When I was a kid, I thought when people left, when I didn’t see them, they just went someplace and stood in corners.

They didn’t live. They just shut off. I was the one was alive.

I guess we proceed through life on that assumption.

What is it, the twenty-fifth?

This goes on, you never get out in the fields, like this at the end of March.

You bought steers? You ain’t bought steers, no crops, no livestock, how do you pay the bank?

Course seventh grade they’re all mean, well not all, but at least seventh grade, the one nice thing about seventh grade is you don’t have to help’em in boots and snowsuits, kindergarten was awful.

But third grade, I really liked third grade. I wish I had third grade.

It was awful when you never knew if they were gonna send him off, and I just can’t believe you made that whole dinner yourself.

I’m an ok cook, I think, you’d have to ask Don, but whatever I cook it always tastes like it came out of a can.

“Bankruptcy courts must give weight to a farmer’s skill, a federal appellate ruling.” Where they tried to foreclose in Missouri.

“‘The Larsons’ farm operation skills are something of value if their farm was liquidated,’ said the opinion by Circuit Judge” and so on.

Thought, hell, Rosie’s girl went to college, but Don’s got one as good.

Then her girl was killed, by the husband, they said, I thought hell, she thinks she’s bettern us, she got another think comin.

I do anyway. I love my wife, and I honor my father and mother, I support the church, I do what’s right, and that’s the point.

We’re a family, and we all got problems, which if we can solve as a family we’re that much farther ahead.

Like Ohio there’s all those Aim-ish. Those sonsabitches, they drive the good farmers out, cause they don’t have debts, they all stick together.

They don’t make the bankers rich, or the IRS.

Cause I’m gonna have customers like crazy as soon as the economy picks up, but—

Some city. All of a sudden it’s dark. Right in bright day, first thing it’s dark.

They gotta have lectric light. Even daytime it’s all electric light.

Kill you soon as look.

There was a station in Omaha did this thing, I think it was April Fools.

They ran this announcement that the phone company was cleaning out its lines, the telephone lines were full of soot, so they had to cleanem out, they asked everyone to put plastic bags on their phones, to catch the soot.

And people did. Even a college, a shopping mall, they thought the phones would blow soot.

But it was a joke.

It just takes a long time. They put springs, I read it.

Big spring down the silo, jumps it up to the top, they lose gravity, then they shoot off—

October she got the flu. Arthritis got bad.

I burned the bottom out of a pot.

My business starts movin, sure, but till then it isn’t easy.

Damn bankers, we try to go in for a loan, not a loan cause I don’t like to borrow money, but what they call refinancin, cause we got a lotta debts.

They said flat no.

Cause we don’t have no equity, we just moved.

Myers at the bank, he said now if you got land, I mean land, that’s where the market is, development out here, out from Des Moines, the air base, they’re lookin for land.

Water?

Honey, please, damn it, I mean would you not interrupt?

What I’m tryin to get to the point of— You got the problem takin care a her, which you never did before—

Cause you got debts, I know you got debts, you’re not gonna last a year. There’s no money in farmin—

Pick up a newspaper: “Pest management news. We continue to look for corn borers. Not finding much activities. ‘Sudden death syndrome’ on soybeans. Plants fall over but stay green for a time before they kick off.”

Entertainment ads: “The Bloodmobile is comin.” Great entertainment. “Eileen Spracklin named Queen of the Shelby County Porkettes.”

Dad, it’s a joke!

High school.

I was the best fullback they ever had. You said that. Any time they gimme the ball. I never didn’t make a touchdown, right?

Only they’d never put me in. Said I missed too much practice. Damn farm. They didn’t want a farmer in the backfield.

But they gimme the ball, I’d make a touchdown. I’m in three times, I made three touchdowns.

Fat kid, he’d come over, he thought I was great.

All the others, somebody makes a touchdown, they jump around, slap his back, jump around, huggin each other.

Hell, I made the touchdowns too.

Good coffee too.

I mean I guess it was. When Don was little.

I was just thinking it’d be kind of a healthy, fun place for kids.

You know if you was thinkin, well, there’s not much left of the farm economy, it’s time to see the options. You gotta look ahead, all the farms going bust, big ones.

I mean I’m ok, I’m sellin boats, they think maybe it keeps’em afloat.

You’re not getting any younger. It’s parta getting older. People get old and die. That’s a fact.

