Shy (25 page)

I found it sad that Frank could grow up on a farm, spend all his formative years there, and still end up knowing so little about chickens.

After gathering the eggs and wiping them clean of any lingering traces of chicken poop, I shut myself up in the candling room and checked their viability. Yes, I actually knew what candling an egg meant now. Holding the eggs one by one before a candle’s flame, I looked for imperfections such as specks of blood inside the egg, hairline cracks in the shell, or double yolks. The first time I showed my prowess at candling to Frank, he gave me a big hug and said I’d make a farmer yet, assuming I didn’t get my chintz veil with the jonquils appliquéd around the hem too close to the candle and set myself on fire, or simply die of a heat stroke underneath all that leather I was wearing.

It was a good thing Frank was great at sex because his comedic instincts sucked.

After candling the eggs and carefully crating them up, I thought I would visit Grace and her young ones. Since I was the one who brought Grace’s litter
into
the world, I felt it was up to me to stop by and say hello every now and then.

I avoided the east side of the barn like the plague. That’s where Samson resided. Grace’s townhouse was on the west side, behind the pen where all the young shoats were kept. Those shoats had grown considerably since my arrival on the farm. They were knee-high now and growing like weeds. They were marginally less cute than they were before, but they were still friendly and still enthusiastic when anyone came within hailing distance of their enclosure. Wading through them now was a bit tricky, but I managed it. I was still trying to think of a way to make Frank rethink his plan to have them stuffed into sausages when their time came, but so far I had been unsuccessful in posing a reasonable argument. Poor little guys.

Grace poked her head out of her hog house door when she heard me coming, and galloping out behind her like a little avalanche of pink flesh came her nine tiny offspring. They all seemed just as happy to see me as Grace did. I climbed the fence, gave Grace a pat on the snout, and sat down on the driest patch of ground I could find. The little piglets swarmed all over me while Grace stood back and watched with motherly pride.

I carefully pulled two eggs with cracked shells from my shirt pocket and held them out to Grace, who deftly scooped them out of my palm and chomped them up like popcorn, squeezing her eyes shut in bliss. Technically speaking, those two cracked eggs should have found their way to our breakfast table, but I thought Grace might like them more. And she clearly did.

Spending a few minutes giving each of the nine piggies a good chin scratch, I finally heaved myself up, gave Grace a pleasant “Good day,” and headed off to the barn to see how Frank was doing.

Before I took two steps I spotted Stanley. He was perched on the top rail of the shoats’ pen, watching me like a hawk. He gave me a friendly wave, obviously insincere, and I was reminded of one of those fish in the ocean that has a replica of a worm dangling off its forehead to attract innocent passersby and then sucks them down its gullet when they come to investigate. A friendly wave from Stanley was a warning sign if there ever was one.

“What do
you
want?” I sighed, trying to stay on my feet while I waded through those forty or so pigs, each and every one of them as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. They were far happier than I was, in fact. I had
been
happy, of course, before Stanley came along to spoil the mood. I had no idea what he wanted but I knew it couldn’t be good.

Stanley laughed. If I didn’t know him so well, that laugh would have charmed the pants off me. Possibly quite literally. Just as I’m sure it once charmed the pants off Jerry. The slut.

“Well now, Tom, you’re looking like a regular farmer these days. Talking to the piggies and all.”

Thank God I wasn’t still wearing my egg-gathering ensemble or he might have formed a different opinion.

“Like I said before, Stanley. What do
you
want?”

Stanley pulled a hard candy from his shirt pocket, tore off its little paper wrapper, and tossed the candy in his mouth. He let the wrapper drift from between his fingertips and waft to the ground where it was snatched up by one of the pigs. They’ll eat anything.

“You know you’re breaking Jerry’s heart, don’t you, Tom? He’s never gotten over you. I have to admit I don’t quite see the attraction, but love is blind, as they say. Maybe it’s your big dick, huh? God knows Jerry talked about it often enough. And now you’re poking my brother with it, I guess. Makes me wonder if maybe I might be missing something.”

