The Grain Truck Past My Father’s Field

Thursday at the elevator

Thursday was the day.

It had rained a little Wednesday night, not enough to stop anybody, just enough to make everybody start late. By two in the afternoon, every farmer within fifteen miles was cutting beans and hauling to town at the same time. The line at the co-op ran back past the Casey’s and around the corner onto Second Street.

I pulled into line at about two-thirty with a full load of Marv’s beans. I shut the engine off, cracked the window, and poured coffee out of my thermos.

The truck in front of me was a white Ford L9000 tandem with a roll tarp. I knew the dent in the left rear fender. I had put it there in 2017, backing up to the bins in the dark.

Dad was driving it. I saw him see me in his side mirror. I saw his face go still. He looked at me in the mirror for what felt like a full minute, and then he looked back at the scale house, and then he did not look again.

We sat like that for forty minutes. The line moved one truck length at a time. Every time it moved, he moved, and I moved behind him.

I could see the back of his head through his rear window. His gray hair, his collar, the red cap. I could see him take the cap off and run his hand over his head, which he does when he is tired. He did it three times.

At the scale house, Dad pulled his Ford on, got his ticket, and pulled ahead to the pit.

I pulled onto the scale behind him. Mary Beth at the window, who has weighed my trucks for fourteen years, looked at me through the glass, then at the Ford ahead of me, then back at me. She did not say anything. She handed me Marv’s ticket and gave me a very small nod.

At the pit, Dad dumped his beans, raised his box, shook it, lowered it. Then, instead of pulling out and heading back to the field, he pulled the Ford off to the side by the fence and shut it down.

I dumped Marv’s load. My hands were steady on the hoist lever. I don’t know how.

When I lowered the box and put the truck in gear, I looked to the side, and my father was walking across the gravel toward Marv’s truck.