The Off Season

  Mom and Dad were still having breakfast, I guess in celebration of the last of their mini-vacation. "Cheese!" Dad was saying as I walked into the kitchen, sounding so excited that for a moment I thought he'd lost it. "You'd be amazed. This guy in Painters Bluff has a factory right on his farm, he sells it all over the country. You should see his label."

  "He's got some more ideas," Mom explained to me in this tone that made me think maybe their mini-vacation hadn't been so fun after all.

  "Cheese?" I said.

  "Organic cheese," Dad corrected me. "Organic homemade cheese. The market's exploding—I just got off the phone with this guy who's printing money, practically, and winning all sorts of awards, and selling to a couple big chains—"

  "You hate organic," I said. "You always say how stupid people are to pay for it."

  "Not when they're paying him," Mom said, kind of hitting the nail on the head there.

  "It tastes better," Dad said defensively. "Remember that turkey? Didn't it taste better than normal turkey? Well, so does this cheese, and it wouldn't take too long to turn the farm around, get through the red tape so we're officially certified, and we could make it right in the milk house, or join a co-op for little farms like us—"

  "Maybe," I said, "we could raise turkeys and make cheese. And get a little bakery going, and a mayonnaise factory, and build the whole sandwich right here." Which Dad actually paid attention to, until Mom started laughing.

  "Tell her about the ginseng," she said.

  Dad scowled. "Don't laugh—there's lots of money in it. Fellows drive all the way from Chicago to buy it."

  "What's ginseng?" I asked.

  "A plant," Dad said vaguely. "I even found this Web site on organic vealers—"

  "I'm not raising vealers," Mom said.

  "Well, half the calves come out boys. You got to do something with them," Dad pointed out. The most reasonable thing he'd said yet, in my opinion.

  "But—" Mom started.

  "Hell, at least I'm trying!" Dad shouted, and he stomped outside.

  There was a little silence, the awkward ringing kind you get after someone stomps out.

  "I liked the turkey idea," I offered. "That's kind of brilliant compared to ginseng."

  "At least he's trying," Mom said sharply, which only worked to make me feel worse without doing Dad a bit of good. She stomped out after him, only she was wearing her workout clothes, so maybe the stomping was the beginning of her puffy-breath walking thing.

  ***

  I couldn't believe Dad was talking organic, whatever that means. I mean, the turkey did taste better, and I know sure as shooting that our milk tastes better than anything you can buy in a store. I won't even drink the milk at school because it tastes so funny. Probably comes from one of those farms where the cows don't even go outside—they're just kept in the barn to get milked three times a day. A regular milk factory. You mix our yummy Schwenk milk with that factory stuff like the dairy company does and all the Schwenk Farm goodness gets lost. You know, cows aren't the smartest creatures on the planet, but they still need fresh air and sunshine and grass just like the rest of us. Well, we don't need grass but you know what I mean. Plus you have to spend a fortune on grain to feed those factory cows, and on antibiotics too, because it's just as unhealthy for cows to be stuck inside all the time as it is for anyone else. Schwenk Farm doesn't have a fortune to spend on grain, or antibiotics, or fertilizers for the hay and corn we grow—fertilizer beyond what the cows make themselves—or all the herbicides and pesticides and fungicides out there. Actually, now that I thought about it, Dad was right. If organic means not using any chemicals, we're probably closer to getting certified organic than a lot of farms because we've just been too broke to afford most chemicals at all. Which is probably the first time in my entire life that being broke seemed like it could pay off.

  On the other hand, what good had not using chemicals done us so far? It's not like people come by our place because Schwenk milk tastes so great, or that we have any way of even telling them how great it tastes. People I know wouldn't pay more for that, not one penny, not for just milk. Maybe city folks would, folks who get fired up about buying wild turkeys that aren't really wild. But it still didn't make sense to me, a bunch of city people who couldn't identify the front end of a cow paying more for milk that came from sunshine and grass instead of chemicals. That's not how people think.

