What’s in the Fallow
Walker Manning Hughes
I killed Big Head Bobby today. Just put a match to him and fanned the flames some. Maybe it was a little harder than that, but it was his before God rightful due with all the Good Book has to say about burning up the evildoers and bad folk.
It was early, before the Sun could get too rowdy. I was picking the newborn beans and felt eyes on my back.
“Go on, get!” I hollered when I saw Bobby had come up behind me. His bottle cap eyes pleaded with me, but I’m on to that trick. “I mean it Bobby! I can’t just while away the day like some I know. These beans need taking in, and I like eating as much as Adam or Eve. And what about them birds on the blueberries? Run down there and shoo at ‘em. Ain’t I paying you? Ain’t you got a job to do?” I said all that and didn’t mind being so hard. The crease breaking Bobby’s forehead told me he took my meaning. Still, he didn’t budge. I turned back to my business and a while later looked and he was gone. But the birds were still mauling the berry bushes, and it made me mad that Bobby was shirking work.
I pulled through by thinking about all the good times when I’d talk for hours and Bobby would sit and nod his head regular. Sometimes I’d stay late in the field and make a fire to chase the chill. Bobby’d squeak plenty then! Must have had a premonition. Plus, he made me look good as ragged and flat faced as he was, and I needed it with my lanky limbs and butterfly chest.
Towards the end of the last row I smelled a smell that wasn’t at all natural. Good though. I craned my neck and saw Beth from through the valley come switching up. She had breezy honey hair and blue eyes to drown in, skin like springtime. The Forbidden Fruit. She was barefoot in a half there dress, and I could sing that song all day and half the night. Her family had moved into the old Carver shack after what had happened to their girl, Emily. I couldn’t believe Beth didn’t know better than to be around there. Maybe she was a walking lie, not even there, a trick of the near noon sun. She stopped close, blocking the worst of the light and bathing me in cool shadow.
“Hey Jimmy,” she cooed. I knew she was dangerous, but I laughed it off the way people who make a game of their weaknesses do.
“Beth, you should be at home,” I said. I smiled my best smile and meant it some. But mostly I hated her.
“I don’t care what people say. I’m not afraid of you.” A cherry red strap fell down her shoulder and she eyed me through lazy lashes. She was all fresh cream and pure sugar under that dress, I knew.
“What do people say about you?”
“What do you say Jimmy?” She ran her hands down over her candy cane curves and back up again. “For five dollars I’ll let you see something. For ten you can touch.”
I knew her type. The Good Book had plenty to say on the subject. She needed fixing. But there was a lot of want in me too. Hell’s fires lapped my boot heels.
“You’ve got to leave now,” I said.
“Aw, Jimmy...”
“Now!”
She stared at me. “I thought you were a man,” she spat. “You ain’t no more a man than that dummy!” She pointed and I saw Bobby watching us through the corn, his big bushel burlap bag head bobbing in the breeze. I remembered how there’s a rule against beating up women somewhere, probably even whores.
“Come on,” I said, and reached to turn her around. She lashed out and slapped me across my face. I tried to tell myself she hadn’t done that. I thought about something else the way they say to. About how hot it had gotten so close to lunch, and how it was the kind of hot that left little room for reason. My vision tunneled and I sank into the heat. I waited unmoving for the next wisp of teasing breeze. Maybe it would keep me together, but I knew that if it did it would only be barely, and only so that when I snapped it would be oh so much more complete.
I heard a scream. Light flooded back in, and I saw Beth on the ground battered and bloodied. Her pretty dress was torn and hanging and hiked over her hips. Bobby was there. I saw the truth of everything and took him down. I beat him senseless, then checked on Beth. She wasn’t breathing. Her eyes were bugged and stared into the afterlife. I was tired of all of it.
“Bobby, Bobby,” I said, but he didn’t move. It was time to put a stop to things.
I fetched some gas from the shed and doused Bobby quick. I thumped a match. Vroosh! He went up so fast there was no time to scream. Course, he never was one for hollering or talking much.
I guess it was the smoke that brought the neighbors, but it’s a good thing. The corn had caught and it probably would have run all the way to the house if they hadn’t got started on it so fast. Beth’s broken eyes followed them as they ran.
“Grab a shovel! Get that barrow!” people yelled. I didn’t know you could douse fire with dirt. There was only one fallow spot to dig.
After a while one man said, “There’s bones down there!” And there really was. Everyone ran over. I didn’t know what to say, but Sheriff Cooley was there and said I had a right to stay quiet. I was glad. I didn’t want to talk bad about Bobby and what he’d done.
Sheriff led me up to his car for a ride, and I thought that was nice. I felt like a hero. People pointed and whispered words like “Scarecrow” and “Crazy”. It’s good that we left. Sure Bobby was ugly, but they didn’t know him good enough to say. And anybody’d be crazy with last year’s dried cornhusks for brains.
I don’t know how long they’ll let me stay in this new place. It’s got air conditioning, and that’s good. The heat can do funny things. The door hasn’t got a handle on my side though, and I wonder if they know that.
Maybe they want to make me a deputy since I did so good upholding the rules. It could get lonely waiting. I’m used to having a friend. The kind I can say anything to. One who’s always in the garden waiting. Even if he doesn’t always do good and shoo at the birds, and sometimes kills girls like Emily Carver from through the valley and buries them in the fallow. He meant well.
Poor ole’ Big Head Bobby. Maybe I shouldn’t have killed him. Maybe I can make a new friend. Small Head Sammy or something.
Poor ole’ me.
