Closing Inventory

by B.J. Omanson

Along the upper Spoon River, 1935

When they found him at last, he was face down
in a pool of milk out behind the barn,
an empty tin pail against his boot.
They summoned the doc, who declared him dead,
then they laid him out on the bed of the truck

and carried him back to the funeral home.
The following day they returned to the house,
where none of them had been for years,
intending, as well as they could, to put
his affairs in order, collect his receipts

and documents, and close his accounts.
Upstairs at the back, they found his bed
as neatly arranged as if he were still
a married man, although he had been
a widower now for some thirty years.

A plain wooden cross was hung on the wall
beside a window that looked out across
a quarter-acre of derelict trucks
and discarded implements choked in vines.
On his wife’s dressing table, undisturbed

apparently, since the day she had died,
a brush and mirror, a porcelain vase,
a photograph of her younger self
in a marquetry frame.
The men stood silent, taking it in,

then solemnly descended the stair
to his office, in what must have been
the parlor once— a roll-top desk,
a clamshell lamp and a telephone,
red-cornered ledgers, a spindled stack

of bills and receipts. A horsehide chair
was positioned beside a bookcase filled
with old tractor manuals, several shelves
of history, bibles, household hints,
hymnals and westerns, seed catalogues

and the odd issue of Breeder’s Gazette.
And on every hand, the desultory
detritus of an aging man’s life—
a half-empty tin of horse liniment,
a box of shells, a pouch of Old Whale,

a jar of assorted matches and nails.
One of the men bound up the ledgers,
another removed some folders from
the file cabinet. The rest of the men
moved down the hall to the kitchen where,

beside the sink, the remains of egg
and toast on a plate, a coffee-stained mug,
a folded page of the Stark County News—
an old Regulator clock on the wall
emitting a steady tick, tock,

as it had for years— a window propped up
with a butter knife and curtains that seemed
to rise and fall of their own accord.
The men filed out by twos and threes
to stand on the porch for a cigarette

before making their way across the yard
to the barn to feed and water the stock.
And then it was late and, however much
remained to be done, it was time to leave.
After the dust of their truck had drifted

across the field, the house became mute
as a mausoleum, shadowed and shut
against the world and even against
the passage of time itself,
except

in the kitchen where the window still
stood open to the evening sky,
allowing a touch of damp from the fields
and the faint, uncertain
scent of rain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

bjomanson@monongahelabooks.com
“Closing Inventory”
Previously published (2021) in the Milk House, a collective of rural writing based in Ireland.

---

from

Ounce of Man

by L.R.M.
a novel in process

Hodie and Archie repairing a tractor: What braced Archie during this most recent depression was the clear memory of so many other times of financial difficulties – and how he, plus his wife Joy and their sporatic good fortune, had managed to pull them through. This time, because he could, he wanted desperately to spare Joy from his worrying. So when Hodie had called and asked if he could pay Arch to help with a tractor motor, he jumped at the chance.

Archie Jack’s tow truck had been custom outfitted with all sorts of bins, trays, cabinets and boxes, a few wooden mostly old metal. These were full of his wild assortment of mechanic tools including some he custom-built.

Now, Hodie had been a cattle rancher his whole long life, so he, also, had many wrenches. He did not travel with those tools to work on other people’s equipment. Put two such old coots together with their own tool assortments and you would usually have a recipe for confusion about who’s socket is whose. But Archie’s wife, long ago had figured out a plan. She used fingernail polish to paint a purple dot on each and every wrench, screwdriver, socket or what have you.

When Hodie had seen the shiny purple dots, he went after his wife, Janey, to show her.

She said, “Well honey, the only thing you got that your worried about losing, outside of me of course, are your meals. Would you like me to paint those with nail polish so Archie won’t think they are his?”

“We are lucky men Arch, to be with such funny ladies.”

<> ><

Dark of morning. He opened the half door to the small stable, which contained 2 ten foot wide by ten foot deep tie stalls, mangers running across the front, grain boxes in each opposing corner. Anxious, 17h tall Rub pushed his big long-eared black head into the doorway and then backed out to allow a slow, deliberate and calm Toot to enter and proceed to his side of one of the stalls. Coast clear, Rub followed suit.

Always made him smile, the regularity of these his mules, these formerly -Titus’-mules, these gentlemen of precise footing. Enno smiled as if to deny the obvious, which was how his personality gave lisence and comfort to his team. Enno smiled, wanting to believe best of them and that he was but an accidental observer to the comfort and comedy of it all.

He used to step ahead, at this point, and snap the mules into the manger-secured tie chains. Not anymore. Seemed disrespectful. Now he went straight to work currying and brushing each mule while very softly humming a melody construct that had snuck up on him. The mules chewed their hay, slowly opening and closing their eyes in a barely perceptible syncopation with the brushing. Should either of them begin to back out of the stall, Enno would ‘nope’ them and they would step right back up. The three of them had been through this all enough times that there just never was a moment that Toot or Rub would fidgit or try to back out before he asked them to. Never.

Done with grooming, the young man went for a short bucket of grain and two carrots. First he fed Toot. Then as he walked around to Rub’s grain box he noticed Toot lay his ears back at his teamate’s long-nose sniffing. Rub always suspected that Toot got something special, but the mule just could not prove it.

---

Majestic

by Beth Eckert

Trees of green
Trees of gold
Many young
Many old
Ahhh…
The history that they hold
Countless stories
Waiting to be told
Wise ancient Ents
Knarled and bent
Filled with magick
Stardust and light
Majestic giants
Watchers in the night
Forest dwellers
Wildlife protectors
Steadfast companions
Towering tall
Stoic, silent
Filled with life
Many call you home
Finding rest and comfort
In your branches
Food and shelter
Amidst your canopy
Sleeping soundly with
Your gentle
Sway and rustle
In the wind