My Million-Dollar Donkey (5 page)

A month later, I stood on the porch of our cabin holding an empty Diet Coke can, deep in contemplation.

“What’s up?” Mark said, leaning on the rail beside me. “You look troubled.”

The bottoms of his jeans were covered in mud, which meant he’d been crawling around inspecting the underside of the cabin again. I sighed, thinking about wasting yet another afternoon at the laundromat.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” I said, waving the can in front of his face.

“It might make a nice planter, or perhaps a Christmas ornament.”

“Very funny. But really, what am I supposed to do with it?” I threw the can into a bag at the corner of the porch that was already brimming with other empty soda cans.

Deep in the heart of rural living, they don’t provide residents with recycle bins. They don’t even provide local trash pick-up. You have to bury or haul your trash to the dump and
pay
for the disposal. All that lovely yard art, the rusted cars, and the stacks of broken household items that we saw stacked on, around, and under porches wasn’t there because farm folk are lazy, you see. Country people are just economizing. Without free trash removal or the convenience of having a Wal-Mart a stone’s throw away, people make do with what’s on hand. Items with any potential utility are not dumped in the country, but stored...usually where they can be seen and not forgotten, like in your front yard.

So, given that we were not in Oz, or even Kansas, anymore, I accepted that in order to consider myself “planet-friendly,” I had to find a way to live in harmony with the land without having to rely on tax-supported county services doing most of the work.

I located a recycling center and started saving recyclables, purposely avoiding any acknowledgment that the greenhouse gasses I’d emit driving the twenty minutes to get to the recycling center defeated the purpose. Mark explained that we were expected to dig a huge hole on our fifty acres for a burn pit and whatever I didn’t want to recycle, we would simply burn.

“We’re going to need a tractor to dig a hole,” he announced. “How much is a tractor going to cost us?”

“About fifty grand.”

“Well, by all means, let’s purchase a 50 thousand dollar machine to dig a hole so we can save 15 dollars a month on trash pickup fees.”

Mark did not look amused. “You know I’m going to need a tractor to lift the heavy logs I’m using to build the house. I also will need to bush hog the fields, dig holes for fence poles, uproot the garden when we get around to planting one, and all kinds of other tasks connected to maintaining such a large piece of property.”

So we went tractor shopping. Our previous budget-driven life had conditioned us to buy used big-ticket items whenever possible, but in this case we had no clue about how to repair, maintain, or even drive a tractor, so we decided to purchase a spanking new one with a solid warranty and an operator’s manual. Thankfully, tractors don’t come with sunroofs, so we didn’t have to wrestle with issues of “extras,” except, of course, the slew of attachments available. Mark claimed he needed a hole-digger, bucket excavating attachment, fork prong, bush hog mower, and a few other extensions that made the machine a very pricey big boy’s Transformer toy.

A few days later, Mark’s fully loaded tractor was delivered. We stared at that alien monster of a machine as if someone had dropped a helicopter in our driveway.

Mark gave me a nervous smile and climbed into the cab. “How hard can driving this thing be?”

I’ve seen my husband drive many vehicles in our eighteen years together. He had always been a truck man, claiming he needed a pickup for toting supplies to and from our dance school, and for carting stage props to the recitals. We rented U-Hauls on occasion and even owned a used RV one summer. He ran the dang thing into an overpass only once. But for all that my husband was fairly adept at maneuvering big vehicles, nothing prepared me for seeing my boy ballerina behind the wheel of his spanking new orange Kubota, scratching his head as he stared at the variety of levers, knobs, and buttons from his swivel seat.

Mark fumbled to maneuver the huge claw-like bucket attachment into the air. The wheels spun backward instead of forward and he ran over a clump of daffodils. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure this out. I’ve seen fourteen-year-old kids driving tractors all over town.”

