Adrian Pearson - Cow Country

Another oncoming horn sounded and Dr. Felch gave a slight wave. “Ex-wife,” he said. “The career counselor.” As he drove it seemed as if every second or third car coming in the opposite direction warranted a wave or a double-honk or a shout out the window. And of these, every fourth or fifth was an ex-wife of Cow Eye Community College’s beleaguered president. To my right we were now passing a section of the long fence that proudly proclaimed, “COW COUNTRY.”

“Ok,” I said after a few moments. “So it sounds like I’m going to be helping with those two things? Accreditation and the Christmas party?”

“That’s right. And some other duties as assigned…”

Dr. Felch was now pulling off the main road into a gravel parking lot where a sign outside read Champs d'Elysees Bar and Grill . In the lot were several parked trucks — and not a single car. “But we’ll get to all that a bit later. First I want to introduce you to some of the guys….”

Dr. Felch shut off the engine and threw the key on the seat and without rolling up his window headed toward the entrance below the pink neon outline of a busty Frenchwoman riding a bronco. I followed him through the door.

The bar was dark and cool and once inside it seemed as if we’d descended into a parallel realm of time and space. A fifty-year-old juke box spewed out a song from my grandparents’ time. College football played on a single black-and-white television mounted above the bar, long rabbit ears jutting out of its back. We took our seats at a table in the corner and an old man in a cowboy hat clenching a cigar between his teeth came up and set two cans of Falstaff on our table.

“You drink beer?” Dr. Felch said.

“You could say that,” I answered and opened the pull-tab on my can.

“Glad to hear it,” he nodded. “You never can tell with educated men nowadays.…” Dr. Felch opened his own can and set the curled ring in the metal ashtray. I took a long drink from my can and did the same. Then I said, “Thanks for bringing me to Cow Eye, Mr. Felch. I really appreciate it.”

“No need to thank me just yet. Save it for when you’ve made it through your first semester. Hell, thank me at our Christmas party!” And here he gave a sly wink.

“Right,” I nodded. “I’ll be sure to sing you a yuletide carol or two.”

We drank and talked and a few minutes later two of Dr. Felch’s friends came into the bar and pulled up chairs at our table.

“This is Charlie,” Dr. Felch said when the two had joined us. The men opened their own cans and set their pull rings into the metal ashtray with the others: there were now four. As he spoke, Dr. Felch lit a fifth cigarette with the butt of his fourth, then crushed out the dying ember just like he had with the three before. “Charlie’s going to be our new Special Projects Coordinator,” he said.

“Special Projects Coordinator?”

“I’ll be Dr. Felch’s right-hand man…”

The men nodded.

“…I’ll be leading the college’s accreditation process….”

The men nodded again.

“…And helping with the annual Christmas party.”

Here they laughed.

“Good luck with that !” they said.

Dr. Felch continued:

“Guys, Charlie’s the one I told you about….with the unexpected answer to the bloated scrotum question.”

“That’s you ?!” they said and slapped me on the shoulder congratulatorily.

We drank, and when we were done another round of beers was brought out by the third man and we drank again. As we sat, the conversation went where it might; here and there the men would look up at the game on the old television and a shout would ring out after a long run from scrimmage or an important defensive stop.

“I hope you brought the rain, Charlie!” one of them said after a discussion of the drought in the area — a drought for the ages, they called it — and I told them that I had in fact brought a little bit:

“It’s outside in my suitcases.”

The men laughed and the conversation meandered further along. With small-town curiosity they asked about my previous jobs and my marriages and what brought me back to Cow Eye after all these years — and I answered their questions as best I could. But mostly I listened as the three discussed the goings-on around town and other timely chatter that in its very evanescence is also infinitely timeless. Passionately they talked about the most pressing political issues of Cow Eye Junction and the ways the town had changed over the years from the one they used to know as young men. In tones of weary resignation they spoke about the new people and their strange ways and about the old-timers of the area that they hadn’t seen for a while — those who had died or moved away, and those who would soon be moving or dying away.

“Did you hear Merna’s sister finally sold her house?” one of them would ask.

“Really?” another would answer. “The one who drives the Dodge?”

“That’s her other sister. This is the one with the Ford.”

“The six-cylinder?”

“Right.”

“With the wood paneling on the side?”

“That’s right.”

“And the pipe rack?”

“Yes.”

“That's a fabulous pipe rack she has…!”

And the men would nod in appreciation. “She will be missed,” they would say and take a drink in Merna’s memory. Again the conversation would meander and again it would come back to the important topics of the day: the changing politics of Cow Eye Junction, the various impositions caused by the new people, and the latest hardships and challenges of the many townsfolk they knew and had grown up with.

“I hear Merna’s other sister is still trying to sell her truck though….”

“The sister who drives the Dodge?”

“Right.”

“And which truck is she selling? The Jeep?”

“No, the Ford. She already sold the Jeep.”

“She did? Who would buy that piece of junk?”

“Rusty.”

“What does Rusty need with a Jeep? He’s already got two trucks!”

“No, he don’t. His daughter wrecked his Chevy last month.”

“You don't say?”

“Yeah, the girl pulled off into a ditch coming home from the river one night.”

“Alone?”

“With her boyfriend.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, it most certainly ain’t.”

“So Rusty only had the one truck left?”

“That’s right. And so he bought Merna’s old Jeep. And now he’s got the two.”

“Gee….just goes to show you how behind the times I am…!”

“Yeah, man, you really ought to get out more!”

The four of us drank and at some point the two men went to play darts by the bar next to the bartender and Dr. Felch lit up another cigarette, his sixth. “One for the road….” he said and held up his can in my direction; by now there were seventeen rings in the metal ashtray. I added the eighteenth. Dr. Felch nodded approvingly and then said, “You’ll do fine here, Charlie.” I was holding my can in my hand as if it were the fragile fate of an entire community. “But just do me one favor….”

“Of course,” I said.

“Don’t forget to take us seriously.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Felch?”

“We’ve brought you here for a reason, Charlie. And we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in the beginning — that’s our style. But don’t take us for granted. That’s one thing local people will never forgive you for.”

(Suddenly, I was hearing the words of my wife spoken to me so many times during our marriage. “You’re taking me for granted,” she would say in one set of words or another. But as usual I would just laugh it away: “That’s exactly what my last wife used to say!” And then: “You women are all the same…!”)