Don’t they say in evolution there’s a reason? People die off, and the human race gets younger. That’s a fact.

People are getting younger, and younger people have to live.

Fine, ok, fine. If this place goes bust and we never see a dime, that’s fine. Sit there, let it hit the fan, let her sit there, fine!

I’m doing ok. Boy, I don’t have sweat like that. I just sign my name. Money fallin off trees!

Don made a doll out of a corn shuck. Corn shuck head.

Member that?

You was five.

Glad you come over.

We don’t visit much, because for a while we weren’t close by, we’d come on holidays, and then I sit there and say something dumb.

It’s hard to marry into a farm family. He cooks for her, brings her an aspirin, but Don says all his life he’s just beat her down. Some people are almost not human.

I don’t understand people like that. We always had books in the house, and Dad was always cheerful, even despite tragic things, like my brother died. . .

The terrible dreams are. . .

There’s like a shadow there, outside your field of vision, you can’t make it focus. Or the water you’re swimming. . .

My seventh graders, they watch these movies, it’s all about something’s there, it’s coming, but nobody sees, but there’s fire inside the walls, and they flick a switch. . .

They really scare me.

My father was always cheerful. He was a dentist. He never talked about teeth.

They got this radar and satellites, maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that, all mixed up.

They left a casserole.

Don’s wife Wendy. Casserole, big ham, loaf a bread.

We scrubbed it out, we painted it, we took his meals out to him. It wasn’t a chicken house.

It wasn’t a chicken house.

Makes me so goddamn mad.

Writes it all down. Estate taxes, living trust, deferred payments, all that.

I know what they done. He went to the bank for a loan, they put him onto it, get me to sell the place.

He never could handle money. His idea of money is Win the Lottery.

He was up spendin thirty, forty dollars a week, and once in a while he’d win five bucks.

Give’em a little hope, so they look at the ads they think “Well if I win the Lottery.”

Hell with savin up. Why save up? Never save up before inflation, or taxes, or insurance don’t cover. Why work? It all comes in little dribs and drabs.

Never enough, cause they got millions of people night and day makin you want for somethin. Want it and never get it.

An he says, “Dad, I never play the Lottery now. Maybe five, ten dollars a week.”

His touchdown. He talks about his touchdown.

He run all over the field. He took the ball and run around, and they chased him, and then he made a touchdown.

Everbody laughed, cause he run all over the field, like a chicken.

I know you’re not feelin good. I do my best.

I’m worried with all the debts.

We stall’em along, we sold the brood sows, but there’s no money to plant, they won’t loan us money to plant—

You’re no help!

My sister was always mad. They never hear you.

Get the food in supermarkets, Superman grows the food.

Eat this chemical stuff, I saw a headline, they’re all dyin, they can’t tell why.

I’m going outside and smoke a cigarette.

I’m gettin sick a your jokes.

I’m gonna have the phone took out. You leave it off the hook, it starts beepin, that’s no good, beepin like that, they’ll charge us for that.

Case there’s a fire. You talk about fires. Old electric wires, or gasoline cans, you got gasoline cans, build up in the air it explodes.

Fumes, an the firemen get chest pains. They start fallin, it’s chest pains.

Like a twister. It’s comin. No place to run.

Now under!

Sit three days, never say nothin, then top a your voice, haul off and hit me—

An who hit you, an throw you cross the room, an call you bitch, an twist your wrist, and pull your hair, an stare three days like you’re dead, when you deserved it?

Is a concept in the church, which if you’re on the stewardship committee, means takin care of the property, or the loot.

But which is a helluva lot more than that, because by stewardship, what they say, we create the material things that serve the spirit, whatever you call it.

Whatever you call it, God, or Love thy neighbor, that stuff.

Which I believe in, and we go to church, and I don’t always agree with some of the stuff they say, like how you should run your life.

That’s not the province of religion, I don’t think.

Religion is Jesus and God.

And stewardship. And the point is it’s the same with the farm.

These movies where the farmers are losin the farm, and they’re real noble, how they love the land. That’s not him. He took the farm away from his old man, let him die in the chicken house. Money-grabbin Pennsylvania Dutch.

But stewardship. . . There’s a point bein made here. . .

I have trouble thinkin. I get so damn. . .

The minister said like, “We’re the world.”

We are the world.

We’re impelled into ways which we’re not responsible for, because one generation and the next, it’s like a digestive process. You don’t think about digestin your food, it just happens. Mouth chewin. Big red mouth.

