Erin Fisher - That Tiny Life

“Argentina,” Axel says. “The nuns put us to work and I learned food. Not just these” — he taps the empanadas with the barbecue tongs — “the birds we flew, they ate snake.”

The home-still is working and the moment feels almost good. The kid is oddly interested in food, like the sandwich this morning, and she might get a story from Axel that hopefully won’t end on him eating a raw fish — head and all — after catching it swimming, or some other ridiculous exaggeration about his youth. Actually, even if he gets into how he started that would be good. He could use a reminder right now that when the falcon population dropped and the wild capture ban went through, he was the first to breed gyrs with any success. The respect he has at the meets — it would be good for Cody to see that side of him. Rather than whatever this is — Axel barbecuing, single-legged, in his underwear in a snowstorm.

“The nuns?” the kid says. She’s glad he does because she’s curious too, and she snaps a picture of the two of them before anyone can object.

“Argentina?” she prods. But they miss their chance — cutting through the thick, windswept snowfall, the chug of the tractor. And when they look to the sound, they see Melanie peering through the slats of the porch. The girl runs.

“Hey,” Kendra calls. “Join us.” She shouldn’t be out in the storm. They’re protected from the wind on the porch, but past the lip of the roof the snow whips through the blackout.

“You’re siding with the girl?” Axel squeezes the tongs.

Siding—? She’s going to call again but she sees a beam of light bouncing across the pasture. Melanie has a flashlight, she’ll be okay.

“Was she with you, when you flew the white?” Axel.

Of all the petty shit — what was she hoping to get from this man again?

The yard, half-melted and wet all day, is crusted and glassy. Snow falls, sharp and small, and in gusts that cut through his flashlight’s swath and make it difficult to focus on the outline of the buildings. He shuts off the flashlight and lets a burst of queasiness past. The barn becomes a void in the flurry. The lights are out, as is the motion sensor that should flicker reliably across the field from Axel’s place. The power’s failed — start the generator. This job he can manage.

Earlier, a moment ago when he went to change the old man, there was no way. He knew it as soon as he entered the room and saw Austin. An invalid, his blankets shoved to his waist, in greying pyjamas. Austin who, before the stroke, Christ. Starting when Milo was seven, Austin had him heat water and bring soap and towels to the field or barn — wherever Austin’d wrestled a calf from a pelvis. Austin wiped the birth sac and fluid from the calf with hay, then soaped his arms and chest and washed in the bucket. Delivered and doctored all his own cattle. Had even managed the bull — harnessed the beast, penned it, settled the teaser, then come alongside the animal and hupped him. Terrifying, even poled. The bull was massive. Got scary height on its hind legs, with chest and shoulders rested on the teaser’s ass. He’d refused to hold the harness rope or be near the pen during semen collection. Milo sold the bull with the market calves first thing after moving back with Melanie. Artificial insemination from purchased straws is so much easier — even Melanie can do that. But when he was a kid, there was Austin next to seventeen hundred pounds of horny meat, directing its unwieldy pink shlong into a fake vagina.

He circles to the generator under the lean-to around the back of the barn. The dull red metal is fused with patches of snow. He keys it, but it won’t catch. Try again. Eight-gallon tank so fourteen hours run time. The genset — if it ever starts — should boast enough watts to run the house as well as a portion of the milkers and the milk bin. He tries the dipstick. Dry. Okay.

Such discrepancy — Austin’s collapsed chest, arms curled like the tendons have shrunk, even the facial fat has faded away and left this emaciated human — it’s almost easy to dismiss what remains of his father. Well, no. If that were true, he’d be able to clean the old man. He wouldn’t be hung up on embarrassment. The old man clenching his fist and pawing the blankets — goddamn. Thought he’d way outlived embarrassment.

There’s too much of a drift at the side door to the garage so he opens the main barn door and fumbles through to the garage that way. Tractor grease, machine oil, cut-gas, warmed by the smell of compressed sawdust bricks, and by body heat from the cows beyond the wall. He sets a hand on the tractor and spits in the floor drain. The smell of the diesel is no good. Get it outside. He clears a few bottles out of the main door — might as well, since he has to rescue Kendra’s truck tomorrow — and opens the garage. Probably shouldn’t syphon in the garage anyway, he’s got that much sense. He steps on the running board, grabs the canopy support, and swings into the seat. He bends over the wheel and drives into the snow and wind, ducks at the door even though the plastic canopy above has clearance.

In the drive, he parks the tractor and dismounts. He walks back to the garage and crawls behind the boiler and finds a length of tubing. He blows the dust out of it and lets it uncoil. Long enough. Grab the jerry can and back outside. The wind blows his coat against his back and he leans into the square-nosed body of the tractor. He’s got this. He pulls his glove off with his teeth and twists the cap off the gas tank and sets it on the seat of the tractor. Glove back on. Tubing slid into the tank. He readies the jerry can and sucks on the loose end of the tube. As he sucks, a beam of light bounces over him in the drive — a flashlight. Melanie runs up to him; her glasses are crooked and she’s holding her toque on with one hand. She doesn’t see him and almost collides, but at the last minute veers away. The tubing spits diesel over his teeth.

He pukes. The gas spills over the snow. He yanks the tube out of the tractor and pukes again. Bile and whatever he ate last. When did he eat last? He kneels in the snow and dry-retches. Burns his throat and nose. She’ll think he’s drunk. He can’t tell if that’s better than him saying he quit and her thinking it a lie.

The pasture is covered in snow and soft underfoot, and she almost steps on the tarp and poles — almost topples into the slurry because Milo took the rails down — as she runs away from Axel’s place toward home.

The replacement pole wobbles, but she holds it anyway and catches her breath and laughs. It’s a bit funny — when Kendra develops that photo, there’s going to be Axel naked flipping some sort of huge perogies on the barbecue, that boy with the bird shit down his black kilt holding Axel’s prosthetic, and — at the back and the bottom of the image — Melanie, red-eyed from the flash, peeking through the rails at the edge of the porch.

She shakes the pole and clicks on her flashlight. What was she thinking, peeking in their window? She followed Kendra and the boy from their hike — or hunt, whatever it was — to the barn, where Kendra disappeared into the garage and emerged with Milo’s home-still. Milked the cows — good thing that happened before the power cut, it would take too long to do it by hand — and then grabbed a flashlight and scoped the hatchling barn because what else was she supposed to do, go home? No one was outside, and the hatchling barn was locked. The outdoor shower had an icicle from the shower head, and Kendra’s Nissan balanced a cushion of snow on the nose and windshield in the ditch. When the lights cut, she thought she might brave knocking on Axel’s door. They might invite her in, let her play cards or swap stories. Tell her they knew about Austin and would talk to Milo for her. Get him into a home. For now, they’d say, here’s a huge perogy. Hope you like it!