Chapter Fifteen Clarice

After having been on dirt roads for the last twenty minutes straight, Clarice starts feeling a little bit nervous. She trusts Mikel completely, and knows nothing bad is going to happen, but she’s never been out in the country this far. She can’t believe Ray would commute like this every day, but she’s still really excited to see his place. She thinks he’s such a sweet man and after all the stories Mikel has told her about the farmhouse, she’s really curious about it now.

Listening to him talk about his lifelong best friend since childhood has helped her understand the bond between the two of them. The tales of their upbringing makes her feel like she’s missed out on a great deal of things the world has to offer. Having grown up and lived in the city with her sister all her life, she’s never had the chance to really appreciate some of the more pure things in life.

She imagines the stereotypical red barn and cows kind of farm in her head, even though she knows that’s not what it’s going to be like. Ray’s family does have real cows, chickens, dogs, and a bunch of other animals though. She can’t wait to see them. What she can’t understand, is how Mikel knows his way around on all these windy roads in the complete darkness like this. There aren’t even any signs at most of the turns they take. When she notices some dim lights in the distance ahead, through the brush, he lets her know that they’re almost there.

As they start going down the long dirt driveway to the little homestead, she starts seeing that there are quite a few other pickup trucks already parked out front of the house. Mikel drives around to the back where there are even more old trucks backed up to a campfire with people sitting on their tailgates. There has got to be another six trucks and over thirty people there, all with cans in their hands. She’s never been around a campfire before and thinks it looks pretty fun. Everyone seems to be having such a great time.

Mikel makes a tight turnaround in the soft dirt and backs the truck up to about ten feet from the fire like everyone else has done. While jumping down out of the truck, she immediately notices the stars above her. She’s no stranger to them, but she’s never seen them quite like this. They look absolutely incredible. They’re so clear and distinct she could probably count them. Mikel has to escort her by her arm so that she doesn’t fall down while looking up at them on their way to the house.

At the campfire he introduces her to the group. One of the older men wearing a dirty old oil stained yellow trucker hat walks up with a couple beers in his hands. He plops one in each of theirs while shaking the other and introduces himself as John Knapp, Ray’s Father. He pats her on the side of the shoulder, grins up at Mikel, and looks back at her with a wink. “I’ve heard so many great things about you my dear. Ray is in the house getting all the food ready. Why don’t y’all go ahead and go on in.”

Before heading in, the two of them wave to everyone around the fire. Most of the men look like they’ve just gotten done working with dusty old machinery. A lot of them are in either overalls or coveralls, all with rust and grease stains on them. The others, while in only plain denim jeans, look dressed up in comparison. It takes a little more focus to pick them out, but she does spot a surprising number of women amongst the group. She didn’t notice them at first because they’re all wearing about the same kinds of clothes.

The house is much smaller than she’d imagined. It’s just a simple, square, wood-paneled house with a shingle roof on it. It’s still mostly white, but a good amount of grey aged wood is showing through. There’s hardly any grass around the house, and what there is, has mostly gone yellow. Closest to the house is an older garage with a bunkhouse attached to it. A little ways to the side of that, is what has to be an even older wooden chicken coup. Farthest out is the big tin barn Mikel said caould be seen for miles. He said it was big, and it is.

She already knows that Ray and his father live together, but she kind of expected him to at least have a house similar to what Mikel has, not something so small and old. However, everything looks fairly well kept up and cared for. She finds that there’s something cozy and honest about the place. It makes her feel like the people here are good and kind.

When they get to the back door, an old dog and a cat are waiting for them there, to be let in. The cat is a very scruffy old orange tabby with a barely audible meow. His fur has lost its rich orange and has been faded by the sun. It circles around both of them, rubbing against their legs. Its tail is stiff and not very soft. Mikel reaches down and pets him on the head. “This is Little-Red.” The cat bumps his head up into his palm with closed eyes and purrs loudly.

“I’ve never seen anything more adorable in my life.” When she reaches down to pet him, he trots away only far enough to play hard to get.

The dog is obviously quite old as well. Its lower eyelids are saggy and much of its dark brown fur has gone white, especially around its muzzle and eyebrows. The old dog presses the side of its face against her leg and wags its tail in hopes of getting a petting too. She leans down and gives him some good scratches around his ears and back while telling him that he’s such a handsome boy. She can tell that Mikel appreciates her giving the dog such affection. He mentions that Ray would absolutely cherish her for it.