But we’re talkin stewardship. Major responsibility for the world.

Which I take on.

An he picks me up by the hair, hit me side of the face, throw me over cross the room, I hit the wall.

He was working so hard, I said, “Your mother’s gonna think I make you work too hard.”

Every Fourth drive down to Tarkio, fireworks, an he’s got’em, but he won’t say, he says no.

Estimated resale five thousand dollars, you got’em eight inches long, all stored there, waitin.

Whatta you call it, uterous cancer, said it couldn’t be.

They wouldn’t just write down a word.

Yes?

You’re a woman. You’re another woman.

You write my twin sister. Telephone, he hid the number.

She’s in Colorado. She’s tryin to sell a davenport, I says it’s mine, but she don’t listen.

He was always sweet on her. Went with me, but he was sweet on her. Kissed her on the mouth. He got me in trouble, an then blamed me I did it to catch him cause a my sister.

It wasn’t me. It was him. Got me in trouble.

Man spits up into you.

Set afire.

Let’s get the hell outa here.

He’s talkin bout he knows Myers, but Myers don’t make decisions any more.

Bank’s been absorbed. It’s all run outa Omaha, and Omaha’s run outa Chicago, and they don’t even know who owns Chicago.

And these problems here. He’s goin from doctor to doctor, they got her on drugs, he don’t know what the drugs sposed to do.

Goes one place, they give’em one, goes another another, then she puts it all in a pile and swallows it.

No wonder she’s crazy. (to ESTHER) Don’t you?

He comes in, don’t you talk. Let me talk.

Hi Mom. Feel ok? Nice day today. Dad’s makin lemonade.

(to ESTHER) You sound like a chicken.

They brung’em. She looks like she don’t know it’s there. Like she met it once, but she don’t who it is.

I said “Eat your eggs.”

She looks at me, she says “I told thousands of people.”

“I told thousands of people.” I said “What?” I said “Told’em what?” “I told thousands.”

She looks at me. Fish eyes. “Eat your eggs!” “I told’em!”

We sit there. She pokes an egg. An she gets up and she walks out the door. Walks out to the sidewalk.

I go out, bring her back. She goes out. Out, back. Out, back. Everbody’s lookin. I haul off an hit her.

Hit her cross the face.

Owner come up, says “You gotta get out.” Kicked us out. Whole plate a eggs, didn’t eat nothin.

Walk out to the sidewalk, she’s cryin, I jerk round on her sweater, I’m so damn mad, cause she always wears that sweater fulla holes, and I yell “I am NEVER gonna buy you eggs again!”

Why’d I say somethin like that?

She can’t help it.

I’d buy her eggs again.

Not to the exclusion of one of our own, but it’s the least we could do. Maybe a refugee.

They’re not goin to give you the loan. They can’t do special favors. There’s a potential market for farmland.

There be a storm, big storm.

She says I’m tryin to kill her, that’s why I got the guns.

Get rid a the guns, that guarantees we get killed in our sleep.

I got the number you can call someplace. Recorded message of the Word of God.

I know businessmen, they say their business has improved since they been prayin.

Chamber of Commerce has a prayer breakfast. Charlie Summers said “You eat that food, you better pray.”

You need someplace for Mom. She thinks she’s a chicken.

You loan us the money, then I pay it back. Then it’s all in the family, forget the bank. It’s good for you, it’s good for me.

It’s not a loan. It’s in the family. So we got the house.

I’m takin the money to give it to you.

Look. You don’t think of you bein out. Think of us bein in.

Is a glass half empty or half full? It’s how you look at life.

What about it?

I’m not gonna let this lay. I went to Piper. Piper says it’s ok.

Sometimes you gotta have a crook, the way the world is, I’d rather vote for a crook so he’s on my side.

Not everybody’s perfect. You’re sure as hell not perfect. I told him bout Mom. The stuff she did. And he asked me how you’re takin care of her.

And he said one thing: “It is important she gets took care of. That’s the law.”

I mean if it got took to court, would they think that somebody that crazy—

Senile, crazy, precarious, whatever— Can somebody who’s already old, never took care a nobody, burns the bottom off pans—

Can he give her the care she needs? Cause that’s the law.

But I don’t see why you’d wanta take it to court, and pay the expense of a lawyer. Piper says it’d cost a hell of a lot—

And hell, you’d lose. You’d lose.

