It was mid-June and north Texas was a smoking hotplate. In the cotton fields outside of town farmers were doing something to raise the dust. There was nothing to see and you couldn’t see it if there was.
In the late evening James sat on the back porch drinking a beer, half reading a newspaper, sweat dampening the pages. He watched the sun turn red as it sunk through the dust. The houses and roofs and backyards of the neighbourhood were cast in a blood-dusk glow. A Martian suburb awash with the smell of a thousand barbecues being lit.
James finished his beer and finally, mercifully, it was dark. A few degrees cooler, maybe. There were fireflies blinking on and off in the yard. He hadn’t seen a firefly in a long time. There were none in Montana as far as he knew. Maybe it was too cold. Years ago he’d been camped next to an old hippie couple in Yellowstone and they’d told him that once, in Iowa, they’d dropped acid and went out and gathered a whole jar of fireflies and then rubbed them all over their naked bodies and then had luminescent sex in a moonlit cornfield. Their obvious happiness at relaying this story gave him a shiver. He saw, in them, all the couples of the world for whom the past held more promise than any potential future. Relationships based largely on reminiscence of things past. Was this what it meant to be rested, content, settled in love? Or, were the old hippies, and all others like them, just wound-up machines running on memories?
After a week of loafing at Casey’s, the dust and feedlot smell of Amarillo started to wear on him. Casey worked long hours at his office. Being in the house all day with Linda – she did yoga in the living room, she constantly wanted to feed him sandwiches – was making James uncomfortable. The probing questions from Casey at the dinner table made him feel like an underachieving son, stalled out after college, living in his old bedroom.
James found himself a job. An unlikely one at that. It was a ranch-hand position at an outfit outside of Austin, in the hill country. The job description in the classifieds was succinct.
by Callan Wink, Granta | Read more:
In the late evening James sat on the back porch drinking a beer, half reading a newspaper, sweat dampening the pages. He watched the sun turn red as it sunk through the dust. The houses and roofs and backyards of the neighbourhood were cast in a blood-dusk glow. A Martian suburb awash with the smell of a thousand barbecues being lit.
James finished his beer and finally, mercifully, it was dark. A few degrees cooler, maybe. There were fireflies blinking on and off in the yard. He hadn’t seen a firefly in a long time. There were none in Montana as far as he knew. Maybe it was too cold. Years ago he’d been camped next to an old hippie couple in Yellowstone and they’d told him that once, in Iowa, they’d dropped acid and went out and gathered a whole jar of fireflies and then rubbed them all over their naked bodies and then had luminescent sex in a moonlit cornfield. Their obvious happiness at relaying this story gave him a shiver. He saw, in them, all the couples of the world for whom the past held more promise than any potential future. Relationships based largely on reminiscence of things past. Was this what it meant to be rested, content, settled in love? Or, were the old hippies, and all others like them, just wound-up machines running on memories?After a week of loafing at Casey’s, the dust and feedlot smell of Amarillo started to wear on him. Casey worked long hours at his office. Being in the house all day with Linda – she did yoga in the living room, she constantly wanted to feed him sandwiches – was making James uncomfortable. The probing questions from Casey at the dinner table made him feel like an underachieving son, stalled out after college, living in his old bedroom.
James found himself a job. An unlikely one at that. It was a ranch-hand position at an outfit outside of Austin, in the hill country. The job description in the classifieds was succinct.
WANTED: Seasonal ranch labourer.
No experience necessary.
Beautiful location. Remote. HARD WORK.
Fair pay.
James called. He talked to a man who occasionally let out clipped groans, as if he was in pain. Their brief conversation was punctuated several times by loud birdcalls. In less than fifteen minutes he was hired. He had two days before he was to start and he’d forgotten to ask about pay.
When James left Amarillo, Casey shook his hand and wished him luck, as if he were shipping off to basic training. Linda gave him a hairspray-scented hug. ‘Y’all take care now darlin’,’ she said.
He pointed his car south once more into the fiery bowels of the Summertime Republic of Texas.
No experience necessary.
Beautiful location. Remote. HARD WORK.
Fair pay.
James called. He talked to a man who occasionally let out clipped groans, as if he was in pain. Their brief conversation was punctuated several times by loud birdcalls. In less than fifteen minutes he was hired. He had two days before he was to start and he’d forgotten to ask about pay.
When James left Amarillo, Casey shook his hand and wished him luck, as if he were shipping off to basic training. Linda gave him a hairspray-scented hug. ‘Y’all take care now darlin’,’ she said.
He pointed his car south once more into the fiery bowels of the Summertime Republic of Texas.
by Callan Wink, Granta | Read more:
Image: Edward Tuckwell
