Page 5 of Severed Heart
“BARRETT, OVER HERE!” I holler before climbing up a few steps of the ladder Mom told mepacifically notto climb. She won’t see me now because she’s too busy going goo-goo, ga-ga over my twin cousins Jasper and Jessie.
All I know is that babies make adults actstupid.That’s all I know. Barrett and I have been able to get away easy today from our parents’ eagle eyes because they can’t stop gushing over how cute they are. I don’t see the big deal. All they do is cry, poop, and throw up all over everything. Jasper pooped and throwed up onmewhen I held him.
“Barrett,” I holler louder, and he drops the stick he was poking the dead squirrel with and runs over to me as I try to figure which apple to pick. We came to the farm today because Mom, Dad, and my aunts and uncles spent all day helping clean and fix up the boarding houses to get them ready for the laborers.
During harvest, all our ’stended family comes from Georgia and Florida. Daddy doesn’t let Barrett and me come to the farm when they’re here because he says a lot of them ‘don’t have the sense God gave them,’ and they drink and curse too much.
Barrett squints up at me from where he stands at the bottom of the ladder as I reach as high as I can from the middle of it.
“Tyeeelerrr,” he whines, “Uncle Carter saidnotto pick apples.” He looks over to where our parents are grilling chicken and drinking beer next to a big bonfire. Right now, the smoke is risin’ to the sky and giving us some needed cover.
“They aren’t payin’ us no attention. Uncle Grayson’s talkin’ about that Kurt Cobana guy again, who shot his own head, but Daddy’s going off about the Major League strike. ’Sides it’s justoneapple, and Pawpaw said this land is as good as ours, and if we want to be real farmers, we need to start getting our hands dirtyearly onand work our land.”
“Well, you can be a farmer, butI’mnot gonna be noalfalfa desperado.”
“You don’t even know what that means.” I roll my eyes.
“Yeah, I do. I’m not gonna be just a farmer who grows apples and vegetables. I’m gonna raiselivestocktoo, so I can be areal cowboy.”
“Well, I won’t have time to be a cowboy ’cause I’m going to be aMarinelike Uncle Gray, Daddy, and Pawpaw.”
“Then you’re gonna be just a farmer.Alfalfa desperado!” he teases, pointing at me.
“Shut up!” Tired from reaching, I wiggle my shoulders. “I guess I could be a cowboy, too. Maybe I can put a horse and cows on your land, and you can watch after ’em while I’m a Marine?”
“Maybe.”
“Until then, we have to be grunts,” I tell him.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know. I think a laborer. Grunts have to start with apples.”
“Fine.” He looks back towards the bonfire. “But if your daddy catches us, he’s going to smoke our butts.”
“So what?” I swat a fly from my nose. “I can take an ass-whoopin’. I don’t cry like you do.”
“I don’t cry,” he calls up to me.
“Yeah, you do. You cry louder than Jasper and Jessie when you get a whoopin’. Bet they could pick apples better than you anyway.”
“Shut up.” Barrett wipes his nose with his shirt. “They’re just babies. They don’t know they own land yet or even have apples to pick because they have baby brains.Duh.”
“Which means I’m the oldest cousinand the boss. Now hold my legs, crybaby, and hurry up.”
“Idon’tcry,” he lies as he reaches up and holds my legs. Twisting the apple on the branch, it finally comes free, and I hold it down for Barrett. “See, no big deal. They’ll never know one is missing.”
“Let me pick one,” he says as I start to climb down.
“You have to work yourown land.”
He scrunches his nose as I take the last step down. “Where’s my land going to be again?”
“Gah, you never listen.” I nod toward the other side of the highway. “Over there. From the road, up the hill, and then some behind Pawpaw’s house.”
“We can’t go over there! It’s ’cross the highway. If we go ’cross the highway, we’ll both get whoopin’s.”
“It’s not a highway,” I tell him. “It’s just a road, and you’realwaysscared.”