Don’t say it’s my fault. It’s all on you. It’s all on you.

(exploding) YOU GET IT, YOU SON OF A BITCH?

Just like that. “She’s losin her mind.”

Somethin fancy: Alzenheimer’s Symptom, somethin, like he’s scientific.

Losin her mind.

I wanta know what’s happenin to me.

Frank? What’s doin?

Kill me, Frank.

Sometimes I look at Don. “Who’s that?” Snapshot you can’t remember.

I try to keep things light.

I was a little clown. I wondered how we drive north to South Dakota.

Vacation, up the needle rocks, I remember mica.

Mountain roads, come round in the sun, it was tears all up the side of the mountain, I yell “Stop the car!” Cause I knew it had to be diamonds, gold diamonds, we’d be rich, my mom’d be rich, and they stop the car, I jump out the door and pick up the mica.

Little flakes. Scales. Piecrust.

All the great promise that’s never filled.

So I feel that if perhaps we adopt a child, perhaps a refugee, which are foreign but they aren’t classified as colored, they’re more like the Japanese, who aren’t white but they’re intelligent, maybe smarter than us.

We adopt a child, it’s like practice, you make mistakes on the first, but you learn by doing, and then we’re more experienced when we have a real one.

I don’t mean that like it sounds.

Says I don’t take care a you.

Talk to me.

I’ll do your hair after dinner. Dinner’s ready. I got a good dinner now.

There. There’s a baked potato. Hamburger. We got ketchup. We got Roman Meal bread. You like that, that’s healthy. Why the hell am I talkin like that. . .

Then we’re gonna do your hair. We’re gonna make you beautiful. Make you beautiful, Esther. Do your hair.

You eat your Burger King, and we’ll do your hair.

Now stay to that end. Don’t you get goo on the papers. These are official papers. It’s illegal to gum up these papers.

Stop rubbin your hands.

Take your pills.

Now the doctor said you take that. So you take it.

You hear me? You don’t be so bullheaded now. Take that, goddammit, I’ll stuff it down your throat.

I’ll call the vet out here, we’ll open up your mouth and shove it down. You act like a cow we’ll treat you like one.

I’m not gonna fix your hair no more. Chop it all off. Get a wig.

Try take you to the beauty parlor, you start yellin, run out the door. They don’t put up with that.

Can’t take you to Portsmouth no more, we’ll go over Cedar Springs where nobody knows us.

What you want? You want me to cut off your hair? Cut off your hair, get a wig? I saw some wigs over’t K-Mart, they look nice. They look like the beauty parlor.

We’ll cut off your hair, get you a wig. Then you won’t have no gray. I’ll have a nice young blonde. Call you Cutie Pie.

They write it so you can’t read it. I can’t read this stuff.

He thinks he’s got us over a barrel. Move us out to the chicken house.

What are you mumblin?

Stop it!

Mine was cooked.

Stop!

Esther, listen to me. It’s all on you.

I can stand up to him. Tell him go to hell. But you gotta stop bein crazy. You gotta show you’re ok, I take care of you ok. Else they’ll take it to court, they’ll kick us out, sell the place and put you in a home.

He says he’ll take it to court. That what you’re tryin to do?

Eat your dinner.

Ok we’ll do your hair.

Doin your hair. Get your hair done they can’t say you’re not took care of. Now you help me out.

He did. He’s the one killed the cat.

Think you got a son. Oh boy.

You had pretty hair. We could do hair color.

Where we goin? Think I don’t know—

Now you gotta help. They hear you talk like that— They hear that, then—

They’ll come in here, take you out, put you in one a them homes. You wanta get put in a home? A home? You know what they do in a home?

Let’s eat a potato. I’ll eat half. Here.

I feel like killin you—

I want you to sit there and comb your hair and look beautiful.

I thought, some day she’ll have long gray hair, fall down to the waist, we both running fingers in long gray hair. . .

Sit there combin the hair, beautiful, sunset. . .

We’ll take you in, get your hair cut off. Get you a wig.

Esther, I’m tellin you.

You straighten out. You stop bein crazy. They’ll take me to court, they’ll put you in a home.

You gotta help out. You gotta look me in the eyes and . . . look me in the eyes and . . . look at me!

You answer. Know your name? Commie. Red Commonist. Red Commie.

Can’t change the weather. It rains when it’s gonna.

