The Feet of God
87 - TWILIGHT ZONE
Work finished, I fell
exhausted into my bed of hay at the back of the truck (after being careful to
move the pile of manure to the other side of the trailer). I laid there feeling drowsy with each bump
and roll as we headed down the narrow strips of backroads along the rural
south. Next thing I knew, I heard
air-brakes and the truck pulled to a full stop.
The back doors flung open and the late afternoon light revealed a cloud
of dust and dung floatin’ in the air all around.
I got up and started walking toward the opening as my captors came into
view. “Lordy. I didn’t think you could get any
uglier.” I knew I wasn’t a pretty sight
to behold, all coated in feces, but I ignored the leader’s insult and hopped
outta the back end of the trailer. I
followed behind the leader and his boys as they moseyed on over a short
distance to talk to yet another farmer.
“Yeah, my brother called and said you cleaned out his hen house real good, and
for a good cause,” the farmer shook their hands. “He said he was sending you all my way, and I
should spare all the chicken poop you could use.” The farmer caught a glimpse of me out the
corner of his eye and seemed a little confused.
“What in tarnation d’ya call that?”
“Oh, that’s just our day-laborer. He’s
helpin’ us out on a temporary basis. The
deal is, he does the heavy lifting,” the leader smiled, “and we’re management.”
The farmer inspected at me for a long time.
“Well, this don’t seem right. You
go on over there and hose that boy down.
I’ll go get some duds I think I still got stashed in the barn. Don’t want people seein’ no damned hippies on
the premises.”
While the leader remained behind with the parked truck and van, the other two
guys escorted me over to a hose attached outside a big white barn. They turned on the spigot and sprayed me all
over. I gasped and turned my back to the
frigid jet of water splashing me. I
rubbed myself more to stay warm than to wash away the crud stuck to my
skin. The more I rubbed, the more pinker
I became, until I was my old pink self again.
It was nice to be relatively clean.
It was also good to know I was near healed of all them rashes and
lesions and sores that so recently plagued me.
But that was about the only good news in an otherwise bleak situation.
The spray of icy cold water stopped, but I continued to pat and rub myself to
warm up. A pair of overalls suddenly hit
me in the head and wrapped around my face.
“Put those on,” the farmer said, “and stop that touchin’ yourself, this
ain’t a Boy Scout jamboree.” Moments later
the farmer threw over a pair of ratty old sneakers for my feet. Although I was grateful to have shoes again,
I was severely disappointed he didn’t throw in a pair of fluffy clean socks. I got into the overalls and covertly removed
the loincloth that’d been my only clothing since my stint at the freak show.
“Come on, the coop is over this way,” the farmer indicated we should follow his
guide. “I’ll provide you some shovels
and a barrow.” (I laughed to myself; how
many shovels did this moron think I could use at one time?)
The farmer accompanied us right into the long, low wooden structure, where our
unannounced presence got the chickens in a real loud clucking commotion. “Come on, boys,” the farmer shouted over all
that squawking, “you can’t expect your temp to get much done all by himself
before sundown, and you can’t stay here tonight. Everyone‘ll have to pitch in.”
“What’s the rush?” the leader asked.
“Well, you’re on the news.” The farmer
took off his cap and wiped his brow (even though he didn’t do any work so far
as I could tell). “They allege you
killed some circus people and stole a big-rig trailer and a van, and so now
you’re wanted men. But the media’s so
bent and all, they never said nothin’ about you bein’ freedom fighters. I know you meant every word when you told my
brother you wanted to strike a blow for all right thinkin’ Americans. That’s why I’m supporting your efforts for
the cause, and just to prove I’m with you, I’ll throw in a couple’a sticks of
dynamite I got left over from blastin’ tree stumps.” He smiled, “But for right now, I think you
boys best get shoveling.”
And damned if the leader and the older dude didn’t start to shoveling right
alongside me. They was pretty quick
about it, too. The three of us shoveled
while the farmer kept a watchful eye looking out for the authorities, I guess,
as much as to supervise, and the younger dude ran back and forth with the
wheelbarrow and deposited our loads into the back of the semi. We had all the crap from that chicken coop scraped
clean in no-time flat. From their sweat
and heavy breathing, it looked like these boys wasn’t used to doing so much
physical work so fast. Truth be told,
neither was I. It left me curious as to
what work they actually performed back at the Cirque De Bizarro.
As we got ourselves together to move out and hit the road, the leader got
chummy with the farmer. “These
reports…did they have any pictures of us?”
“No, no, no, nothing like that,” the farmer put a hand on the leader’s
shoulder. “They just said a group of
white supremacists went on a rampage of mindless killing and grand theft. Of course, I know you’re just regular boys
who fear Americans bein’ pushed into Europe’en socialism and bein’ stripped of
our God-given freedoms. So just pack up
now and take these sticks of TNT, and get outta here and go do whatever it is
you got planned to sacrifice for God and country.”
Suddenly there was the call of a middle-aged female voice from behind a screen
door of the farmhouse. “Cleet, you take
those boys some roast chickens. We can’t
have ‘em starving to death for lack of food.
Then tell ‘em to get outta here before we’re swarmed over with
government agents.”
“All right,” the farmer hollered back.
Indicating we should stay put, he told us, “Wait right here. I’ll go get the roasters. Don’t want the missus to be able to describe
you men if the government does show up here with all their truth drugs ’n
torture.”
(I kinda wondered how come stuff like this never happened to me back in
Bakersfield?)