Dairy Queen (2 page)

Whenever I passed by Joe Namath I'd take a minute to pat her and tell her what a good cow she was, because I had a pretty good idea what was coming. When I heard a truck pull into the yard, I knew it was the cattle dealer come to take her away. I gave her another pat. "I'll be right back," I said, like that would help, and went out to say hello at least. Delay it. Curtis followed me out because we don't get that many visitors.

It wasn't the cattle dealer standing there, though.

Dad came out of the kitchen pushing his walker, this satisfied look on his face. He spotted me. "I'm sure you know who this is?"

Yeah. I did. Curtis right behind me whistled between his teeth, only it wasn't whistling so much as blowing, like the sound bulls make when they're really mad. Because standing in front of his brand-new Cherokee in his brand-new work boots, looking about as much a part of our junky old farmyard as a UFO, was Brian Nelson.

Let me explain. See, Red Bend is my town and my school, and neither one is very big. There are about 130 kids in each grade—128 of us are starting eleventh grade next fall—and if you figure half of them are girls, and some of the skinny boys do cross-country, and some of the others have jobs or play club soccer, or I don't know, there's something wrong with them, that leaves about 20 guys to try out for the football team. Plus the other three classes, including the freshmen who are mostly still too little, and then you cut all the players who aren't any good, and the kids on JV, and you've got a team that's not the best there ever was, even with our league playing eight-on-eight instead of eleven players to a side like you see on TV.

Well, right next to us is Hawley, and Hawley has 200 kids in a class, which means that they've got almost twice as many guys to make up a football team. And for years, ever since these two towns were named, almost, Red Bend and Hawley have been enemies. Since they invented football back at Yale and Harvard, Red Bend and Hawley have been enemies. (I wrote a paper last year on how football was invented, which is why at least I didn't flunk history.) And Hawley almost always wins everything. That's why I was so mad about having to quit basketball last year, because us Red Bend She-Wolves had already beat the Hawley Tigresses once and we probably would have beat them again. But we lost, I mean our team lost, but I wasn't on it anymore—I was stuck working both milkings because Dad was so sick—and Red Bend lost in double overtime. That was the only time I ever saw Amber—my best friend—it was the only time I ever saw her cry.

Anyway, their football team is really good, and our football team is as good as it can be considering how small our school is, and the Hawley kids, and some Hawley grownups too, act like we stink and they're the best. Which isn't true. Four years ago when Win was a senior and Bill was a sophomore, Red Bend beat Hawley in the most completely amazing football game I have ever seen. My brother Win, even though he was quarterback and wasn't even supposed to be kicking, went in at the last second to attempt a field goal because this was his last game for Red Bend and he was just about the best player Red Bend has ever seen except for my other brother Bill, and he kicked it right through the goalposts like kicking a football was the only thing in life he'd ever done, and we won and, well, there isn't really any way I could describe what it was like, how everyone was screaming and my dad and mom were both crying and how Win was carried around by the whole team and then right there on everyone's shoulders he waved his hand up to the clouds because that's what we do to remember our Grandpa Warren who Win was named after, and then I started crying too, and it was—it was just a pretty amazing experience. Sometimes when I start thinking about how screwed up our family is, or when it's cold and I'm milking and the machines won't work and a cow steps on my foot and my hands are so cold I keep dropping things, then I remember how I felt at that moment and I feel a little better.

But most of the time when I think about Hawley all I feel is pissed off.

So when Brian Nelson stepped out of his fancy new truck in his fancy new work boots that his mother probably bought him at Wal-Mart, I was just about as angry as I've ever been. Brian Nelson's a Hawley quarterback. Hawley's backup quarterback, but still. Quarterbacks are always pretty full of themselves—even Win was sometimes, though he had a right to be—and Brian Nelson is just about the worst. He gets top grades and his father owns a dealership so of course he has a new Cherokee, and all the girls are after him, and last year he had scouts looking at him even though he wasn't a starter because his grades are so good that he'd raise the team GPA, which coaches always like. But ever since I've been watching him play, ever since junior high even, whenever he fumbles or messes up or gets intercepted, he always right off the bat blames someone else, which is really annoying to me and I bet it's even annoyinger to everyone else on his team who's working so hard. He's the very worst that a lazy, stuck-up, spoiled Hawley quarterback could be.