We’ll get this took care of. I’ll talk to Don. Sign the papers.

He’s got a place for us. Take care a the farm for us. Take a load off our minds.

We be pretty happy. . .

Gone years at a time, it don’t differ.

Oh I felt the first time the leapin of my baby.

Then I was emptied out.

I’ve said it to thousands.

Then I dreamed that the movers came. But we hadn’t moved. They started carrying boxes in, but they weren’t ours. Somebody else’s stuff.

But we didn’t tell’em to take it back, we said “Over there.” Like winning the Lottery. Without even buying a ticket.

But there’s hundreds of boxes. Rooms jam full. We’re sposed to love it.

And then. Then there was a shotgun. I’d never had a gun. I never wanted a gun in the house. I said no. But there it was.

So I had to use it. I went hunting. In the house. This house. I went hunting our kids.

There were three, two girls and a boy, little boy, and they’re yelling “Mommy Mommy.” I wasn’t feeling anything. I was hunting.

And they’re trapped in the bathroom. I come in the door. They’re huddled down crouched in the tub. And I have the shotgun. And I have to use it.

I knew they’d do the same. If they had the gun.

I guess they crouched in the tub so it wouldn’t make a mess. Clean up easy, rinse it out. So I did it. All in color.

Isn’t that something to talk about? If I had suicidal tendencies, boy.

Don’t gimme that little piggy squint.

Come on. We don’t do so bad. Get this settled, we’ll take care a Mom and Dad, make it nice for them, and it’s gonna be a lot better.

You know, you have kids when it’s the right time. Like the preacher said, there’s a plan, God’s plan or whoever, and who knows what the hell it is.

You think I’m gonna screw my own dad to the wall if it’s not for some good reason?

What about all those refugee kids, orphans and stuff, it’s for them. What’s Dad ever done for refugees?

No, he’s gonna sign. Piper’s already got it witnessed.

That’s where it pays to get a good lawyer, get it witnessed before it’s signed. That’s against the law, but it’s legal. Depends on the lawyer.

Hon, it’s not right. We started out, it was gonna help your mom and dad, and we’d have a nice place to live, piano, rooms for kids. We weren’t the villains.

And now he won’t move and we have to force him, and you’re talking about getting the place to sell it—

Don’t tell me step down on the gas and then jam on the brakes. I’m tryin to make a life. Just thinka the refugees.

Dad, I tell you right now. This is for your own good. It’s not for me, it’s for you. And Mom.

Hi Mom.

Wipe off your hands. You got mashed potatoes.

Ok. Here’s the papers you sign. It doesn’t have to be witnessed, he already done that.

So this is the lines to look at, this is what you get, and the timetable, and you know my moral obligation.

It’s all legal, and on top of that there’s a moral obligation.

God, I hate’em sometimes.

She can’t control her bowels. I built a shower stall. She needs it, we go down there, stand her in the shower I get rid a the mess.

Took her to the clinic, mental clinic, she starts yellin, they strap her down. I come there, she’s strapped down, screamin. I can’t stand her layin there, screamin.

Took her outa there. Got up to go, she says “Which door we gonna go out?” I said “There’s only one door,” I says “You think we jump out the window?”

You’re lucky if you’re the first. If you stand in the stall and she cleans it offa you.

We shall pin your hair.

That’s good. That’s fixed up.

Now with you, what we thought, only you don’t have to do it. So don’t react, cause you don’t have to do it.

Coleman’s Hotel, down on the square. They got single rooms, real nice, they got elevators, they come in once a week and make the bed. Carpets in the lobby, you ever been there?

Right on the square, go out, walk around if you feel like it. Sit by the window, you can look down, see people on the sidewalks, sit there all day. And they bring in the Meals on Wheels. Stuff like chicken pot pie.

You don’t have to go there if you don’t want to. It’s your choice. You do whatever you want.

They got like regular and economy style. They’re both good, you just get more with one than the other.

But where she maybe don’t want people fussin over her all the time, if you’re on the economy plan, they maybe like let her more take care of herself. Except when she really needs it.

Look, they got a whole column here in the paper, they write all what they do. Here listen. Now listen.