He smiles down at her and holds the dog’s muzzle up in his palm. “This is Roy, or Roy Marlin if you don’t want Ray to think you’re calling for him. Their names can sometimes sound the same.”

When Clarice stands back up, Ray is right there, waiting on the other side of the screen door from them. “Well, come on in, all of ya” He sounds quite jovial and is excited to see her. The inside of the house smells really good. It’s like being in a steakhouse.

Mikel looks back behind himself. “Your father is looking a lot better.” His voice is rather quiet.

On the road, he had told her that he was a little worried about the old man getting pneumonia again. In confidence, he had explained to her that last month, John had refused to go to the hospital when he got real sick. He’s always felt that if it was his time, he would not be vain, and go when it’s his time.

Both Mikel and Ray have been sneaking medicine in his food since he went from bad to worse. Neither of them would dare make anything of it. They don’t need anyone starting any drama over something like that. The rumor is that John would rather join his late wife than keep on going without her.

She’s starting to find that there’s a large grey area between the things Ray and Mikel believe in and what they practice. Sometimes there’s common sense in their ideals, and then often times there’s not. They believe that people have a time to pass on, but it doesn’t mean they should lay down and give up when it comes either. To them, life and death are pure, and one cannot exist without the other. A person must understand and accept both to be honest.

When the people in their community see their loved ones pass on, it’s taken to heart like nowhere else she has seen. A death is not suffered as an unfair loss, but honored as a reminder to love one another every day they can, like a person should. When they see some rich asshole full of fake body parts on the television living past one hundred twenty years, it shreds their hopes and dreams to bits. None of them want to die, so when the wealthy have a luxury that they can’t, they shun it as something no one should have. In her opinion, it’s envy in its truest form.

She knows that Mikel doesn’t like robots. Anyone can pick up on that easily enough. He’s hardly subtle about it. She doesn’t really know why though. He hasn’t been forthcoming about it, and it’s not something she feels she should press him about either. A lot of people don’t like robots. It was probably something he grew up with. She understands where he’s coming from though. Robots have made people weak. There’s a lot of people that could be putting in a hard day’s work, like what the people out here do, but instead they scratch around in the alleys at night for scraps.

It appears that seeing robots walking around like humans, doing everything that once was human, stirs Mikel up like hot coals. He only absent mindedly rants about these things when he’s driving, but she does listen. It’s like he’s threatened by robots, as if it’s only a matter fo time before they have him out on the streets too. It’s strange seeing men like him and Ray seeming to be so kind, yet being so spiteful.

After handing her and Mikel a couple of large trays, Ray leads the two of them back out through the kitchen and to the big barbecue in the yard. It’s pumping smoke out from under its lid and it’s every bit as big as Mikel bragged about. He has mentioned this grill a few times already, so now she at least won’t have to keep hearing about it anymore. He and Ray had built it together a couple of years ago out of an old boiler tank. It looks really cool with the old fashioned rivets all over it. It’s so heavy, they apparently need a tractor to move it around.

Ray opens the lid and starts removing everything that’s inside. There’s so much room inside, a full grown man could easily climb inside it. There are about two dozen baked potatoes, corn cobs, whole chickens, and about twenty pounds of steak just on the main rack. She originally figured Mikel was exaggerating and was only expecting a small get-together, but the whole thing is turning out to be quite an event. She can’t believe this goes on almost every weekend. She was told that their neighborhood is tight knit, but now she has a better understanding of what he meant. The Farming community really comes together.

It takes all three of them to carry the food into the house after Ray puts it on the trays. They set it out on the large kitchen table so that people can come in and serve themselves, kind of like at a buffet. Startling her a little, Ray yells out the front door “foods ready!” People trickle in and prepare their plates politely without crowding around too much.

Most everyone takes their food right back outside to eat at the campfire. The three of them are the last to serve themselves. Mikel even doles out a small amount of chicken for the cat and dog before getting his own. She finds it sweet how he infatuates Roy when he puts the chicken in his bowl. “Grandad always said critters get fed first.”