Fourteen-year-old kids were more adept than him at working a computer, a cellphone, and an iPod too, but I kept the comment to myself. A tractor was BIG—a man’s undertaking. After years of wearing tights and choreographing ballet, my husband deserved an all-man toy if that was what he wanted. I was just glad he hadn’t lusted for something more dangerous, like a crossbow.

The tractor had feet that dug into the earth for traction and arms that were interchangeable. One end of the machine was used for digging, the other for hoisting, so Mark simply had to spin in the seat to shift from one chore to the next by changing the direction from which he operated the two-headed monster.

“You’re doing great, babe,” I called over his mumbled swearing, thinking he reminded me of Ripley in
Aliens
when she strapped the loading dock machine to her body so woman and machine could become one finely-tuned weapon of efficiency.

Watching his arms tug at levers as he tried to steer at the same time, his body swiveling to and fro in the cab, was like witnessing my former dance man in a silent tango with frustration rather than the graceful duet that our neighbor farmers seemed to pull off.

He’ll get it, and I’ll never see the old boy in tights again
, I thought to myself.

Not that I was bothered by the idea. I thought Mark looked just as good in overalls as he once had in tights. I even liked the way the sun was bringing out the gray in his new mountain-man beard.

Eighteen years with the man had taught me never to be shocked by my husband’s ever-changing looks, life ambitions, or attitudes. Inside his wedding ring were words I’d engraved when we first fell in love:
You are all men,
a romantic tribute to his diversity and constantly changing persona. I believed his eclectic interests, multiple talents, and morphing personas meant I’d never need or want any other man. Here was a partner who embraced the talent, excitement, and charm of every man.

Only later did I realize his varied talents and interests were a result of hopes and dreams that swung like a pendulum, dissatisfaction seeping into the seams of whatever he did once his initial obsession with a project waned. I loved him fiercely, but I never knew which husband I’d have from year to year. His weight escalated or dropped a hundred pounds or more at least three times during our marriage. Sometimes he stopped eating all together, becoming so slight that the veins stuck out along his neck and his hips disappeared. Other times his obsession with working out and taking protein supplements made him look like a puffed-up cartoon superhero. Most years, excess soft flesh hung over his belt, making him hide behind the kids in every family photo. But no matter how his exterior changed, I only saw Mark, the man I loved.

He’d had his hair shaved, as well as grown long enough for a ponytail, which he liked to pull up into a little fountain on top of his head like a sumo wrestler. His hairstyle changed from straightened to curly, dyed, shaved, shaped... I’d seen him with every manner of facial hair, too, from full beards and goatees to the sexy George Clooney three-days-growth of hair I favored. His constant desire to get just the right “look” led to braces on his teeth, Lasik surgery, monthly facials, weekly colon cleansing treatments, and every sort of vitamin, mineral, herb, or muscle supplement money could buy. I watched him go through periods of wearing nothing but overalls and torn work clothes to teen-inspired fad clothes few men his age would dare attempt to pull off. Some phases had him wearing tight t-shirts, dark glasses, and gold chains like a GQ model. Later, it would be sporty baseball hats, followed by floppy brimmed hats. Next it was cowboy hats, and the year he went “ghetto” it was ski caps and grunge all the way.

I watched my husband follow a variety of diets, too. He became a vegetarian, a raw foodie and juicer, a candy- and junk-food-crazed binger, and a consummate carnivore and protein-obsessed eater, all in the course of a few years. He variously gave up sugar, carbs, wheat gluten, alcohol, soda, and meat in a never-ending cycle of experimentation, passionately insisting he had one or another physical affliction that made it necessary to follow a special diet. He was going to write a book about whatever health regimen he embraced in the moment, but before he ever wrote a page, he’d be binging on those very things he had blacklisted only a week prior.