I climbed out of the pen, all the while attempting not to eyeball Stanley who was now tugging at his crotch, looking sexy as hell, trying to turn me on. If I hadn’t known him so well, his little act might have worked. “You can keep right on wondering, Stanley. You and my dick are never going to get up close and personal, if you catch my drift. I’d rather poke one of those pigs with it than offer it up to a creep like you. I have standards, you see. Not many, but a few. And you don’t quite make the cut.”

He laughed. He was still rubbing his crotch, and his cock was inching its way down his trouser leg even as I watched. Or tried
not
to watch. With his other hand he was now tweaking his own nipple through his unbuttoned shirt, watching me every second, smiling that nasty sexy smile. Unlike Frank’s elegant smooth chest, Stanley’s chest was hairy and bulging and muscled up to the max. He looked like he worked out. A lot.

Of course, he was still an asshole. Plus, like Joe said, who the hell wears orange shoelaces? They made the guy look ridiculous sitting there on the fence playing with himself with those damn stupid orange shoelaces flashing in the sun. Stanley was thirty, not thirteen. Orange shoelaces? Puh-lease.

“You’re wasting your time,” I said, and took off for the barn. The growing lump in my own trousers might have had something to do with my hasty retreat. I wasn’t about to give Stanley the satisfaction of knowing I might have found his little exhibition arousing, in a disgusting sort of way. But even so, I would still rather have had a love affair with Samson than give Stanley the sexual time of day. I wouldn’t have fucked him with someone
else’s
dick, as the quaint old saying goes.

I had no idea what he was playing at, but it seemed clear that he wouldn’t mind sticking a wedge between me and Frank, just like he had between me and Jerry. Maybe he couldn’t help himself, maybe he just enjoyed causing trouble. Or maybe he was beginning to worry about his inheritance. Frank and I obviously didn’t consider him a threat. Even Joe was pretty cavalier in his attitude toward Stanley. It must be really annoying for someone like Stanley who enjoys making waves to find the water around him as persistently smooth as glass. Must be disconcerting. I suspected Stanley would ask questions about the proposed distribution of his father’s estate pretty soon. He would want to see the will. He would try a little harder to make some waves and turn Joe’s misery into a sizable lump of cold, hard cash for himself.

Yep, I decided. That was it. Stanley was getting worried. Greedy people always do.
Might as well egg him on a bit.

I did an about-face and climbed up beside Stanley on the fence. He still had a fairly attractive boner laid out beneath the fabric of his pant leg, but happily he wasn’t playing with it anymore. He looked at me with considerable suspicion when I plopped my ass down beside him on the top rail in a companionable sort of way. I looked out over the forty or so prepubescent piggies milling around at our feet like they were my own personal property, a look that wasn’t lost on Stanley one little bit.

“Looking a little proprietary there, Tom,” he noted with a smirk. “Hope you’re not getting any homey feelings about the old farmstead. It’s as good as sold already, you know. You probably won’t be here much longer.”

“Found a buyer for the farm, did you, Stanley?” I asked, nonchalant as hell.

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”

“Guess that’s what all those whispered phone calls were about, huh?”

He was still smirking. “Could be.”

I twiddled my pinky around in my ear like I was trying to dig up something to say. It was a ruse. I already knew what to say. “The last I heard,
Stanley
, you have to own something before you can sell it. This farm still belongs to Joe. And I think maybe Frank might have a sizable share in it too.”

Stanley gazed past the pigpen to the pond and the chicken house off in the distance. “I’m afraid Pop isn’t up to caring for the place properly. He’s too sick to make business decisions. Some days he can’t even pour milk into his cornflakes without getting more in his lap than he does in the bowl. I don’t want to sound hard-hearted or anything, but it’s time Pop was put some place where he can get proper care. And once he no longer resides on this farm, well, he’ll no longer need to concern himself with what happens to it. It’ll pass on to his sons. Me and Frank. Just like he always intended it to. So don’t be gazing around like you own the place, Tom. It sure as hell isn’t going to you.”

God, if he only knew the truth. But it wasn’t up to me to tell him. It was up to Joe.

“I never thought it was going to me,” I said. Trying to diffuse his suspicion, I added, “I’m not a farmer, I’m a banker. Sort of. I just hate to see Joe lose it is all. He loves this farm. So does Frank.”