  Sure, Dad was trying. But it would end up being another one of his harebrained ideas that never amounted to anything, like that grandfather of his who tried to churn butter with a goat on a treadmill. And the farm would keep losing money, and eventually he'd have to sell to a developer and give up all his cows and farming ways, which would just about destroy him, and me too, I have to say, and that would be end of the Schwenks. All because people don't really care what goes in their mouths as long as it doesn't come out of their wallets. So those were my really cheery thoughts as I cleaned the kitchen all by myself because it seemed Mom was puffy-breathing all the way to Canada.

  All of a sudden I caught sight of a blue Cherokee, and Brian came walking in the door and gave me a huge hug, being really tender so as not to hurt my shoulder.

  "I heard," he said seriously.

  For just a second I thought he was talking about Dad's cheese and that fight we just had. Then I remembered football. "Thanks," I said. "At least we won't have to play each other."

  "I'm not the only one in Hawley who's relieved about that," he said, and smiled.

  "I bet." It felt so nice having him next to me drinking the last of the coffee as I scrubbed the frying pan with one good hand, moving my other hand a bit out of the sling. At least I could do that now.

  "What are you doing tonight?" he asked.

  "Nothing. Why?"

  "Maybe we could, you know, watch the Washington game at my house."

  I spun around to look at him. "You mean I'm actually invited over?"

  "Aw, don't say it like that," he laughed.

  "You mean now that I quit the team I can actually visit? Jeez, if I'd known that..."

  "Come on ... Besides, you didn't quit. You'd quit when hell froze over."

  Which didn't seem like a possibility now, the freezing part, because just thinking about Brian got the tornado engines going. Although we didn't have a chance to do much because Dad stomped in, grumbling about the tractor and asking if Brian knew anything about repacking bearings. Which, amazingly, he didn't, but Dad dragged him off to help anyway and Brian didn't even look like he minded, and as he walked out the door he gave a smile that sent those tornadoes into overdrive.

  Brian hung around for lunch too, Dad grilling him on what he thought of homemade cheese and organic veal. Mom made it back from her walk, all pink and dripping and holding her back, which apparently doesn't like puffing so much. At least she didn't seem mad at me anymore. Sometimes time apart is just the same as an apology. It is in our family, anyway.

  After Brian left, I hunkered down over my homework, although it was pretty hard to concentrate, and I don't mean because of the sling. I'd never been inside Brian's house—I'd never even met his parents! Then I started wondering what might happen. I hadn't really been alone with Brian—not counting the barn, which I don't because Dad's there all the time and also the straw is super itchy—since the Mall of America, and while I hadn't Done Anything Stupid, I wasn't sure where exactly I stood on the whole subject. I mean, it's not that I wanted to do anything Really Stupid, but I wouldn't be so against doing something Kind of Stupid—something A Little Silly, maybe. Not that I had any clear ideas, but I couldn't help but wonder. So it was awfully hard to work on algebra, and when I took out my A&P book, I looked through the chapter on reproduction, the pages all grimy from kids before me, and that didn't help much either.

  I was so busy with all these extremely overwhelming thoughts that I didn't even hear Mom leave to get Curtis, but I sure heard her return because the Caravan pulled in with a screech of brakes like I'd never heard, and
by the time I made it downstairs and Dad raced in, Mom was dragging Curtis into the kitchen like he was four years old or something. She spun him around. "Tell them! Tell them what happened."

  Curtis—this probably won't surprise you—didn't say a word. He just glared at the floor.

  "He didn't spend the night at Peter's last night. Did you? He spent it at Sarah's." Mom was so mad that spit was practically coming out of her eyes—I know that sounds weird, but trust me.

  "Dang, bro," I murmured, grinning in spite of myself.

  "Oh, it's funny? That he lied to us, that Sarah lied to her parents—they didn't even know he was in the basement!—that I came by Peter's to pick him up and before Peter can lie for him, his mother tells me Curtis wasn't ever there?" She smacked Curtis in the head—really smacked him.

  "Curtis?" Dad said in a quiet voice. "You want to explain this?"

