January hung over Iowa, slick and harsh and ruthless, but—weird, very weird—this field still had cornstalks standing tall and brittle, though lilting and bending in the relentless roar of the beastly winter wind. A closer look told me that there were shapes — human shapes — in that field, and though not a particularly brave man, neither am I timid, so I walked to the end of the landing, coatless, down the stairs, and over to the fence. I looked over my shoulder and saw a sliver of light screaming out of the warmth of Fooni’s room as she peeked through the crack between door and frame and watched me. I waved to her and then pressed against the fence, watching the shapes.
They were not men; they were scarecrows. And they hovered slightly about the wind-bent cornrows. Beneath the shivers already plaguing me from the cold, I felt another shiver, much deeper, as I scanned the field. There were two of them, both slipping from their slanting-wood crucifixion, stuffing scattering in winds that varied in pitch so much that they seemed to hold the raged souls of any feet that had crossed this land. One of the rag men hung now by one arm, dangling from the wood (it was crooked and splintered and bent), and I wondered briefly something that, again, seemed not to be my own thought at all but a thought put there by someone else, someone with a more fundamental faith: I wondered if he, the rag man, were to swing back up onto the cross, would the lonely-train winds die down? Would the stalks rise up and bear freshness and sway gracefully? Would—
Far off across the field, I saw a single light burning in a farmhouse. I wondered why the farmer hadn’t tended his fields before winter. Why hadn’t he taken down his scarecrows? But a thought, melancholy and sad, occurred to me, and it was a thought I held as a truth. A truth. Some thoughts are so startling that they have to be psychic in some way, have to be true.
And this was one of them: the farmer is dead.
His wife was alone in the house. They had no children, and this field would remain untended, never again plowed, nothing reaped from its soil. The farmer’s wife would move on and grow frail somewhere else. A strip mall would be built and footprints from the past long forgotten, trapped under block and cement and concrete.
As I stared at the farmhouse’s yellow window, finding truth in the small square of light, I felt a hand on my hip, and Fooni said, “Lucius? What are you doing?”
“Just thinking,” I said.
“May I think with you?”
I put my hand on hers in answer.
The scarecrows looked so alone. Their job was to scare creatures off, but how could anything be scared away if not near them to start with? The winter, the wind, an icy lover’s outstretched hand pushing a night-friend away. I laced my fingers between Fooni’s.
For an instant, standing in the field between the scarecrows, I thought I saw a man, an old man in bib overalls and a ball cap. He waved, smiled sadly, and then pointed off behind him, toward the house. I looked just in time to see the light go out upstairs. When I looked back between the scarecrows, the man was gone.
I stood there for a moment longer with Fooni’s hand on my hip and her face pressed against my back, and then I turned into her. She was wearing her overcoat with her robe and a pair of fuzzy pig slippers. She giggled when she saw me looking down at them.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I said, and I took her hand. We walked across the lot together and up the stairs without speaking. When we got to her door, I turned and looked across the field again. The scarecrow that had been dangling was gone, contorted now, likely, among the brittle stalks, resting fitfully on the lonely-cold ground.
I turned back, and Fooni was reaching for the door handle. The dent was gone. “The door,” I said.
She stopped and looked at me.
“It’s gone. It’s —”
“What’s gone?”
“The dent . . . The farmer? He —”
The wind is a ghost, I thought. And our souls are a part of it.
“What? What are you saying?” She kicked out of her slippers, shrugged off her coat and then took me by the elbow and pulled me inside, closing the door solidly behind us.
The liquor was wearing off some by now, but I still felt fully intoxicated. “Nothing,” I said, picturing the farmer standing alone in the field, the single light burning upstairs in the house.
I pulled Fooni to me and kissed her softly on the lips. She returned the kiss. We fell onto the bed nearest the door.
When our clothes were shed and I moved between her legs in anticipation, she reached for the lamp between the beds. Her eyes glistened with happiness, and her skin shined in the yellow glow.
“No,” I said. “Leave it on. Please.” I took her in and wondered again why I was here. How was I worthy of this? I tried to keep my tongue in my mouth; I wanted to be a man, not a dog in heat.
Outside, the wind started to die down, and it seemed like gentle laughter fading away in the distance. I thought of the farmer’s feet crunching across cornhusks and then dying quietly with the breeze, the ghosts of my past trailing behind him.
I moved into Fooni and she bit my neck lightly.
I kissed her once.
And again, a long time later and sticky with sweat, a lingering kiss . . .
She fell asleep with her head on my chest, and I couldn’t reach the lamp to turn it off. I thought intermittently about going back to my room, but I liked Fooni’s breath warm and moist on my skin. Her lips, even in sleep, held a smile. I wanted to be there when she woke up. I wanted to kiss her awake as the sun came up and share a cup of bitter motel coffee. I wanted to take her to breakfast and invite her to my room afterwards.
I looked toward the window — curtain standing open wide — and I looked at the darkness. I waited patiently for a glimpse of sunlight.
I wondered, sadly, but with a new sense of hope, if an old woman stood in the dark window of the farmhouse and looked across the field.
I wondered if she felt lonely or felt ghosts in that room, an empty bed behind her.
I wondered if she saw our small square of light.
And I wondered what it looked like from over there.
This story was written years ago, secretly, for Pamela, his wife. They share a violet tattoo, inspired by a Basho haiku about a wild violet, and their baby girl is named “Violet,” as well. Brady says, “I love you, Pamela. You’re my wild violet.”
About Brady Allen
