Date: Fri, 13 May 2011 18:12:13 -0400
From: Sean Williams <williamscold@gmail.com>
Subject: Ben Leaves Bareacres Ranch Chapter 3

Ben Leaves Bareacres Ranch

Chapter 3


	Ademar's hands smelled like cigarettes.  His body smelled like
leather and Spanish cologne.  The part of him that I always remembered when
I pictured him was the curve at the bottom of his back.  That's where my
hand rested when I fell asleep in the Imperial Motel.

	It should have been easy for me to forget where I was, and whom I
was, that night.  The first thing that I did when I awoke was to sit up and
look out of the window; when I gazed through the partially-cracked panes of
glass, I did not see the dirt road that led to the front gate of the house,
or the barn, or the shed.  I saw a narrow street with dirty buildings all
around in a town that once had more people than it now did.  That feeling,
of awakening and finding oneself in a place different from where one hoped
to be, had summed up my entire life.  That's who I was.  I was just a
place.  I was Montana.  But that night and this morning, something had
happened.  I wasn't just a place anymore.  Although I was still in Montana,
there was someone beside me that made me feel that it did not matter where
I was.

	"I didn't think you would ever get up," said Ademar, when he saw me
sitting up and gazing out of the window.  His head peaked out of the opened
door to the bathroom and I saw him dry off his hair with a towel.  I heard
him turn off the faucet and I listened as the rush of water became only the
trickle of a few drops.

	Ademar walked out of the bathroom and into the room.  He wore a
towel slung around his waist and his black hair clung to his brow; the last
bits of water ran down the side of his face and onto his neck.

	"I was really scared when I woke up," I said, not looking at
Ademar.  "I don't know why."

	"I do.  I don't want you to be scared of me, Ben."

	I laughed and shook my head.  "I don't know," I said.  "I hate this
fucking place.  I am this fucking place."

	There was a pause after that at neither one of us looked at one
another.

	"That's a loaded thing to say."

	"I know it is," I said.  "I'm the land.  I'm the goddamn cows.  The
field.  The people that lived here before.  The Indians.  The people that
live here now.  It's like a weight.  That's just what it is.  A weight."

	Ademar shrugged.  "I didn't have you down as a poet."

	"Neither did I.  I'm not a poet."  Ademar sat down on the edge of
the bed, beside me.  When he moved his legs a few minutes later, I saw that
there was a wet spot where his legs had been.  "You better get me home.  My
Dad will kill both of us if he finds me here."

	"I better get you home?" asked Ademar, gazing up at me with
deep-set eyes.  "You drove, Ben.  Get your ass back in the car and drive
yourself home."

	I stood up and began to walk to the bathroom.  It wasn't a walk of
shame, but I knew that I better get my ass home as soon as possible unless
I wanted my Dad to rip me a new one.  I looked back at Ademar as I walked
away from the bed and saw that he was gazing up at me and smiling.  He
rubbed his chin; he must have just finished giving himself a close shave
because there wasn't a single hair on his face and the whole room had
become filled with the smell of his aftershave when he opened the bathroom
door and stepped out.  In my memory, when I was older, that's would be one
of the things that stood out about him: the scents, the angles of his body.

	As Ademar watched me walk away, I wondered if he was thinking the
same thing that I was: "That was an incredible night."  I wondered what his
life had been like before me; how many people had kissed him, smelled him,
been fucked by him.  There was something about him in which, when you
looked into his eyes, there was a moment where he wasn't really looking at
you, but sizing you up.  "I can take him."  Was that what he thought when
he looked at me?  I felt drawn to him, but it wasn't convinced that I could
trust him, even after what had just passed between us.  Maybe I was just
another notch on the wall.  And if that's what I was, I might end his short
career as a farm hand at Bareacres Ranch if anyone ever found out.

	As I closed the bathroom door, I knew that my Dad would cause a
ruckus when I reached home since the sun was well up in the sky and it had
to be at least two hours after dawn.




	"Thanks for deciding to join us," he said, walking up to my car as
I pulled in beside the house.  The driver's side window was down so I even
heard the sigh my father made when I turned off the ignition.  I stepped
out.  "I won't ask where you were," he said.  "You're a grown man.  But you
work here, this isn't volunteer work.  This isn't the Peace Corps."

	True, but you haven't paid me a cent since I've been here, Dad.

	"You can do what you want with your time," he continued, "but I
expect you to be up and ready to work at dawn, Ben.  You grew up here, boy.
You know that."

	I nodded.  "I understand, sir," I said, the words seeming to come
out of me without me needing to think about them.