When they’re ready, the three of them head out to the campfire with their plates, to be amongst the others. Out back, the party seems to have picked up even more. A few of the men are starting to stagger around, having already had more than enough to drink. One of the other older men and Ray’s father are talking loudly while they tell stories. One of them is pointing at the front of his oversized pickup, which has a significant dent in the corner of its ridiculous steel bumper.

The man is bragging about running down a robot out on the road. It belonged to one of those automated farms. He calimed it walked out in front of him, but she knows that’s not how it happned. There’s a lot of laughter coming from the others when he theatrically flails against the hood of his truck like he says it did.

She doesn’t quite understand what’s so funny about hitting a robot on the road. It obviously wasn’t funny to his truck. She’s never heard of such a thing being considered sporting. If he hadn’t had that big bumper, it could’ve been really serious.

Looking around, she notices that pretty much all of the vehicles people came in are big trucks, or at least four wheel drives of some kind. They’re all quite old too, and none really have any decent paint left on them either. She certainly learned why Mikel said it would be a bad idea to bring her little electric car out there. It would’ve never made down the weather rutted roads on the way in.

After many more hours and many more beers, the party finally starts to wind down. Not only are all the country folk hard workers, but they’re also hard drinkers too. Neither she nor Mikel are in any shape to drive home anymore. She’s in rough shape, and she wasn’t even close to keeping up the pace. Mikel had noticed pretty quickly and was at least kind enough to take on most of the drinks she was handed.

It seems quite a few couples had already planned on staying overnight. The two of them are definitely going to be doing the same. There’s obviously no room to sleep in the house, so when she asks, he pats his hand down on the bed of his truck. He doesn’t seem to think much of it, that and he’s about to pass out on the dirt anyway. Upon seeing the size of her eyes, Ray raises his finger up to get her attention.

“Ah, hold on little lady, I’ve got blankets for the two of ya.” Then he scurries off back to the house.

She looks around and notices the other couples that are staying the night are setting up with the same kinds of things. They’ve already come prepared with their own blankets and pillow laid out in their trucks. She thinks it is kind of neat that they all seem to customarily do the same things. She’s actually looking forward to sleeping under the stars now, it’ll be rather special. After everyone has bedded down, the silence of the night settles in. she can hear the delicate sound of crickets and the deep croaking of frogs in the irrigation ponds in the distance.

After Ray comes back out from the house, he and Mikel lay all of the blankets out in the back of the truck for her. While climbing in, she quickly noticed that the bedding is not nearly as comfortable as it looks. She can still feel the prominent corrugated ribs of the truck bed quite well. She knows to not complain about little discomforts like this in front of him though. He rants enough about people being too sheltered as it is, so she decides she’ll just have to learn to live with it this time. He always feels that if a person is going to complain about something, it’d better be a real problem. She imagines him saying “we can sleep on the ground if you want.”

He lays down flat on his back and holds the top blankets open for her to get underneath with him. She lays next to him on her side, propping most of herself over one side of him. She finds it to be much more comfortable laying on him than on the metal ribs.

Ray peeks over the side of the truck one last time. “Now you let me know if you need anything at all alright. You two have a good night. I’ll see ya in the morn’n.” Mikel stays awake for a little while longer, smoothing her hair with his hand and telling her how much he loves her until she falls asleep.

When she wakes up in the morning, she finds that it’s much colder out than she could’ve expected. Dew has settled on everything, including the blankets. She presses her back against Mikel to try and keep warm. She’s already snuck most of the blankets away from him in the night and is curled up in them as best she can be. As far as she can tell, he hasn’t even noticed. She’s so cold, she even has to keep her arms crossed in front of herself to keep in as much body heat as possible.

It’s still quite early and the sun has barely begun to come up. When it finally rises, it’s so much sharper than in the city. She never really notices sunrises back at home. The coming light is normally more gradual in town. The haze in the city must blur it out. She can’t believe how quiet everything is too. All she can hear is a small pop from the coals in the fire every once in a while. She finds it to be quite soothing.

Needing to shift to her other side, she carefully wiggles all the way around so that she can wrap up on him another way, without letting in any cold air. When she looks up at him, she can see that she’s woken him up. He looks down with a scruffy face and apologizes for it being so cold.

“I’ll get the truck warmed up for ya, so you can hang out in there while I get everything put away. K sweetie.”