  "Explain! He doesn't need to explain it." Mom's face was deep red, like that time she got so mad about us not clearing the table. She jabbed her finger at Curtis. "You were supposed to be the easy one! You are not supposed to be pulling this garbage! Sneaking around, lying to us, cutting practice, fooling around with girls—you're in eighth grade!"

  "Mom, come on—"

  Mom spun on me. "You! You think I don't know about you and Brian? You can't keep your hands off him! You're going to end up pregnant, I just know it."

  I couldn't believe Mom was talking like this—about me! In front of Curtis!

  "I have been taking care of this family for twenty-five years and I am sick of it! You hear me? Sick! One of these days I am going to take my suitcase and my paycheck and I am going to leave!" She stomped into the living room and tossed her purse on the coffee table, it sounded like, from the crash of change going everywhere. "Goddammit!" she cursed, which she never does, and then a second later she screamed so loud that the house shook right down to its foundation.

  11. Mother Problems

  MOM WAS BENT over the coffee table, frozen in the middle of picking up her purse. "Oh, God," she gasped. "Don't touch me." She was panting in pain, not moving one single tiny muscle.

  We'd all raced in, of course, and now we stood there trying to figure out what to do, because I at least was thinking she couldn't stay like that, not forever, and Curtis looked so ready to die of guilt that I had to pat him a little. Dad was almost green. Cows, sure, he can stick his arm up a cow's butt to pull out a calf, and wipe them both off with his own T-shirt and not blink an eye, but when it comes to human sickness, especially in his own family, he's no good at all.

  "Mom," I said loud and slowly, though she was standing right there, "tell us what you want."

  "My back ... I'm out for the count."

  At last I came over and took the purse strap out of her hand, and then with all three of us working and her barking out warnings, we got her down on the floor. Where she lay with her face all white, still trying not to move.

  "Guess I better start dinner," said Dad, scooting right out of there. Curtis hunkered in the corner looking miserable, and I guess Mom hadn't forgiven him yet because she barely glanced at him, she just asked me in a non-muscle-moving way for some Motrin. Which was easy enough but I had a heck of a time until I found a bendy straw all covered in dust in the back of the junk drawer, but I rinsed it off figuring this wasn't the time to be picky. And I got her the remote so she could watch TV at least. Then she had to go to the bathroom.

  That took about half an hour, getting her up, which meant rolling her on her side, then her going on all fours and standing up really carefully, me trying not to use my right arm because that sure wouldn't help my AC heal, Mom almost crying because it hurt so much. Then we had to do everything in reverse to get her back down as I thought to myself that maybe she should hold back a bit on her beverage consumption.

  The whole time I felt sick inside. Not just because of my shoulder and how much I was trying to protect it. Not because Curtis of all people was running around with a girl and he wasn't even in high school. Not because I couldn't help worrying Mom's back was probably going to cost us money when we didn't have two pennies to spare. And not just because Mom was hurt, and in a lot of pain, which was more than enough reason to feel sick in and of itself.

  No, the reason I felt sick at heart was because now I couldn't go to Brian's. It was completely out of the question. I'd like to say that I came to this conclusion because I love my mother so much and I knew that no one else in the house could take care of her and help her to the bathroom and stuff if I left. And I mean, I do love my mother, that wasn't it, of course I do. But every time I thought about what she'd just said to me—that I couldn't keep my hands off him, that he was going to get me pregnant—which just so you know was not part of my big plan at all, thank you very much—I felt like barfing, I was so mortified. And I could not figure out one single way to borrow the Caravan so that I could spend Saturday evening with a boy I can't keep my hands off. Also, how did she even know?

  So after I got Mom her special pillow from her bed, and her fuzzy slippers she likes so much, and calmed Smut down because normally folks only lie on the living room floor when they want to wrestle with her, which she couldn't figure out why Mom wasn't doing, I snuck off into the little office and shut the door and, completely miserable, called Brian.

  As soon as he answered, though, I could tell there was a problem. "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "Nothing," he said, sounding like his house had just burned down.

