Country Contest

Twenty people stood before me, it was a hot summer day in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately for them, I was not in a good mood. As I examined the jocks, emos, and preps before me, not one made eye contact with me, worsening my mood. I spat before I started. “Welcome to Leman farms, I hear you’ll be with us until harvest ends.” A few rolled eyes. “Unfortunately for you, I’ll be your overseer and I ain’t the biggest fan of what I see here.” A sneer came from a emo in the back. I sidled on over, I stared a hole straight through him, he stepped back, away from my glare. “That’s a nice piercing there. Did it hurt?” “No, not really.” Pop! “How bout now?” I had ripped the stud right out of his ear. While he was grabbing at his ear, I started on down the row. “Right now, all of you, according to me, ain’t worth the dirt yer standing on. My trust and faith are hard to earn, if you earn it.” I paused. “ But once you do earn it, you’ll be on your way home.” 1

Heads nodded vigorously, they were scared of me, good. “So I guess you’re wondering what you’ll be doing here. I got two words for you, hard work.” Some groans came from the peanut gallery. “If you ignore your work, you get chewed out and get a punishment. If you are disrespectful, same thing happens. IF YOU COST THE FARM MONEY I WILL BREAK MY FOOT OFF IN YOUR FACE and then you will get a punishment. Understood?” More nods “Lets get started, its gonna be a fun summer.” 2

Next morning at exactly five A.M, I busted into their room with an Air horn. I blew the horn. “Get up, Get up! It’s Five A.M. you guys are sleeping the day away! There’s work to be done!” groggily they struggled into clothes. “Let’s go! Cows gotta be milked!” I made them nearly jog out to the barn and into the milking parlor. Where I demonstrated how to put on the milker. “Any volunteers?” The emo kid that I had pulled the stud out of stepped forward. “Good, What’s your name son?” “Brian, sir.” “Okay then Brian, you show these city slickers how to milk a cow.” He did as I demonstrated, going down the line of cows. “Who’s next on this very early morning?” All of them ran the parlor far better than I expected. Until a cow decided to take a dump on a preps head, I laughed as he shook his head furiously and jumped into a drinking trough. He was still scrubbing at his hair when I came over. “Congratulations son, that cow choose you to be inducted into the farmhand hall of fame.” The same cow came over and started to lick him as he sat in the trough. “Look at that, she wants to help you clean up!” Brian yelled from the parlor. “Go on into the house and change. I want you back out here in ten minutes.” “Yes sir.” He said groggily. With the milking done all the could-be-farmhands stumbled outside and stood in a group, waiting for me to give them another task, before I did this I took head count. Two short, one boy one girl. Only one way this was gonna end. I stood out side the room with my arms crossed, waiting. The boy came out first. The same kid I sent in to change his clothes. I grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the floor. “Boy, you in one heap of trouble.” I had him by the seat of his pants and his collar. All he did was shake like a leaf. “What are you going to do to me, sir?” “Don’t you sir me you motherfucker, I got half a mind to beat you senseless.” I came to the manure pit “But this’ll do since you like shit so much, here!” I heaved him into the cesspit, followed by his girl. “You got no right to do this to us!” I leaned on a fence post waiting for them to get out. “Yes I did, you went against the rules, you got a punishment, plain and simple.” “Isn’t this a bit much?” “You want me to beat you senseless?” “No.” “Then shut up.”3

The rest of the gang came around to have a look at the commotion. “What they do?” “They skipped their work detail for a more fun one, but it looks like they got the short end of the stick. Considering they just got manure clean up for the rest of the week. Alright, cows gotta be feed. Enough eyeballing.” I led the group to the barn and over to a dusty feeding wagon. “Our feed mixture here is one part corn, two parts hay, and one part silage corn. Two feedings after both milkings. Water is pumped into troughs situated around the entire barn; most of the shaft is used as bedding.” I stopped as two manure covered figures lurched up. “Well, if it ain’t the happy couple.” He swung first, I stepped back and got him square in the jaw, then in the gut, then smack on the end of his nose. He went to the floor. When he woke up I was standing over him. “That was great, you nearly got a punch in. you want to fight a farmhand, you gotta be one.” He started to get up, but I put a heavy boot on his chest. “Whoa their partner, you just earned yourself another detail, I’ll see you later. In the meantime cows gotta be fed. Hop to it.” The tractor chugged down the feed trough; cows stuck their heads through stanchions, licking up their grain. “Ok, outside. Double time.” They all hoofed it outside. I looked at all of them lined up in one row. “Now, I knew I had a few bad apples in this group, but I must admit, you all ran that parlor much better than I expected. Reward for today is a good one, one of you lucky bastards gets to sit on the tractor and drive while the rest of you load hay.” I paused “That person is Brian, Git on up here son.” Scattered applause. I held out a key. “Take good care of her, she’s old, but she’ll get the job done.” I led him to our old, open seat John Deere. “Well, she ain’t gonna start herself up. Get up there.” He clambered up to the seat. “Pull the clutch, and turn the key.” He did, and old Bess roared to life. I yelled over the noise “reach down between your legs an put her in gear! Wrong stick shithead, quit pullin’ on that damn thing and put it back in your pants!” He winced as gears ground. But soon he had her chugging around the yard. “Back it up to this trailer, I’ll hitch you up!” He did so without banging into anything. I pulled the flatbed tongue up to the hitch on the tractor and dropped a locking pin through the hole. I jumped on the running board “Take her out on the road.” “What?” “Put her in Fourth, and drive out onto the road, wait a minute. Get on the trailer!” the others jumped on the trailer. “Okay, put ‘er in fourth.” Gears ground, the music of an experienced piece of equipment burdened with the toil of breaking in a new master. We puttered on down the road, soon turning off into a field, hay bails stood like tiny road blocks in staggered rows. “Drive on down this row in first, the others will throw the bails up to me and I’ll stack them.”4