The Farmer's Son

Chapter 14 An Affair To Talk About

Just off the kitchen porch, down in the cellar, Alan stood in front of floor to ceiling shelves filled with canned food, water, reserve corn seeds, and other food stuffs. Behind him were two old brown couches draped with colorful patchwork blankets, facing each other around a low table, still set with an unfinished game of chess from the last time they used it, with boxes of other board games piled up underneath. Behind a green curtained area to the right were several buckets and jugs of water, for obvious reasons. On the other side of the room was more shelves stacked with radios, batteries, bedding, lamps, fuel, and other items, both necessary and comfort.

Alan took the cans down one by one, checking expiration dates and removing any past due to a crate at his feet, then making a note on a notepad for them to be replaced. After the crate was full, he brought it up out of the cellar to be their lunch in the coming days, leaving the cool underground for the rising heat and brightness of midmorning. Just a few feet away Ray was beating the couch cushions together.

As Alan came up the cellar stairs, Ray paused to stare at Bear, standing perfectly still on the porch by the corner of the house and staring into the corn.

"I love that dog," Ray said. "But he freaks me out when he does that."

Alan passed him, went up the stairs and into the kitchen without a response.

Ray sighed. Alan had been cool to him all morning, and even with his hangover headache, the moody silence was still the most annoying. "How long are you going to stay mad at me?" he asked as Alan came back out.

Alan said nothing, stepping off the porch with an empty crate. Just as he was about to pass by, Ray knocked two couch cushions together, engulfing him in a cloud of dust. "Ray!" he yelled, couching and spitting.

"He lives!" Ray said.

"Stop playing," Alan said, waving his hand franticly in front of him. "We have to get this done."

"Oh, now I know you're furious," Ray said.

He moved to walk away, but Ray quickly stepped to block his way, holding up the cushions threateningly. Alan sighed sharply. "I'm not mad," he said.

"You were mad last night," Ray said.

Alan glanced at him. "I was just...concerned. You don't know her."

"I know it sounds like you're passing the same judgement on her your townsfolks passed on me."

"You're different," Alan said, his voice oddly hesitant on the last word, as if he lost the thread of the conversation. He shook his head. "You don't get it," Alan said, turning to him. "She's not—what she did—" He fluttered around sounding angry and frustrated. "She's—"

"An adulterer?"

Brown eyes widened. "How did you--?"

"She told me," Ray said. Moving back, he began to knock the cushions against each other, turning his face away from the rising plums of dust. "All about the affair she had with a married man."

"Did she tell you," Alan said haltingly, almost as if he didn't want an answer, "who it was with?"

"She didn't name names, no," Ray said. "But how bad could it be?"

Alan looked away, his jaw clenching and unclenching, nostrils flaring. Hoisting the crate, he walked back to the cellar with long, quick strides and disappeared down the stairs.

Ray continued smacking the cushions together, turning his face away and squinting his eyes. Halfway to each other the cushions stopped. In the falling cloud of dust, Ray turned and looked towards the cellar.