His ever-shifting moods affected me personally in ways outsiders would never understand. I’d experienced months where he was a sensuous, extraordinary lover, followed by years where he would go to any length to avoid touching me in any intimate way, his excuses so thin and the periods of abstinence dragging on so long I was left questioning his sexual orientation and the authenticity of our married life together. At times like these, I was convinced marriage to him was just an excuse to play house. I desperately craved a lover rather than a glorified roommate, but loved him too much to do anything other than share my heartache in endless heart-to-hearts with him as I begged him to visit his issues so we could both be emotionally and physically satisfied. There were always plenty of excuses and reasons for his abstinence, so when nothing improved, I just prayed for the next period of change in hopes his veil-thin excuses for why he was disinterested in a physical relationship would eventually be expended. Sometimes I’d get lucky and we’d have short periods of intimacy. They just never lasted long and always left me more deeply feeling the poignancy of loss.

I patiently endured periods where my husband claimed all he wanted in life was to become a dancer, a potter, a landscape designer, an interior decorator, a singer, a business manager, a playwright, a wood artist, a graphic designer, a realtor, an architect, and a Tony Robbins life coach. I watched him enroll in college but never finish, discuss business ideas that were promising yet never went beyond the talking stage, and listened to him type out the first chapter (only) of several books or a play he planned to write. I was always encouraging and supportive, but over the years had learned to never get too excited or drawn into his enthusiasm because as soon as we devoted the lion’s share of our resources to his proclaimed passion, and the time came for him to dig in and face the drudgery of hard work, he’d announce, “Never mind, I’m over that now.”

Yes, I was supportive, but at the same time I had to do whatever was necessary to keep his feet nailed to the ground to keep our life from imploding. There simply wasn’t room in one family for two artists indulging their every whim, so I buried my natural instinct to approach the world in my own romantic, dreamy way, and became the voice of logic and practicality.

I was always amazed that despite my husband’s flighty changes of heart, the one and only thing he had remained committed to in life had been me. His loyalty may have been more a matter of convenience than anything else, but I clung to his disinterest in other women as validation that he did indeed love me, despite any evidence to the contrary. Deep down, I always feared that one day, if ever I demanded any kind of true sacrifice from him, he would turn away from me just as easily as he turned away from our business or any one of his other passions
du jour
. Proclamations of love were in abundance but I longed for sincere acts that showed love.

I was determined to believe things would be different this time. At long last, I had released my constant grip on practicality and said yes to one of Mark’s idealistic dreams. I said yes to fifty acres because not only did I want change as much as he did, but I thought this plan we had hatched to simplify life could work, thanks to the wealth of resources we had at hand. I had, without reservation, given him exactly what he wanted, which I trusted would earn me the love I so desperately craved. Maybe I’d earn the life I craved too. The idea that I could pursue my own dream to write and parent my children with full attention and awareness and not worry about money was almost too exciting to bear.

I had purchased Mark a bright orange hardhat on eBay, a symbolic gift of support and encouragement. Now seemed a fine time to present him with my thoughtful gift.

“You expect me to wear this?’ he said, laughing at the plastic hat when I held it out to him.

“Just in case a tree falls on your head, city boy.”

“If a tree falls on me, a plastic hat isn’t going to help. I’ll be nothing but an orange speed bump.”

“The man in the tractor brochure wore one. I even picked one out in orange to match your nifty new Kubota. You’ll be a vision.” “I’ll look like a Village People impersonator.”

I placed the hat on his head, pausing to kiss his cheek. “Humor me.”

He took the hat off. “I’ll tell you what, the day you can point out one farmer wearing a hard hat in these here parts, I’ll put it on.”

I suppose I should point out now that Mark never did wear the hat. I instead inherited a nice orange hard hat planter, good for nothing more than sporting a few pansies. I suppose a man finds it far more appropriate for the hat to wear a pansy than the man to look like some kind of pansy wearing a hat.

Within days, Mark had figured out enough tractor basics to go roaring along our gravel road or across our field, hoisting a tree stump or digging in the mud to clear weeds out of the creek. One day, he announced he was taking our son Kent out to cut firewood. Twenty minutes later I watched the tractor roll by with our boy lounging in the bucket, his hands behind his head as if he were relaxing in a hammock. The two of them waved merrily.