	But my father wouldn't let the matter drop.  After telling me to
head into the kitchen and get breakfast from Mom, he spent a few minutes
pacing on the porch before following me in, heading right back to the same
topic.  "Where did you go?" he asked.

	"You said you wouldn't ask," I replied.

	"I changed my mind."

	"No where," I said.  "I just was feeling hot, stir crazy.  I needed
to get out of the house so I went for a drive."

	"So you left early this morning then, Ben?"

	"Yeah," I responded.  "I don't remember what time it was, but it
was still dark."

	"Because Russ says different," added my Dad.

	There was silence around the table for a few moments as knife and
fort struck plate, and glasses of orange juice were picked up or set down
on the table.

	"He says that you left last night after dinner and never came back
home," said Mom, chiming in.  She did not look at me, but occasionally
looked up at the fridge during the breaks from eating her oatmeal.  It was
not like Mom to gang up on me when Dad was angry, which made me think that
they had talked about it and, for some reason, found the matter suspicious
enough to bring it up.

	"Russ never saw me come back," I said.  "I came back home later
that night."

	"Where did you go last night?"

	"I just drove into town."

	"So you drove into town late last night, crawled into bed, and then
drove out again before dawn because you were stir crazy?"

	"I don't really understand what the problem is Dad."

	"The problem is that you were late for work," he said.  "This is a
job, Ben.  This isn't a vacation.  This isn't Disneyland."

	"Why would I think this was Disneyland?"

	Mom looked up at me but then set her eyes back down on her plate.

	"The point is that you are here to work," said Dad, trudging on.
"This is not some place for you to hang out until you decide what to do
with your life.  I think I told you before you left for--" and things went
downhill from there.  Most of you have sanctimonious relatives that you
love, hate, maybe love to hate.  I don't think it is necessary for me to go
into the gory details.

	Eventually: "Now you're going to have to drive back into town to
pick up the hands," he said.  "I didn't go myself because I didn't know
where the hell you were."

	"I don't mind," I said.  "What's another ride?  This place is
beginning to drive me crazy so I don't mind going for another one."

	My Dad said something else after that, but as I stepped up from the
table all I could picture was Ademar and the words spoken to me trailed off
and slowly disappeared into silence: an old man's moving lips, but nothing
heard.

	There was more spoken silence as I walked out of the house.  Dad
followed me out and to the car.  I had only to glance at his face
occasionally to know that what was said was more along the lines of further
chastisement than anything constructive.  I felt that I had awakened the
sleeping beast.  My father and I had not had a fight since I had come home
and he was aching for one.  Bad.  I had given my father something to
nitpick about and, if his intention was to keep me at Bareacres, this
tactic surely would not work.  But he didn't think that way, my Dad.  He
was a parent, and an Old School farm parent at that, so I was just an
immature, malformed fetus in need of some deliberate redirection, maybe a
shiny pair of forceps to pull me out of the womb so I could get myself to
the front porch by dawn, with a smile on my face.




	I found Ademar, along with Benito and Juan, standing outside of the
Imperial Motel; Ademar's eyes did not meet mine as I pulled up in front.
As the car came to a halt, Ademar spit out his cigarette and squashed it on
the pavement with his boot.  Benito and Juan both greeted me with a smile,
shaking my hands and then hopping into the backseat of the car.  I gave
Ademar an intense look as he opened the door and made his way down into the
passenger seat, but all I saw was the angle of a chin and one dark eye, as
he looked away.

	Dad was still fuming when I reached the ranch with the hands and
after dispensing the days duties, he told me that he didn't need me today
so I could go back to bed if I wanted since I was probably still tired.
When he said "if you want", I knew that he meant "now, because I say so,"
and that it really wasn't a question of my wanting to do anything.  All I
could think at that moment was that he wanted to get a rise out of me, but
I had no desire to give him the satisfaction.  This wasn't the place for
it.  It was home, but it was his home, his castle, and I was only a guest,
a serf, or a slave.

	My father walked away from the house toward the truck with all
three hands.  I watched them as they walked away to see if Ademar would
turn back to glance at me, but his mind was anywhere else.  My father
ushered the hands into the truck and I could see the vehicle as it pulled
up the hill toward the hay field where the bales of hay that had been
packed needed to be brought into the barn.  These would probably be taken
into town sometime this month.  After pacing about the front of the house
for a bit, I decided to walk to the pond behind the house to clear my
thoughts.