But there he stood in his fancy new work boots and his Hawley Football cutoffs and his Hawley Football T-shirt. "Hey, Mr. Schwenk, how's your hip doing?"

"Not too bad," said Dad, shaking his hand. "You know my daughter D.J., and my boy Curtis?"

"Hey." Brian nodded at us, and I could see just by the way he moved his head that he was thinking about all those games Hawley has won over the years and about how he had a new truck and new boots but we were just dumb farmers with a bunch of rusty old machinery and cow manure on our clothes who couldn't even pass sophomore English because we were so busy with farm work. Well, one of us was, anyway. Not that I thought Brian knew about
that,
but standing there I sure was aware that I'd gotten an F, right there on my year-end report card, and that he never would.

There was a really long silence.

Dad eyeballed me. "D.J., you gonna say hello?"

"No." That was great. Sometimes—well, all the time—I can't think of what to say because I'm so dumb and stuff, and then maybe I think of it like five days later. But I'll remember that one. For the rest of my life I'll remember that "no." Because if nothing else, it got a little bit of that smirk off Brian's face.

There was another long silence. If I had to make this into a movie, I'd have everyone count to twenty-five before saying anything. That's how long the silences were.

Brian cleared his throat. "Jimmy Ott thought I could, you know, help you guys out with haying."

"Jimmy Ott sent you over?" I asked, very suspicious.

He shrugged. "For the day."

Dad adjusted his walker. "D.J. here will put you to work."

Brian shrugged like it didn't matter to him one way or the other, and I shrugged the same way. But I wasn't quite so mad now that I knew Jimmy Ott had sent him over. I could put Brian to work. Heck, I could sure do that.

I jerked my head at Brian to follow me. "You know anything about tractors?"

Brian snorted like it was the dumbest question he'd ever heard. I knew he didn't.

"How about power takeoffs?"

He didn't even bother answering that one. Instead he just patted Smut, who ate it up, the traitor. "What's her name?" he asked.

"Smut."

"You're kidding. That's her name?"

I didn't bother answering.

For a while Brian stood there watching me hook the hay wagon to the tractor, but he wasn't helpful at all and besides, I was so busy showing off how good I was that I almost broke my thumb and then I had to pretend nothing was wrong, which wasn't so great for my mood. He ended up playing tug of war with Smut. Smut would play tug of war for two straight weeks until she collapsed of starvation and died. It really ticked me off that she was playing with him instead of staying next to me getting in my way and sticking her nose in my butt whenever I bent over. Not that I enjoyed that part, but she was my dog after all.

Right when I finished, the cattle dealer pulled in and I went to get Joe.

She was still lying in her stall right where I'd left her, chewing her cud with this really tired look on her face. I thought about the day she was born and how Grandpa Warren let me bottle-feed her for a couple days just because bottle-feeding is so much fun for little kids. I unhooked her, telling her how great she was and what a great milker she'd always been, and helped her stand up because her legs didn't work so good, and led her out to the yard one last time. There was no way in this universe I was going to let Brian Nelson of all people see me get all mushy over a cow. So I just handed her to the cattle dealer and he loaded her up in his wagon and off they went, Dad and I standing there to see her off.

Anyway, that was the last of Schwenk Joe Namath.

No one said anything for a bit except Brian, who was teasing Smut, trying to pull her rope away, not even interested in what just happened.

Dad glared at him. "What are you doing?"

"Uh, hanging out."

"Hanging out." Dad let those words rest in the yard for a bit. Hard to believe a guy with a walker could be so scary. "Hanging out, eh? You're here to learn how to goddam work, and if you want to start this season, you better get to it."

Brian stiffened. "Yes, sir," he said, not looking up.