“Monday Alvin Calhoun visited his aunt Sarah Lippold. Lydia Schmitz of Chicago visited her mother, Evelyn Schmitz. Tuesday, we fried doughnuts. They were delicious. Tuesday, Mrs. Carl Jacobsen and Mr. Loren Schroeder visited Lorraine Schroeder and Ray Jacobsen. Thursday we had a weiner roast, potato salad with all the trimmings, and fruit. Friday, they had a movie in the chapel. The title was HELLO DOLLY. It was back in the old days. Friday was resident’s council meeting. This is the time we bring our complaints, but we seem to be satisfied.”

It’s pretty cheap.

It’s your choice, I mean, but it’s your only choice.

You wanted me to say it, I said it.

Sign somethin just like that, you didn’t even read it.

You better just thank the Lord it was us. Somebody else come along, told you some lies, they’d steal you blind.

Just thank God it was us. Thank God it was family did it.

I thought we could have a garden. . .

Violence is not necessary. One act of violence does not excuse another act of violence.

I’ve gotta say this. The worst you can do is bring up a child in an atmosphere of violence.

Two boys fight on the playground, we separate them, we put them in corners, and we all pretend they don’t exist. They do not exist. They’re not a part of my world as I prefer it to be. You don’t have to beat them to make them wish they’d never been born.

Well hey. We got off on the. . .

I mean there’s more to life than. . .

I like happy endings.

There was a really funny article. Where was it? This bank robber tried to hand over a note, but he couldn’t spell, so they couldn’t understand what it said.

They got two or three people trying to figure out what it said, and they asked him, but he was scared to talk, and the bank guard walked over and shot him.

Hey, things are gonna be ok, Mom. You know we love you. Give me a big hug.

Big hug.

Dad, you know we love you, you know we’re not gonna do anythin you don’t want. It’s all up to you.

But I think it’s gonna be nice. They’ve got Meals on Wheels, that’s better than what you do by yourself. Boy, I’d be so happy if somebody’d cook meals for me. Why are we so depressed?

Give me a big hug. Come on.

Ok.

I don’t know what got said. I had a different impression. I think we have to talk about this.

Maybe you wanta list the place, that’s ok, as long as it’s our choice. If we get an offer. If it’s our choice.

Because it’d be so nice for kids. Haven’t we talked about kids?

I think this is a whole new stage. I do.

I met her, I had a sales job in Des Moines, and she was there at a state teachers’ conference, with a group at the bar at a Holiday Inn, and we start to talk, find out we’re from the same part of the state. People always comment how cheerful she is.

And I really like kids. I do. I remember Rollie, my cousin, I toss him up, pretend I wasn’t gonna catch him, he’d laugh.

But you think what if they die. Get sick and slip outa your hands like water.

An sometimes I see a kid, there’s parta me wants to take it and wring its little boney neck like a chicken. One foot on the head, hold the feet, throw it out in the drive to flop around. I got beat up every Sunday cause I wouldn’t eat the chicken.

The point is, that I’m makin is. . .

Like it’s poison. Microwaves, you got radiation, stuff in the walls, the water you brush your teeth, it picks up what they feed to cattle to make’em soft.

And women, you know all the eggs they’re ever gonna have are inside’em, and the chromosomes break.

It’s all in the Bible.

People don’t know it’s there or they’d burn the Bibles.

I have a hard time thinking. . . The rationale. . .

When I was a kid, everybody liked the same music.

There was only one kinda music.

There was just songs.

Throw your wig out the car, now I got two, you throw one out I slap on another.

Esther I won’t never hurt you.

The guns, that’s to protect us. Nothin to be afraid.

You say stuff like I’m tryin to kill you, that hurts awful. I’m tryin to be a husband.

Last two weeks, I had awful dreams. I don’t ever have dreams.

I made you coffee.

Have some coffee.

They’ll be here.

So you be good now.

You’re goin to a center. It’s not a home. It’s like a home, but they don’t call it a home, they call it a center.

Don said it’s a nice place. They take better care than I can.

You know what I’m tellin you?

We done all right.

Moved in here, I built the whole back.

You member, the stairs was over there, didn’t go to nothin. I put somethin up to go to.

South field, I cleared that, they said you’ll never grow nothin, I made that grow. I stopped the wash-away.

You looked at this place, an Dad he never kept it up, you said “What you get me into? It’s an old Rag House.”

Member that? Old Rag House, cause it had up rags, papers, lath on the front, insulation. “What you get me into?”

I try to be good to you.

Time we went to that restaurant, they didn’t even have a counter, you couldn’t understand the waiter, some kinda Dago, five dollars for a shrimp? Member that? Walked outa there. Don was a little baby.

