“Yes, it did.”
She didn’t ask why he wasn’t eating it. She said, “Maybe we should worry about Henry.”
“You mean because he took a semester’s leave of absence, moved to New York, and is living in the East Village, and no one has heard from him since before Christmas?”
“He’s forty-six years old. He shouldn’t have to check in if he’s going to be out after midnight.”
“Even if it’s been evident for a year that he is kicking over the traces and making up for lost time?”
“I have principles,” said Lillian.
“Name one,” said Arthur.
“What, me worry?” said Lillian.
Arthur laughed. When he did so, Lillian put a couple more beans on his plate. He seemed to like those.
—
JOE WAS HUNGRY after his appointment at the bank, and so he went to the Denby Café, sat down at the counter, and ordered a grilled ham and cheese. He was thinking about the interest he was going to pay on the seed he was about to buy, and whether he should forgo the loan and use most of his savings (but he didn’t want to do that). He knew what Lois was going to say, and Minnie, too, but both options made him nervous. How he had gotten to be one of the luckiest farmers in the area was pretty clear, and not only to him — Minnie had a good job, Lois had both a job and a store, the farm was paid off. Their house was like every kit house — strong, solid, and well put together — and Gary’s old house, buttoned up for the time being, was built to last, too. Did he need a new tractor? That depended on whether he cared about sitting on a seat or in a cab. On the seat, it was dusty and noisy, but he felt that he was seeing more. A cab would be quiet (not to mention cool), but if you were sitting in a cab, why be a farmer at all?
Then Dickie Dugan bumped into him, and he turned around. Dickie thrust a soiled check under his nose and laughed. Bobby Dugan had died a few months earlier — what had the paper said, that he was something like sixty-four, which didn’t seem all that old anymore — and the list of wives (three) and kids (nine) was pretty amazing. Dickie was the oldest boy. The check was for two hundred thousand dollars — not much in some ways, but impressive as a number being handed around the Denby Café. The Dugans had about three hundred acres just off the state highway. The check was signed by Frederick Sanford, CEO, Enterprise Pork Producers. Dickie said, “This is going to be a hog hotel, folks. Air-conditioned suite for every sow.”
Farmers at various tables were shaking their heads a little — only a little, because nobody liked there to be a fight. Then Russ Pinckard, who was something of a joker, shouted, “All the Dugans being replaced by Hampshires? What’s the difference?”
Dickie flushed, but smiled. He said, “You watch for us on the TV, Pinckard! You heard of The Partridge Family? Wait till you see The Dugan Family!”
“More like The Addams Family!” shouted Russ, and about half the assembled farmers laughed. Marie, who was carrying the coffeepot, shook her head and said, “Shush up, now!”
A hog-confinement setup at the Dugans’ made sense in a way, since the place was flat, the soil had never been much good, and the road to Usherton and eastward was right there. The Dugans had made it through the Depression, just barely, and there were so many kids now that they ran wild. On the other hand, Dinky Creek ran right through the back sixty acres, and from there into the river about three miles away, and to the east the landscape flattened and the river started meandering — good spot to deposit any hog detritus. But that was far away from Denby, and Joe had no doubt that the confinement builders would do something about the waste from hundreds of hogs, if not the sights and sounds.
Joe drank his coffee and talked about this new ethanol idea, basically adding corn-based alcohol to gas (“Drink it or drive it, your choice!” joked Russ Pinckard). What was the price of seed, whose ground was ready to plow, who had a new tractor and why, if the world was starving, wasn’t the price of corn and beans a little higher, and would a lawyer like Culver in the Senate really do what was best for farmers, or did he care, for that matter, and would Jepsen be any better? After an hour, he went out, got into Rosanna’s Volkswagen, and headed home. The weather was still cold and the ground still hard — the way it was in early spring when everything seemed held in place, and ugly, too.
D’Ory and D’Onut were sitting by the gate of the dog pen, staring at him as soon as he got out of the car. They knew not to bark, but they allowed themselves a little bit of a whine as he approached. D’Ory was graying around the muzzle, but D’Onut was young and slender, only two years old. When Joe opened the gate, D’Ory came out and D’Onut went over to her favorite tennis ball and brought it to him. She was such an avid fetcher that she never greeted him without an offering. When Jesse was home, she ran with him everywhere. She was a good gun-dog, and, even when Jesse was gone, lived in the hope that there would be something to fetch.
Joe never minded leaving the café. But now, following the dogs into the lowering steel-gray clouds, he felt lonely again. When he walked through the field behind the house, he could look in all directions and see nothing but his own two barns — the larger one, where he kept the workshop and the tractor at his parents’ old place, and the smaller one here, where he kept the seeder and the cultivator and the other implements. Walter and Rosanna had always said that after the Depression, or after the war, after something or other, people would start farming again — it was a healthy life and the best way to raise kids. But in Joe’s lifetime, no one had ever come back. That Jesse was taking a fifth year to complete his B.S. might be a sign that he wasn’t coming back, either. Joe didn’t know if that was bad.
A few days ago, Jesse had called from Ames, supposedly just to say hi, but after Joe talked to him (“Yeah, Dad, I got two A’s and two B’s, and Professor Holland says I’m doing really well on the scours research”) and Lois talked to him, then Minnie talked to him. She was sitting on the couch in the living room, and Joe stood quietly on the landing above her, out of sight, and listened. She said, “Oh, you mentioned her.” Then, “I know you did like her.” Then, “You hadn’t told her you were planning to farm? What did she think you were going to do?” Then, “Well, farm life is hard for some girls. It’s isolating. Not like when I was young.” Then, “Well, of course you’re disappointed, but it’s better to find out now.” Then, voice lowered, “Well, I’m sorry, Jesse. My heart goes out to you. No, I won’t say anything.” Joe had tiptoed up the stairs and gone into the bathroom, where he turned on the water and sighed several deep, deep sighs.
Now he stared out over the empty landscape, the fields still dark and frozen, the trees bare and shaking in the wind (a wind that was numbing the tip of his nose). The dogs had their noses to the ground — the ground was endlessly fascinating for a retriever, the tracks of deer, raccoons, mice, rabbits, birds, and even a turkey or two. Opa had raised them on stories of flocks of turkeys, flights of ducks, waves of prairie chickens, and even cougars slinking past the window in the night, heading for the sheep in the pen (always, according to Opa, to have a pleasant conversation about the meaning of life). Joe imagined D’Ory and D’Onut sniffing layers of tracks heading in every direction, from all past eras. But Joe was a man, not a dog, and what he couldn’t see, he couldn’t perceive. He was lonely, and he knew that his loneliness had nothing to do with Lois or Minnie. He looked at his watch: two-forty-five. He let the dogs lead him on.