In a way I was sort of sorry for Brian. I sure know what it's like to get both barrels. The only reason Dad got mad was because he was cut up about having to sell Joe. If this was a perfect world, we'd keep her forever and spend a million dollars trying to fix her sore legs and she'd die of old age in a rocking chair in some pretty green pasture. But this isn't a perfect world, it's Wisconsin, and feed costs money and vets cost money, and we barely have enough for the healthy cows, and the butcher pays us money for the old cows, and that money feeds the healthy ones. But of course Dad couldn't say that, any more than I could. I can barely figure it out to write it down. So instead he just beat up on Brian. Who deserved it.

Dad glared at me. "You got a job for him to do?"

I jumped. "Um, yeah. We're ready to go." I nodded at the tractor.

"Curtis!" Dad hollered.

As cut up as I was about Joe, I couldn't help noticing what Dad had said about how Brian needed to work for us if he wanted to be a starter. "Learn how to goddam work"—that's what Dad said, his exact words. I mean, it was one thing for Jimmy Ott to send Brian over because we were short-handed haying. But the fact that Brian had to come or he wouldn't get to play football, to
start,
which is a big deal especially if you want to play college ball, well, that was different. That explained why Brian even showed up at all. Because it wasn't like he was in love with us, or wanted to learn agricultural science. If he
had
to work for us, if it was some kind of test Jimmy Ott was giving him, well, that was something else altogether.

Jimmy Ott—I guess I should explain about him too—he's been the Hawley football coach for twenty-nine years. He sells insurance too, but mainly he's just a really good coach and a really good guy. A long time ago before Dad and Mom even met and even though Dad had played for Red Bend when he was in high school, Dad and Jimmy coached together. Dad had just gotten out of the army and he was living here with Grandpa Warren and Grandma Joyce, and the two of them ran the Hawley football program. That's how Dad met Mom, because she was new in town teaching at Red Bend, and she went to the Red Bend–Hawley game because that's what everyone does, and they got to talking and then they got married. And even after they were married and living in the little house down by the highway and Win and Bill were born, Dad was still assistant coach. But then Grandma Joyce died and I was born and we had to move into this house and Dad had to quit coaching to work the farm, and they had to sell the little house off, and then Grandpa Warren died and Dad got the farm to himself and he doesn't coach anymore. But he and Jimmy Ott are still really good friends, and Jimmy Ott came to see him in the hospital, and he and Kathy Ott come for dinner a lot and they bring us Christmas presents because they don't have kids of their own.

When I was little it used to make me confused that we were rooting against Hawley even though Hawley was Jimmy Ott's team. I asked Mom about it once and she said it was because life isn't black and white, which didn't make any sense because Red Bend's colors are black and red, and Hawley's colors are black and orange. But later I learned what black and white meant and I thought I understood a little bit more, and then I just stopped thinking about it, which I guess is the same thing.

Anyway, Jimmy Ott used to watch us kids haying or milking or weeding the garden or playing a pickup game together and he'd just shake his head and say to Dad, "Boy oh boy, you sure did something right." Because us Schwenks aren't rich, and we're not that smart, and except for Bill, and Mom when she was thin back before she got married, we're nothing to look at. But one thing we can do is work. You want to learn how to work hard? Just look at us. We're about the very best place for a snotty, rich, sit-on-your-butt kid like Brian to go.

I began to realize, kind of excited, that if Brian had to help us in order to play football, well, that meant he'd have to put up with anything I dished out.

So off we went to hay, Brian and me and my chatterbox little brother. We rode up the hill, the tractor jerking along past cows grazing, past the timothy and corn and alfalfa.

"So, what's your workout schedule this summer?" I asked Brian all innocent-like.

He snorted.

"I'm serious. What are you doing?"

"It's vacation, remember? Summer vacation?"

"I'm just asking because Win and Bill worked out every day all summer. They'd do weights, stretches, pushups ... Win even made a football field over there." I nodded at the heifer field, where the heifers spend all summer. If you don't know, heifers are cows that haven't been bred yet, haven't been married, as Grandpa Warren used to say. "My brothers would bring a couple of guys over and work out almost every afternoon."

"Jesus Christ," Brian said under his breath.