	I sat down on a half-rotted old log.  This lone, crooked thing came
to rest here when part of the woods in the back of the ranch had been cut
down.  I always thought that I would come home one day and the log would be
at the bottom of the pond, rolling down the slope, but it never moved an
inch.

	Photographs.

	I could not get away from where I was and who I used to be when my
life was only a series of photographs.  This is what I began to think as
soon as I sat down upon the log.  I carried the image of the rattling gate
that led to the leaning house with me.  The portrait of my mother in the
living room.  The images in my brain of the instances from my childhood:
the time that I ran away from home, the first day on JV football, the day
that coach told me that I would be quarterback and captain of the varsity
football team.  There was an image of moving in to my college dorm and
finding a bare bed that would remain bare for a week: my father had forget
to bring the box with the sheets, blankets, and pillows from home.  The
image of myself as I walked out of the dean's office after resigning from
the school when I found out my parents needed me back home.  This was how
my life was playing out and it had not, it was not, difficult for me to
envision it, the past and present, as each day unfolded.  Because they were
all photographs, and some of the new ones were awfully similar to the old
ones.  There were those photographs of the gate again.  And here was the
drive up to the house with Mom and Dad sitting on the porch.  But where
would they lead, all these photographs?

	"I don't know," I said aloud, whispered.

	"Don't know what?" I heard a voice say, and immediately afterward I
saw a large form sit beside me on the log.  The log shifted away from me
with the weight.

	I swallowed.  I shook my head.  "It doesn't matter," I said.

	"But I want to hear it," said Russ.  "We need something to talk
about."

	"We don't need to talk at all," I said, and I stood up, shaking my
head as I turned to walk away.

	Russ reached up and grabbed my arm; "Wait," he said.  He beamed up
at me with expectant blue eyes, the same color as the still pond, and I
waited there even though I could have broken free.

	"Wait," he said again.  "Just wait, Ben."

	"What?"

	"About last night--"

	"Nothing happened."

	"But something did happen, Ben."

	"Why did you tell my parents that I left?" I asked.

	"It didn't happen like that," said Russ.  He let his arm drop and
turned to look at the pond.  "It just came up when I ran into your Dad this
morning.  He was wondering why you weren't waiting on the porch and I
mentioned that I had seen you drive off last night.  He must have checked
your room.  He put two and two together and--"

	"You shouldn't have said anything.  You know how he is.  All he
needs is another reason to be all over my ass.  Story of my life."

	"Language, Ben.  Language."

	"Don't be a pussy, Russ," I said.  "I know how you guys talk in the
dugout."

	"This isn't the dugout.  This is home."  Russ began to tap his foot
on the grass and the sound he made was louder than it should have been, or
at least the sounds resonated differently with me just then.  Russ put his
arm around my shoulder after convincing me to sit back down on the log
again; I didn't run away this time.  It actually felt good to be so close
to someone.  At least it did in that moment.

	"I don't understand what it is you want with me," I said, glancing
momentarily over at Russ.

	Russ rubbed my shoulder as he listened.  "I don't understand it
either," he said, "but you look so much like her, your sister.  But
different.  There's something about you, in you, that I have never seen
before.  I don't know what to make of it."

	I sighed, but said nothing.

	"You're not running away this time."

	"You won't do anything," I said.  "We're right behind the house."

	"You don't know what I'm capable of."

	But nothing happened.  We sat on the log like that for a couple of
hours; the moments were mostly without words, but when we did talk it was
mostly about baseball.  Russ still wanted to get back into the minors, even
with all of his injuries.  It didn't seem likely to happen, but he wasn't
giving up on it.  He wasn't the sort to give up when there was a prize
dangling in front of him.

	The stillness of these two hours was only broken when I heard the
sound of a car backing in beside the house.  I looked back and saw that my
Dad's Avalanche was back and that he and Ademar were hopping out.

	"I have to go," I said, and Russ did not reach up and grab me this
time.

	And as I walked toward the porch, I saw Ademar turn around and sit
on one of the porch steps.  He was listening to my father and he sat with
his arms splayed out and with his legs wide apart.  He looked like a cowboy
in a Marlboro ad and the image of him naked, like a photograph, in a dark
hotel room in a rundown Western town flashed through my mind.  I had a new
photograph in my memory and this one was different from the others.  The
thought that the image generated remained after the photograph was gone.
That was the moment.

	Montana let me go.