  I'm sure I sounded just as bad. "My mom hurt her back so I can't come over."

  "Oh! I mean, that's too bad. Is she okay?"

  "Yeah. She will be. What's going on with you?"

  "Nothing," he said, sounding better this time. "It's just these guys ... I thought they were doing something tonight but it got messed up and now they're coming over here. I mean, I really want to see you. But it'd be awkward, you know, with everyone."

  "Don't they know I quit?" I asked, although of course I hadn't quit football. I had to stop due to a separated shoulder, which is too hard to say.

  Brian laughed. "Oh, yeah. But you know how it is ... Is your mom hurting? Because my dad has these pills—he says they really help."

  "Nah. She'd rather just lie on the floor in pain," I said, only half joking. We laughed.

  Right then Mom called out that she sure would love an ice pack, and I had to go. Just talking to him, though, even though I couldn't see him, it helped. It really did.

  Sunday, Mom was better in that she could get to the bathroom in only twenty-five minutes, and without so much of my lifting her, which was good because she's not the lightest woman in the world. All her friends wanted to help. Cindy Jorgensen even came by with a casserole and told me how sorry Kyle was about me and football, watching me like she was trying to see how hurt I really was. Later I heard Dad on the phone with someone who was trying to get him to make me play, it sounded like. And Dad didn't sound like he was defending me too much either.

  Which made me feel just great, that my own father wouldn't even take my side.

  Monday at least I got to skip school because Mom decided to see a doctor finally and Dad sure couldn't drive her because just thinking about doctors sets him off. The two of us took the seats out of the Caravan and helped her outside so she could lie on a mattress and make sucking sounds whenever I went over a bump even though I tried my best and finally had to tell her that her sucking sounds weren't making the road any smoother.

  Dr. Miller took one look and said she'd slipped a disk and needed to keep doing what she already was, which was lying flat and taking Motrin. And stretching with these special back stretches. And also, he said kind of gently, lose some weight because that wasn't helping.

  "But I'm trying!" Mom wailed. "I've lost ten pounds. I walk every day!"

  I explained how Mom puffed around the farm, although I tried to make it sound a little better than that. "And she comes back all sweaty," I added. So he'd know how hard she was working.

 
"Maybe you're walking a little too hard," he said. "Are you under any stress?"

  Mom and I looked at each other. Neither one of us was going to mention Curtis and how she blew her back out right after screaming at him. Plus there's that money stress that I wasn't going to bring up either. And my injury, which Dr. Miller said was doing pretty well but that I'd better keep resting and doing this boring PT stuff. And Mom's job as well, which I didn't know too much about but I bet being a school principal can add an ounce or two of tension to one's life every once in a while.

  "A little," Mom said.

  Which meant a big talk on how stress contributes to back pain, which I'm sure just added to her tension that much more. Although at least he said I didn't need my sling anymore. That was one good thing.

  Then I had to drive her home, although Dr. Miller gave her these pills that kind of took the edge off things. Maybe they were the same as Brian's dad's. I don't know if they stopped the pain or just got her not to mind it so much, but either one was fine with me.

  "Oh, D.J., what would I do without you?" she kept murmuring, which is exactly what I was thinking, but it sounded better coming from her. Now that I was home, I actually missed school. All those kids who'd badmouthed me about football were probably thinking I'd cut school because I'm a quitter, not because I was stuck caring for Mom. Besides, I was also, duh, missing classes, and a ton of homework that I'm sure the teachers weren't holding back on just because quitter D.J. Schwenk couldn't make it in.

  I was getting Mom another pop and me one too, to cheer me up, when my cell phone rang, lying there on the counter plugged into its charger because I forgot to carry it to the doctor's office because I always forget to carry it. Amber's name blinked in the little window.

  "Hey there," I answered, relieved it wasn't a kid from school calling to bawl me out.

  But it turned out that it was. "Where were you!" Amber shouted. "Why didn't you pick up?"

  "Whoa..." I slid outside, away from Mom's ears. "What's going on?"