Hoyt On The Tractor At Dusk

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Hoyt checked the gas gauge on the tractor. Low! 

He knew he had to stop thinking of the situation from the newspaper. Obsessive is how Doreen explained it to him, the thoughts about the baby in Hemingford and the raccoon and a chewing sound he couldn’t stop hearing in his mind even though he couldn’t imagine that he’d ever actually heard a sound like that. It has become obsessive, obsessive, obsessive.

Her precious fingers. Her little, little fingers. 

Just stop, Hoyt! 

Lots of people heard about it in the paper, saw it on TV, and who could be happy about such a traumatic thing, only two counties over, after all. But this?

It didn't have anything to do with Hoyt’s baby, thank God. Hoyt’s baby, Lewis, was home with Doreen, wearing mittens as specifically instructed. From where he sat, high over soybeans, Hoyt could even see his house, windows glowing, cuddled by nothing but the deepening sky and a big, stripped sycamore. He knew Doreen was in there showering Lewis with love. Patty cakes, fire engine toys. These are supposed to be comforting thoughts so get with the program, Hoyt! 

Turning east, Hoyt could really smell Johnson’s pig farm due to big insistent winds. The poplars bent in a long, optimistic windbreak but honestly how much wind were they breaking?   

Think of it. 

Racoon eating fingers: no, no, no. He wiped the sweat and hungry mosquitos from his face with a brick-red hankie. 

Just let it go, Hoyt, is what everyone says, but it's hard not to worry. There’s empathy and, honestly, a great deal of fear involved in this.

Gas was low, the sun was setting. Hoyt had 50 more rows, easy. He’d have to walk all the way back for fuel. He didn't have time to think about some animal crawling in through a window and eating someone’s baby’s fingers. Crops, slow as they are, can’t wait. Meatloaf when it’s over. Look at Lewis’s hands to make sure. Then a game show and a bath. But this is a job where you need to respect the schedule of nature, your centuries-long obligations. It was getting dark, meatloaf or not. Strange fingers or else.

His fresh bowl cut blew in the pig-breeze. 

Situations change in your mind as you remember them sometimes, even from newspapers. Perhaps he’d misunderstood?

Get on task, Hoyt! 

Maybe he should just head home anyway and check? The engine finally sputtered and sighed, too thirsty. He jumped off, worried, angry at himself.

To put things in perspective, soybean production was 4.39 billion bushels last year, the average yield was 49.1 bushels per acre, and the United States of America exported 2.07 billion bushels of said crop. Hoyt had always thought incredible, oh my God, the work we do in the heartland. 

But now he says, compare that to missing fingers, however you want. 

Still.

And Hoyt also said, not quite aloud, more murmured: Nebraska is a hell of a place, and then, even quieter if that was possible, Nebraska is a hell.

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Marc Tweed’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in NOON Annual, Bending Genres, New World Writing, The Normal School, X–R-A-Y, Jersey Devil Press, and more. Marc is completing a collection of short stories tentatively titled Seasick on Land. He lives in Seattle, where he also makes paintings and music.

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