Memory Breach

Your phone is dead, but it’s not like you’d have a message from Lana. In fact, you’ll never see her again. As you enter your building, you see it all clearly. You will be gone before she gets home. The Napa grape harvest is six months away, but you will find something to do until then. You always do. Dallas, your brother, would put you up, but he’s gone full MAGA.

Inside your apartment, the familiar stomach knot, one of unbelonging, returns. It’s been a long day.You fetch your bong, Old Faithful, from the closet. Sink into the couch. The day piles on top of you, a weighted blanket of shame, from texting Lana those obscenities earlier. After a huge pull, you meld with the couch. Surprisingly, you feel no rage for Lana, despite her infidelity. You feel free, unburdened, at peace.

There’s a haze clinging to the Flint Hills, and it smells like a Quaker Oats box. The sharp spring breeze yowls across the pasture, over your ears, and whips up your shirt. Your nipples like rocks. Your skin tight with goose-bumps. You say cold. Your Daddy looks down, his hairy face shadowy, a hood covering his ears and head, his hands warming in his pockets. You stick out your hands, to get picked up, but he shakes his head and spits. You bury your face into his smelly jeans. Tobacco and mildew and fish guts. Dallas is there, big and goofy, funny and bright like the sun. He picks up cow chips and plops them on top of each other.

Aunt Peggy tromps through the mud toward four grown cows. Her tight denim tucked into her waders, her hair pulled back in pigtails. Spongey earth gives under her weight. Pasture grass green and shimmery. Emerald twinkles. The sky goes on forever, the sun warm on your cheeks. One spotted brown cow lays on her side, heaves in a distressed rhythm. Aunt Peggy kneels before her, and she yelps. The other cattle spook and swat their tails. “Y’on. Get outta here.” Aunt Peggy says and chases the other three off.

“What’s the deal?” Daddy yelled.

She says, “Breech.”

Daddy says, “Well, shit. That ain’t good, is it?” He asks if she needs help. She says he’s not the laboring type.

Dallas’ jacket is too big for him, a windbreaker from the grocery store Daddy works at stocking shelves overnight.

Your stomach rumbles. You point to the truck, say cold and truck. He says, “Sure, if that suits you. I’m staying here.” But it doesn’t suit you. Between you and the truck there are so many rocks and the copperhead Daddy pointed out when you got out of the truck.

Aunt Peggy rubs shiny goop on her hands, her pink rubber gloves, She reaches her hands toward the cow. A bay sharp and low breaks fierce and high. Aunt Peggy tells the dumb bitch of a heifer that she’s just trying to help, that she might’n die in that field if she won’t let her pull that goddamn calf out of her belly.

The cow turns its head and looks at you. Tan splotches on half its face, white on the other. You want to run your fingers on that shiny hide, but you’re too scared to move closer. You let that lady cow know you’re there for her. It’s okay, cow.

“What’s its name?” Dallas asks Daddy. 

“Doris.” 

“Shut up,” Dallas says. “You named that one after Mom?”

“Do me a favor and never mention it,” Daddy says.

Doris has a tag in her ear. Number 58. Aunt Peggy’s pink hands disappear inside Doris. Doris shrieks out again. Keeps looking at you. Through you. She flicks her tongue into her nostril. I’m sorry, Doris.

Aunt Peggy forces herself in further, up to her elbows. You’ve never heard that sound before. A wail with its own unique sequence of suffering, and pain, and hope, and fear. Still, Doris looks at you.

You see hooves, then Aunt Peggy’s pink gloves, wrapped around boney calf ankles glistening and mottled with goop. Then legs, dark, and wet, and bristlyThen knee joints, then the whole rear, smeared and gelled. Doris gulps in the Flint Hills haze and pushes with her whole body. The rest of the calf squirts out into the world and knocks Aunt Peggy over.

“That’s calving for you,” Aunt Peggy says. Doris lets her head fall, belly heaving. Daddy lights a cigarette. Aunt Peggy holds the crusty black calf in her lap.

“Can we go yet?” Dallas says. 

“We got to make sure it’s gonna make it,” Aunt Peggy says.

You shiver and Daddy says, “Dang, you must be cold. Shoot, guy, I’m so sorry.” And he takes off his hooded sweatshirt and gives it to you. You can’t remember another time in your life when you simply watched like that. When everyone was quiet around you, doing the same. You watch those two cows breathing in the pasture, emerald sponge, scattered with moon rocks. You watch. So does everybody else. Nobody says anything for minutes. Nobody moves. Not even Dallas. Then, the calf’s head tilts up. Jerky, uncertain. Twitches its ears. Slaps its tail against its rump and wobbles up on its hind legs..

The calf rocks and shakes itself up on its front legs.

Daddy sucks his cigarette. Aunt Peggy stretches off her rubber gloves. Dallas says, “OK, can we go now?”

The answer is: Not just yet.