“And you think I don’t, I suppose,” he snarled. “Jesus, you’re a suspicious little fucker. What the hell did Jerry ever see in you?”

That got a laugh out of me. “Geez, how many times did I ask that question about you and Jerry? What the hell did he ever see in
you
?
Why the hell did he leave me for
you
?
And once he did, why the hell did I care anymore? Well, now I don’t. Now I’ve got Frank. And Frank would never cheat on me with a lowlife like you. With Frank I have trust. And trust is something you will never have, because to have trust, you have to be trust
worthy
. And
that
, shit for brains, you most definitely are
not
.”

I hoisted my ass up off the fence and stalked off toward the barn.

If Stanley wasn’t an enemy before, he certainly was now. I’d have to watch my back. And I’d have to watch Frank’s and Joe’s backs too. Stanley was up to something. And whatever he was up to, I was pretty sure it would benefit no one but Stanley.

And way off in the back of my mind was a tiny niggle of guilt. It was pecking away at my brain stem like an itsy bitsy woodpecker with a really sharp beak.

Had I really broken Jerry’s heart?

B
EFORE
I could round the corner of the barn on my way to find Frank, I heard a racket coming from the direction of Samson’s pen. Christ, what a noise! It sounded sort of like a T. rex going head-to-head with a bigass pterodactyl in the middle of a flock of ostriches.

I took off running and by the time I reached Samson’s pen, Frank and a handful of free-range chickens were already there. They were standing like statues, Frank and the chickens, mute with horror. Two seconds later, Stanley arrived. The bunch of us drew close together, as creatures often do in times of catastrophe, shoulder to shoulder and wing to wing, to peer through Samson’s cast-iron fence at the winding down of what would have undoubtedly been a horrific sight, had we arrived in time to watch it all unfold. As it was, we barely caught the final act.

There were always a few free-range chickens roaming around the place pooping and pecking and popping up when you least expected them, but what could have possessed one of them to take a stroll through Samson’s pen was beyond me. It had been a serious lapse in judgment even for a chicken. Still, he wouldn’t be making the same mistake again, and a lesson learned is a lesson remembered, or so they say. Of course, the lesson is pretty much wasted when you get yourself killed learning it, and this chicken was about as dead as you can get.

His bloodied feathers were plastered all over Samson’s face, and one scaly chicken foot still poked out of the side of Samson’s mouth like an exploded cheroot. The foot was still twitching. Samson was chomping away like a starving man with a Big Mac. His eyes were rolling around in gluttonous satisfaction while his tusks slashed left and right, flinging ropes of slobber and chicken blood through the air. Samson’s ugly stubby tail trembled with euphoric glee behind him.

“Stupid chicken,” Stanley said, turning on his heel and heading for the house.

Frank and I ignored him. We leaned over the fence and watched the poor dead chicken slide down Samson’s gullet. Samson gave a manly burp and a feather floated out. Then he squinted his evil piggy eyes in our direction, lowered his head like a charging bull, and came right at us.

Boy, this guy never learns, I thought. Frank and I stood our ground this time, trusting in the fence to save us, and happily, it did. Samson plowed into it with such force he almost knocked himself out. Feathers flew everywhere. His eyes crossed while the metal fence twanged and hummed and vibrated, and Frank just shook his head and clucked his tongue.

“This animal has got to go,” Frank said. “He’s a menace. I’d hate to think what would happen if he ever got out.”

“Maybe we could feed him Stanley first.”

Frank turned to me. “Why? What happened?”

“Big brother tried to seduce me.”

Frank grinned. “I figured he would.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. Stanley’s the kind of person who always wants what he can’t have. I figured he’d go after you sooner or later. What’d you say to him?”

“You’re not jealous?”

He scooped me into his arms and nuzzled my neck. “I trust you, Tom. You trust me. I trust you. That’s how it works. What’d you say to him?”

“I told him I’d rather fuck a pig.” And while Frank was laughing, I looked over the fence at Samson who was still reeling from his collision with the fence. Even now, still cross-eyed from the impact, he appeared to be contemplating taking
another
shot at us. Don Quixote with hooves. “Well, maybe not
this
pig,” I clarified. “This pig is pretty much unfuckable, I think.”