Harris and Me

see anything at all. There didn’t seem to be any electricity.
“I sleep out here,” Glennis said, waving a hand at the room at the head of the stairs. “You’re in with Harris...”
She opened the door and I carried the box through into the second room. There was a dormer window to let in some light but it was still dim and seemed raw. The rafters were exposed two-by-fours and the boards of the roof showed, as did the points of the nails that held the shingles. The floor was rough wood, nailed with framing nails.
The dormer window was in the middle and on either side there was a small iron bunk. On each bunk there was a mattress and pillow and quilt done in patchwork colors that didn’t seem to make any sense or pattern, one color next to another.
“Yours is on the left.” Harris motioned with his chin. “I’m on the right for now.”
“For now?”
“I go back and forth...”
“You switch bunks?”
“Only when I need to.”
“Need to?”
He studied me, his hands still behind his back, then he shook his head. “You don’t know sheep crap from apple butter, do you? It’s my guts. Kids’ guts are like sheep guts. If a sheep sleeps on one side too long, all the guts squoosh over and stay there and it can’t get up without it falls over. I always sleep facing the window in case there’s a fire and so when I feel my guts get to squooshing over I switch bunks and sleep on my other side. See?”
I put my box on the left bunk and sat. “I guess so. Just tell me when we change...”
The mattress rustled when I sat on it and I poked it with my hand. “It makes a funny sound.”
“It’s dried corn shucks. These are from last year and getting old so’s they don’t sink anymore. You ought to hear it when they’re new—it’s so loud you can’t sleep.”
There was the sound of an engine and I watched out the window as the deputy backed the car out of the yard and drove off down the driveway. In spite of having done this many times I felt suddenly lost, alone, and leaned forward to watch the car leaving.
“Here.”
Harris had moved closer to me and was holding something out in his hand. I turned from the window and looked closely—it seemed to be a green, somewhat slimy ball with legs and eyes. “What is it?”
“It’s a frog.”
He put it in my hand and I could feel that it was still alive. The legs moved. “What happened to it?”
“I shoved a straw up its butt and blew it up.”
“Why?”
“So’s it can’t dive. You put ’em in the stock tank over by the barn and they float around on the top of the water and can’t get down.” He smiled. “Later I’ll show you how to do it. You got to watch you don’t blow too hard or they’ll pop on you. I did it once and it took half an hour to get the frog guts out of my hair.”
I put the frog on the sill of the dormer window where it rolled gently, its little front legs waving, and the deputy’s taillights disappeared down the driveway.

2
Wherein I become a farmer
and meet Vivian
I was dreaming: random firing of neurons through my mind. Something about a fish and then a neuron shot through and it became a girl holding a fish and she was smiling at me, beckoning to me with the fish in an inviting way but there was a thumping.
Something thumping, jerking, shaking...
And I was awake.
It was completely dark, pitch black in the room, and for a few seconds I couldn’t remember where I was. Then a faint light coming through the window revealed the walls, the bed, and standing over me the figure of Harris.
“Come on, wake up.”
I looked out the window. “It’s still night.”
“Doesn’t matter—the grown-ups have been coughing for fifteen minutes. Get your butt out of there or Louie will get all the pancakes.”
“Louie?” Harris had turned back to his bunk and in one motion jumped into his bib overalls, hooked the suspenders. As previously the bibs were his only clothing. “Who’s Louie?”
“He’s just Louie. He’s an old bugger who lives here and works. You would have met him last night ’cept he took the tractor to town to the beer hall. He came in during the night.”
I remembered the night before now. I’d been given a plate of food because they’d already eaten supper and I picked at it in the hissing light of an overhead Coleman lantern without thinking or saying much while Glennis and Clair messed over the sink and stove. Then it was dark and we’d gone to bed. I’d tossed a bit but finally went to sleep, and I now’recalled being slightly awakened by the sound of a loud motor coming down the driveway while I slept. A flare of lights passed the window and then nothing.
Harris came to my bed and jerked the covers back. “Get up.”
With that he disappeared out the door and I heard his feet slapping down the stairs.
I tried to close my eyes and go back to sleep. It was black-dark outside the window and everything in me wanted, needed sleep. But another pang was there as well—hunger. I hadn’t eaten much the night before. And then there was the curiosity as to who/what Louie was, and I rolled out and put my feet on the floor. It only took a moment to shuck into my jeans and pull a tee shirt on, lace up my tennis shoes, and head downstairs rubbing one hand on the wall to guide my way. But by the time I came out into the kitchen the table in the dining area was set and everybody was getting ready to eat.
As with the previous night the only light was from a Coleman lantern hanging by a wire from the ceiling. It sighed