	I had been fucked by a man, and when I would look out of my window
the next morning, I would see past the gate in front of the house.  When I
ran away this time, my strides would be twice as long; I would cover the
distance in half the time; when I turned and looked around to see how far I
had gotten, the house would be farther away than it had been before.  When
I came to the point where I saw the old railroad tracks, instead of the
sinking feeling that I was still so close to home, I would know that I was
growing further and further away.  Looking back, the house shrunk to
something small behind me.  The problem wasn't the place.  It had nothing
to do with Montana.

	"Who are you?"

	"What are you?"

	These were questions scratched on a chalkboard in my mind; they
would define me because they would help me get away.  I needed to get
fucked out of Montana.  I needed to change.  Eight hours after getting
fucked by Ademar, the first time I had ever been fucked by a man, my world
opened up.

	Ademar and my father did not see me as I walked toward the house
from the log beside the pond in back.  I was sort of behind them and they
had their backs to me for the most part.  The grass made a squishing sound
as I walked to the house; it wasn't dew but moisture left from the small
amount of rain we had gotten the night before.  I vaguely remembered the
sound of the rain battering against the window of the motel room as Ademar
manhandled me in bed.

	"I thought you might like some coffee," I heard my mother say as I
approached the house.  She was not talking to me and she handed a cup of
coffee in a mug and a napkin to Ademar.  He thanked her.  They did not see
me as I approached.

	"I'm lucky that you all are willing to have me," Ademar said,
looking in turn at my mother and my father.  "I spent most of my life on
farmland.  Out west."

	"I think you told me that," said my father.

	I had slowed down my walking after my Mom stepped out onto the
porch.  I wanted to catch what they said.  My Mom asked Ademar why he left
Washington and he said something about the farm market going south in the
state.  My Dad mentioned California and Ademar said: "I know all about
California, sir.  Actually I lived there for a long time.  After I left
home, I moved around a lot."

	"Do you have family in California?" my mother asked, between sips
from her own coffee mug.  It had an image of two kittens romping along the
side.

	"I do," Ademar replied.  "I have two kids in California."

	"Two kids?"

	"Yes, sir," said Ademar.  "Two kids.  Actually, I'm married."

	"Are you married?" asked my father.  "I don't think you told me
that before."

	"I didn't sir.  I was a little embarrassed.  The thing is, I had to
leave because I couldn't find work.  My wife and the kids are staying at
her brother's and, well, sir... I've just been roaming around looking for
work."

	At this point, I was fairly close to the house so I could easily
make out the expression on my father's face as Ademar said this.  He sort
of raised his eyebrows and looked away, back toward the road, and then
brought his face round again.  It was one of those: "Ah, so that's the kind
of man this is," types of motions - at least that was what I was able to
interpret it as - and I wondered if Ademar construed the look the same way
that I did.

	I rested my back on a corner wall of the house, out of view of the
trio, and I continued to listen.  As I listened, I thought to myself: "He's
married.  Alright."  He hadn't told me about that.  I shrugged and after a
moment's pause, I walked back to the pond where Russ was.

	"You're back," Russ said when I suddenly appeared beside the pond.
"That was quick."

	I didn't reply, so then he said: "You look like you need a drink.
There's some back at the house.  I don't have anything on hand, but--"

	"Let's get out of here," I interjected.  "Do you want to get out of
here?  Where's your car?"

	I think the meaning behind the words and in my eyes was clear and
Russ instantly jumped up.  He put his arm around my shoulder and we walked
to his car.




	I remember opening my eyes and seeing the sun setting through the
rear window of Russ's Mercedes.  I fell asleep right after he fucked me, in
the cramped back seat of his car.  I could still feel the scratch of his
chest hair as he leant over me; the touch of his full, pink lips against my
neck.  Russ had gotten out afterward and gotten into the front seat.  He
was sitting calmly with the window down and smoking a cigarette when I woke
and sat up.  Based on the squashed cigarette butts beside him, it looked
like Russ had smoked four or five cigs since I had fallen asleep.  The car
was parked in the middle of a field on the abandoned Crosskeys farm.  The
Crosskeys left their place without finding a buyer for it three years ago
and there were still bales of hay sitting on the now overgrown field.  The
place still hadn't been sold and no one knew what the Crosskeys were up to.
Our neck of the woods was the sort of place where you could leave your hay
out and no one would take it because there just weren't a lot of people
around these parts.  I guess there aren't a lot of hay thieves in general,
but I always thought it was strange that no one cared about bringing the
hay in unless they were sure they wanted to sell it.

	Russ reached into the back of the car and patted me on the back.

	"You okay?" he asked, looking up in the rear view mirror and
watching me as I gazed at the sunset.  I turned forward and our eyes met
for the briefest of moments.



[TO BE CONCLUDED]


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