They both have to be at work and he knows he needs to get her home soon. He clicks a button on one of his keys and the truck starts up all on its own. It rumbles rhythmically beneath them. She smiles lovingly at him and then quickly disappears back underneath the blankets. When he gets up, he tucks the blankets in around her and makes sure her feet are well wrapped up. She can hear him walk all the way to the house by the sound of the dirt crunching under his boots.

She can hear that Ray is up too. He and Mikel speak at the front door of the house briefly before Ray goes back inside. When Mikel comes back to the truck, he rouses her out of bed by tickling her ribs. He hands her shoes to her so she can get into the truck quickly, but only after demanding a kiss from her first. While she warms up in the cab, he folds the blankets and takes them into the house. She can’t fathom how he can shake off the cold like he does. She wonders if maybe he’s too dumb to know any better. The thought of it makes her snicker.

Ray accompanies him on the way back to the truck, probably to say goodbye to her. As they’re walking, they’re talking about something important. She can tell by the way the’re moving. A couple of times she sees Ray’s hands spread apart out front of himself with his palms slightly up. Mikel, with one hand, points outward to his side too. He’s twisting his wrist and waving his hand with his fingers spread out. They’re disagreeing about something.

Just before he opens the door to the truck she can slightly hear what one of them says. They’re being quiet, to not wake anyone else, or to not be heard. As the door opens, she can hear the last of what is said.

“I don’t know how we’re gonna do it Mikel! All I am saying is we have to, before it comes back to bite us in the ass. Whatta ya thinks gonna happen if they’re happy with it. There’s gonna be thousands of those fucking things running around!”

“I know, alright! But I’ve got a good job, we’ve both got good jobs. I just don’t think we should pull any more stunts right away is alls. I don’t know, Just not at work ok. Not right now.”

Mikel is still shaking his head as he hops in the truck. Clarice pretends that she wasn’t paying attention when they both notice her sitting there. Ray hands her a cup of coffee for the road, but looks at her rather suspiciously. She pretends to not take note of it, thanks him, and tells him she had a wonderful time before Mikel closes the door.

On their way back to the city, she enjoys the drive much more this time. She couldn’t see anything in the dark last night, but now she can. They actually are out in rather cliché farmland, like she had originally imagined. There aren’t any giant harvesting robots anywhere like she has seen on the TV either.

There are actually people out in the fields working. They’re driving old tractors and feeding livestock themselves. The animals are just wandering around like they’re happy to be there. It actually looks like a rather pleasant job to have. Being out under the sun, in the open, and with animals everywhere. There’s so much greenery and it really looks peaceful.

As soon as they reach the first stretch of pavement, the scenery starts to degrade. There’s less foliage and more open rocky ground the father they go. It looks more like a dessert than anything. Mikel is pretty quiet the whole way back, but he holds her hand while he drives. About when they reach the city limits, she can start to smell the city. She had no idea it smelled like that. Only after being in real fresh air, is she able to appreciate the difference.

Mikel can tell that she notices it too. Her nose is involuntarily turned up and she is squinting. “Good-ol shit town.” He says it with a grin on his face, but she knows he still means it. She kind of feels embarrassed that she lives in shit-town, now that she’s seen the difference. She always thought the country was supposed to be the dumps, not the other way around. Nonetheless, she’s happy to be back. She had felt a bit out of place at Ray’s.

Mikel pulls his truck into the parking garage under the apartment building to drop her off at the lowest level elevators. As they pass through the gate at the entrance, they see a woman on a big green and black runner, like what Aaron had described. They’re both quite curious about it because they’re so rarely seen out on the road. To their surprise, the woman on it looks like she might be a call girl. She looks to be dressed rather nicely, but she’s being quite the exhibitionist about it too.

The girl sure knows how to present herself. She can tell by the size of Mikel’s eyes when he cranes his neck to look out the window at her. The woman is wearing a skirt, which is hiked nearly all the way up to the top of her ass from straddling the back of the robot. He takes a good long look at the woman’s stockinged legs while they pass right by his window.

She really expected more decency out of him than this. His head bonks off the top of his door when she smacks his midsection for being a pig in front of her. She doesn’t give him any more grief than that though. She still wants a kiss from him when she gets out of the truck.