen over at the Cargill’s, but
Daddy said we was even more bohemian than before, eating out every
night like that. Momma said beef-on-weck didn’t hardly count as no
eating out, especially just from the ratty old bar down on the corner
by where we used to have a crappy little house and, besides, calling
half-green roast beef on a plain old roll beef-on-weck don’t make
it special. All the kids at the school called it beef-on-weck like
it was something special, like when Momma said rolls they all said
hardrolls, like they was something special. She said hardrolls was
for people who ate sweetrolls or dinner rolls who had to tell the
difference, but all she ever had was beef-on-weck so it didn’t make
no difference to her either way. We didn’t tell no one at the school
we lived over at the Cargill’s until they seen us walking home from
the school that time, but we sure told ‘em about the beef-on-weck
every night pretty quick.
We didn’t have no bathrooms neither, but Daddy figured out that one
quick, swiping a real Porto-John from the construction site up South
Michigan, and that time he didn’t need no bell to tell him when, neither.
He tied it all up on the roof of the shiny S600 with us kids playing
lookout right after they laid off all the last workers and right before
We all thought she’d get mad, but Momma didn’t mind too much living
over at the Cargill’s after a while, probably on account of she had
the S600 outside of it, but the one thing she told Daddy she come-hell-or-high-water
had to have was electricity for to watch the TV. She was real mad
at first and we wouldda went out on the sidewalk if there was a sidewalk
but Daddy worked that one out too. Him and Momma made a deal so she
only watched the TV evening-time, after Daddy came back from picking
us kids up at the school in the S600 so the battery was nice and charged
up. He’d climb on out under the rusty tin roof Momma called the carport,
open up the shiny sleek hood of the S600, and clamp the cables onto
the battery terminals. He used his half-set of regular old jumper
cables spliced down on one end and tied on in to a converter he got
at the Radio Shack before it got burnt. Daddy sure is smart: He said
he could have got himself a regular old electric outlet in the S600
built right into it but even though the society and the economy and
all was going right down the tubes anyway he still couldn’t see clear
to pay no dealer prices for a regular old electric outlet when he
could just get one over at the Radio Shack. He said we couldn’t watch
the TV all the time on account of it would hurt the battery and who
knows where we could get another one after the dealership all got
burnt, and that’s how come we couldn’t have a fridge no more neither.
Lucky for us it got real cold real quick at the Cargill’s in the middle
of all that concrete with no doors in none of the doors and ventilation
shafts and chutes and conveyor belts all up and down and all over
the place. It got real cold for us too but Daddy he drug in a bunch
of old steel drums full of old timbers and pallets to burn up in ‘em
and he fixed the cold and the lights all in one shot.
Us kids weren’t allowed to touch the drums when they were burning
on account of we’d get burnt too. Once Daddy got the TV all going
and the lights and everything Momma pretty much forgot about the beef-on-weck
and starting talking square footage. One time, when we were washing
up for the school, Momma told the manager at the McDonalds we all
lived in a big old loft like in
Yessiree, life sure was treating us all pretty good over at the Cargill’s
Agricultural Feeds Main Grain Elevator Complex Number One, and when
everything else started burning it all got even better.
The school wasn’t the first to get burnt but once the whole economy
tanked and all the stores got burnt up folks said it wasn’t safe no
more for kids to be going to the school with all the stores burning
and all the daddies going to the burning stores for the bargains.
That was good enough for us. I think our Daddy got the most bargains
of all, because pretty soon we had a whole silo crammed full of groceries,
huge bags of rice and flour and sugar and cans and jars and everything.
We kept the roast beef in the trunk of the S600 so it would stay cold
without the rats or the dogs got to it before we did, and we had more
roast beef than I ever seen at the bar in that trunk, until it got
warm out. Daddy he said it was real good, all the bargains, for keeping
us kids busy with the school being empty for so long and then burnt,
and we got real good at unloading the backseat of the S600 real quick
in case bandits were watching whenever Daddy pulled up in the carport,
and stacked it up where Momma said.
Then we was just like them families on the TV, with Momma cooking
every night over the thick wire grates Daddy pulled off the catwalks
and staircases and bent over the tops of the steel drums for burning
stuff in. Sometimes other folks down by the river smelled the roast
beef cooking and came by to beg us real sad-like, like we was real
rich and from Texas. Daddy said OK the first couple times on account
of Momma she liked entertaining so much, but when folks started coming
real regular Daddy said they gotta pull their weight. Nobody seemed
to mind much because all the bargains ran out pretty quick and all
the stores got burnt up to nothing. Even more folks came once the
bandits started up all over and sometimes they’d ask to sleep over
like a regular old slumber party. When it got real cold out Daddy
let lots of folks sleep in the old empty Conrail cars wedged up against
the carport if they wanted. That was fine with us kids, on account
of the pulling their weight part, so we didn’t have to be drawing
water from the river no more in the plastic bags that came with the
rice and the flour and sugar.
Once it got warm out and Momma said the roast beef was too green to
eat it anymore Daddy had folks go on out into the fields across from
the carport if they wanted to stay on at the Cargill’s, and they planted
the rice and the corn and the peas from the cans. Momma wouldn’t let
us kids go out into the fields though, on account of the bandits and,
besides, what would folks think, us out in the fields like them other
kids with no house?
We asked Momma how come it was we had the whole big Cargill’s all
to ourselves to do with as we please, our very own castle it was,
and a shiny S600 when ain’t no one had a car outside Texas, and all
them other folks out in the fields who Momma used to tell we was bohemian,
how come they was all out in the fields with the bandits and us inside
with the fires?
Momma she smiled real sweet looking sideways out at the fields, smiled
real sweet and big and poked a hole in a big rice-bag full of water
with the car key on a chain around her neck, held a cracked old coffee
cup up to it, and said, “Your father,” she said. “Your father is a
man of vision.”
Authors’
Bio: J.B. Franklin is the half-assed author of half-baked stories
and half-finished novels that grace the hallowed drawers of the large
metal filing cabinet directly behind his desk, at which he smokes
mentholated cigarettes with a view of a little-league baseball diamond
in
