The Farmer's Sons Pt. 03

"Okay, JT will skin each and every one of us alive if you boys are thinking of dealing this stuff." I said. "And I'll be the first one to tell him what you're up to."

"We're not going to sell it; we're going to barter it." Cleo said.

"For what?" Tate asked.

"For plumbing." Cleo said. "For washing machines. For bathroom fixtures. For refrigerators. For wiring. Maybe even a TV. We couldn't figure out how to pay for it all, here's the answer. There's enough stockpiled here that we can have both of our houses fixed up."

"I don't know about all of that." Willy said, looking at me side eyed.

"Do you know anyone that you trust to make that kind of deal?" I asked.

"We've got cousins who can do the work. And once we get done with them, I know they've got friends we can make a deal with for all of the rest of the stuff. Technically, we won't be selling."

"I don't know." Willy said.

"We're doing it." I said. "This will all sit here and rot and somebody needs to reap the benefits."

"I knew you'd see it." Cleo said. "Now, we've got to move this shit."

"You can't keep it at your house and daddy would tear us limb from limb if we tried to store it at ours." Willy said.

"I'm way ahead of you, come on." Cleo replied. He and Harp were already climbing out of the cave.

When we all got to ground level, they'd already taken off into the woods again.

After another ten minutes of crashing through the brush, Cleo stopped once again. We were in another clearing, no different from the first.

"Behold!" he said like a magician.

He and Harp went to the edge of the clearing and bent down. After a moment, one of the big bushes there started to rise and in another moment, you could see that they each had the handle of a big plastic tub which the bush was growing in. They raised it clear and set it down, then did the same thing with the bush beside it. After the bushes were moved, the opening to another cave was exposed.

"I didn't know this was back here." Willy said.

"Nobody does except for me and Harp." Cleo replied. "We found this place when we were boys and it's been our secret place ever since."

He entered the mouth of the cave and Harp followed, with the three of us close behind. Inside, Cleo lit another candle and the place opened up around us. It was bigger than the first cave even though the entrance was smaller. Best of all, it was dry and cool.

"We've got work to do." I said.

After they led us back to the first cave, the five of us worked as a relay. Willy brought the bricks to the front and handed them up to me, I ran and handed them to Tate who then carried them to Harp who carried them to Cleo. He carried them to their secret cave and stacked them.

We must have worked non-stop for two or three hours before the last brick was in its new home. We left the first cave uncovered and open and walked to the second one.

"I counted as I stacked but I lost count around three hundred." Cleo said.

"Goddamn, that's enough to get the whole county high." Tate said.

The covered the bricks with an old ground cloth and tarps that they had stored in the cave and when they replaced the bushes, there was no sign that anything had ever been disturbed.

We trekked back to the original hiding place, working to obliterate our trail as we went. When we got to the clearing, Willy lifted the big door and dragged it over to where we had started our trail to the other cave and flipped it across the path.

"Won't that draw someone's eye to our trail?" I asked.

"If you want something out of the way, you don't toss it on top of the path you're using. Just a psychological trick to confuse them. In a day or two, there'll be no sign that we ever went that way."

"I don't know about you all but I'm hot and dirty and tired. How do we get to the swimming hole?" I asked.

The swim was exactly what we all needed and I saw more than one hard cock being played with in the water. Everyone was in high spirits on the way back to the house.

When we got back, JT was sitting on the front porch in his rocker.

"You all were gone long enough." he said. "Did you have fun?"

"We did." I said. "We went for a swim."

"I see that." he replied. "You sure got your clothes dirty between here and there."

"Those woods can be a dirty place." Cleo said. JT didn't reply, he just sat and stared through narrowed eyes at the five of us.

The next day, Willy called me at my job.

"We all four went to see the Sheriff and he offered us all a job." he said. "He was afraid we wouldn't pass the drug tests but they all came back clean and he wanted to hire us on the spot. We have to do orientation and all of that, but we can start working as soon as fall classes start."

"That's in just three weeks." I said. "Will you all be ready/"

"We're ready now." he replied. "Even so, this will give us a chance to make some home improvements before we're working every day."

"How will that work out, Cleo getting things arranged and all?"