And you were in labor, it went on so long you said “Call the vet, he’ll just reach in.”

All little stuff. There in your head.

They say now you’re sposed to love each other. Don’t get married less you do. Then you don’t, you get divorced. Hit her cross the face, you get divorced.

I must never loved her. If I had, I’d left her when she got like that.

I took care. I bought her a wig. I fed her. I cleaned her off.

Won’t that do?

Let’s get going.

Unless you need it. You need it?

Mom, Dad, we just want what’s best— You can tell Mom what I’m saying.

It’s important to be honest. You can’t say we’re not totally honest. We’re telling you exactly what we do.

This’d be the most wonderful place. I had a dream, to fix it up, not change it, but just make it different.

And we could raise a family, kids of our own, or we could adopt, little refugee children, teach’em our way of life.

But we can’t. The property’s too valuable.

It has too high a net worth, or appraised valuation, it’s just too valuable, it’d be a sin to waste it.

Like Don talks about stewardship, we have a responsibility to use it to fill its maximum potential. . .

Why am I saying this stuff? You’re the one that said it, you say it.

Kids, hell. You’d rather have a closet fulla clothes. You know that. You’d rather have a fur-lined toilet seat.

You have to let go.

Right, they strap you down. Now don’t give me any more bullshit, because I’ll call up the sheriff, cause I got power of attorney, and he’ll come out here and strap you down.

You tell her what I said, so she understands.

We got a pretty good deal. Sell it to Everts. They’re gonna develop this whole area.

Cause you know there’s not really country any more. What you’d call country. There’s property, but there’s not country.

Evert said there’s plans, with the Japanese and all, to build major cities in Montana. Million people, and restrict it to Whites and Japs. It’s a fact. He says sell while you can.

So anyway, we got a deal. There’s gonna be houses, homes for people, which is needed, and then a certain amount, they’re doin for waste disposal.

We’re not talkin massive development. We’re talkin houses, apartments. It’s not like turnin farmland over, cause it’s no good for farmin after they put in the landfill.

Gives us money to take care of you, and buy us a house, which we need, and if you think about it, a place to put our garbage.

For my money that’s stewardship.

Cause you know, Dad, that’s one thing about the church. You realize whatever you do, it must be the will of God, or else you wouldn’t do it.

We’ll be out in the car. Hurry up.

You know we’re people too.

Ok.

I thought about which way. You’re scared of the guns, ain’t you? The guns?

It’s just water. Special water. Take a bath.

Member Don? Buddie? You give him a bath. Splash in the tub? You said “splish splash.” He’d laugh.

Hold out your hand.

See?

Now we’re gonna splash it. Splash over the couch. Table, the chairs, all spic an span.

Everwhere we had dinner, ever, Buddie give scraps to the dog.

One of the eyes was open. Undertaker never noticed. All this pink lip stuff, like she’s doin a hootchie-kootchie, and one eye lookin up.

We don’t want that.

You’re a good wife.

You cooked good, roast beef, chicken, stuff.

You did everthing you’re sposed to.

You close your eyes now. Close your eyes. Sprinkle water. Make the grass grow green.

An we’re all right as far as the settlement. You don’t want to think in terms of money, but in fact we come out pretty good.

The house wasn’t worth nothin, they’da had to tear it down, but the funny thing was in order to sell it it had to be insured, and it turns out they’re gonna pay. So we get money we wouldn’ta got. Really good deal.

I remember I played football, my hope was someday I play in the Rose Bowl Game. I truly believed that you decided what you’d do when you grew up, and then you do it. I’d play in the Rose Bowl.

And then I’d be a barber, if I could think what to call my barber shop. Don’s Barber Shop, maybe.

Lord calls Esther home. Trust the Lord don’t make mistakes, cause he don’t, cause he’s the Lord.

See the flash. You tell me when you see it.

Keep shut your eyes.

Take comfort they’re with God in heaven.

I know Don feels it pretty strong, although he has a hard time saying. Your father and mother.

But it’s true that one generation passeth away. I think if we can grow from this, and maybe take whatever money we get, and make some kind of real difference to people.

If we love each other. And do some good. And change the world. Some way.

Teach third grade. Or have babies. Or buy something we really want.

They say money doesn’t make a difference. But now I’m pregnant.

I think I was five.

I was somewhere, and they let go a my hand.

And I was lost.