"It's already arranged. His cousins can start tomorrow and they're happier about the deal than I could believe. A sample of the payment convinced them on the spot."

Something had been bothering me and I had to ask.

"How are we going to handle your daddy in all of this?"

"Just keep on claiming you don't know what's going on. Let us handle the rest. He'll come around once the work starts."

He didn't, though. Tuesday evening when I got home he was waiting for me.

"The Brown boys had their cousins by today." he said from his porch rocker.

"I'm sorry I didn't get to meet them" I replied.

"You just missed them. They've been here all day."

He got up and went indoors and I could see that there were new pipes sticking up at various locations in the kitchen and there were holes in the walls and ceiling with wires poking through. I looked at the work and then back at JT.

"What's all this about?" I asked.

"The boys and the cousins worked on this all day. Willy said it was a big surprise for me." He looked at me with that same narrow eyed stare and then said, "I'm already surprised that no one asked for my permission or approval."

"That's between all of you." I said. "I'm tired and hungry and I've been working all day. What's for supper?"

JT didn't say any more and when the boys showed up I asked, "What are all of these pipes and wires?"

"You'll see when we're done; it's a present for daddy."

"Present, my ass." was all JT contributed.

The next day, Wednesday, Willy called me again at the job.

"Can you get away for a few minutes?" he asked.

"Sure, I've got a break coming."

"We're outside, come see what we have."

When I got out to the parking lot, the truck sat piled down with plumbing fixtures. I saw a couple of toilets, a kitchen sink and other things all piled in the truck bed. There were even a couple of water heaters.

"We just came from the salvage yard. We got all of this for next to nothing, barter wise." he told me.

"And JT is already pissed off. When he sees all of this, he's going to blow a gasket."

"He'll come around." Tate said.

I didn't look forward to going home that evening. When I got there, JT was once again waiting in his rocker.

"Been a whole lot of activity around here today. Matter of fact, the boys are still working."

I went inside and followed the noise. The hallway that led to the back door also had two rooms off of it that weren't used except as storage. The boys had cleaned one of the rooms out and were busy putting fixtures into the big room. There was a huge old claw foot tub on one side of the room with a pedestal sink nearby. On the other side, there was a toilet in the corner near the entry door and a long trough affixed to the wall a ways from it. On the same wall, in the corner, there was a freestanding shower stall.

"We're going to build a partition here." Cleo said, showing where it would stand to screen the toilet from the rest of the room. "We're even going to put a door up to make it more private."

"What's this?" I asked, pointing to the long trough.

"An old fashioned urinal. We got it for free." He stood in front of it and said, "There's room for more than one, as you can see." The other boys snickered.

"You sure got a lot accomplished in a short time." I said. I looked at Willy, raised my eyebrows and motioned with my head out front to where JT sat.

Willy just rolled his eyes toward heaven and raised his palms to the air.

When I got back out to the kitchen, JT was at the stove finishing preparing supper.

"Those boys must have worked like slaves today." I said to him. "I would have keeled over just from carrying all of that stuff up the hill."

"Could be." was all he said. He kept silent during supper, too, only speaking the bare minimum.

He went to bed early without me and when I turned in, he was lying with his back to me, pretending to be asleep. I don't like to be ignored.

Things came to a head the next evening. I was in a bad mood to begin with after being slighted the night before.

We had all finished eating and I was stacking dishes in the sink when Willy said, "We're hanging a new kitchen sink tomorrow. The pipes are all roughed in."

"That'll be nice." I replied. "It'll make clean up a whole lot easier."

JT wasn't speaking, just glaring at each of us.

"Everything should be in place by the weekend, I wouldn't be surprised if we had power and water both by this time next week."

"I can't believe how much you all got done so fast." I said.

"I'll just bet you can't." JT said to me. "I'll bet you're just as surprised as Christmas morning."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You're behind all of this." he said. "You went behind my back after I said no. You snuck around and plotted and turned my own boys against me. I'm the one taking care of my family. I should have known not to trust you. I guess next you'll be wanting cable TV and a hot tub like you had in the city."

He had stood up from his chair to accuse me and simply hearing him speak that way made a red mist go over my vision. I try really hard to control my temper but sometimes I fail. I took a couple of steps across the room and pushed him, hard, so that he fell back into his seat, a look of shock on his face.

The boys started to get up to intervene and I grabbed a cast iron skillet from the stove and raised it.

"Sit back down and stay out of this or I swear I'll open the brain pan on every one of you." I said.

It was their turn to look shocked and they slowly lowered themselves to their seats.

I turned to JT.

"Listen to me," I said, "you big ignorant hillbilly son of a bitch. You don't know anything about my life because you never even bothered to fucking ask.

You're so proud of being poor and living out here with nothing, this would have been luxury when I was growing up. My daddy lost his job and then he lost his mind before I was even in school. My mom tried to get work but she didn't have any experience and nobody would hire her. Daddy was in the hospital and we lost everything. We were living in a homeless shelter when I went to school. I thought everybody lived like us and I asked one of the kids what shelter he lived in, the other kids made my life hell after that.

But my daddy got better and he did everything possible to keep us fed and clothed. We wound up living in one room and daddy went out collecting scrap metal and cans to make money. He took any kind of work he could get to earn money. He'd come home so tired that he'd fall asleep eating.

And he took charity, too. You're too proud but he wasn't. He said it hurt his heart every time but he'd take anything he could get if it meant his wife and son were fed and had warm clothes. I never even had a brand new pair of shoes till I was fourteen. Why do you think it was so easy for me to start living here?

My daddy did without all of his life, for us. And you can look down on him for taking charity but he made sure we had what we needed, no matter how much it hurt him. I never even realized how poor we were.

So you can sit around here sour faced and pouting and keep your little mad on but you'll never be half the father my daddy was.

These boys are going to start work soon and they need to be able to clean up and do laundry and work on their studies. You want them moving out someplace to get those things? I don't.

I love you more than anyone on earth but you're a too proud vain man and you don't deserve any of us. I got the boys the paperwork they needed but they did all of the rest of this, with no help from you. They've been working like slaves and you've just been sitting on your bony ass and sneering.

I wasn't born into this family but it's the one I chose and I was just trying to do what you said, take care of my family. And if I have to look any more at your dumb conceited face, I just might break this skillet over your thick skull."

With that, I whirled around, went into the bedroom and slammed the door.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, trying to calm myself and I heard through the door when Willy said, "You're my daddy and I love you but sometimes you're a real flaming asshole."

The boys shuffled out and the screen door slammed and I worked on getting my breathing back to normal.

I'd been sitting there about half an hour and I was finally feeling normal but didn't know what to do next. Then, there was a knock on the bedroom door. My back was to the door and I ignored it.

I heard the knob turn and the door open and someone said, "Can a big ignorant hillbilly come in?"

I didn't respond.

"How about a big ignorant hillbilly son of a bitch?" JT asked.

"It's your house, you already made that clear." I replied.

He walked over and stood in front of me, then held out a length of wood that was about three feet long and 2 inches square.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"It's for you to beat me with." he said.

I grabbed it out of his hand and threw it into the corner.

"I'm not going to beat you, you big dumb fuck." I said.

"It would make me feel better if you did something to hurt me as bad as I hurt you." he said.

"Stop thinking about yourself." I said and when I realized what I'd just uttered, I had to laugh.

"Are you going to forgive me?" JT asked.

"Are you going to keep being an asshole?"

"At times. Habits are hard to break. But I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know when I'm being an asshole instead of turning your back on me." JT said.

He sank to his knees in front of me and wrapped his arms around me and said into my ear, "We're going to fight sometimes, I know that. But if you ever leave me, I might just as well die."

"I'm not going to leave you, you idiot." I said. "I'm going to stay around and make your life hell."

I had to hug him back and we stayed that way for a few minutes silently.

"You said you love me." he finally said.

"Yeah, well, maybe I was out of my head."

"Well, if you weren't, the feeling is mutual." JT said.

Then he started kissing me. After all of the drama of the last few days and with feeling rejected, that was exactly what I needed. We wound up lying on the bed with him on top of me, kissing like teenagers. It was almost as good as being fucked.

"Jesus Christ!" I eventually heard someone say. We looked up and Willy was standing in the open bedroom doorway.

"You two jerks can't even have a fight like normal people. You've got children in the house. If you're going to carry on like that, at least close the damned door."

And he did.